Company: Microsoft
Date: 2008-06-25
Overall rating: 2/5
Employment status: former

Good place to retire...bad place to innovate
Pros: By far the number one reason to work at Microsoft is job benefits and security.  It's a large well-established company and highly profitable.  Top-notch benefits coupled with the almost impossibility of getting fired mean lots of people who can and do coast.  Having said that, some of the smartest people I've ever worked with are at MS.
Cons: A ton of politics as with any large company.  The number of people and layers of management doing collectively tasks that small agile teams could get done in a fraction of the time really put a drag on momentum.  Being a global company with broad user base means you can't specialize or cater to just one audience.  The numbers of checks and balances mean it takes *forever* to release something.