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by Animus7 4961 days ago
Consumers may or may not "love windows 8" but this article is swimming in non sequitur.

But I get it.

To frame this post in context, from my stint at Microsoft I saw how serious points are awarded to those who beat the drums. Logic be damned; if your W8 app get 100K downloads and your glowing blog post makes the rounds it's a favorable line item on your review.

So it's hard to comprehend for a lot of us, but when Microsoft says that Windows 8 is the most openly developed operating system in the world, I think they honestly believe it. Believing it brings tangible rewards.
2 comments
meaty 4961 days ago
As a partner, we get a view inside the organisation occasionally. What we see is almost what you've described, but I think its more a crazy mix of Stockholm syndrome, dictatorship propaganda and everyone clambering over each other to suck dick.

It scares the shit out of me that so many businesses trust this culture.

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ax 4961 days ago
In truth, employees are not rated at all on whether their app gets downloads, unless maybe you're one of the in-box apps. Apps like the one linked above are covered under a moonlighting policy -- basically, feel free to create an awesome app and sell it and keep the profits, but don't use any company resources or time to make it happen[1]. Getting 100k downloads will absolutely not factor in on your review.

Also, I'm not sure Windows 8 was ever marketed as the most openly developed OS in the world. It IS the most open of any Microsoft OS to date, however, so maybe that's why you are confused.

1) There were some exceptions to this rule I believe for WP8 apps but I'm not entirely clear on the details.

(Microsoft employee)

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shawnb576 4960 days ago
Visibility is everything at MS. Is there a line item on your review for "W8 App d/l #s"? No absolutely not. Are there positive career effects for your boss being able to say "yeah, so-and-so wrote an early Win8 app and got a bunch of good reviews and X hundred thousand downloads and got it highlighted in MSDN as an early win for the platform"? You'd better believe it.

(ex-MSFT, 14y)

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