“I dreamed of working at Microsoft. When Microsoft joined up with Accenture to form Avanade the word ‘consultant’ sounded so wonderfully romantic to me and I wondered if ever I’d make it there as one of the elite band of Avanade consultants, spreading the Microsoft message all over the world. I dreamed of systems that would change lives, help people, and do cool new things never seen before,” Pete Wright, former Windows coder and once Microsoft employee, blogs.
“Somewhere along the way though, things changed. I don’t know exactly when or how, but the world I loved got torn to shreds, set fire to, then mooshed into a pile of horse manure,” Wright explains.
“I worked on some great projects too. At American Express 5 of us turned around a failed project into an outstanding success that to this day still makes that company a large sum of pure profit each and every day. At Enron, a small bunch of us designed a stunning trading system that never saw the light of day thanks to Ken Lay and his cronies screwing everything up,” Wright reports. “But, by and large I found myself in the same situation over and over. I was like that female friend or relative that we all have that seems to continually find themselves in love with abusive partners.”
Wright reports, “I’m on Microsoft ‘influencer’ lists, email lists where Microsoft people try to get me to tow the company line and say great things about them and their products because it’s perceived that I have an audience. The times that I’ve deviated from that line though I’ve found myself well and truly out in the cold.”
MacDailyNews Take: Get ready for your liquid nitrogen bath for this one, Pete.
Wright continues, “So, for the past 3 years I’ve worked very hard at a very personal goal, and today I succeeded. I’ve aligned my spare time with technologies I want to use. I learned the stuff I thought was cool, whether the rest of the world did or not. I use Macintosh. I write Ruby on Rails, Python and Perl code and love it. Why? Because most of the other people out there doing the same thing have that same passionate that ignited in me a desire to be in this career in the first place.”
Wright continues, “So, today I resigned my job, and completely ended my Microsoft career. I have taken a role as Director with a company at the leading edge of the “Web 2.0” curve. My team and I will write Ruby on Rails code, use Macintosh computers to do so, shun Microsoft technology completely, go to work in shorts and sandals and blast each other with nerf guns. My team is devoted to being the best it can be, to learning, to improving, to pushing boundaries. And it’s not Microsoft.
“I’m writing this on my Mac using NeoOffice Writer while the PC under my desk is, for the last time ever, removing Windows and all the trappings that go with it to install Ubuntu Linux. My Microsoft career is now officially over,” Wright continues. “Microsoft don’t innovate, in my opinion. Vista looks like a pile of crap compared to Mac OS X and Ubuntu with GLX. Their software is buggy, overpriced, and stress inducing. Their development tools are staid, designed and developed by committees to solve every problem you could ever conceive of, while being ideally suited to solving none.”
“Today, I’ve resigned to leave that world behind forever, and I couldn’t be happier,” Wright reports. “Microsoft are the new IBM, and Microsoft customers are just like the huge corporate suit wearing monoliths that bought into the whole IBM mirage back in the 70’s and 80’s. I don’t want to work for IBM. I just want to write cool software with talented passionate people, and make a difference in the world…Goodbye Microsoft.”
Full article, with even more, here.
[Attribution: The Inquirer Top Windows writer abandons Microsoft, Sees the light and buys an Apple. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take:
Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine. They heal.
They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. – Apple Computer
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Dvorak: Microsoft malaise – eight signs that Microsoft is dead in the water – May 03, 2006
Microsoft about to lose the software business just as IBM lost the PC business in ‘80s – July 26, 2006
Microsoft suffers from malaise, key defections, Windows Vista struggles, lack of towels – September 16, 2005
Microsoft employees leaving due to (and blogging about) malaise smothering company – April 25, 2005
Microsoft’s lack of momentum, malaise won’t end anytime soon – March 16, 2005
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 20, 2003
last post!!!!, oh right…
MDN starts the morning with their usual poetry
What a crapy headline jeezz I hope the day improves
Wright on.
…Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
beautiful and true.
This commercial is why I love Apple.
“They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.”
I guess that’s why when employees break the rules by leaking info Apple fires them…Oh wait…I guess it’s only cool to not be fond of other peoples rules…no wait again… I’m confused
“mooshed”! this brings a tear to my eye.
I’d often be mocked in my teen years for using this term; oft referred to as a word only a son of italian immigrants would use. I feel liberated…an so does Wright!
This is not a “Top Developer” C’mon MDN, that headline is pure BS. When Adobe, AutoCAD, or some other of their ilk shun MS then you can use that headline.
“We make tools for these kinds of people.
While some see them as the crazy ones, We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. – Apple Computer”
I am curious as to when and where this came from Apple?
It reminds me very much of why I bought my first Mac (128) back in the 80s….
“If computers are so smart… Then why do people have to learn about computers??…. Why can’t computers learn about people!!” (from a Mac brochure)
Sounded like a plan then! Still does (and is) today!!
It was the reason I wrote the check!
I really feel sorry for the author…
By “cutting and running” he is going to be left behind…
The .NET framework is the future of the web. Not some silly Ruby on Rails thing. The standards compliance and ease of use built into .NET is the future today.
©
“Microsoft don’t innovate, in my opinion. Vista looks like a pile of crap compared to Mac OS X and Ubuntu with GLX. Their software is buggy, overpriced, and stress inducing.”
Hits the nail on the head. Someone should do the same to Ballmer.
Isn’t that XGL?
Motorhead,
That blurb was part of Apple’s “Think Different” campaign. It ran when Steve Jobs came back to Apple as CEO.
I loved it then, and still do today.
… bloody hell sputnik still pushing that .net farce? The main problem with Microsoft is that they tend to present the history of the computer today.
i’ve seen that commercial a million times and have always intepreted it at face value, as talking about mac’s and mac users.
but this morning i realized that the ad is talking about steve.
Sputnik…
Clearly you have not seen, and know nothing about Ruby on Rails. .Net has a few merits…but it’s an alternate future and not one any person who truly understands would care to join. Please, do us all a favor and take a few minutes to read about the topic you spout off about before you make a fool of yourself again….
Or not… most of us here find your posts quite laughable.
sputnik,
.net for the web? You have to be kidding. Most of the world is on to Microsoft’s attempted hijacking of the web and history of creating web sites that only work right with that awful Microsoft Explorer browser. As for Ruby On Rails, it is THE hot programming environment for the web. Ruby is the slickest scripting language in existence IMHO, though I use Python, because it is used heavily in my interest area, the sciences — and community support is important.
Also note that Leopard is adding support for ROR, Ruby itself and Python for Cocoa programming. With OS X programming, Apple gives you standard supporting choices.
sputnik, I don’t know if you’re trolling or joking so please forgive me if I’m wrong – but – you just don’t get it. It’s not about .NET versus Ruby. In fact, it’s not even entirely about Mac or Linux versus Windows, or Apple versus Microsoft. It may not be some enlightened philosophical journey, but even still, it most certainly goes deeper than merely changing tools or standards. He’s changing his mindset, the culture around him, getting away from something that for him has become stale. If you don’t see IBM as having been stale, oh say, around 1981 when a bunch of white-haired suits made DOS the standard (subsequently making the world wait 15, FIFTEEN years for a point-n-click GUI) then you still wouldn’t “get it” if Pete Wright spelled it all out. Perhaps because you’re too young, or just incapable. Or perhaps you just don’t like people who do it differently than you and 9 out of 10 other of you. One of the many reasons some people loath Mac “zealots”. Whatever the case, Pete Wright suddenly has “zeal”, a zest for living.
So what’s so wrong with that? Not using .NET?
God Speed Pete. We only live once and it is over in “the blink of an eye.”
FUseeK
I think that you have to be wise if you want to change the world. You have to fight the status quo with smart movements and impact on people when they less expect it.
This way, you have to walk quietly, smoothly and focused; if some part of you is not in harmony, that can destroy what you were building for a while. You have to be bold, asertive, firm. Is Apple firm? Absolutely.
If a person inside is not in tune then the impact and momentum to change the world is lost.
If you cannot understand asertivity, then you are not a visionary.
By de way: FUseeK you…
MW: Lack, as in ‘I think you LACK audacity’.
Magic word: “nothing”…. Nothing will stop Apple.
Sputnik,
Don’t you dare steal “Copyright Symbol’s” sign-off!!! (sorry, on a PC and don’t know how to make that symbol – damn I miss my special characters palette)
We’ll both come bust your head (along with BustingTheSkullsofIdiots)!
Cubert
I was intrigued by this part – Wright reports, “I’m on Microsoft ‘influencer’ lists, email lists where Microsoft people try to get me to tow the company line and say great things about them and their products because it’s perceived that I have an audience.”
Now many of us have often suspected that Microsoft has an army of writers who they mobilise to say whatever Microsoft wants said, but I’ve never noticed anybody actually own up to it before. His blog offers some more insights into just how nasty Microsoft can be if you don’t lift your feet high enough when dancing to their tune.
That certainly explains how certain stories and themes suddenly appear all across the world in what appeared to be a co-ordinated campaign.
Ok, two things for those who haven’t been here often enough / long enough to know:
1) Sputnik (welcome back, man, missed you… ) writes SATIRE. Funny haha doesn’t actually mean what he says. Never mind, no one seems to get it.
2) Sputnik was closing his posts with © long before “Copyright symbol man” was using it.
And how dare you criticize the Great Sputnik while working from a (ack!) PC!!
Cheers
Cubert “Don’t you dare steal “Copyright Symbol’s” sign-off!!! (sorry, on a PC and don’t know how to make that symbol – damn I miss my special characters palette)”
Thanks Cube. Much appreciated.
Blucaso is right though, I think Sputnik is using it to “copyright” (in jest) his posts as a sign-off. We’re using it in a different way. Doesn’t bother me. Haven’t heard from Sputnik in quite some time – didn’t know he was still lurking here.
Oh, on a Win machine hold down ALT, type 0169 then let go of the ALT key = ©
Mac: option G = ©
Also Cube, if you get back to this thread, Tito Ortiz VS. Ken Shamrock 3 LIVE and FREE on Spike TV October 10th. This will be their final UFC showdown. UFC 63 PPV September 23rd – GO BJ PENN!!! Matt Hughes is a great fighter and has defended his title so many times I can’t even count – I give him all the respect in the world for that. I just want to see Penn take the belt. Then we can gear up for a 2nd rematch. This fight is sort of a rematch as Penn took the belt from Hughes a while ago and then just walked away from the UFC. He’s back – so this ought to settle things properly. Penn has awesome submissions, but Hughes is a brutally strong genetic freak. Should be good.