Microsoft and open source: meet the evangelist

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 29 October 2009 05:03

Opinion and Analysis

Hodge did stints at both Apple and Adobe before he joined Microsoft.

"I left Adelaide to join Apple Computer Australia in 1995. Apple at that time was on a downhill slide. I think in my three years at Apple we had four CEOs and three local managing directors, he says. "Apple Australia was (and I am pretty sure still is) 100 percent owned by the US organisation - like most subsidiaries. The products were certainly the localised versions.

After three years - which he describes as character-building - he joined Adobe.

Hodge says his work pattern at all three companies hasn't been significantly different. "US-based IT companies all have a similar culture when it comes to how you work: always on and connected; heavy use of email, similar (although evolved recently) approaches to software development. Similar structures as to product delivery, support and marketing.

"The world has shrunk significantly; and organisations (well, certainly Microsoft) are more transparent and employees have more freedom than my previous employers. With this freedom comes responsibility; but there is a much more open and listening culture here at Microsoft."

He likes what he is doing at Microsoft. "The only bad days are when people blindly throw slings and arrows," he says.

"Microsoft is a software and services technology company. This is what Microsoft creates, and provides to users and customers. There are many competing models and organisations.

"As a 'free market' person, it is ultimately up to 'the marketplace' (of ideas and products) to decide what to use, and when, based on merit. Presenting Microsoft's side of the story is worthwhile to the industry."

Hodge doesn't like being characterised because of the company's history.

"I suppose the biggest bugbear is the tainting by association. Suggestions that Microsoft is unethical I find rub me up the wrong way as I feel it rubs off on me," he says.

"And I know what an anti-ethical/lack of morals organisation looks and feels like. I have vowed never to work in a toxic environment such as this. In every experience I have encountered at Microsoft, it has been ethical.

"Having for many years been on the outside of Microsoft, my opinion of the organisation has dramatically changed. And I chose, and continue to choose, to work here.

"Now, historically this may not have been the case. Therefore, I think it is worthwhile for external people to be vigilant. But as I understand it, Microsoft today is different to the Microsoft of old."

Hodge sees the current wave of technology as having dramatic and unforeseen effects on humanity.

"Technology has been with humankind since we first used a chiselled stone and made our own fire. Tens of thousands of years," he points out.

"You can use the stone as a weapon on humans, or grind food. Fire can cook food or destroy the environment. It is the intent and moral grounding of the individual, along with the encompassing society's rules that determine the relative cost/benefit of each choice.

"Technology today is no different. Just maybe a little faster; but certainly no less sharp. The impact of technology on communication as we have seen since the advent of the printing press (both in the East and West during the last 1400 or so years) is most interesting to experience."