Company: Microsoft
Date: 2008-10-03
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: current

So many innovative ideas that got killed off
Pros: There's a lot of really smart people, this is the main reason I joined the company.
Cons: Bad development processes. The only people who think we're cutting edge are those who never worked elsewhere or don't write code in their spare time and been exposed to alternatives. It doesn't take tons of developers to deliver great software. Software is one of the rare industries where it's possible to grow through productivity gain rather than headcount expansion.

Microsoft is dominated by conservative people. There are so many innovative ideas around here, and yet very few of them ever make it into a product, and the truly innovative products languish. The priority is to lock in existing customers instead of winning new ones. Hence backward compatibility takes precedence over innovation.

My feeling is that if your group name doesn't have "research" or "labs" in the title, it's probably not worth working for.