[Jarihd]

Well i believe; that for a Software company like MS; it should give software for free to its employees instead of hardware - if it really wants to show that it cares. Most employees will belong the software field and will most definitely feel cared; if software is given to them for free - inorder for them to explore their own development/testing potential along with exploring the product potential. Also by giving the software for free; when an employee leaves the company; due to his/her interest in what the software product can deliver; they become lifelong customers - buy product upgrades and related software.

as far as attrition goes; well I guess it is bound to happen in case of experienced employees, no matter how great the company is; 'cause as one moves up the ladder; number of higher positions(across various teams) start to decrease. Talented employees hungry to explore their capabilities will leave for sure due to lack of opportunity.

As far as people outside MS wanting to join - guess will automatically happen if MS meets their requirements(job satisfaction + money + environment). The case most generally is that a company will find a replacement for a vacant position on its terms(there may be exceptions). But, It need not give hardware for free to its employees - inorder to send a message to the outside world - but rather give Software for free. Software given free to its employees means a opportunity to grow; and guess that would definitely attract outsiders to explore.

[wideroots]

As far as I know, every employee gets a MSDN subscription, which comes with tons of Microsoft software for FREE. Plus, they dogfood their own products. They dogfood Windows, Office, Hotmail (or Outlook.com), SkyDrive, etc, and dogfooding is "free". If you hadn't known, now you know.

When I talked about the retention rate, I was focused on employees who've been with the company for 3 yrs or less. In tech industry, especially in software engineering field, people switch jobs fast. really fast. All my colleagues switch jobs every 2-3 years. For companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, this is not good. They now have to spend money to find potential candidates, spend more money to interview those potential candidates, make full-time employees to interview potential candidates (5-8 interviewer per candidate), etc.