In hackerspace its so cool to rail against MS and especially against Steve Ballmer.
The truth is that MS has always been a great company, on all accounts I have ever read on the matter it appears to me that MS is a kind of organization that any hacker would love to work for.
But its been a fifteen years from when MS was considered cool. Hip kids don't want to look at it. They don't even want to educate about it. So they go and work and sing praises to Google and FB, who have just now started to show their different, corporate nature.
And geeks have gone and given them the scepter of Power. And I find it ironic that these new hip companies represent a greater danger to computing, freedom and privacy than MS ever has.
They say that he who fails to learn the lessons of the past is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
I do work for Microsoft, have been for a year and a month; and I very much enjoy working here. My manager is awesome and a programmer as well. In fact, most of the people here are or were programmers. They understand us. In my local team, we are still leniant, hours-wise, compared to the other company I've worked for. The most important thing is that the work needs to be get done.
That said, I share my ceiling-high-walled office with one other person and if we need privacy, we can close a physical door.
In all, from my experience, it's a great company to work for. I would recommend it to any of my friends that are seeking work.
Ballmer was back in the company then. People outside MSFT underestimate the technical know how of SteveB - he ran release management for the first version of Windows. He understands software. He might be doing a terrible job the last decade but that is not due to him being some 'MBA' stereotype.
Also - BillG really trusts Steve. They've worked together for over 25 years.
This is a really good point. Ballmer may not be the greatest CEO ever, but he does understand Microsoft products and what engineering goes on behind them. His interview in which he made fun of IBM wanting metrics like KLOC and judging quality by that shows that he had some clue even back then (~12-13 years ago).
