Aug 3, 2009 - 1,945 views
Mike Downey … some warning or something else?!
Can’t really say that I had a huge surprise with Downey leaving Adobe to join Microsoft, however like all the rest of us I can say it messes up a little with everyone.
The reason for this post is first to congratulate Mike for the hard decision I believe he had, and to try to understand what were the motivations or des(motivations) with is well know career at Macromedia / Adobe to take a decision like this.
Was Silverlight or Microsoft that motivated him or could it be Adobe not giving anymore the motivation he needed.
Could it be possible in the near future some more guys like Lynch or Chambers follow his steps? Unfortunately or not it’s not the first case in this last year. Can this changes became normal?
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3 Comments, Comment or Ping
Anon
The only thing that would probably motivate such a move is of course… Money
If MSFT has no vision/innovation in house, they must buy it from elsewhere, and what better place to buy it from than Adobe. I’m just surprised that Adobe is so stupid that they didn’t have a good non-compete contract in place for such a high-profile employee.
Aug 3rd, 2009
Jonathan Kaye
I didn’t speak with Mike, but my understanding is that it was an unfortunatel consequence of Adobe layoffs. I imagine it’s kind of hard to enforce non-competes when the company fires you. I think it’s smart that MSFT snapped him up — he’s a talented and likeable guy.
Aug 3rd, 2009
GenoBaby
Mike was one of the unfortunate ones that got layed off from Adobe a few months back.
Aug 4th, 2009
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