Via Scoble I came across this attempted takedown of an "MS is dead" article (here). Well, let me address some of the arguments used Keith Warren:

Having a point to point argument with this guy would be like beating up a kid in a wheelchair but I thought I would bring up a few of the wackier points for good laughs.

“Shoddy software practices are forced on programmers due to incompetent managers which in turn produces the mess that is Longhorn.”

Those terrible managers and shoddy practices, that’s the problem. Please tell me though, do you know any of these managers? Can you detail these bad practices? Have you even seen the “mess” that is Longhorn?

Funny he should try and make fun of the original poster when he has such a weak argument himself. Calling Longhorn a mess is quite easy at this point - it's how late now? With how long before it gets released left to go? With how many supposedly critical features (can you say WinFS? I knew you could) missing?

Sorry Keith, but that's pretty much a textbook description of a mess. Heck, at this point I rather suspect that the Longhorn team is on a death march. Ultimately, when you have a failure this big you have to look to - wait for it - management. The programmers write code, but the product managers and the people they report to define project scope. I'd have to say that a rather large group of people there screwed the pooch. Badly. Not having visited Redmond, I can't say exactly what they've done wrong, but - based on what I can see from here, I'd bet darn good money that it has a lot to do with tight coupling.

Somehow, Apple manages to push new OS revs regularly. They must be doing something right. Keith is also dangerously assured of MS' long term success:

“News flash! Longhorn is going to be drastically overshadowed by Leopard and Macs running Intel.” -

So everyone will be excited for the 200 people who still use Macs while no one will care the 200 million + users will be getting an upgrade.

I'm not going to predict that Apple will be overtaking MS anytime soon - but I have noticed that - even with their premium prices they have managed to take a very strong position amongst the thought leaders in the IT sector. Go to a conference that isn't the MS PDC, and have a look at how disproportionate the share of Mac notebooks is in the audience. If you think that's meaningless... well, what can I say.

Sure, the "Apple Matters" guy is over the top. But he's got a few kernels of truth mixed in there, and Keith (and Scoble) would do well to pay attention to them.