Did Amazon Induce Vista's Premature Birth? 296
theodp writes "A recent Amazon SEC filing sheds light on the puzzling departure of Microsoft Sr. VP Brian Valentine in Sept. 2006. Valentine is the Gen. George Patton-like figure charged with pushing Vista developers, who dumped the still not-ready-for-prime-time OS into RC1 status as he bolted for a new gig at Amazon. Having repeatedly assured everyone that Valentine was staying with the company post-Vista, Microsoft backpedaled and explained that Valentine decided to leave since the company had shipped a near-final version of Vista. Not so. Although analysts fell for the PR line, it seems Valentine had actually signed an Employment Agreement way back in June calling for him to be on board at Amazon on Sept. 11 if he wanted to pick up a $1.7M signing bonus, $150K base salary, another $500K bonus, and 400K shares of Amazon stock (now worth almost $30M). Who says you have to shell out $999.95 for MS-Project to come up with accurate planned completion dates?"
New improved "Lies, damn lies, and..." (Score:5, Funny)
There are lies, damn lies, and material misstatements to the investment community.
So... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: So... (Score:3, Funny)
Stop it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who Cares?!! (Score:5, Funny)
Well ... duh! (Score:5, Funny)
How else would it get to our computers?
Sleeps with the fishes! (Score:3, Funny)
Granted, that wouldn't help them out in the short term, but they'd lose less executives if a savage beating was part of the severance package. Hell, they probably could advertise right here on slashdot for people willing to kick a Microsoft executive in the groin for free!
Re:Maybe the best decision he made... maybe... (Score:5, Funny)
Cheaper at Amazon! (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, it's only $854.99 at Amazon!
Not So Premature (Score:4, Funny)
Vista wasn't really a "premature birth". It's more like putting every other ingredient into a recipe, then trying to fix it by baking it for too long.
Re:May be the best decision he ever made. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:May be the best decision he ever made. (Score:4, Funny)
It was an accident (Score:4, Funny)
Re:May be the best decision he NEVER made. (Score:5, Funny)
You sure about that?
Re:So... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:May be the best decision he ever made. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:150K is not that much (Score:3, Funny)
More if the programmers qualified under Amazon's "Get 4 for the price of 3" promotion.
Beer .... (Score:4, Funny)
That explains VISTA!
This incident has everything: (Score:5, Funny)
This incident has everything: 1) Overpaying executives and underpaying the people who do the work. He got stock options worth $30 million just for coming to work the first day? 2) Corporate lies and sneakiness and manipulation. 3) Absolutely no caring for customers. 4) Behavior that will eventually sink the company. Remember, at one time IBM had 100% of the PC business. Remember, IBM lost $1 billion on OS2, and then lost another $1 billion. Even the biggest company cannot treat customers badly forever.
The whole Vista experience oozes sleaziness. It's the true modern horror story. In comparison, the movie "Aliens" is for schoolchildren. What's a monster compared to Bill Gates in the role as software's "Dr. Death", degrading the quality of life of millions of people by hassling them and costing them more?
One of the biggest and most respected IT magazines is rejecting Windows Vista: Save Windows XP [infoworld.com]. Quote: "More than 75,000 people have signed InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition in the three weeks since it was launched - many with passionate, often emotional pleas to not be forced to make a change."
Re:May be the best decision he ever made. (Score:4, Funny)
Sweet.
Re:May be the best decision he NEVER made. (Score:1, Funny)
Re:May be the best decision he ever made. (Score:5, Funny)
I think you meant inherent. You know, as in "Correcting errors of slashdot posters is an inherent behavior of a grammar nazi."
The article must be wrong.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:May be the best decision he ever made. (Score:4, Funny)
class Investor: public Sheep {.......
sort of thing?
Re:May be the best decision he ever made. (Score:4, Funny)
Investors implement the ISheep interface, but they clearly extend the doucheBag class.