And if Microsoft offered me a job K, what do you think I would do? Seriously, they are just one of the most smartly run buisnesses ever. Not always run 100% morally, but unless one is CEO, that is not a reflection on the average employee. And bro, don’t take job offers lightly, I hope you never find out how difficult it can be to find one. Praise God that you do have a job

I think personal “dissention” to a company shouldn’t deter you from considering a job like that- it’s all about what God would have you do. And that may be working for MS. But untill that day would come, leave it as hypothetical. Otherwise it’ll just cause unnecessary debates that do nothing to build up the Body. I’m pretty sure Paul says to avoid these types of debates (I just forget where or in what words).

I’m rambling now. Sorry. I guess take what I say with some understanding of how my perspective is different because of my situation. That whole begining statement “I remember debating with John Bell about whether or not I would ever take a job at Microsoft” struck a nerve to me that would roll off most peoples’ backs.

The real solution to browser problems I think lies in complete server side control of browsing. I dunno how feasable that is, but it would fix alot.

-Jai out

its bad. I can’t think of a worse industry to be a part of right now. And MOST people, even educated CS students have never used anything besides Windows (except via telnet or ssh … ), so, its all they know and are more than willing to develop for them.

Its a very bad situation. Especially with how much they are closing off formats more and more. Whats going to happen when Office 2003 hits the streets with its new format? How long will it take for Open Office to catch up? Will they be able to?

However, over the past couple of years i’ve watched bad thing happen to this industry … gpg becomes a terrorist action, etc … I can’t condone software that can potential spy on people, enforce asinine laws, and generally restrict the flow of information. This isn’t saying i am against closed source products. Hackers gotta eat too. But, I want to be reasonably sure that it isn’t going to restrict my computer usage by using a piece of software.

As for one browser to rule them all: That is a very, very /bad/ idea. what we need is the browsers AND the developers to follow w3c guildlines 100%.

My favorite browser is Galeon. Why? because its fast and it supports tabs the way I want it too. And a browser without tab’d browsing is useless to me (I frequently have 30 or 40 web pages open at a time … grouped into 3 or 4 windows … with references/documentation/etc …)

Other people actually prefer MSIE for some unknonw-to-me reason. Even my coworkers use it, they agree mozilla is better and that they like it better, but still fire up IE cause it ‘feels better’ on windows.

Now. if you wanna go down the lines of “One rendering engine to rule them all” … and said rendering engine is Open Source, and this rendering engine can drop into any browser easily … then i’m all for that. Get gecko and konquer teams working with opera’s and such. Have it be released by w3c as the ‘official rendering engine of the web’ … but, it would have to be open for me to trust it.

Altp.

IE is total garbage. It’s a resource hog (I don’t agree with any person who says resources aren’t an issue anymore… the only people who say that either have one program open at any given time or do all their computing on an IBM Netfinity server with 50 Terabytes of RAM and 150 Petabytes of HDD space). IE is slow, it’s impractical, it contributes to bad web coding with it’s ‘IE-Only Code Promotion’.

Anyways, back to the original post Ken made, I’m not sure if I would work at M$. Granted, the Chairman is quite the… undesirable… person… but then again, we dislike him because we know so much about his high-profile personhood. How many of us who work for large corporations (I work at Fiserv) know our CEOs and whether or not they are moral people? Yet I still continue to work there… and our CEO is probably just as money-hungry and immoral as Mr. Gates.

Just google for it. Or look at the obvious activist groups relative to your industry.

One of the things that I held back in my blog was the various examples of pop culture that consider situational ethics in the corporate workplace: The Firm, Devil’s Advocate, Wall Street, and Changing Lanes to name a few. The reason I held back was because each of those examples articulate widely differing narratives: The Firm explores the corporate front of a mafia operation, Devil’s Advocate is a fantastical story where Al Pacino plays Beelzebub himself, Wall Street involves a monologue by Michael Douglas that connects corporate competition to Darwinism, Changing Lanes offers a glimpse into the power politics of huge corporate entities. Where these films do connect, though, is at the point of personal compromise. The characters portrayed by Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Charlie Sheen, and Ben Affleck all compromise on a previously held sense of common ethics. These films provide a medium of self reflection. In other words, they prompt me to ask myself, “how far is Ken Walker willing to bend the rules?”

In the same way, a conversation about Microsoft provides a medium for the same reflection. Ryan raises a good point in that you’re going to turn up dirt on just about anyone you work for. I see business ethics come into the discussion on an almost daily basis in the workplace. The only hypothetical part of the discussion is that Microsoft hasn’t offered me a job.

You’re right in pointing out that pointless debates are a waste of everyone’s time and—perhaps more often than not—prideful and ungodly behavior, and I don’t want to prompt or participate in that. I do think, though, that it’s important—critically so—to consider the implications of aligning yourself with an organization whether it’s corporate, government or even non-profit. To do so is to ascribe to the culture that is perpetuated by the leadership. It’s a basic tenant of management that leading people involves every aspect of your professional behavior, and a culture of unethical behavior propagates throughout the organization.

Microsoft has been legally declared a monopoly who has abused their market standing to ruthlessly maintain that position. This isn’t conspiracy theory or fiction, it’s a reality. This puts them into the same category as Arthur Anderson, Worldcom, and Enron. They’ve committed criminal acts. The severity of those acts can be further debated, but the facts are there.

Now, understanding that this is easier for me to say because I already have a job, and that this is significantly easier because I don’t have such a job offer, and that it’s easier still because my choice will be the most popular of my readers (the vocal ones, anyway), I have to ask the question. If Microsoft dangled a huge carrot in front of me and my family, how far is Ken Walker willing to bend the rules?

-Jai