Microsoft.com - Careers: Linux/Open Office

Re:Microsoft.com - Careers: Linux/Open Office by cabalamat on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @11:58AM (#1022700)

> 2. Be a Perception Change Agent. The CSI Lead needs to drive perception across a number of key audiences (IT Pros, Government Elites, BDMs, IT Journalists, etc.) Ability to implement programmatic marketing that will CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE think about Microsoft, specifically those with a ‘hostile’ or negative perception of the Microsoft platform.

If I was Microsoft, and I wanted to change perceptions of my company, I'd start by changing the reality. Perceptions of MS are poor largely because the reality is poor. But MS want to change the one without the other. This is called bullshit, and is unlikely to work for an organisation as much in the public eye as MS.

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Re:Microsoft.com - Careers: Linux/Open Office by wglb on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @04:02PM (#1023216)

Having worked for some large companies, the public perception of the organization is thought to be subject to various PR and marketing efforts. What MS has always excelled at, is the PR angle, relying less on advertising. That is the #2 element you quote there.

Part of the reality of MS is that they have a very healthy cash flow from the products that are sold in an institutional fashion, that is, to the enterprise and preloaded on consumer devices. Any organization in that successful situation can't innovate like we have come to expect small companies to do--serious changes in their "reality" will threaten territories that are bringing home the bacon.

And it has to be a difficult proposition to continue to convince people to pay you money for software that, to a first order of approximation, costs nothing.

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Re:Microsoft.com - Careers: Linux/Open Office by jf on Wednesday December 30, 2009 @03:12PM (#1023131)

People inside Microsoft are working on changing the reality. Things are changing, but change is happening slowly.

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