

Former Microsoft evangelist Don Dodge on Google vs. Microsoft - dabent
http://venturebeat.com/2009/12/17/former-microsoft-evangelist-don-dodge-on-google-vs-microsoft-qa/

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bugs
I don't like how an evangelist can completely jump ship from all the things he
loved and pushed and used before he changed jobs in less than a month.

In whole it makes one seem even less trustworthy than normal sales people.

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plaes
Yup, he really seems quite clueless about similar things out there - "Wow!
Gmail has threaded conversations!?!", "Wow - attachments in GMail can be
viewed inside browser"...

Can someone tell how can I get a job like this?

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SamAtt
By being likable. If you recall there were a lot of stories written on his
departure from Microsoft and all of those stories called Microsoft stupid for
letting him go. But if you look at his job description his job at Microsoft
was to sell MS technology to startups and I don't know many startups that use
MS tech.

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plaes
No wonder why Microsoft sacked him :P

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ddodge
My job at MSFT was to put Microsoft in the best possible light, not an easy
task, and help developers get access to software and support. BizSpark helped
with that.

At Google the job is much easier because the product strategy and technology
is better. Chrome OS (open source), Google Apps and App Engine (cloud), and
Android (mobile platform) are the waves of the future. I firmly believe Google
has the right vision and the right products.

Microsoft is a good company, with good products, and good people. MSFT didn't
get to be a $60B company on FUD.

Developers and customers make decisions based on what solves their problems
easiest, fastest, cheapest. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution to every
problem. Google has a pretty solid vision for the future, and new
technology/products that will satisfy the needs of a large fraction of the
market.

Your mileage may vary.

Don

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houseabsolute
It seems like it would be hard to go from selling best-in-class software for
office work, development, and communication, to selling the steaming pile that
is Google Apps. How do you convince people to buy inferior products? The best
line I can think of (without lying) is to claim that they don't need all the
features, consistency, and speed Office provides compared to Google Apps.

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awa
One of things which annoy me is that he was an evangelist and didn't even try
the latest products. Office 2010 preview was out which has threaded
discussions he raves about in gmail. He hasn't looked at office online version
but says he suspect that it won't be good. I guess he should have as an
evangelist asked some questions and pushed few features in the product he
would have been selling if he wasn't let go.

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michaelcampbell
> Office 2010 preview was out which has threaded discussions he raves about in
> gmail.

Serious question: When was that available? Gmail had it at least since 2004 (I
know since that's when I got my account).

And I was reading threaded emails in emacs in the early 90's, and I bet I was
late to that party then.

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awa
Well, I have been using Outlook 2010 since June and it has threaded discussion
features since then. I am sure as he was an Microsoft employee he had access
to the early release and dog-food versions which he should have tried. So,
threaded discussion shouldn't be a new feature for him. And if he was using
Outlook I don't know why offline Gmail wows him so much.

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stcredzero
_IBM was king. I think in the late ’80s and early ’90s, we saw that shift and
Microsoft became king of the hill. And in 2009, 2010, going forward, Microsoft
is sort of like IBM. It’s a longtime company with a great tradition and still
very profitable, but it’s not the leader._

Another sign that a company is at the top, but due to come down:

Awesome R&D, which hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting to be a real
product. (IBM, Xerox, the old AT&T)

Apple and Google still seem to be actively turning new tech into product.
Microsoft: mainly the XBox division seems to still be doing this.

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sker
_Microsoft: mainly the XBox division seems to still be doing this._

Also, the developer division: Generics, LINQ, F#. They all came from Microsoft
Research.

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Hoff
With the vendor-based technologists and vendor-based evangelists, at least you
are certain who is paying them to espouse their opinions; you know how they're
going to slant.

Various Industry Analyst firms and Industry Pundits can undergo these same
sorts of seismic shifts. And whether the opinion is with technical merit, a
paid opinion, a troll for web hits, or a curmudgeon that has made a career out
of being quotable, is far less certain.

Well, a few of the curmudgeons are obvious.

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leej
title says "vs" but there is no real comparison btw 2 companies.

