Well, before I start saying what I don't like about Microsoft, I'd give the fair amount of credit to the company. The pay and benefits at Microsoft is superb, and the Seattle is actually pretty great in terms of weather, traffic, and environment in general. So I shouldn't complain too much about the company.
Yet BillG is gone now, and Microsoft is becoming more sales and marketing-driven day by day. Ballmer is a marketer, and he's promoted a couple of similarly-minded marketers. They all came from a marketing, business background. Not coming from a technical background, they conceive a picture of the product without any basis of reality, and assume that you developers can do it on time and on budget. Result? We got Vista, Office 2007, and other so-so products that takes 2 times the product cycle to finish. Turn-over rates for software engineers have never been higher.
In short, Microsoft is no longer the highly technical company it used to be. Marketers, "strategy" people, suits take over and are making the development process frustrating. Welcome aboard if you're an MBA type, think twice if you really care about software.
