Trial By Fire: Ballmer: Family Values vs. Employee iPods

I know Ballmer's going to take a lot of flak for this comment from today's CNN article:

Do you have an iPod?
No, I do not. Nor do my children. My children--in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod.

Though perhaps an offhand comment, I assume it's not a joke.

I think Steve needs to step back and listen to some of his employees. Maybe they really do know quite a bit that Steve doesn't. Let's see...

Last February's Wired article "Hide your iPod, Here Comes Bill" reveals that Steve Ballmer is in the minority:

"About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod," said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous. "It's pretty staggering."
...
So concerned is management, owning an iPod at Microsoft is beginning to become impolitic, the manager said. Employees are hiding their iPods by swapping the telltale white headphones for a less conspicuous pair.

A year later, it seems management is not only concerned, but positively paranoid. Many Microsoft employees see things differently than Steve and Bill. Tom Harpel, a Microsoft Employee who is not hiding his headphones, understands why understanding competing products can be empowering:

Yes, I use a Mac. I love using a Mac. Yes, I carry an iPod. I don't love it, but it works pretty well. I have a TiVo today, but I'm sure I'll be adding a Media Center to my living room sometime in the next year.

I like toys. I like gadgets. Every product out there tries to use technology to solve a problem. It's fun and enlightening to try stuff out, to try to understand how each company approaches problem solving differently. Using competitor's products is one way to get at that understanding.

Today in Paul Kedrosky's Blog, Robert Scoble also had no hesitation in his open-mindedness about the competition:

I work for Microsoft. My son is a famous Apple freak. Here's a picture of him: http://www.horsepigcow.com/2006/03/brunching.html

Have I gotten fired? Derided? No.

When we have a product that my son finds to be better than his iPod, he'll let you know.

Omar Shahine, another Microsoft employee, goes one step further when he says that there simply isn't a better audio device than Apple's iPod:

I’m beginning to change my mind about things. Even though we have a great eco system for music stores etc, the reality is that our OEM partners are never ever going to create a product like the iPod. They are simply no match for the iPod Dock Connector, which as generated an ecosystem of hardware that’s probably more lucrative than the online music business.

Game over.

How frustrated and demotivated must employees like Omar feel when they hear this in an interview with Bill Gates:

On the subject of the iPod's success, Mr. Gates acknowledged Apple has done a "great job" in marketing and selling the iPod, but refused to acknowledged [sic] that Apple had beaten out Microsoft for dominance in music players. Mr. Gates vowed that customer choice will win out in the end.

Kristian Rickard, program manager for Entertainment & Devices, questions everything, but admits that innovation at Microsoft at least deserves to be put in quotation marks for now:

A couple weeks ago, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer discussed "innovation" with a group of us employees in a cafe on a Redmond campus. After the discussion, it made me think about how some people wonder if Microsoft is still a truly innovative company. Their main point is that there are a fair number of people walking around with the infamous white ear buds, a tell-tale sign that those people are listening to (or pretending to, anyway) their music on their iPods. So they argue that Apple is the leader in software innovation ... that they are the innovative leader, now.

Yes, Apple's iPod was a great idea. Their new video iPod made that great idea better. But other than that iPod, what else has Apple done that is truly innovative in the past few years?

Kintan Brahmbhatt, a designer at Microsoft, has one of the most genuine and open-minded views of the iPod and its influence in his ipod and the design of things to come post:

I religiously admire Apple for its proven ability to consistently come up with terrific designs. Design is the sole reason as to why Apple has been able to enjoy the price premiums over competitors...

What can we designers learn from the ipod?
Study the social, economic and technical factors that govern your target market and predict how they are going to change in the next two to three years. Find the gaps between the predicted factors and the current factors and fill those gaps. The best designs have always simply filled those gaps.

About a year and a half ago, Steve Ballmer enraged bloggers and Microsoft employees alike by being quoted as claiming that iPod owners were music theives. It's ironic that at the same time, intelligent insightful Microsoft employees were looking at the iPod, enjoying it, and trying to understand that allure. I'm sure most of them were trying to figure out just what they could do to help their company (and Steve Ballmer's) come out with better products that could compete with the iPod.

Without a doubt Microsoft management is missing a huge opportunity to harness the hearts, minds, and potential of their employees. And, for the first time, the barrier between Microsoft employees and management is becoming transparent, even in print. I'm sure that accounts for the recent brouhaha claiming that some Microsoft employees want Ballmer out.

But, one thing is for sure. Ballmer is saying the wrong things these days. Very wrong.
It would be better to keep quiet than start claiming that competitor's products are not allowed around the house "by edict". This is one of the worst possible messages not only for the world, but for Microsoft's employees.

In fairness, not everybody agrees. While it's true that using your own products is important, I'm not sure that denying use of competitor's products is quite the same. It wouldn't be so bad if Ballmer had said "My kids have iPods along with several other music devices, I like to observe their choices." Maybe he's ignoring his press briefings, who knows?

Microsoft used to impress me because they would embrace good technology no matter who developed it. I was impressed with MS engineers who would, almost without ego, reveal to me just how much they knew about Linux, Java, and other competing products. I would always tell people how formidable Microsoft was because of their unrelenting pursuit to squash the competition and their unhesitating egoless assessments of competitors strengths and weaknesses.

Surely, things have changed. At least at the top.

Comments

Or his statement could be spin. I am guessing his handlers told him to make negative comments about the competition in a homey manner.

Posted by: ralphg | March 30, 2006 at 08:24 AM

great post - the not invented here syndrome must come to an end

Posted by: Chris Heuer | March 30, 2006 at 09:02 AM

Ballmer didn't say "by edict", why are you misquoting him? Oh, right, it's just a blog. I read Ballmer as making fun *of himself* for having convinced his kids to not use high profile competitor products. Big deal. Moving on, this post is little more than Internet echo chamber, adding up to a non sequitur that isn't quite stated. You think MS upper management refuses to acknowledge the quality of competitive products, is that your point? The very interviews you link to prove that false. But Ballmer and Gates also claim that MS is going to do even better than the competition in the future ... does that make them out-of-touch tyrants, or, say, businessmen?

Posted by: Brad | March 30, 2006 at 09:35 AM

Or (just maybe), it...was...a...joke. Ballmer is noted for making off-handed jokes on stage and during interviews.

Given I work at said company, I can attest that we are loaded with gadget and technology geeks ("passion for technology" being a core trait we look for in job candidates), who would go charging out the door in loud rebellion if management got heavy handed about only using our own stuff. We are geeks - we love all kinds of gadgets and software. Lots of us have iPods, Macs, Linux boxes, PSPs, and just love Firefox. And use lots of competing technologies at work.

Being geeks like that makes us better understand what we need to do to make our own products better. I would venture to say thousands of MS employees run Firefox right next to IE7 beta, and loudly give feedback on internal discussion lists for where we come up short and need to improve. Same with Google vs. MSN, and so on. As geeks, we admire great tech products. iPod rocks, and we all push our Media team to do better because we think it rocks. They love the feedback and work harder.

I'm also not sure why you feel Omar would be "frustrated and demotivated" because our boss refuses to concede defeat in a competitive market. That kind of competitiveness is what motivates employees.

Posted by: Kevin | March 30, 2006 at 09:41 AM

I thought about it being a joke. Sure it's possible that in person, with the right intonation, sure, maybe that's what it was. But, in print, it looks like a pretty simple statement. Ballmer, in his position, should have said something less ambigious. He should be VERY well-schooled in the implications of what he says, and I have not one ounce of sympathy or understanding for somebody in his position saying something stupid at a time when the company and its employees need him to be saying things that are smart.

I know plenty of MS people love technology, use competitors technology, and use that knowledge to engineer better products at MS. So, on one hand, you have employees (many quoted) who have the RIGHT attitude about dealing with competitor's products and managment (both Gates and Ballmer) saying things in public that looks like the WRONG attitude about dealing with them.

Being in denial of Apple's highly relevant accomplishments in marketing AND technology is either ignorance, dishonesty, or bullshit, and many employees would be demotivated to think top management is guilty of any of the three. Seeing things clearly creates confidence, and at a time when Microsoft needs the market's confidence, why is Ballmer playing such stupid games?

Posted by: Gary Wisniewski | March 30, 2006 at 12:28 PM