Adam Orth Resigns Following Always-Online Twitter Comments

[Petromir]

The fact that this rumour of the Durango's always online has been around for months and MS hasn't quashed it means it has to be true. The fact that they made Orth resign over his asinine comments further cements that truth. I think Microsoft will gain the crowning achievement of making the first gaming device to fail due to always online and not be in relation to the PC.

Actually I'm leaning more towards the rumors being false or at the very least highly exaggerated, and most importantly I think they're being 'leaked' intentionally to lower expectations for the 720.

I'm guessing that they're going to unveil something that will be less than earth-shaking spec-wise, but compared to all of the 'sky is falling' rumors it'll look like a shining jewel. As a bonus they could even add spin that the rumors were all based on old information from early in development, but they're so 'customer experience focused' and 'forward thinking' that they decided on their own not to implement them.

But then I'm pretty cynical, especially when it comes to companies that are as sneaky as Microsoft.

I'd still say that the rumour is true. You do have a point, but keep in mind that MS has stocks on the market, and negative rumours cause stocks to drop. I doubt MS would let a rumour as negatively perceived as this go on for months in a market style that works off of confidence.

Denying a rumour is often like pouring fuel on a fire, it burns a lot hotter than it did before. For a start denying a rumour means you are giving it a certain degree of credibility, if it wasn't you wouldn't bother to deny it.

By allowing the rumour to bubble MS can create a bigger reveal when it doesn't. Plus the rumours mean a lot more is being said about their console.

 

[gphjr14]

Another instance of when keeping it real goes wrong.
Dude was probably just tweeting what he and other execs have been saying behind closed doors for years, he was just dumb enough to post it on twitter. Probably the same thing someone in EA said when they brought up the idea of always online.
If the guy deserves the slightest modicum of any respect its for at least being open about his douche baggery.

 

[Hawk eye1466]

I would say this seems harsh but considering all the rumors around the new xbox what with most of them being negative to neutral microsoft doesn't need an employee mouthing off and only giving credence to the rumors that the new xbox will be always online.

That being said firing him could be a good sign for the xbox what with how if it was true and microsoft didn't care what people thought he'd probably have been reassigned but they fired him, the bad press probably played a big role but on the other hand they could just want to distance themselves from the rumors and anyone who's seen to be confirming them true or not.

 

[SecondPrize]

I'd feel bad for the guy if he wasn't being such a giant ass about the whole thing.

Its said the whole thing is a back and forth of two friends trolling each other.

Something reporters fail to grasp, because that doesn't sell.

I heard that as well but conversations like that shouldn't be had on Twitter. The downside to being in a position like his is that you have to be careful with what you say while being publicly recorded.

It wasn't just two friends. That exchange has been posted on all the news stories about it, along with Orth's reply to another person. The whole thing wasn't him and Manveer trolling each other. Honestly, reading it, it doesn't even strike me as trolling. These seem like his opinions and he was stupid enough to think he could say them publicly with no repercussions.

While the guy is obviously a gigantic snob and an asshole to boot, I really hate how one misstep is always an automatic firing now a-days. Whatever happened to being punished and being allowed to still have the means to support yourself? What ever happened to demotions, suspensions, being moved to a different branch, or being internally fined?

Sure this guy caused a ruckus, but its not like he spent the last 18 months sexually harassing someone or been caught embezzling millions over the course of his career; he just had 1 lousy conversation on twitter.

Its not like all of Microsoft can never ever recover from this. Its stock didn't even drop the day the guy said it.

Why shouldn't you get fired for a "misstep" like this. This guy had two options, one was to tell people raising concerns about a product produced by the company he worked for to deal with it. The other option was to not do that. Which one is easier?
This wasn't an accident. This was either a ridiculous amount of hubris or a stupefying lack of understanding of how the world works. Sure, you could give someone who does this a second chance. You could also can his ass and easily hire someone who has yet to demonstrate that they're this stupid. Which is the safer bet?

 

[Sartan0]

I was not going to get an Xbox anyway. It was how he said it not what he said per se that caused the issue. I am fairly close mouthed on twitter and don't use my real name as it is. Just more of a reason to keep to that I think.

 

[J Tyran]

Yes, I'm sure he resigned much like I did; 'Resign or be fired'.

Sounds a hell of a decision to make. Resign so you're not fired from a job that future employers will be aware of, or be fired so he can actually have a severance package...

People in the US get severance pay if they are fired for misconduct? Thats interesting, I suppose this guy might have got something for resigning anyway if only to get him out the door.

No, you don't get severance when you get fired.

Severance is meant to be compensation for the loss of employment due to factors that the employee had no control over. It generally happens for layoffs, not firings or resignations.

A lot of people confuse firing with being laid off, but they're very different.

The reason you don't get severance when you get fired is that 'firing' typically means your employer terminated your employment for cause (you did something wrong), and they don't feel they owe you anything beyond what you've already earned.

Quitting a job is similar, except it's the employee who makes the decision to leave (usually because they are unhappy with the employer), and the employer likewise has no duty to provide anything beyond what the employee has already earned. There are exceptions but they're pretty unusual and almost always come about after lots of legal slapfighting.

Resignation is slightly different from all of the above: the employee isn't 'forced' to do it (like a layoff or firing) and the employer may provide some sort of compensation in return depending on the circumstances, but they're not required to since the employee is technically the one who decided to leave.

Of course 'resignation' nowadays almost always means that the employee was going to get fired anyway but might have grounds to make a messy legal fight of the issue, so the employer decided to throw some sort of compensation at the employee in exchange for leaving peacefully. Still not really considered severance so much as a pre-emptive settlement.

I am familiar with the concept... Thats why I asked if you get it for being fired for misconduct because I found it surprising if you did. Its called redundancy pay here but the idea is the same.

Actually I figured YOU had a decent grasp of the subject, otherwise you wouldn't have bothered to ask!

Everything beyond my first sentence was more aimed at the general reader who might not understand the difference.. I've been creating training materials for my department for a few months and tend to slip into 'boring lecture' mode without meaning to, my apologies if it seemed like I was talking down to ya.

I apologize if my tone came across as snarky then, its an interesting situation altogether though. Unless he had something in his contract forbidding him from discussing company policy casually (separate from confidential matters) or anything similar it might be difficult for Microsoft to out right fire him for any kind of misconduct, I imagine Microsoft paid him off and forced him to sign an NDA before asking him to resign.

He was an executive after all and thats a common practice whenever one suffers foot in mouth syndrome.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"Will Microsoft's damage control be enough to ease people's mind if always-online is actually a feature for the new console?"

Nooooooooooo.
It will not.
If it's always on I will not buy it.

Learned my 'always on' lessons plenty of times with WoW and Diablo 3, thank you very, very much!!!

 

[Doom972]

A shame, really. The thing is, the 'critic' the man was addressing was actually a friend he had a history of tongue-in-cheek verbally sparring with. This fact was completely neglected of course from any reports of the matter and now another career is down the drain. The kind of comments he made really should have been exchanged a little more privately...

Not really. They could've had this conversation in private, or in a way that only a selected group of people could read it, but they chose to have it in front of the whole world, while using their real identities. I don't feel bad for him.

 

[DTWolfwood]

his twitter must be blowing up with #dealwithit XD

Glad to see this swift and decisive action. The man is a butthole for spouting that kind of nonsense!

 

[BlackFlyme]

While the guy is obviously a gigantic snob and an asshole to boot, I really hate how one misstep is always an automatic firing now a-days. Whatever happened to being punished and being allowed to still have the means to support yourself? What ever happened to demotions, suspensions, being moved to a different branch, or being internally fined?

Sure this guy caused a ruckus, but its not like he spent the last 18 months sexually harassing someone or been caught embezzling millions over the course of his career; he just had 1 lousy conversation on twitter.

Its not like all of Microsoft can never ever recover from this. Its stock didn't even drop the day the guy said it.

It sucks, it really does, but that's the nature of large businesses now. One of the first things I was taught in my business communications course at college was that you always represent your business, whether you are at work or at home, regardless of whether you are a CEO or some drone on the factory floor.

Many businesses now keep track of their employee's facebook, twitter, etc., regardless of their level within the company, and are more than ready to punish employees who talk about their business in a negative light, or even for saying things that may turn away customers.

EDIT:

"...the customer centric approach we take to our products..."

If I'm offline, on the main main menu there's a great big box telling me to get online. If I'm online, that box is telling me to get Gold, while almost everywhere else is suddenly throwing adverts at me. I suspect that if I was on Gold, it'd be one dedicated advert box.

I just double checked that for myself. I learned 2 things.

1. You're right, it is just more advertising space. Though it occasionally shows 'Community Spotlights', whatever the hell those are.

2. The player 1 light on the front panel of my xbox has burned out. Anyone know how to replace those?

 

[The_Darkness]

"...the customer centric approach we take to our products..."

I'm sorry but... do they even know how the Xbox dashboard looks at the moment? It's designed for the advertisers, not the users. If I'm offline, on the main main menu there's a great big box telling me to get online. If I'm online, that box is telling me to get Gold, while almost everywhere else is suddenly throwing adverts at me. I suspect that if I was on Gold, it'd be one dedicated advert box.

This box I've been talking about? It's bigger than the option that plays the video games that are my only reason, as a customer, for having an Xbox. This is not a customer-orientated approach-

Oh wait.

The advertisers pay them money to advertise to people who own Xboxes... The advertisers are the customers they're referring to...
*Sigh*

Anyway, hopefully this recent bit of drama will help to discourage Microsoft from going with the Always-On idea. Although, judging from all the rumours we've been hearing, I doubt it.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Look's like he's been

(?_?)

( ?_?)>⌐■-■

(⌐■_&#9632
Disconnected

Seriously, fuck that guy. The sad thing is, he's probably telling the truth about what Microsoft thinks. I hope he's wrong but I doubt it.

 

[Product Placement]

You can see how these comments could have rubbed people the wrong way

No, really. I'm always kinda amazed by how dumbfoundingly consequence blind people can be sometimes, on very public public forums à la facebook and twitter, while using their personal profiles. If you work for a company, where PR matters allot, and you have a very high profile product, that's literally on the verge of being publicly revealed AND there's a very, very sensitive topic floating around the interwebs that your core customer group care greatly about, the absolutely last thing you want to do is push that exact topic in the worst way possible, especially if the company is attempting to introduce it in a positive light. It's no surprised that he's let go.

People really need to figure out that the internet has intertwined with the real world in significant enough of a way that whatever shitstorm you raise out there can easily reach back to your doorstep. A news flash about someone getting themselves fired over saying something stupid online is becoming a biweekly event.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I'd imagine Microsoft being closed-mouth about its DRM practice, then during the announcement they'd go "Just kidding! No always-online haha!!" kinda like how Apple spread rumours of its tablet being "super expensive" then it revealed to be just "very expensive" to make people talk about it.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Here I am again with my "I don't think comments made that are pertaining to a personal opinion rather than a company stance should be firing material or even considered". I don't think he should have resigned, or...been resigned...over this. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate the irony and it certainly doesn't mean I'm not glad to see him go. But no-one deserves to lose their job over a poorly thought-out opinion, or even over being a general dick to the extent that he was. I think this is damage control by Microsoft because they'd rather have opened the discussion on a different note and are trying to seperate themselves from Orth's opinions, and it's a pity that people can't make the distinction between a personal opinion and a company one without the compnay thinking there's a risk of confusing the two.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Fired for telling a bad joke....that's really quite sad (I am assuming the always online DRM xbox is not really happening)

However, if what he said was true, he has been fired for confirming something he shouldn't have.

No, he's been fired for causing fewer sales of the next console. It's not telling a joke when you're antagonizing customers and being a generally unlikeable fuckbend.

 

[Rule Britannia]

With any luck this will open Microsoft's eyes when they realise that nobody wants an always online console.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

A twitter and his job are easily parted.

 

[LoLife]

The moral of this story:
Don't have a Twitter account.

I think the moral of the story is "don't have a Twitter account if your a gobshite" =)

Oh no!

If he's jobless, that means he may not be always-online any more! How will he use his vacuum cleaner now?

Looks like Adam Orth will have too #dealwithit =D

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Well, what can I say, Karma's a *****. Also, you don't try to troll the internet with your stupid meme's or this will happen. You simply cannot win.

With that said, even if that guy got fired it still doesn't change anything. If X720 has always online, many console players will buy a PS4 instead or switch to PC. So either way, Microsoft loses. The ball is in their court.