Microsoft GitHub is Sunsetting Atom

Bizarre News out of Microsoft this week

Hey Guys,

I’m in summer mode so may be publishing less often. In June 2018, when Microsoft acquired Github, Nat Friedman, CEO at the time, reassured the GitHub community that Atom was alive and well.

Just a few years later fast forward to 2022, and Atom is dropping the software dev environment GitHub made in 2011. So sorry Atom!

The product was supposed to last. "Atom is a fantastic editor with a healthy community, adoring fans, excellent design, and a promising foray into real-time collaboration," said Friedman in a Reddit ask-me-anything discussion. "At Microsoft, we already use every editor from Atom to VS Code to Sublime to Vim, and we want developers to use any editor they prefer with GitHub.

Whatever you say Nat. On December 15, 2022 Microsoft's GitHub plans to turn out the lights on Atom, forever.

GitHub said that it will archive the Atom repository and all other repositories remaining in the Atom organization on December 15, 2022. Big surprise to see Microsoft molding GitHub and LinkedIn to suite its own needs like advertising and the Cloud. The social code biz said it's doing so to focus on cloud-based software.

Microsoft acquried Activision a company with leadership issues. Meanwhile apparent it has a few of its own. Microsoft’s HoloLens leader and creator has departed amid misconduct (sexual) claims. Alex Kipman led the AR goggles initiative apparently didn’t treat women junior to him that great (Bloomberg).

Alex Kipman, who had been with the Redmond, Washington-based software firm since 2001, was accused of inappropriate behavior toward female employees at Microsoft by current and former workers in an Insider report in late May. Not so Me Too at Microsoft apparently, though LinkedIn puts up a brave face employees have been leaving LinkedIn in recent times.

Alex Kipman is known as one of Microsoft’s ‘golden boys,’ executives who’ve been ‘untouchable’ for years but he liked watching VR Porn at work and such. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick knew for years about sexual misconduct at his company, and did nothing. Microsoft doesn’t care, it just wants their IP.

Microsoft acquirting GitHub has been at least a boon fir GitLab. But to see Atom go is bit sad. That relationship has now followed a paradigm Microsoft made famous: embrace, extend, extinguish (TheRegister), though the sunsetting of Atom looks more like pushing dead weight out of a cloud-bound balloon rather than a strategically advantageous hit. Oh well.

Microsoft Leaving Russia and Will be More Transparent

At least Microsoft can also make some progress. It was reported this week that Microsoft says it will not enforce non-compete clauses in U.S. employee agreements. (Reuters) Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday the company would stop enforcing existing non-compete clauses in the United States, while also committing to a civil rights audit of its workforce policies in 2023.

Microsoft also aims to have salary ranges (transparent) in all of the company's internal and external job postings across the U.S. by at least January 2023. Microsoft has also finally committed to slashing (Bloomberg) Cloud operations in Russia. More than 400 employees will be affected, although they aren’t leaving just shrinking their presence there for now.

GitLab on the other hand (once a rising competitor to GitHub), is showing growing profits (TechCrunch) even as some software startups and companies falter in the macro outlook.

US companies in tech and other fields have been winding down operations in Russia after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Microsoft last Thursday said it has cut its earnings and revenue guidance for the fiscal fourth quarter, effectively slowing down hiring considerably. If the most diversified BigTech company in the world is saying this, it’s really not a good sign.

Not so ‘Me Too’ at Microsoft

Golden boy Alex meanwhile had been the public face of the HoloLens initiative and his departure comes at a sensitive time for the project, as Microsoft is deciding on whether to continue developing its own AR hardware, according to two people familiar with the matter. Though some internal reports have suggested that HoloLens 2 is struggling with a huge military contract waiting in the wings.

Microsoft has sought to clarify the reasoning behind the imminent departure of HoloLens boss Alex Kipman. Microsoft has sought to clarify the reasoning behind the imminent departure of HoloLens boss Alex Kipman. It was a really bad sign for what we already knew, there’s some delays in HoloLens 2.

So why is it a big deal? The changes come as Microsoft waits on the fate of a $21.9 billion contract that may determine whether there’s enough demand for the HoloLens to continue the product’s development.

Microsoft finance chief Amy Hood had suggested in April that exchange rates could impact guidance. So instead of making $53 billion the quarter they might make $52b. well alright. Golden Box Alex Kipman was also recently the target of a Business Insider report alleging he was part of a culture of inappropriate behavior at the company. Apparently it took this not so silent outcry for Microsoft to finally do something about its Me Too defiance internally. Kind of sad.

Companies like Meta and Microsoft are always moving things around. Microsoft is now splitting its HoloLens mixed reality group and the HoloLens boss will be leaving the company during the reorganization "to pursue other interests." The HoloLens hardware has been moved into the Windows and Devices group. The mixed reality presence and collaboration group is to be shifted under the Teams umbrella. Meta has apparently abandoned its 2-year work on an AppleWatch competitor (Bloomberg). I’m pretty torn up about that as well, since you know Facebook they are so good at hardware (I joke).

LinkedIn’s version of the Creator Economy mostly has unfolded as a media hiring blitz some of whom are given Creator Manager badges without any actual monetization for Creators outside of LinkedIn Learning courses, a somewhat buried and highly inaccessible side of LinkedIn’s app. It’s competitor to Twitter Spaces and Clubhouse has been about 18-months late to the party.

Thanks for reading guys! Just some random things I noticed.