Microsoft is well know in the industry from being a good employer. Not sure what evidence people have to the contrary. They pretty much employ people who are dedicated and understand Microsoft and its mission. It is clear from some peoples comments they do not so guess what they do not want you.

Apple and Google are also very good employers and tbh you would be very fortunate to get into any one of them. They tend to pick the best because they can. They all pretty much recruit in a similar vain if you do not believe in the company you will not get far.

Whenever I have spoken to Microsoft employees on roadshows or at get togethers they seem very happy and honoured to work for Microsoft. I do not have any dealings with Apple and Google but I am almost certain it would be very similar.

Only one person sounding like a dummy round here.

yeah right another blind person joins the argument. Seriously is that the best thing you could think of?? my eight year old nephew could come up with better ways of insulting people

Not sure you put any argument forward just general ill judged comments. The only think you mention are morals and again unless you do not want to work for a company that makes money then good luck.

ok you know nothing, i have worked for a company that made a fair amount of money, the boss owned his own private helicopter (it was a small UK business). Good luck wriggling out of that one. I also made quite a bit for the area I live in, not many people were in my postion in my area, you are luck to find a minimum wage job, the recession hit here really bad.

Like I said you mentioned morals, not sure what your beef is just took the normal stab that peolple resent the profits that the company makes. Every large conglomerate will have its detractors, Google, Apple, Sony will all have them.

I do know nothing... About you! that is correct. Although I now know you worked within an organistion of which the owner had a helicopter in a deprived area of Britain. Still no idea of the moral standpoint of which you speak.

Well, if your attitude in real life is anything like on here, I don't think Sony (or any large corporation for that matter) would want you on their work force anyway. Stop being a clown shoe.

by the way when i'm at work i act professionally, so that counts more, you really don't know me so how on earth can you even comment on somthing like this.

It was a mutually beneficial deal.

Like any other company, MS isn't in the habit of "saving" their competitors. It buys them or it crushes them. They wouldn't have signed the deal if they didn't think that they stood to gain from it. Whether that gain was a favourable settlement of a patent suit or using Mac OS as a hedge against anti-trust charges is speculation.

MS Office support is important to Apple, but various MS software, including Office, had been available on Mac for years before this deal, so it's hard to view continued support as a big rescue operation. It's also hard to view the investment as a life-saver when Apple was sitting on cash reserves of $1.2 billion at the time. Still, Apple obviously thought they stood to gain from the deal, or they wouldn't have signed it either.

It's too bad that MS sold those shares long ago. That $150 million investment would be worth close to $5 billion today. That's some mad bank, even for a behemoth like MS.

o_O Holy shit at this thread... I'll put in my two cents here, just for the hell of it.

I personally do not like Microsoft that much.. they are good employers now, of course. It's easy to do that once you are rolling in so much cash. But personally there are a few reasons I don't like them. First of all, the have an OS monopoly, sure, it is true that having one OS worldwide makes everything more compatible etc, but the lack of competition has left OS research and development behind. Believe it or not, technologically speaking, our operating systems haven't evolved much, and the pace at which they are evolving is slow. Point is we need more competition in the OS market.

If for once you believe MS hasn't played dirty in the business game, please do us all a favor and jump... from a very high cliff. Microsoft has infringed and has been sued by various private corporations, and even the United State and Europe (although these aren't due to being "unfair" per se). The thing is, it's actually cheaper for MS to pay these settlements and fines instead of spending money on research and development themselves. If you want some examples, go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation

I don't hate the company with as much passion as other users here, but I don't respect them much. The only respect I have for them is that they make an OS which has to run on multiple machines of different brands.. Huge respect there, but no where else.