Yep, it's time for a shareholder revolt. Vista is the biggest software development failure of all time, outside of the federal government. IBM's office vision was the previous record holder, with $900M spent.
You know, I've pondered for years what MS would do in this situation, when it became clear that the OS was a complete train wreck.
Apple was able to buy NeXT, but MS has killed off all of their viable replacements. OS/2, BeOS, PenPoint? All strangled by MS's anti-competitive (and illegal) tactics.
So, here's the way out: MS should swallow real hard, ante up half of what they blew on Longwind, and buy an OS X license from Apple. That would be about $10B up-front, and a hefty royalty. MS would have to assume the burden of making it run on all the crapbox PCs out there, which have had all the quality squeezed out of them, due to MS's having sucked up the lion's share of the profit from all PCs for the last 20 years or so.
The benefit is that MS could finally ship a securable OS, and the users wouldn't have to lose countless hours trying to work around the malware. Meanwhile, the only semi-competent part of the company, the Mac Business Unit, would take the lead in Apps development.
Microsoft is depriving some village of its idiot. Send him [Steve Ballmer] home.
Is this what Windows has become? An upgrade no one wants, forced upon them because the new hardware they're buying doesn't support anything less?
Compare this to OS X, where people fall all over themselves trying to get the newest version running on their old hardware because there's actual value in the new features.
So Vista has its guts ripped out, slips, and we wait another 5 years for a potentially insipring version of Windows, meanwhile Apple ships another 3 updates to OS X.
Vista - I wouldn't buy it [Vista] with someone else's money. Then again What do I know, I've only been testing the dog for the last 2-3 yrs...
It almost feels like the cement of bureaucracy has set in at all levels. Its unbelievable how much of a pain in the butt it is to get anything done. If you need a bug fixed and its in you team you usually have a small fight to put up, but God help you if that bug is in another team and you are dependant on the fix. Forget about usability, or doing whats best for the user experience, its all about doing less work and managing perception to the upper brass. Thank you for letting me vent.
I took part in a computer trade show early this month in Germany, and Microsoft was showing Vista, and the Microsoft fans were saying it looks like OS X (Apple wasn't there). Apple is on a roll, and we've just given them enough time to get the next version of OS X out the door (whatever animal name it is going to be). And we can guess right now what their marketing push will be: Stop waiting for those guys who can't even copy our old stuff in time. Get the original from us -- we ship on time, we're shipping right now.
Quality has gone down, not up, since the emphasis was changed from individual developer accountability to heavy-handed process initatives that allow little time for real work on improving quality.
I wonder how many employees at PC hardware companies are wishing they had some way to call up Apple and license OS X for Intel. They could have 10.4 "Tiger" on PC hardware in a matter of weeks.
It's just not ready - just as my stuff isn't ready, shell isn't ready, the drivers, the perf.. The screw up did not occur now, not one year ago but way before that.
Why, you ask, wasn't my stuff ready on time? Because everybody works the same way, only intensifying their efforts around milestones. Tests weren't run, bugs were laying dormant, people were allocated to side, pet projects and vendors only pay attention to pri 0 bugs older than 2 weeks (if not longer). It all shows up now, and it's all important. Yes, it's my fault for not screaming earlier, but there must be at least two of us, 'cause I didn't write Vista by me onesy. It's also the manager's fault, for he didn't take steps to streamline my work. It's his manager's fault, too, 'cause he didn't infer from the greater picture that things are not moving progressively. See where I'm going? It's all of us, and the higher the rung we're clinging to, the greater the responsibility.
Basically we do not believe Vista will make January 2007 or even March 2007. Anyone with any access knows what a frankenstein's monster NT is on the inside. At some point there is a law of diminishing returns trying to do anything to it at all, it seems like that limit is being reached today. The release is pushed back because of bugs but fixing those bugs will create more bugs. It is just godawful to be honest. And the process gets in the way at every step.
I want to be working on that, i need to feel like i'm creating something good, not fighting 10 years old cruft every step of the way.
In fact, people often played schedule chicken. It didn't matter if you were running late by the metric of the day as long as another group was running later.
What's the difference between OS X and Vista?
Microsoft employees are excited about OS X.
I'm only one-fifth of the way through reading that blog's comments. That reference is "schedule chicken" is very important. Google for it. Read what Johanna Rothman and Gerald M. Weinberg (among others) have written about it. It's a symptom of a very dysfunctional organization.
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