Company: Microsoft
Date: 2011-09-23
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: current

Inexorably fading into irrelevance
Pros: -Health and medical benefits are superior
-Smart folks and a few good managers
-One of the best campuses in the industry
-Discounted Microsoft software for employees
-Many  employees have private offices (not cubicles)
Cons: -Annual review system forces bottom 20% each year to be eventually managed out of the company, making for an extremely stressful workplace
-Microsoft appears to be in the process of laying off or otherwise turning over 20% of the workforce over the next 3 - 5 years
-Technical skills acquired are Microsoft centric and not transferable to other companies
-Performance ratings are too dependent on the immediate manager (leaving you at the mercy of manipulative managers)
-The work environment is extremely political, requiring a lot of maneuvering to get ahead, and there is no teamwork
-All product strategy is ultimately based on defending the Windows business, so there is no innovation (just being a fast follower)
-All products are perenially focused on catching up with competitors to prevent marketshare erosion (e.g. Windows 8 to combat iPad, Office "Online" to combat Google Apps, Windows Server to combat VMWare, etc.)
-Management is focused more on building empires for themselves, and not on doing the right things for Microsoft
-Medical benefits will be severely cut back starting in 2013 (moving to Health Savings Account, etc.)
-Base salary is not competitive with rest of tech industry
-Stock has gone nowhere in 10+ years :-)