In 1998 — eight years before Sony introduced the Sony Reader, and nine years before Amazon introduced the Kindle — Microsoft founder and then-CEO Bill Gates was shown a prototype e-reader.

He rejected it.

“He didn’t like the user interface, because it didn’t look like Windows,” a programmer involved in its development tells Vanity Fair in an upcoming story about the "downfall" of Microsoft, scheduled to hit newsstands in New York and Los Angeles Wednesday, and natonwide on July 10.

According to the article, the group who built the prototype was assimilated into the division dedicated to managing Office software. Former employee Steve Stone complained that the group was no longer able to focus on developing innovative technology that was useful for consumers. Instead, they had to think about how to make as much money as possible from Office.

Another former official has a different account: The issue wasn't profits, but the prototype's touchscreen. All of Microsoft's software products had been built to work with a keyboard, not a stylus or finger. The company was prejudiced against new technologies that would threaten sales of Windows.

Microsoft declined a request for comment.

Former employees went on to air a number of other past grievances in the article, including:

"Stack ranking." A management structure in which a set percentage of employees in every division are graded as top, good, average or poor performers, regardless of actual performance. "If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, two people were going to get a great review, seven were going to get mediocre reviews, and one was going to get a terrible review," a former software developer tells Vanity Fair. "It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.” Brian Cody, a former Microsoft engineer, adds, "It was always much less about how I could become a better engineer and much more about my need to improve my visibility among other managers."

Facebook-like status updates. One developer working on MSN Messenger told his boss they ought to give users the ability to post short-message status updates, which might have prevented young people from turning to Facebook so readily. "He didn’t get it," the developer recalls. "And because he didn’t know or didn’t believe how young people were using messenger programs, we didn’t do anything."

The article comes at a peculiar time. Microsoft's stock is trading up 15% from a year ago, following promising announcements about the next iteration of Microsoft's mobile OS, Windows 8 as well as the company's first tablet. Not exactly optimal timing, is it?