J_K9 @ Linux

Day 2: First Impressions

March 23, 2007 on 6:33 am | In Seattle 2007 |

Today we had our first visit to Microsoft’s campus at Redmond. First impression? It is enormous - there’s no other word for it. It comprises dozens of different buildings, each with a different purpose and for specific businesses or brands of Microsoft’s empire.

We woke up at 7am, showered, got dressed and arrived at Microsoft at 8.30am. I’m going to leave times out of this post and focus on the actual events and places rather than the time at which they occurred, although they will be written in the same order. So, what came first? An introduction to Microsoft, of course.

Introduction

Josh Edwards, a Technical Product Manager for Microsoft Office who specialises in security, is our host at Redmond. He gave us an introduction to and brief history of Microsoft, telling us which different businesses come under the Microsoft name (Windows, Dynamics, etc), several facts about the company and general information on the company and the work lives of its employees. Interestingly, while talking about which Operating Systems we used as our primary OS, Linux came up and I, of course, raised my hand. Shortly after I debated Microsoft’s claim that Linux has code which has been copied directly – down to the comments, according to Steve – from Windows. This is an as-of-yet unsubstantiated claim, despite unanswered requests for evidence from Microsoft. However, he has kindly offered to find and send me the evidence for this, so I will be more than happy to publish this “evidence” if and when it arrives

The Business of Software

We then had a talk entitled “The Business of Software” by a certain Marlowe (I am afraid I have forgotten his surname). This was about how Microsoft’s business models differ from those of its competitors (or ‘co-ompetitors’ – those with whom they both collaborate and compete), how these models differ and how it sells its software, in substantial detail. One of Microsoft’s competitors is Linux (more specifically, Novell and Red Hat), as mentioned by Marlowe, but as he was discussing the software that Microsoft develops and sells he said that Windows and the Xbox are so popular because Microsoft make it easier for developers to create software for these Oss with more ease via a Hardware Abstration Layer (HAL), such as DirectX for graphics. He said that, before this, game developers had to develop games for a specific graphics card manufacturer because each manufacturer had a different API and no abstraction layers existed. However, he then said that the reason that Linux was less popular and had a lower market share than Windows was because there was no same abstraction layer which worked across all the different “brands” (i.e. distributions) and/or “versions”: what a big mistake. Guess who stuck his hand up in the air? I pointed out that there were toolkits such as Qt and GTK which allow developers to create applications which will work on ALL the Linux distributions which have these toolkits (i.e. the majority). I also said that, as long as a programmer did not force the application to require specific versions of dependencies (or dependencies full-stop) then the application could truly be run on any distributions with these toolkits. The debate died down after that, although I think I got my point across

Microsoft eHome

Our next stop was Microsoft’s eHome, or “Home of the Future” in Microsoft’s Executive Briefing Center (EBC). This is what Microsoft envisage our homes may be like in 5-10 years’ time. Due to the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which I had to sign, I am not allowed to disclose any information on the specifics of their eHome. I will, however, say that they have made an innovative use of existing technologies to integrate computers into our home lives. Overall, I was quite impressed, but I failed to see the usefulness of much of the technology! It just did not seem realistic; there was no need for that technology in our homes, and I do not believe there will be.

Lunch

We had lunch with Josh Edwards in one of the large cafeterias on Microsoft’s campus. They had a broad selection of foods from different cultures, all at a very respectable price. It was quite odd being the only people dressed in suits (although quite informally – I was not wearing a tie and had my casual shirt untucked), because Microsoft encourages its employees to come to work in clothes in which they are comfortable rather than having to comply to a set dress, but my group settled down at the only remaining vacant table and tucked into our meals. I had two large slices of pepperoni pizza which, surprisingly, were quite filling. We then returned to Microsoft’s EBC to have a tour around Microsoft’s Center for Information Work, affectionately known as “Office of the Future.”

Center for Information Work

Again, I am bound by the NDA and so am not allowed to divulge some of the sleeker aspects of this concept office environment, but I will state the obvious: the aim is to increase productivity. Woohoo! They are using fairly new technology to revolutionise the aggregation of data and thus increase productivity. I will say no more other than that we may see some of this technology appearing in our workplaces within the next 3-7 years (although I believe that is a slightly optimistic prediction, because we all know what a pain migration to something unfamiliar can be).

Roles at Microsoft

The final moments of our day at Redmond were spent discussing the rest of the trip with Josh and learning about the different roles at Microsoft. We met two recent graduates who joined Microsoft less than two years ago. One was a SDE (a Software Developing Engineer, if I remember correctly – Microsoft are quite keen on their TLEs (Three Letter Acronyms); in other words, a developer) and the other was a project manager (PM) of certain features of IE. Both were young, in their early twenties, and began working at Microsoft just before or after leaving University (or College, as they say in the US). They each explained their roles, their everyday tasks, the times they spend in the office (which are not set) and did their best to give us a general overview of what it is like to work as an SDE or PM at Microsoft. Josh also chipped in to broaden our overview of jobs at Microsoft.

To be honest, it sounds like a great workplace, but the only problem is that it is almost impossible to distance yourself from your work. The average Microsoft employee receives approximately 2000 emails a day, so they have to employ granular filtering and manage their time efficiently in order to pass over the majority of the emails, read the most important ones and, ultimately, get their work done.

Wind-Down and Departure

We left the conference room at around 5.30pm, and were back in our hotel rooms not long after. We spent an hour or so catching up with our emails and RSS feeds and, at 7.30pm, went out for supper, for which we later got into trouble for not telling our teachers that we were going out for supper (even though they had told us that we were allowed to and had not stated that we should ask for permission beforehand).

All in all, it has been a good day. I have seen a lot, learnt a lot, and have been presented to by clearly enthusiastic and motivated people who are experts in their respective fields. I may also get to meet some security experts who work at Microsoft over the next few days, which would be absolutely incredible!

Stay tuned.

Edit: By the way, I am taking pictures - the problem is that I have left the USB cable required to transfer the photos from my camera to my laptop back in the UK! Hehe. I’ll try to purchase one tomorrow to lighten up these blocks of text.