It seems every few days we read the account of another former Microsoft employee gushing about his new employer, the new nemesis of the Windows creator, Google. Add this one to the list of defectors who thinks the Google grass is greener.
Google software engineer Joe Beda has a blog that may shed some light on why Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates are constantly throwing hissy fits about the greatest rival the company has seen since Windows captured the heart of personal computer users.
“I left Microsoft for Google one year ago todayI’m sure that I made the right decision. I’ve been much happier over the last year at Google,” writes Beda in his weblog.
After working for Microsoft for 7 years and contributing to the development of Microsoft Team Manager, IE4, IE5, IE5.5, IE6, Windows NT 4, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2k3 and Windows XP SP2, Beda left to work for Google in September of 2004, adding his name to a list of infuriating defectors like the high profile Dr. Kai Fu Lee and Mark Lucovsky.
Shortly before he left Microsoft, Beda acknowledged a former coworker that had already defected to Google.
“I sat down for coffee with a coworker who is working for Google sometime in late July. We chatted and he told me about the way that Google works and how much fun he was having there.”
One might see a trend developing here just from a few examples. Combine insider defections with Google’s constant wooing of the best of the collegiate computer science world, and we begin to understand Bill Gates’ concern as he says “We need to do this to stop Google.”
