Reality Check: Why is Microsoft unfriendly all of a sudden?

Warning: This is going to be a very harsh reality check. Not for the faint of heart. 

No, I have not just climbed from under a rock, thank you for asking. Thanks to this blog I’ve become somewhat of a therapist when it comes to dealing with Microsoft and in my talks with many of my partners lately I’ve come to hear one phrase over and over again:

Why is Microsoft unfriendly all of a sudden?

Most SMB people that grew up in the IT business over the past 6 years or so don’t remember what Microsoft was like before the worldwide bitchslap over their business practices. And to be fair to Microsoft, they are no different than AT&T, Oracle, IBM, Ford or any other large enterprise – the behavior comes with the turf and it’s just the way business is done. Learn it, live it, love it.. thats just the way it is, things’ll always been the same..

Business is about…. making money.

The more, the faster, the better.

“But Vlad, my revenues are $7 million a year! Why don’t I matter?” 

Aren’t our objectives the same?

Don’t we all have the same goal?

Why won’t they take my feedback?

The answer is simple – how are you relevant? How are you more relevant than a multi-billion dollar organization? The smaller you are the more agile you are and thus harder to form a MAD (mutually assured destruction) partnership, thus your feedback is less valuable because you’re seeing a far smaller data set of what is really important. Please, accept that, it will be much easier to sleep at night.

Now that you know that its all about the money and that nobody cares about what you think we can move on.

In conclusion…

It may also be a good time to come to terms that just because people are polite and nice to you it does not mean they have your best interest in mind. Just because you’ve formed a “partnership” with someone doesn’t mean they are interested in your well being in the slightest. You’ve partnered up to reach the client, you haven’t partnered up for one partner to keep you in business and protect your best interests for all eternity. Business isn’t a marriage. Your partner is not working against you, they are working for themselves. As are you. Or rather, as you should.

Vlad, you’re an asshole.

Now who’s climbing from under a rock?  

Yes, I am. But this is the way things are and this is the way the world works. This is business. None of this is an epiphany to anyone that has read more than 5 pages of any business book or walked by a business magazine rack. It really, really, really is not a difficult matter. And friends, business is not for everyone.

So back to Microsoft: They aren’t unfriendly all of a sudden. They have always been unfriendly. Their employees however are very friendly. After all, they are people and most people are good. I truly believe that. Most people wake up each day and like what they do. They look at problems and try to solve them. Same for all the Microsoft people I know, both in business, support and development. I absolutely believe that and I challenge you to find a single person at Microsoft that has actively worked against you with an intent to harm you personally. I doubt you’ll find them.

But friends are friends and business is business. And in business you have objectives and lawyers and competition. If you’re in business you have a duty to your business (shareholders, employees) to keep it alive. So if a threat or an opportunity come up you have to be able to put your personal feelings aside and understand what your job really is. So Microsoft is working with CompUSA. So Bell South is giving customers free services from Geek Squad. They are not doing so to screw you, they are doing so to better themselves and better their customers.

So you end up having to fight harder for the business, paying more for the action pack, more for the copy of Vista you want and your SBS box doesn’t have all the functionality you want. Tough. That’s business. Business isn’t always nice and partnerships go sour. If thats not something you can deal with and manage perhaps you need to get a job.