[keithnoizu]

It's a mix. I've seen some brilliant engineers here but I've seen a lot of so-so employees collecting pay checks. What I do think is very real issue and more so than the stack ranking is that we are incredibly date sensitive here and cost sensitive. I often feel, in my personal opinion, that improvements or changes that could make us better off 13 months down the road are culled or punted because the upfront cost is too high or because set commitments for an upcoming timeline.

[aswanson]

What is the point of having all those billions in cash on hand, and an R & D budget exceeding the market cap of many DJIA participants, if you're going to penny pinch where it counts? http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=msft What timeline is so important (short term) if you lose the future, period?