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From: Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net>
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Subject: Re: Forget Mice... are you ready for subscription COMPUTERS?
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2024 08:23:23 -0700
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On 8/7/2024 12:11 AM, JAB wrote:
> On 06/08/2024 17:03, Werner P. wrote:
>> Am 06.08.24 um 10:56 schrieb JAB:
>>> Is one of the qualifications of being a CEO that you are completely 
>>> clueless about your own market?
>>
>> She is probably or very likely an MBA who got a shot at being a CEO 
>> without having any clue about the products they are selling! But she 
>> probably can sell herself really well, by convincing clueless people 
>> that she is the right woman for a high paying job. This looks more 
>> like another nail into the coffin of Logitech!
>>
>> Not sure why she was chosen, only the Logitech Board of directors can 
>> explain that. But generally european companies after the founders retire
>> (tech companies always are founded by engineers) MBAs, clueless 
>> Bankers and laywers take over on the board of directors and CEO level 
>> and even in second management often coming from consulting firms and 
>> crossing over straight at that level, usually this is the beginning of 
>> the end and once this has been ongoing long enough the company goes down.
>> Engineers in Europe unless they run their own company usually hit a 
>> glass ceiling at middle management max where they cannot move higher!
>> While often MBAs and Laywers start at that level where the engineering 
>> ends! Thats also one of the main reasons why europe has been falling 
>> wayside technically compared to the US and other regions!
>>
>> The prime example was Nokia of old which in the end was run by Laywers 
>> and MBAs
>> who did not have any clue on how far reaching the impact of the iPhone 
>> was.
>>
>> The lower engineering levels tried to steer the ship into the right 
>> direction but the board of directors chose to hire a Microsoft MBA CEO 
>> which already people thought upfront was a juggernout to break the 
>> mobile division away and sell it off to M$. It came es expected, the 
>> first move from the CEO was to break all bridges which could work to 
>> steer Nokia entirely to the Windows Mobile division of Microsoft and 
>> later sell it off.
>>
> 
> I certainly saw a lot of that as time progressed over the years. So we 
> started with the senior engineer of the team running the project and 
> then we moved to something I think was a good idea of having a project 
> manager who was there there to put timescales together, get estimates, 
> track progress etc. but they weren't the one who made the decisions of 
> how the project was run. It stated to go down hill when project 
> management expanded it's scoped into actually directing the project and 
> the advent of department heads with no background in engineering or even 
> worse the failed engineer.
> 
> Two ones that I particularly remember were that all engineers in the 
> company (so several hundred of varying disciplines) would be classified 
> and graded so when it can to setting up a project you would be given a 
> pool of engineers as a resource. Fortunately only lip service was paid 
> to it as it was completely unworkable. Whoever dreamt that idea up had 
> no idea about domain knowledge and how important it is to developing 
> products - a line encrypter and a Typhoon simulator, basically the same 
> thing surely? Another was when the project was going badly, which 
> apparently had nothing to do with how it was run but instead it was all 
> the engineers fault, the madcap idea was that a start of the week each 
> person would be given a set number of tasks/hours and they could only 
> work on them. It was pointed out that this just doesn't work for a 
> development environment but was rolled out a different site anyway. 
> After a month or so it was then quietly dropped.
> 
> Did I say two I meant three and this is a classic case of I read a book 
> so this will work. To try and have a more dynamic/flexible workforce 
> they looked at what Google did and decided that the office should be 
> painted in different bright colours, I kid you not. We said maybe having 
> coffee and tea making facilities would be a better use of the money!
> 
My experience of this kind of thing was when I was a programmer 
installing and supporting Computer-Aided Dispatch systems in 911 
centers.  The on-going tech support was done by programmers, usually the 
one who had done the configuration and worked with the client on 
training and testing before the system went live and had been there 
on-site for the first day or two of live use.  Programmers did the tech 
support because public safety agencies actually need problems fixed, not 
just script-monkeyed, so it was not uncommon that we would debug and fix 
source code.  The company had been doing this for 30+ years and had the 
reputation for being THE best vendor of CAD systems around because of 
the superior tech support.  Also the company's profits came from the 
tech support contracts.  The actual systems were borderline lose leaders 
despite their excellent reputation.

Owner decides to sell the company and the buyer was a construction 
company.  They built super-max prisons and embassies in "high risk" 
countries.  How much "support" do you think they provide after they had 
the keys to the customer?  So they look at the employee roster and don't 
see a need for all these expensive programmers, "We can use script 
monkeys."  So they attrition most of the programmers away any way they 
can (including me).  Over the next five years the company got sold 
again.  Then the company that bought it the second time got sold. 
Repeat again.  After that I lost track of the sales and mergers but 
there were several more over the next decade.

-- 
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky 
dirty old man.