
Microsoft Signs Letter Of Intent To Acquire Xobni - raghus
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/20/microsoft-signs-letter-of-intent-to-acquire-xobni/
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steveblgh
I'm not sure how this makes any sense for Microsoft. If they assigned a few
engineers to work on this, they could replicate the functionality within few
months, especially since they know the internals of Outlook.

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mattmaroon
There's a lot more to replicating something like Xobni in a megacorporation
like MSFT than just the programming. In a lot of cases it's easier to get an
acquisition signed off on than a new department to make a new product.

And they get more than just code, and people who write code. They get a little
street cred back in the hacker community for picking up a YC startup. They get
people who have vision, which MSFT appears to be in need of these days. It
could be the beginning of a new era for them.

Also, Xobni has had a number of high quality engineers (probably much better
than what you'd typically find slaving away in the trenches at MSFT) working
on their plugin for a lot more than a few months. I'm guessing the programming
cost would be a lot higher than you might think.

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random1
I think there is a ill informed mentality that somehow hackers are "smarter"
than the coders working at Microsoft. To be honest most of the people I have
met at the startup community aren't really all that special in terms of
"intelligence" but they do have that drive which is what makes them special. I
just think people in this community need to stop ego boosting themselves...
yes some of you are probably pretty smart... but most of you aren't
impressively smart or talented -- just very driven... (which is a great trait
by the way)

as far as the actual commentary goes I think Microsoft is doing it because
honestly 30-40 million is chump change for them and yeah they could develop it
but why bother when you already have it tall done and the structure already
setup?

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wanorris
Perhaps the programmers I've met from Microsoft are atypical, but they've been
smart as hell. Whatever Microsoft's problems are (and clearly they have some),
it isn't that they don't have any smart people on campus there.

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wright
I know a lot of really smart people who can't program worth a darn.

If you want to work at MS you're already lacking in the taste department. And
what's the interview process, brainteasers or BSing your way through random
estimates like the number of gas stations in the country?

Being good at bluster can make someone seem pretty smart. But the computer
doesn't care about that. It filters out what you can really do from what you
can fool people into thinking you can do.

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wanorris
> I know a lot of really smart people who can't program worth a darn.

Like I said, they may not be typical, but most of the Microsoft people I've
met work on compiler design, static verifiers, and things like that. If where
you come from that's considered trivial stuff, feel free to make your own
judgements accordingly.

> If you want to work at MS you're already lacking in the taste department.

Really? Last I checked, there are openings on the F# team. Would it really be
that horrible to get big-company pay and benefits to have the opportunity to
hack on compilers for functional languages?

> And what's the interview process, brainteasers or BSing your way through
> random estimates like the number of gas stations in the country?

Done away with, last I heard.

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wright
> _I've met work on compiler design, static verifiers, and things like that_

Not on the heavy consumer apps, eh?

> _Last I checked, there are openings on the F# team._

So you're saying they have positions open that need people with taste to work
on them. In other words, _they have a shortage of people with taste_ ;)

> _Done away with, last I heard._

What's the process now?

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wanorris
> Not on the heavy consumer apps, eh?

No, the Microsoft people I've met tend to be from the language teams, mostly
because I'm working a lot with IronPython and F# in my codebase, so that's the
kind of thing I go to conferences about.

And, to be honest, working on language implementations in small teams for
Microsoft sounds a lot more appealing than working on Windows or Office in
ginormous bureaucratic teams. Then again, being a tiny cog in the AdSense
machine doesn't sound appealing to me either.

> What's the process now?

Doesn't sound all that different from a Google interview.

"I've told folks that my MS interview was on par in difficulty as my Ph.D.
candidacy oral examination, partly due to the fact that it was much, much
longer. (A Ph.D. oral exam is done by 3-5 professors vs. you in a room and
they decide whether you continue in your studies or whether they kick you
out). Mine started at 10am and ended at 6:30pm or so when I sat down with
Scott Guthrie at the end of my loop."

<http://www.iunknown.com/2008/03/steve-yegge-on.html>

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alex_c
If this goes through, congrats to the Xobni team!

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fleaflicker
Why does this stuff get leaked to the press? What happened to confidentiality?

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mattmaroon
I would guess it gets leaked to the press by people who will eventually want
favors in return. Sometimes it might be founders who want to prod other
potential acquirers.

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fleaflicker
Often a letter of intent will frobid the seller from negotiating with anybody
else.

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mattmaroon
Yeah, that's true. I meant more leaks in general.

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rantfoil
This is fantastic for Xobni. Congrats.

Hopefully Xobni is able to secure contractual assurances that they'll be able
to maintain a level of sovereignty to continue to work on their amazing
vision. Microsoft, from experience, is a patchwork of fiefdoms, some the
domain of engineering teams, and some product marketing. A team at Microsoft
can easily get lost in the shuffle or killed randomly, without a strong exec
as high up in the org as possible to make things work.

Cautionary tale: Lookout, that fantastic Outlook plugin that got bought and
then promptly taken offline / never heard from again. I believe they were
folded into Live Desktop Search. (Will leave it to an exercise to the reader
as to whether that was a good move.)

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Emmjaykay
I wanted to go work for them someday. :`(

But maybe it'll be like how the TellMe deal went. They're still more or less
independent.

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gregp
When did xobni get started,anyone know?

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nostrademons
Says in the article. Apr 1 2006. I suspect that was the first public demo,
since they were WFP06 and so probably started around Dec 05 or Jan 06.

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plusbryan
Close. We were SFP06. I recall driving with Matt to the PO with the paperwork
sometime in early May 06.

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jonathan
Congrats guys! Hell of a job

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Monti
Wow, so they are a YC startup?? congratz to all people involved.

