
IAMA: We are members of the IE9 product team (for real now) - kilian
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dkk3l/iama_we_are_members_of_the_ie9_product_team_here/
======
pavs
Man, they are getting ripped apart in the comments (They had it coming with
the previous response). Whats annoying is that the Product managers are still
answering more questions than the engineers and as usual dodging a lot of them
with PR speak. Its almost like someone has a gun to their head and they are
really carefully with what they say.

 _Edit:_ It looks like Seth (an engineer) is answering more questions now
after Reddit admin (Raldi) recommended that he do.

~~~
blasdel
One marketer, one gun, and one engineer is better than having a team of dozens
of PR flacks compiling a dossier on an interviewer and debriefing all
interviewees: <http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2007/03/enough_about_me/>

~~~
pavs
Holy smokes, how did I never see this one before?

As it is I never had high regards for MSFT, but this takes things to a whole
different level.

------
kilian
This is the real team answering, with much less marketing-speak. (as opposed
to the other "AMA")

What I've read so far, they have an _incredibly_ tough crowd over there, and
they're handling it quite gracefully.

~~~
1010011010
After ruining the web for a decade, I hope they (the IE team/Microsofties in
general, not necessarily these specific folks) didn't expect something other
than a "tough crowd".

There's a lot of pent-up emotion around IE.

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jfager
And it's going really well:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dkk3l/iama_we_are_memb...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dkk3l/iama_we_are_members_of_the_ie9_product_team_here/c10vfkv)

~~~
jacobolus
Yeah, not so hot:

> -55 pts: _"If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a comment on Reddit"_
> \--Carter

> 43 pts: _You are a smug asshole._ \--EddieLomax

------
patrickaljord
This is gold:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dkk3l/iama_we_are_memb...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dkk3l/iama_we_are_members_of_the_ie9_product_team_here/c10vmml)

The MS guy admits that hardware acceleration can be turned off in the config
menu after saying IE9 can't run on windows XP because it requires hardware
acceleration.

~~~
pavs
At this point I am starting to feel sorry for the MSFT guys. Its quite obvious
that the engineers don't run the show, they just do whatever the profit-making
overlords wants them to do.

~~~
djacobs
I agree, the MSFT engineers ( _not_ the marketers) seem likeable enough. I
think they're handling criticism reasonably enough and I think the Reddit
crowd should understand exactly how little input these engineers get inside of
Microsoft's development model.

(Still, I will continue recommending Chrome and Firefox to friends. IE
anything is just bad.)

~~~
sriramk
Disclaimer as usual: I dont speak for MSFT, yada, yada.

I rarely get into one of these 'defend-MSFT' threads but I couldn't let one
more of these 'MSFT engineers are great but marketing is not' threads go by.

I think your characterization of how product managers and devs/PMs/test work
at MSFT is way wrong and represents a simplistic 'engineers vs bean
counters/marketing' of sorts (apologies if that's a strawman). It's always a
tag team effort and it's not always easy to see the boundaries between
marketing/biz dev/engineering. All sides take part in collective decisions. If
you have any real issues with big product decisions for any product at
Microsoft, you need to go to a VP or the executive team. And most Microsoft
VPs are from a engineering lineage.

On a separate topic, I have nothing to do with IE but in this case, the
product managers seem to be working really, really hard with what is a
extremely hostile crowd. In some cases, the community has assumed what the
real answer should be and even when they get the absolute straight line on why
something the way it is, there is disbelief. (the truth as what I would hear
if I met Dean Hachamovitch in an elevator and asked him the same question as a
Microsoftie).

~~~
pavs
To be fair about the criticisms, it seemed to me like somebody made a list of
things they could possibly do wrong while doing a reddit AMA (in front of a
bunch of hardcore tech people) and then went on making those mistakes.

What were they expecting when they decided to do an AMA on Reddit? If their
main goal was to make more people try IE9, and stick with it, I think they did
a really horrible job.

~~~
djacobs
I agree, I think the marketers failed at their own game (understanding their
audience and selling themselves) today/yesterday. They sidestepped questions
like politicians. If they had understood their audience, they'd have known
this would not work, that details and direct answers matter.

As it is, they just revealed Microsoft's "feature" model—i.e., we only
implement technology that is popular now ... on websites that are built around
the lowest common denominator of web technology. IE6.

I stand by my statement that the programmers seem well-intentioned and honest
(direct, even), where the marketers are clearly avoiding tough questions.

~~~
sriramk
I have done several customer engagements in past teams from conferences to
very private executive engagements where I've been the 'technical guy'. Since
most questions flying at me are factual, it is easy to respond with factual
responses.

But with any hard question which goes outside pure tech, I would deflect it
some poor biz-dev/product manager who would have to weigh several things in
his or her response - Microsoft's strategy, future plans (both disclosed and
secret), competitors and their selling points, what this current customer
expects to hear among a host of other things. It is a much harder job and I
often came out looking like the 'technical guy who was a straight shooter, not
like that other suit' though I had the much easier task.

This isn't some Microsoft thing alone. If you parse through any large scale
engagement from any big company, you'd almost always see this pattern. Go to
any conference and walk up to a large company's booth. If you ask technical
questions, you'll often get the engineer to respond. If you ask some
roadmap/competitive positioning/touchy question, you'll get directed to
someone else. This is usually because the engineer involved doesn't know the
answer/strategy/market positioning/whatever.

To say that one group is somehow more well-intentioned/honest than the other
seems wrong.

~~~
djacobs
I don't think it is wrong. The engineers have even been clearer and more
useful when they're talking about policy.

Case in point:

The question comes up: "Why aren't you bringing IE9 to Windows XP?"

Answer from marketing guys: "XP isn't compatible." At best, the answer was "XP
doesn't support hardware acceleration" from them.

Followup question: "How do you run IE9 in a VM?"

Answer from marketing: "Turn off hardware acceleration."

Response: "WTF?"

Engineer comes in: "Okay, let me clear this up... IE9 runs on top of D2D,
which Windows XP hasn't got. D2D supports hardware or software acceleration,
therefore you can turn it off for VMs. But the bottom line is that if we were
to port IE9 to Windows XP, we'd have to write the lower levels from scratch,
and it would become IE8 with a fresh GUI."

Response: "Okay. That, I understand."

Here's where the marketing guy either a) doesn't defer to the tech guy when
it's appropriate or b) underestimates/misunderstands his audience and gives a
flawed, unsatisfactory answer.

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mikeknoop
I could have sworn a member of the IE9 team had a comment thread a few weeks
back asking for feedback here on HN. I cannot seem to locate it now however --
any help?

