As reported on Businessinsider.com
by Megan Rose Dickey
In light of the news that former Windows head Steven Sinofsky uses an iPhone, Spark Capital partner Bijan Sabet wrote a post asking why former Microsoft employees end up using products from other companies.
Sabet noted how some might say Sinofsky is using the iPhone to evaluate the competition.
Well, that’s exactly the case, Sinofsky wrote in the comments.
“I have owned every iphone released (and every ipad and galaxy and kindle),” Sinofsky writes. “It is far better to actually use a product day in and day out so before CES I started using it and will use it for a month or so.”
Former Windows Phone boss Charlie Kindel also chimed in.
Kindel says he uses a variety of products from several different companies. His current phone is an HTC 8X with WP8, but has used “at length” all generations of the iPhone and Android devices.
Kindel uses a Macbook Air for personal computing, but runs Outlook for Windows on it using parallels. He says he mostly uses the MacOS for app switching.
Kindel says the best thing about MacOS is the track pad and its ability to switch between apps using gestures. He also appreciates the battery life on MacOS.
“I’ve tried almost all Windows based Ultrabooks out there and the MBA’s hardware simply blows them away … still,” Kindel writes.
Kindel says that ultimately, he cares about having real knowledge and being productive.
“One reason I think a lot of ex-MS people switch to Macs and iPhones is there is very real negative perception of ex-MS people in the startup ecosystem,” Kindel writes. “I, personally, get tired of ‘defending’ Windows Phone (but not enough to want to use an iPhone). Sitting in a coffee shop with a MBA and an iPhone is more ‘friction free” in the startup community than with a Thinkpad and a Nokia.”