content: Another big difference (related to what @aaronC hit on as well) is that now a days Microsoft is no longer seen as a desirable destination for skilled developers. When I was going to school they were a top tier choice. Even for folks that didn't really like the company itself, they were still one of the absolute top companies you could possibly work for with great benefits, great environment, and a large number of exciting projects to work on. Now a days the top tier incoming talent at Microsoft is instead going to be full of rejects from other companies like Google, Facebook, the various less well known (but no less ambitious) silicon valley companies, and so on. This is a huge deal because what most folks outside of computer science (and likely even your median developer to some degree) may not appreciate is that software development is an incredibly skill based ability. Saying two programmers are about the same is similar to saying two baseball players are about the same. Getting the left overs seriously hurts a company like Microsoft that not only needs skilled developers for their projects but they need an enormous amount of them.