Me with my guest badge!

So for those of  you who don’t know or follow my twitter feed, my aunt is a IT Pro Advisor at Microsoft Canada.  You may also know that my opinion of Microsoft hasn’t been the highest (as expressed often in this blog).

The purpose of my visit was to ask successful people how they got to where they are in their field, which holds my interest.  The people were incredibly kind and interesting and really let me pick their brains.

One thing that did come up in two of the interviews were my previous posts about Microsoft on this site, and I believe some clarification is needed in that respect.  First off, I stand by everything I said.  I still believe that Microsoft’s advertising department can get a little out of hand.  That said, I don’t hold particular grudges against Microsoft products.  I am personally a MSOffice 2007 fan (and can’t wait until Office 2010 hits the cloud).  I choose not to use Windows because Windows doesn’t suit my priorities.  What I would like to clarify is that I do not think that Microsoft is some kind of “Evil Empire”, but rather just a company whose business practices I often take issue with.  That is not to disparage in any way the people who actually drive Microsoft products, but also recognizes that they are beholden to higher powers in ways many Open Source projects are not.

But about the actual MS Canada experience then:  They have a beautiful building in Mississauga, ON, where I toured.  The atmosphere is extremely open and energetic, and people clearly love their jobs.  I got to speak to two co-op students and a manager who does a bunch of marketing and event planning (who himself came from a Linux background, first working at Oracle and then Red Hat).  One student from Carleton pointed me in a very interesting direction as to which program to pursue at University (a program I had not considered – Public Affairs and Policy Management with a specialization in IT and communication, which I am really really looking in to ).

All in all, it was an excellent experience and has helped me see Microsoft less as a monolithic corporation and more as a place run by human beings.  While I will continue to disagree with Microsoft on many fronts, it has certainly given me the chance to see the other side of the coin.