Design is not and the article misses that point and is using design as a gauge for a companies health. That's not accurate, anyway that's my opinion.
Also it's not just google and Microsoft. It's every other high tech company being Bourne today. Engineering lead organizations are much more likely to succeed.
And of course engineers are essential to a high-tech company. It's like saying lawyers are essential to a legal firm. But in a lot of tech companies, the engineers are insulated from users, or are even dismissive or abusive of them.
Also, the biggest tech company in the world was led from near-bankruptcy to "more cash than the USA" by not an engineer, not a designer, but a business guy. To make a great company - google, microsoft, whatever, you need hardcore business folks that can play the game hard at the highest level. Having a clean engineering setup is nowhere near enough.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum/dp/0672...
You're also just grabbing Microsoft and Google as being designer-free in their successful years, which is patent nonsense.
> In the end engineers build great high tech organizations
Again, nonsense. Engineers alone did not make Apple the behemoth it is today. The designers made their unusual products desirable. And the Apple marketing cohort never get their props for the incredible job they did in making a computer company funky. Then there are props to the Apple staff who did magic with their supply chain. You think engineers are the most essential part of a great company? Try to run a company when your business folk can't close a deal to save themselves. History is littered with superior engineering designs that failed in the marketplace. Doesn't matter how good your engineers are if their stuff doesn't sell.
Frankly, fuck this "my job is more important than yours" dick-swinging competition. In today's economic-rationalising environment, few jobs aren't essential.