Who is to say that Vista won't be delayed beyond 6 months ?
Bob
· 3 years ago
It's good to see you commenting on this. However, that still falls far short of MSFT demanding a retraction and/or issuing a press release to flat out deny the allegation - especially since the article says it was confirmed. As a shareholder, I'm dissapointed enough in this latest Vista/Office fuckup, but if this data is not correct, then mgt owes it to investors/partners/customers/employees to clarify the situation. I'm finding the lack of such to be particularly telling and disturbing.
Rick
· 3 years ago
Re where the heck Scoble is (I kind of like it when you don't blanket your blog with 20 posts a day, so I'm not complaining), did you see this shot that Thurrott took today?
"And speaking of secret Microsoft projects, Todd Bishop of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" reports that Microsoft is working with chipmaker Transmeta on a mysterious hardware project. There are few details about the hardware project, but one must wonder if it has anything to do with the aforementioned portable video game unit. This much is clear: If Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble talks this one up, we'll all know it's not a big deal. Between Windows Vista and the sad little Ultra-mobile PC, that guy's been the kiss of death lately."
Bob: we're working on it behind the scenes too. But, yes, asking for a journalist to be fired is the same as asking for a retraction (and is actually worse).
Met: I've learned over and over to not bet on dates in the software industry. When I have the gold disk in my hands I'll let you know.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Rick, yeah, I saw that. I added that to this post.
Mike
· 3 years ago
Msg to Gabe : rating welcome.
Dave
· 3 years ago
Which is worse - exaggerating how much needs to be rewritten, or exaggerating when a product is to be released?
Which is harder - breaking something that works by "rewriting 60%", or making sommething that has 60% not working work right?
My point Robert is this:
Microsoft has very little ground to stand on here when they keep promising ship date and then retract them. When they retract them in PR-friendly tones like they did.
And I find it puzzling that - considering the poor timing of doing this while you were out of town - you take 48 hours between posts and instead of giving us some substance and inside knowledge into things, you decide to go off on someone for giving us JUST AS MUCH substance on things as you have!
Where's the transparency?
anon
· 3 years ago
Scoble, do you have any evidence that less than half of Windows Vista needs to be rewritten. For that matter, do you work in engineering or PR & marketing, where you're not going to be able to make a qualified analysis of what code is finished and what is not?
The WSJ printed an excellent article in October 2005 about problems in Vista's development, especially quoting Jim Allchin telling Gates "it's not going to work" without a complete overhaul. At that time, Longhorn became Vista and the majority of the featureset got scrapped.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Dave: the transparency is right here. I'm answering questions as fast as they come in. Where's this journalist and editor? Nowhere. Even you aren't willing to use your real name and tell us who your employer is.
Anon: stop changing the point. This headline said that 60% was being rewritten. That's absolutely not true.
And, when you quote from an article, can you please provide the URL so we can see the context of the quote that you are taking out of context? Thanks!
Daniel Nicolas
· 3 years ago
What if these guys where bloggers, re-linking a story?
Then all they'd need to do is say: Update: M$ says our sources were wrong. Sorry.
Right?
But now they need to be fired?
I do think they were wrong to do it, but let's be serious here. So much of MSM "journalism" is based on opinion, supposition, analysis of other's opinion, and rumors. So little fact checking is done that it's ridiculous. So much is biased opinion that they ought not to be fired.
It's like firing writers and editors of The Onion. That's where MSM has gone, IMO: to the laughability of The Onion.
anon
· 3 years ago
This headline said that 60% was being rewritten. That’s absolutely not true.
You don't know that.
On March 16, just days prior to the Vista delay being announced, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on national television saying that Vista was "on track". I don't think even he knows how much needs to be rewritten or not.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Anon: You don’t know that.
I do know that. Sorry. I've been using Vista for months and it certainly doesn't need a 60% rewrite.
Daniel: bloggers don't have as much credibility as those who are paid to write and report on news. Translation: how can you fire a blogger?
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Daniel: if a blogger had written this headline the story would never have spread. We believe those in the professional press. They have a higher responsibility because they are PAID to bring us the news.
Bob
· 3 years ago
Bob: we’re working on it behind the scenes too. But, yes, asking for a journalist to be fired is the same as asking for a retraction (and is actually worse).
Not shooting you. But it seems like it should be real easy. Steve picks up the phone to PR or better yet, goes on TV and categorically denies it. Of course, having reiterated that Vista was on track to ship this year as little as 30 days ago, his credibility at this point isn't high, but it would be a start. Also, multiple media sources are quoting folks saying that this is just the first slip and that there will be at least another. Please tell me that having fucked up this badly and publically, mgt didn't get extreme confidence and do some padding before coming up with the January date?
Nick Bradbury
· 3 years ago
You don't need to work at Microsoft to know this story is garbage. Rewriting 60% of code in *any* program is a major ordeal, but an operating system? That headline just screams "we don't know what we're talking about."
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Bob: as you said, we don't have a lot of credibility left on dates. So, I'm not gonna say anything about these ones until I have the gold disk in my hands.
There's also a little rule about PR. You don't fight those that use ink by the barrel or, modernized, have tons of readers. Certainly you don't call attention to some journalistic outlet that doesn't have much credibility to start with. Just makes them happy cause they get a bunch of traffic which translates into money via advertising.
Lincoln
· 3 years ago
Scoble: I generally agree with the statement that no major OS could be rewritten without breaking stuff, but the first thought that came to my mind was...
"Well of course Vista couldn't: everything is linked to everything else!"
Windows has gone beyond "macrokernel" to some whole other level (a "mundokernel" maybe?).
I'm just saying that this seems to be part of the problem: all of this product tying (Windows requiring IE as the most obvious example) is what is making the Vista release such a hassle.
I know that things are slowly working their way out (drivers now running in userspace and so on) but it's going to hurt for a few more years yet.
I think the IE example is kind of fitting, actually. For years, MS have been saying that the browser is necessary for the OS and for years, IT professionals in general (and security professionals in particular) have been saying that instead of it being necessary, it's actually a rediculously stupid idea.
Now, years later, IE7 is finally going to be separated from the OS... and MS want us to applaud them for it?
That's what's getting my goat, I think. Everyone but MS say one thing and yet for years they do something else. When they finally realise they were wrong and do an about face, how are we expected to react?
While the 'microkernel' / 'macrokernel' debate will go for on forever, I think most people have agreed that the level to which MS have integrated stuff is silly.
That's why I agree that it's impossible to rewrite Windows in 6 months, but in reality, if everything wasn't so spaghetti-tied together, it should not be as obvious an answer as it is...
My Lord, that's probably the most inarticulate piece of garbage I've ever written, so I hope someone can make out my point and reword it!
Dave
· 3 years ago
Apologies for mis-defining transparency Robert. But again....
"....I have not had time to get educated on this issue and so I’ll reserve most comment on it.
Various people are asking in my comments and in threads over on Channel 9 “where’s Scoble?” Translation: “why isn’t he commenting on this story?”
The answer: cause I don’t know enough about it and my readers have criticized me strongly in the past for shooting off my mouth before I know the full story....."
Robert Scoble, 7:44am, 3/22/2006.
. . .
Nearly 60 hours with one post, that about MySpace.
. . .
Finally silence is broken. A few days after the biggest negative moment for MS since, well, their last time when they prematurely announced UMPC technology.
One would hope for something of substance about what is happening. Key word? Substance. Maybe I'm in the minority here Robert, but what good is transparency without substance?
Instead we get yet another misdirect instead.
When Live was announced you spoke about how there would be all these neat things "real soon". January has long since passed. Not much buzz happening there.
When UMPC was demonstrated you spoke about how you would buy one with your own money. Funny, you didn't put a link (PDF, sorry) to the Gartner opinion that there's a long way to go before it is a viable and compelling piece of harware.
And now we have the Vista delay. After two days of "reserving comment" you come out with guns blazing to... fire some management at MS? Well, no. You appearantly think the absolute worst thing about this whole thing is how wronged MS is because someone is saying something false!
Substance versus Misdirection.
Transparency - you be the judge.
Bonza
· 3 years ago
Ah - written by Dave Richards in Australia. It all becomes so much clearer now. I worked in PR in Australia a few years back. I should be careful what I say but this does not surprise me at all.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
>IE7 is finally going to be separated from the OS… and MS want us to applaud them for it?
Who said that? IE is still integrated into several components of Windows (and several components of Windows, like the help system, still relies on IE being there).
Also, who at Microsoft wanted you to applaud? Please keep this discussion factual. I've been watching everything we've been saying and no one has ever asked for that. Please provide a blog post where a MSFTie asked for that.
Finally, have you ever built an operating system? Which one? Why should we assume you're an expert on anything you say? You don't even have the balls to use your real name and link to your own blog and/or resume.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Dave: you should have been at Mix06. Live.com was getting kudos all over the place.
The UMPC tables were the busiest ones all conference long.
Wow, thwe way this is spreading just shows that the everyday internet user has no idea of the kind of work involved in coding something like Windows. I was reading the news in spanish by peruvian bloggers in the morning...
BTW, I'm one of those guys who thinks that Windows has indeed many, many problems... and I don't expect much from Vista either. But hey, denying the things it does pretty well and the hard work by the people behind it is not fair either.
I wonder how many people would believe a story quoting something like: "60% of the almost ready 100-story building will be re-built". It might be an ugly building, maybe it's not very secure considering the bad neighborhood it's in, but you just can't do that.
Bob
· 3 years ago
Bob: as you said, we don’t have a lot of credibility left on dates. So, I’m not gonna say anything about these ones until I have the gold disk in my hands.
That's totally appropriate in your case and as stated, I appreciate you even commenting. However, it is NOT appropriate for the company generally imo given the stakes and the stakeholders affected. As pissed off as I am about this most recent slip, I understand the imprecise nature of software development (though not what appears to be chronic misestimation within the Windows team). What I don't understand and absolutely reject, is the avoidance, lack of candor and in some cases downright misrepresentation that typifies senior MS management communication. Allchin's email for example is a complete joke. The press release annnouncing the Sinofsky move as aiding "growth and agility" is similarly a joke. Do Bill/Steve think they can just bullshit their way out of problems vs facing them openly/honesty and directly? Is that what they want MS to stand for? No need to answer that btw since I'd like you to keep your job :-) IMO, Ballmer should stand up, take direct responsibility for the failure, apologize personally for reiterating the timeline as recently as last month and then give an unequivocal statement on where things are at and what the confidence level is in the new dates. That would be leadership, that would be accountability, that would be honesty and doing your job as a CEO. And along the way, he might just win over a few company detractors not to mention convince shareholders like myself that he should stay on despite 5 years of evidence to the contrary.
kalbzayn
· 3 years ago
Demanding somebody gets fired from their job before finding out what happened is pretty knee jerky...or maybe just jerky.
Demand to find out what happened...sure. But save the calls for termination until you have a chance to find out what actually happened. Then, if they screwed up as badly as it looks right now then you can start asking for firings.
Right now you sound just as sensationalist and wreckless as the people you are complaining about.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
>No need to answer that btw since I’d like you to keep your job.
Heheh. Personally, I feel perfectly fine agreeing with you. They did ask me to do a Channel 9 video, but the story leaked before we got a chance to sit down and do it properly. I think that was part of the problem here too.
I've been urging senior leadership to just speak clearly and forthrightly when they announce stuff like this. But, just goes to show that I'm not in PR.
PR needs a blogger in the worst way. Someone who can answer questions in real time and get key stakeholders on the phone (or even better, in front of a video camera).
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
>kalbzayn: Demanding somebody gets fired from their job before finding out what happened is pretty knee jerky…or maybe just jerky.
kalbzayn, what happened is someone wrote a story without getting any factual evidence and an editor made it worse by running the story and making a sensationalistic headline. When crap like this gets into print at a professional news outlet, there needs to be consequences. Obviously I don't have the ability to get anyone fired. That's up to these folks' bosses. But this story did pretty significant damage. Who's gonna pay for my time (and for other people's time who are dealing with this?)
AV
· 3 years ago
I had not heard of this story till I saw it on your blog! So, you might be giving a 'halo' effect to this no-name reporter from a no-name publication. When there is a vacuum, some obscure will capitalize.
If Vista were a car from GM, wouldn't they have to tell the industry whether they have a problem with the tires, transmission or the gear box?
The first line of the press release says, "... is on target to go into ..." If you want to fire the journalist, why don't you also fire the PR person who used creative fiction to announce a schedule delay?
kalbzayn
· 3 years ago
I'm assuming that all the people that buy new computers with Vista installed on it are going to pay for it. But, I don't think that people that sit around buying computers and OS's for companies are going to be all that concerned about an article that just doesn't sound all that believable. And the rest of the world that just buys whatever OS comes installed on their computer aren't going to care how many lines of code it is rumored to need having rewritten. I'm having trouble believing that Microsofties are going to be tightening their belts to make it through the stock down turn created by this article. But who knows. Maybe I'm wrong.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
AV: this post was already on the top of Memeorandum. It was getting mentioned on A list blogs all over the place. It had to be responded to.
As to the rest of this: when we find a problem in our software that puts our customers at risk we do have a disclosure process.
As to PR: heheh, coming up with creative writing is part of their job!
Lincoln
· 3 years ago
>IE7 is finally going to be separated from the OS… and MS want us to applaud them for it?
Who said that? IE is still integrated into several components of Windows (and several components of Windows, like the help system, still relies on IE being there).
OK, so the first 'half definitive' link I could find was at http://www.businessweek.com/mediacenter/podcast... . No, it doesn't say that it's 'uninstallable', but it does say that it "loses much of the privileged relationship with Windows". Other links said that it is only being separated from Windows Explorer and from what I had read (and can't find right now) the components that were still required were from the IE6 code. From the way I understood it, IE7 was a browser only, while IE6 code was still used for the 'Windows components'.
Also, who at Microsoft wanted you to applaud? Please keep this discussion factual. I’ve been watching everything we’ve been saying and no one has ever asked for that. Please provide a blog post where a MSFTie asked for that.
You got me: no-one asked for an applause, I was just using a figure of speech. Generally, however, companies do not do things that will be seen as annoying their customer base... so I must have incorrectly assumed that with this separation, it was an attempt to make the user happy.
Finally, have you ever built an operating system? Which one? Why should we assume you’re an expert on anything you say?
No, I haven't built an OS. I don't recall which one you wrote, though, so... Sorry, just playing :)
You're right, but I wasn't even trying to be taken as an expert. Your reaction, however, makes me think that you believe that the deep inter-relationship between parts of Windows does not cause problems? I don't know what you believe, so it's an honest question.
I do wonder, though (and still honestly), if this is not a problem, why bother pulling the driver stuff out in to user space when it was put there in the first place for speed? Hey... who knows, I could have all my wires crossed and I'm always willing to learn (and eat my words).
You don’t even have the balls to use your real name and link to your own blog and/or resume.
Ummm... 'Lincoln' is my real name. Maybe you meant my full name or something? I don't blog (for proof: watch how badly formatted this message comes out!) and I don't have a resume online, but does that make my questions / arguments / discussion any less valid?
anon
· 3 years ago
I do know that. Sorry. I’ve been using Vista for months and it certainly doesn’t need a 60% rewrite.
Robert, the fact a software product is "usable" isn't evidence it doesn't require a total rewrite or rearchitecture in order to add new features to it. Think of it like a suspension bridge, you can't just "add" lanes to it indefinitely without reworking the suspension architecture.
Back in the day, MacOS 8 worked fine for me, but it had reached the end of the line and rather than rewrite, Apple started over on a *bsd model.
Any chance of Microsoft doing that? It could potentially be a good product.
Bob
· 3 years ago
PR needs a blogger in the worst way. Someone who can answer questions in real time and get key stakeholders on the phone (or even better, in front of a video camera).
Perhaps, but this issue isn't just a standard PR one - you're talking a major rumor following a major embarassing delay on one of your core cash cows. IMO, what MS really needs is a senior leadership team that demonstrates via their actions that they value honesty vs "truthyness" and take personal ownership/accountability (especially in a case of this magnitude) vs just demand it from others. This isn't something you should have to lobby for, it should be your minimum expectation. It certainly is mine. Anyway, over and out and thx again for not being afraid to at least face the music on behalf of the company. If they're going to pull more boners like this, you should put in for a pay raise :-)
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Anon: rewriting Windows would require doing what Apple did: breaking compatibility with old apps. I don't want to see that happen. We did that with Visual Basic and suffered deeply as a result. That said, we are doing research into OS design. Have you watched the videos on the research project code-named "Singularity?"
Lincoln: >I don’t recall which one you wrote, though, so...
Good point, but I hang around with people who build OSs so am passing along their words more than mine.
>Your reaction, however, makes me think that you believe that the deep inter-relationship between parts of Windows does not cause problems?
It causes problems, but also makes it a platform that Windows developers can rely on. Howso? Ever write a help system? If you know there's an HTML rendering engine around (which you can on Windows due to the IE integration) it makes it a lot cheaper and easier to do. See, every feature both solves problems and brings more complexity, which could bring more problems. The trick isn't to get rid of the feature, but to get rid of the problems.
>does that make my questions / arguments / discussion any less valid?
Actually, it does. Because we don't know what your expertise and/or biases are.
Bill Faulkner
· 3 years ago
Robert, go a bit easier on Windbag Thorrott. Looks like the times mau a little tough for him lately. Seems he is holding a yard sale on his blog site to drum up a little cash. He is offering copies of early Windows OSes for sale, I hope they aren't NFR editions.
>a major embarassing delay on one of your core cash cows
Bob, this is embarrassing, but it's not a huge delay on a project with thousands of people working on it. To make Christmas retail it would have needed to be out by August. When we missed Beta 2's dates we could see that wasn't going to be done.
It's a messy story, no matter how you tell it, cause we really wanted it to be done by August, but I'm glad they weren't willing to push out a crappy product just to make a date.
Brian Sullivan
· 3 years ago
Robert:
I think you are way out of line here -- calling for firing of people, especially journalists. I just reread the article -- it does not claim (but I can see where it might be taken that way) that 60% of Vista code will be rewritten before release either in the headline the blurb at the top of the page nor the article itself.
In fact the article is in no way sensational --- only the headline itself.
The claim is that 60 % of Vista is scheduled to be rewritten -- which probably has a lot of truth in it. Now admittedly the way the headline and blurb are presented and the juxtaposition of information is perhaps deliberately inflammatory. And a large number of people (including you) seem to have taken the bait.
I can't see where any damage is done here to Microsoft. I think if anything you have damaged the reputation of the people involved in writing the article. In fact the current situation is largely of Microsoft's own making (I would call it a self inflicted wound) and if you are calling for firings you should look internally in Microsoft to place the blame.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Brian: I am not overreaching here. The claim that Vista is being, even in part, rewritten is totally false. It has NO truth in it. Vista is code complete at this point and the only parts that are being rewritten are when there are bugs. Go over to Channel 9 and see how team members read this. In fact, go to your own blog and see how YOU reacted to it. You didn't question the headline.
Journalists NEED to at least get some people from Microsoft on the record when they report stuff like this. Journalists are trained that there are two sides to every story. I got an F when I went to press with only one source (their source was even worse, an anonymous one). Sorry, this is TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE journalism. And it did deep damage. You aren't seeing all the people who are getting calls on this and you aren't seeing all the time that's wasted when a journalist just prints something they think is plausible without checking it out.
Jon
· 3 years ago
"I’m having trouble believing that Microsofties are going to be tightening their belts to make it through the stock down turn created by this article."
The stock downturn is probably because of a number of new developments that have surfaced and not because of the 60% article:
All I can say is, if the OS *really* needs 60% of its code to be re-written, the put-up or shut-up evidence will be in the next CTPs. I'm an experienced software Engineer and you *cannot* re-write 60 percent of an application the size of Windows without major, *MAJOR* issues in the time frame proposed. Not successfully. There will be lots of evidence: major file-size changes, # of files, , code fragility manifestations, etc..
Time will tell, but I'm siding on the Scobleizer for now. Thanks for the transparency, Robert.
Brian Sullivan
· 3 years ago
So you are saying there is no plan anywhere in Microsoft that indicates that any Vista code needs to be rewritten at any time in the future? I would think that probably incorrect -- given the long planning cycles.
BTW the story in this case seems to have very little to do with the headline -- so the journalist in this case is probably not part of the picture. At worst it was a poorly written headline. And maybe as you say it was deliberate. My reaction to it was perhaps predictable but if you reread my weblog you will see the 60% info was peripheral to what I was talking about.
Perhaps nobody can see past the headline and read the story?
As I said though this mess is largely of Microsoft's making and the people getting the calls should look inward instead of outward for the root cause of their calls and frustration
Jay
· 3 years ago
"Where the heck is Scoble?"
I thought he was actually locked in a room, playing Oblivion.. :)
Bob
· 3 years ago
When we missed Beta 2’s dates we could see that wasn’t going to be done.
You mean the beta that Allchin publicly stated MS just decided not to do in favor of the CTP? Again, not trying to be argumentative, but that's what I mean by "truthyness" vs honesty from Snr. mgt.
It’s a messy story, no matter how you tell it, cause we really wanted it to be done by August, but I’m glad they weren’t willing to push out a crappy product just to make a date.
Totally agree with the importance of getting it right vs making a ship date (esp after 5 years). But like I said earlier, if Nov and Jan slip as well, MS's credibility will be zero and knowing that in advance, management should have selected those dates only if they felt they were 100% achievable. If the real confidence is nil and those dates were selected simply to ease into another delay a few months from now (as is being widely reported), then MS's "truthyness" will simply be exposed for what it really is - lies. I'm giving mgt the benefit of the doubt one last time but I'm less than optimistic. Anyway, I really am going now. BTW, at some point an interesting Channel 9 interview would be why MS doesn't simply switch to either a BSD core or Singularity or some other more modular/lighter weight kernel. Presumably there are some things that would buy along with a number of things it wouldn't (i.e. Windows architecture advantages)? We hear all about the obvious baggage of the current Windows architecture but there must be some good things right? :-) I've looked all over for even one whitepaper discussing the pros esp vis a vis Linux or BSD and have yet to find one. As you can imagine, there is no shortage of ones arguing the reverse. Just a thought...
Brad
· 3 years ago
Did it do deep damage? MSFT hasn't moved in after-trading. Talk is cheap: how about those who believe this story short MSFT, now that they "know" Vista is less than half done.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Brad: stock price isn't the only way to damage a company. Who is gonna give me my time back?
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Bob: we already asked that question in the Singularity video we did. It's very easy: compatibility. Apple broke compatibility with its existing applications. If we did that you'd see Apple's market share double overnight.
Jim Benson
· 3 years ago
Wow, hard day for the Scobleizer....
We are becoming used to a rapid release world where things come out one feature at a time. We get worked up about Writely and Ajax apps with very limited functionality.
Windows Vista, on the other hand, can not be released in iterations. It has to be released all at once - or the majority of it any way.
This means that Microsoft has to make its best guess at a release date and live with the consequences. Could they develop the OS in a more agile way? Probably. But they aren't.
How many of us are really waiting on pins and needles for Vista anyway? It will be nice when it arrives, but until then how is our lives adversely impacted?
I'm seeing here a bunch of people who are anxious to rag on Microsoft and less people really hurt by a delay in shipment.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
>At worst it was a poorly written headline.
Then an editor should be fired. But the headline is being repeated. Several times already. So, yes, people are buying the totally false headline.
>So you are saying there is no plan anywhere in Microsoft that indicates that any Vista code needs to be rewritten at any time in the future?
Not in the Vista timeframe. We're locked down except for fixing bugs for the most part. Vista was demonstrated publicly at Mix06 (attendees could play with it) so the system itself is fairly far along and no plans that we know about to rewrite parts of it for Vista are underway. Now, for Vienna? Of course, but that's not what the story or the headline said.
Rick
· 3 years ago
Is keeping a resume online standard practice these days?! It seems to me it's foolhardy to do so, since it gives a potential identity thief that much more information to work with. Once information is out there into the caches of the search engines, it's essentially there forever.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Rick: OK, but keeping a blog is definitely a great way to establish credibility and help your career.
Dave
· 3 years ago
#49...
"This means that Microsoft has to make its best guess at a release date and live with the consequences. Could they develop the OS in a more agile way? Probably. But they aren’t."
Here's the problem with this. MS - partiicularly after this - comes off as though they did exactly the opposite.
(1) The show some bits in PDC '03 and speak of three pillars.
(2) They totally backtrack off this and instead incorporate parts of each pillar in XP, as Vista, or as something to be released after Vista.
But it's #3 that really is hurting them now.
(3) They make an announcement in summer 2005 that sounds like features be damned... we're releasing by end of 2006 and would rather drop any unfinished features instead of missing - yet another - scheduled ship date.
This isn't how projects, even gigantic projects like this, should be managed. Others are right here - it's mainly a self-inflicted wound.
scott
· 3 years ago
Instead of quibbling about the sorry state of technology journalism I think we should be discussing why Microsoft can't make a better product.
Daniel Nicolas
· 3 years ago
"Daniel: if a blogger had written this headline the story would never have spread. We believe those in the professional press. They have a higher responsibility because they are PAID to bring us the news."
I should have been more transparent with my point:
The "Professional Press" have become very unprofessional, and this is just another example of why I laugh.
... - but I agree with you - people, especially ones who are paid to do such things, should research, fact-check, not lie, etc.
Lincoln
· 3 years ago
Good point, but I hang around with people who build OSs so am passing along their words more than mine.
It's all good... I believe that Henry Ford once said that the collective knowledge of his staff was his knowledge for the taking. That is to say, he knew the sum of everything they knew, as he was able to ask them for that knowledge at any time.
If you know there’s an HTML rendering engine around (which you can on Windows due to the IE integration) it makes it a lot cheaper and easier to do. ... The trick isn’t to get rid of the feature, but to get rid of the problems.
I absolutely agree with that. I think the problem is when things get 'too' integrated. The same functionality could be achieved by a cleanly separated, linkable library that just does HTML rendering. But for some reason we can embed executables into an HTML page as ActiveX and let it run...
Actually, it does. Because we don’t know what your expertise and/or biases are.
I would say that what I say should be argued against despite who I am. Knowing my full history can only show if I have a bias: it can't show that I don't have one. If what I say is wrong, it's wrong. If Stephen Hawking said tomorrow that the world is flat, it doesn't make it any more true :)
I don't think calling for people to be fired is any more appropriate here than when someone-whose-name-shall-not-pass-my-lips claimed a while back that Sinofsky should be fired.
benlormat
· 3 years ago
from Paul Thurrott's Wininfo Sort Takes:
Transmeta Working on Secret Microsoft Project And speaking of secret Microsoft projects, Todd Bishop of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" reports that Microsoft is working with chipmaker Transmeta on a mysterious hardware project. There are few details about the hardware project, but one must wonder if it has anything to do with the aforementioned portable video game unit. This much is clear: If Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble talks this one up, we'll all know it's not a big deal. Between Windows Vista and the sad little Ultra-mobile PC, that guy's been the kiss of death lately.
Larry Borsato
· 3 years ago
Robert says: Vista is code complete at this point and the only parts that are being rewritten are when there are bugs.
Really? Perhaps we have a semantic issue here. When you find a bug you don't "rewrite" the code; you just fix the bug. Using your terminlogy, if 60% of the code has bugs, then 60% would need to be "rewritten", while most people would says that substantial fixes are required. This could just be a simple misunderstanding.
By the way, editors and journalists do make mistakes. Calling for their firing is an extreme solution. Would you fire the Windows management team if they missed a ship date? Oops. Couldn't resist. :)
Jeremiah Owyang
· 3 years ago
Robert
Excellent job of handling the situation and communciating (even when tired)
keep up the good work keeping the world informed
I remember a few years ago, when the public had to rely on press, or press releases to get news.
I welcome your comments anytime, regardless if you're a day late from travelling.
So are you UP or Down from vegas gambling? When I saw you last you were up.
[GEEKS ARE SEXY] Tech. News
· 3 years ago
Of course it's false! Microsoft has been working on vista for FAR TOO LONG for something like this to happen.. just imagin how long it would take to write back 60% of it? Completely RIDICULOUS.
Dmad
· 3 years ago
Scoble, you should ask for your money back from SJSU on those journalism classes you supposedly too. The article does not say 60% of the code will be rewritten before ship. Moreover, I don't think anyone considers this random web site anywhere near MSM. In fact, I'd never heard of it until you linked to it. As they say, ACPOTI. Now, if this headline was on WSJ, in Wired Magazine, or the NYT, then you'd have a more valid argument (then again, it would would be very likely the NYT would report it, given their recent history)
I also found this interesting...
"bloggers don’t have as much credibility as those who are paid to write and report on news. Translation: how can you fire a blogger?"
Wait a minute... I thought blogging was the "new media"? The I guess we shouldn't put much credence in anything we see on Memeorandum?
Last, get over yourself. Of course everyone on the Windows team is going to deny the story, even if it was true. Particularly if they know you are going to blog about it.
Jason
· 3 years ago
Robert,
First, thanks for being a sounding board at a time when half the world is spinning about this news with no "official" word from the company.
Second, I don't want to get involved in the game of whether someone should be fired and/or whether you have the right to demand that...
but I DO want to speak to the issue of semantics. Certainly, the headline was sensationalistic. But relative to what the end result means, I would contend [as a long time and vocal Microsoft shareholder FYI] that the REALITY of this news is potentially far more damaging and disappointing.
Let's accept for a second that Vista is NOT in need of a 60% code re-write, or even a 10% code re-write. What we still don't know is:
A) When will Vista go gold and be GA for consumers? B) How could a company the size and import of Microsoft not have been intimately aware that Vista wasn't going to be GA in January just a few days ago when they came out and assured the world it would be!?!?
As a shareholder who happens to be quite familiar with the software world, I can accept delays in ship dates on occasion. But the cold hard facts are Microsoft's return in R&D spend has been diminishing in dramatic fashion over the years and the company, as an investment, DESPERATELY needs Vista to ship and be the sea changing OS we've been led to believe. Plain and simple.
That's not hyperbole, that's the honest truth.
Something of this magnitude NEEDS to be addressed at the highest levels of Microsoft. We need Ballmer or Bill front and center, giving a line-in-the-sand declaration on the state of Vista and Office 2007, explaining exactly when to expect the products and why, despite the largest coding force in the world, the company can't meet deadline after deadline after deadline.
anon
· 3 years ago
what happened is someone wrote a story without getting any factual evidence and an editor made it worse by running the story and making a sensationalistic headline.
Robert, what happened to Steve Ballmer saying Vista was on track on March 16, 2005 in a nationally-televised interview on a "financial" channel (MSNBC), then two days later Microsoft announces that's not true? Should anybody be fired for that?
And, BTW, what's up with that link requiring me to use proprietary garbage like Internet Explorer to view it? Firefox has played WMP files for me perfectly in the past. Did Microsoft learn ANYTHING from the antitrust trial or are you still trying to tell me it's too complicated to make a video play back in standards-compliant, not Windows-only web browsers?
Dave
· 3 years ago
#61 - Jeremiah:
"Excellent job of handling the situation and communciating (even when tired)
keep up the good work keeping the world informed"
Please explain yourself. Particularly the bit about keeping us informed. Robert is doing his job - for sure. But doing an excellent job of keeping us informed? That just has me dizzy over figuring out what you mean.
Oh, and that is meant with no disrespect to Robert. He's simply a guy in the middle here. He's fond of talking about how hard it is to turn a ship with 55,000 (now 57,000?). Well, this week proves it.
Still - he did nothing to "keep us informed".
cc
· 3 years ago
You are the man Scoble and I agree. I look forward to seeing Vista, just hope it doesn't kill off the 3rd-party software vendors.
Dave
· 3 years ago
Aplogies. I was rather easy on Robert since I noticed he had made another post mentioning the big guys at MS.
Silly me - I thought from the title (misleading as it was) that he might actually talk about the bad news in "informative" ways. Go figure... instead all he wanted to make we remember is that he had lunch with them.
Silly me.
So Robert - did Ballmer lead you on like he did the rest of that group that Forbes so clearly talked about? Or were you simply listening with glazed eyes like everyone else?
Please. Minds wish to be "informed". Why - WHY - such silence over Longhorn... LongYawn?... Vista... Horizon? It's not "a few weeks" over deadline. Try a few years.
Business doesn't care until things get to x.2 releases. So I'm guessing it matters more about "people" now. (I refuse to deal in marketing-speak, so I'll refrain from the MS approved phrase.) But you've delayed Vista for "people" now for 2+ years. And still no end in sight.
Sucks to be an MS employee, huh?
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Jason: I am not going to get into dates. When I have the gold disk in my hands, I'll let you know. But, I'll report that the schedule says it'll go gold in November. It'll be available to consumers in January, according to the schedules. I'm sure if you have an MSDN account that you'll get it in November (that's what's happened ever since Windows 95 -- it takes two months to get it into consumer channels).
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Dave: Ballmer didn't tell me anything. I haven't listened to his interview yet, so not sure how incorrect he was or wasn't. I'm on the way home from Petaluma with my son (pulled off for Burger King and am commenting from there, thank you to Verizon card!) We're about two hours away from home, I'll listen when I get home.
If he said that it's on target to be released by the end of the year, then he'd be correct. That's what the target is.
>We need Ballmer or Bill front and center, giving a line-in-the-sand declaration on the state of Vista and Office 2007, explaining exactly when to expect the products and why, despite the largest coding force in the world, the company can’t meet deadline after deadline after deadline.
Because this is software. It's done by imperfect human beings. It's not done by a machine. When you get thousands of human beings to work together doing anything, let me know, OK?
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
>Last, get over yourself. Of course everyone on the Windows team is going to deny the story, even if it was true.
Dmad: you get over yourself. That's absolutely not true that people will lie to me openly. If they are willing to do that, I'm willing to out them. You are a troll and one that's quite rude and probably is working for a competitor anyway. Who knows, we have no idea who you are.
Anon
· 3 years ago
BWT, the journalist is the editor and then the company owner, so good luck in getting him fired.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Anon: well, in that case he just fired his credibility as a tech journalist and has proudly started a hoax and we all fell for it. Wonderful.
Dmad
· 3 years ago
Scoble, I never suggested people would openly lie to you. It's not beyond the real of possibility, however, that they would not be completely open with you, knowing that you will likely do a name-dropping post. You have officially been assimilated.
Why so defensive? Do you require everyone you have a "naked conversation" with to hand you their resume beforehand? It seems whenever someone questions your credibility you fire back with the irreleant ad-hominem comment about their credibility. This is YOUR blog. You are the one that needs to maintain credibility, not the ones that comment.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Sigh, here's another "professional" who is repeating this headline: ttp://aecnews.com/news/2006/03/24/1492.aspx
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Dmad: you need to have credibility to be taken seriously as part of the conversation too. I'm being defensive because people like you are attacking without being honest and open about who you are and what your position is. It leaves me in the position of being forced to respond to every damn stupid thing you say and most if it is damn stupid.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Dave: Jeremiah has credibility here. You have none. Jeremiah is a technologist at Hitachi Data Systems. Who are you? Nothing more than a troll who attacks, doesn't tell us anything about who you are, or what your biases are, and we can't meet you at conferences. We can't call you on the phone. We've just gotta listen to your trash. So excuse me. Jeremiah is 1000 times more credible than you are on ANY topic here.
Dave
· 3 years ago
Got it Robert. Now I understand allegiances and how you treat long time commentors, and people who email you.
Until today I found you to be very nice - then you decided to twice take me to task because I won't give you my last name (which BTW my emails to you do contain).
That's enough for me. Unsubscribed. Too bad - I would've liked to know why you have this blind spot for RSS over Atom - as your latest post clearly says.
Anyways, I wish you the best! And please, someday tell us outsiders what REALLY has been going on at the company you work for this past 12 months. So far I don't think you've been "transparent" enough on this subject....
Peace!
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Dave: >Anyways, I wish you the best! And please, someday tell us outsiders what REALLY has been going on at the company you work for this past 12 months.
I've done more than 600 interviews, most of which are an hour long. You're welcome to watch them. They give you far more insight into the company than anything that I could post here.
Personally, I don't even know which Dave you are. There's no way for me to see who you are from your postings here and no way for me to match your name up with emails you've sent me.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Dave: oh, and it's pretty clear that you can dish it out but you can't take it. Coward.
met
· 3 years ago
I'm another coward who doesn't have anything to link to :) What am I supposed to do? Start a blog so that Scoble will listen to me?
You didn't take your vacation Scoble?
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
met: yes. Starting a blog WOULD make you more credible. Not to mention using a real name. And being someone who shows up at geek events once in a while.
I did take a vacation. You didn't notice that I didn't post for a few hours this week? :-)
Barrie
· 3 years ago
I wandered in here to try and find an honest rationale for the Vista Delay other than corporate incompetence but I still have yet to read one. Why is Microsoft not presenting a straightforward and factual reason for the delays thus far regarding this new OS.
Truthfully I'm content with the Microsoft products I have used for the past couple of decades (literally all of the consumer and office software made by MS) I've also used every OS that Microsoft has released without much hassle!
I take 'Patches' and 'Fixes' in stride (The world is imperfect in all venues) .... I do not however understand (to use an analogy) why from the expectant consumers vantage point it appears that at Microsoft right now the left hand is somewhat broadly disconnected from what the right hand is doing.
A company of Microsofts stature (and accomplishments/expertise) should have a little more management finesse when it plans for the development timeline of a major software product and its release date. The whole scenario smacks of a series of almost ironic Dilbert cartoon strips at the very core of the company.
PS: Bob I'm no tech Geek or expert in anything ... despite spending about 10,000 hours using these infernal machines ... I'm still just a well worn 57 year old Canadian writer (Not about Technology) who works and plays from a home office ... I'm competent in using the technology of the age by way of reading and applying others instructions/knowledge ... I can Wow them in my small village and among family and friends by what I can do with the software and hardware on a beige box (or White, Black, Grey & even Multicoloured) but it wouldn't cut me much slack or attention in a tech-lab ... but out here where it counts I can 'produce' results with the best of them using more applications than it is safe to give an old codger ...
So my 'Bias' - as such - is that of a 'User' in the 'Real World' .... just thought I should add that as you have concerns about who one is and where they are coming from (Oh yes -- I have no tech stock [0]in my limited investment portfolio)
Thanks for the very current Blog postings Bob ... but in closing I must reiterate that I still would like to read unadorned words sans sarcasm about why incessant delays are now so commonplace at Microsoft?
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Barrie: have you ever worked on a project with thousands of people? Ever tried to get something done on time with them? Ever slipped?
The problem is, how do you explain this? I know a book publisher. He often has single authors who miss deadlines. How do you explain that?
It isn't something that you can really explain to anyone's satisfaction. If we knew the problem totally we'd fix it. We're studying the problem. We're trying to get better. Software delays are nothing new and nothing exclusive to Microsoft.
Barrie
· 3 years ago
Thank you for the polite and balanced response Bob ...
"If we knew the problem totally we’d fix it. We’re studying the problem."
That is what I was looking for ... Thank You!
I have had the opportunity to work with large numbers of professionals on 'critical' projects ... we met our deadlines in a manner that would be considered proportionality remarkable ... When on rare occasion we could not meet those deadlines we ensured that those who would be impacted adversely were given early notice so as to minimize negative results. We always tried to keep 'lead-time' within known team performance parameters ... but I will grant you the explanation above is more than suffice to my concern as a simple 'Day-To-Day' user of Microsoft products ...
I wish you well Bob ... and a life away from the R race that is an integral constuent of the IT business.
PS: If your ever lost on a backroad in Northern Saskatchewan follow the road grids home ....
Jeroen Bulters
· 3 years ago
I find it a pity that Vista is delayed (again?). But does this have anything to do with large portions of code having to be rewritten? If the journalists really are journalists they would have checked this 60% figure with other MS developers (and/or managers) and - if they couldn't confirm the figure - should have never published it. People get sued for this kind of things over here (The Netherlands). If the 60% figure is just a fact of imagination, wouldn't a rectification be justified? Act like all Americans do (common misconception?)... sue the soab's...
anon
· 3 years ago
he just fired his credibility as a tech journalist and has proudly started a hoax and we all fell for it. Wonderful.
"Our primary goal is to improve security and safety for all our customers -- consumers and businesses, regardless of size -- through a balance of technology innovation, guidance and industry leadership," Gates said. "We're committed to continued innovation that addresses the threats of today and anticipates those that will undoubtedly emerge in the future." http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/f...
"In Vista, it should be much more difficult for unauthorized programs (like Viruses and Trojans) to affect the core of the OS and secretly harm your system."
Whose credibility is fired here?
Ivo Andric
· 3 years ago
OMG You will need decades for bug-fixes?
Athan
· 3 years ago
The problem seems to be that they (MS) have to remove every piece of damned managed code they included in Vista. If so, then I don't mind if Vista delays even for years :)
John Dowdell
· 3 years ago
Robert wrote: "well, in that case he just fired his credibility as a tech journalist and has proudly started a hoax and we all fell for it. Wonderful."
You are responsible for your own brain. Others cannot taint it without your consent.
Dmad
· 3 years ago
This looks like NT5 all over again. It seems that at some point the Windows team got too feature happy. It is a huge project, to be sure. Now that they are code complete the struggle now is with deciding which bugs to fix and which bugs to punt. Testing is the major critical path now. So, I'm guessing they've put a stake in the ground, (finally) and said, based on the bugs still needing to be fixed and the testing required to ensure those bugs fixes work, they are now out to end of year. What I don't quite understand is the corporate vs consumer timelines. Scoble, would there be a way to find out what issues are causing the consumer release to be pushed out over the corporate release?
Ross
· 3 years ago
Further evidence, I am not sure how someone from Acer knows what is happening internally but hey -
My number one rule in blogging or blog commenting is:
Never post when angry.
People still have to convince me that they have been personally harmed by the delay.
I see a lot of second guessing of internal Microsoft processes and personal attacks here. What I don't see is a firm statement that says, "You know, I've been waiting up at night wishing on my lucky star that Vista will come down and save my marriage. Now that it's late, I've got to hire a family attorney."
Please, someone, tell me the reason for the outrage here. I need some context.
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
Jim: lots of people hate Microsoft. Nothing new.
Jordan
· 3 years ago
Not to be insulting anyone, especially not Robert, but have any of your posers actually looked into the vista code?
I'm sorry if you doid and I missed it, but my eyes are hurting and I'm about to go back to bed. But hoenstly. If you take a good look into it you might notice that there will be a rewrite, but it's not oing to be of megaginatormic proportions. 60% Qualifys as that word I just mentioned. It's going to be 10, maybe 15% rewrite, and not a very crucial part to the os anyway.
John C. Welch
· 3 years ago
Robert,
For someone with a penchant for shooting your mouth off first, and checking facts second as you have, or writing links that are somewhat misleading, you may want to check your FIRE THE BASTARDS jihad.
You kind of don't have real moral high ground for this Robert. Really.
Christopher Coulter
· 3 years ago
After Vista and Office get delayed, instead of a thoughtful measured response, Scoble goes half-cocked on some journalist that danced the usual idle speculational game. If you turned the tables and yanked every Evangelist Marketer for playing vaporware fuzzy number games, you'd be firing half of Microsoft. That Vista-delay Press Release blaming 'Industry Deployment' practices was quite the double-take.
Mean, sensationalist, knee-jerk, shrill and attack dog, ouch. Dave Winer rubbing off on you. The fact that you are a happy-go-lucky fun-guy teddy bear in person is your saving grace, as it sure doesn't come thru on the blog. Kiss of Death indeed.
And you are a dimwit Marketing guy, this was sorta a pointless no-hit story, until you decided to toss it on the front page with the controversy. Crying bloody murder makes things headlines, you should know that. MP3's were nothing, domain of the geek, until Napster was sued, getting it headlines and millions and millions of users, making P2P impossible to stop no matter how many 12 year old girls they decide to sue. Quietly dismissing, and it's onto the new topic, screaming, and demanding someone's head, well people will think some truth to it. Your loud rants actually produce the opposite impact. This is what people call, irony.
James Summerlin
· 3 years ago
Robert Scoble,
I'm only going to say this once, so you had best pay attention:
Thanks for doing a great job! You and Lord Raymond Chen are my favorite MS bloggers! Hang in there, for I assure you there are those among us who appreciate your hard work!
James
WR
· 3 years ago
Who the hell is this Robert Scoble guy? And what track record does he have in breaking stories? He seems great at kissing the backside of Microsoft and telling everyone else how to write stories about his beloved employer. Where is his credibility when clearly he is turned into an emotional wreck every time some one dares to say boo to Microsoft? He even has a Royal “We ARE asking for a retraction”. He or Microsoft? Funny I don’t find Robert Scoble listed in Microsoft’s office spokesperson list. In fact all today we have tried to get a Microsoft executive to speak to us on the record about Vista but they refuse. I wonder why?
As for Scoble, his is a guy who wants every one to believe that he is the authority on Microsoft. He’s not Mark Smith the former editor of Windows Magazine and a good friend has in the past broken many a good Microsoft yarn and he is not as painful as Scoble to put up with.
It also appears that Scoble has a bigger ego than Donald Trump and is more emotional than John McEnroe with a bad line call.
The bottom line is that Microsoft are in deep shit with Vista and both Microsoft and Intel could well have the consumer market taken away from them by one of 4 key players, IBM and Sony, Apple and Google in the near future.
Despite all the billions in the bank, years of so called research and employees who think that they are god’s gift to the tech world Microsoft has failed the consumer by delivering software that does not work. Microsoft Media Centre is a classic example.
Even I know from talking to consumers in the CE market that what they want is easy to use entertainment software that works across, vision devices, audio and automation applications.
What Microsoft has attempted to do is deliver Vista as an all singing all dancing OS for application and entertainment computing when research shows that consumers are NOT interested in application computing when sitting in front of a screen watching a movie or downloading music or playing games.
If Microsoft were half smart, but then again they do have Scoble on there side they should have initiated a marketing strategy whereby they got consumers to fork up for two OS licence fees. One for application computing the second for a slick entertainment OS, or alternatively thrown the entertainment OS in for free.
The big fear for both the Windows team and the Xbox team right now is that the likes of IBM and Sony could deliver a stunning easy to use entertainment/automation OS running on a PS3 type box. They already have the IBM Sony developed Cell processor which no one has really seen in action. I am told it is white hot and delivers blistering speed and graphics so I would not be writing Sony off as a key player in the CE and gaming market.
Or alternatively Apple come along and steal their OS market share in the CE market by delivering a MAC OS media centre type solution running on an Intel Viiv platform. Just imagine the CE market in 3 years time with Apple and Sony IBM going head to head, with Microsoft only getting a look in with the Xbox. It’s highly possible.
Despite all the billions, years of so called research and stru
scobleizer
· 3 years ago
WR: that's the best flame aimed at me I've read in years!
bob corrigan
· 3 years ago
In other news from inside MSFT, a "Microsoft insider" has revealed that there is a great bloody altar in the basement of building 4 where kittens and puppies are being sacrificed around the clock in a frantic attempt to appease the Dark Gods of QA to reduce their threshhold for quality from "60% needs to be re-written" to "10% needs to be re-written".
Hey, if they'll buy the first story, they'll buy this one too.
over-reacting
· 3 years ago
Maybe they meant that 60% was being fixed and reviewed.
video news
· 3 years ago
Have you ever been to 'you tube'? they let you host videos there and you can hotlink them on your blogs. it's really cool and you don't have to bandwidth on the videos, cause its free.
mesothelioma attorney milton
· 3 years ago
Greetings and Hello to everybody! My name is Cherie, from Ocala, Florida. Your Blog was easy to navigate, most informative, and it contained the information I needed for my college research paper, Have a nice day, and many thanks!
SAW
· 3 years ago
All this fuss because someone lent too much credibility to the "journalist" at the center of the storm in the first place ... it could even turn out he didnt even write the original article to start with ...
Better late than never, it looks like the media world are finally discovering just how untrustworthy David Richards is.
It appears he's been stealing stories from other news organizations and then pretending he wrote them, for years. The claim is that he's plagiarized hundreds of stories by copying and pasting. He claims that it wasn't him, his PC was hacked...
All Comments
"And speaking of secret Microsoft projects, Todd Bishop of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" reports that Microsoft is working with chipmaker Transmeta on a mysterious hardware project. There are few details about the hardware project, but one must wonder if it has anything to do with the aforementioned portable video game unit. This much is clear: If Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble talks this one up, we'll all know it's not a big deal. Between Windows Vista and the sad little Ultra-mobile PC, that guy's been the kiss of death lately."
http://www.windowsitpro.com/windowspaulthurrott...
Met: I've learned over and over to not bet on dates in the software industry. When I have the gold disk in my hands I'll let you know.
Which is harder - breaking something that works by "rewriting 60%", or making sommething that has 60% not working work right?
My point Robert is this:
Microsoft has very little ground to stand on here when they keep promising ship date and then retract them. When they retract them in PR-friendly tones like they did.
And I find it puzzling that - considering the poor timing of doing this while you were out of town - you take 48 hours between posts and instead of giving us some substance and inside knowledge into things, you decide to go off on someone for giving us JUST AS MUCH substance on things as you have!
Where's the transparency?
The WSJ printed an excellent article in October 2005 about problems in Vista's development, especially quoting Jim Allchin telling Gates "it's not going to work" without a complete overhaul. At that time, Longhorn became Vista and the majority of the featureset got scrapped.
Anon: stop changing the point. This headline said that 60% was being rewritten. That's absolutely not true.
And, when you quote from an article, can you please provide the URL so we can see the context of the quote that you are taking out of context? Thanks!
Then all they'd need to do is say: Update: M$ says our sources were wrong. Sorry.
Right?
But now they need to be fired?
I do think they were wrong to do it, but let's be serious here. So much of MSM "journalism" is based on opinion, supposition, analysis of other's opinion, and rumors. So little fact checking is done that it's ridiculous. So much is biased opinion that they ought not to be fired.
It's like firing writers and editors of The Onion. That's where MSM has gone, IMO: to the laughability of The Onion.
You don't know that.
On March 16, just days prior to the Vista delay being announced, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on national television saying that Vista was "on track". I don't think even he knows how much needs to be rewritten or not.
I do know that. Sorry. I've been using Vista for months and it certainly doesn't need a 60% rewrite.
Daniel: bloggers don't have as much credibility as those who are paid to write and report on news. Translation: how can you fire a blogger?
Not shooting you. But it seems like it should be real easy. Steve picks up the phone to PR or better yet, goes on TV and categorically denies it. Of course, having reiterated that Vista was on track to ship this year as little as 30 days ago, his credibility at this point isn't high, but it would be a start. Also, multiple media sources are quoting folks saying that this is just the first slip and that there will be at least another. Please tell me that having fucked up this badly and publically, mgt didn't get extreme confidence and do some padding before coming up with the January date?
There's also a little rule about PR. You don't fight those that use ink by the barrel or, modernized, have tons of readers. Certainly you don't call attention to some journalistic outlet that doesn't have much credibility to start with. Just makes them happy cause they get a bunch of traffic which translates into money via advertising.
"Well of course Vista couldn't: everything is linked to everything else!"
Windows has gone beyond "macrokernel" to some whole other level (a "mundokernel" maybe?).
I'm just saying that this seems to be part of the problem: all of this product tying (Windows requiring IE as the most obvious example) is what is making the Vista release such a hassle.
I know that things are slowly working their way out (drivers now running in userspace and so on) but it's going to hurt for a few more years yet.
I think the IE example is kind of fitting, actually. For years, MS have been saying that the browser is necessary for the OS and for years, IT professionals in general (and security professionals in particular) have been saying that instead of it being necessary, it's actually a rediculously stupid idea.
Now, years later, IE7 is finally going to be separated from the OS... and MS want us to applaud them for it?
That's what's getting my goat, I think. Everyone but MS say one thing and yet for years they do something else. When they finally realise they were wrong and do an about face, how are we expected to react?
While the 'microkernel' / 'macrokernel' debate will go for on forever, I think most people have agreed that the level to which MS have integrated stuff is silly.
That's why I agree that it's impossible to rewrite Windows in 6 months, but in reality, if everything wasn't so spaghetti-tied together, it should not be as obvious an answer as it is...
My Lord, that's probably the most inarticulate piece of garbage I've ever written, so I hope someone can make out my point and reword it!
"....I have not had time to get educated on this issue and so I’ll reserve most comment on it.
Various people are asking in my comments and in threads over on Channel 9 “where’s Scoble?” Translation: “why isn’t he commenting on this story?”
The answer: cause I don’t know enough about it and my readers have criticized me strongly in the past for shooting off my mouth before I know the full story....."
Robert Scoble, 7:44am, 3/22/2006.
.
.
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Nearly 60 hours with one post, that about MySpace.
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.
.
Finally silence is broken. A few days after the biggest negative moment for MS since, well, their last time when they prematurely announced UMPC technology.
One would hope for something of substance about what is happening. Key word? Substance. Maybe I'm in the minority here Robert, but what good is transparency without substance?
Instead we get yet another misdirect instead.
When Live was announced you spoke about how there would be all these neat things "real soon". January has long since passed. Not much buzz happening there.
When UMPC was demonstrated you spoke about how you would buy one with your own money. Funny, you didn't put a link (PDF, sorry) to the Gartner opinion that there's a long way to go before it is a viable and compelling piece of harware.
And now we have the Vista delay. After two days of "reserving comment" you come out with guns blazing to... fire some management at MS? Well, no. You appearantly think the absolute worst thing about this whole thing is how wronged MS is because someone is saying something false!
Substance versus Misdirection.
Transparency - you be the judge.
Who said that? IE is still integrated into several components of Windows (and several components of Windows, like the help system, still relies on IE being there).
Also, who at Microsoft wanted you to applaud? Please keep this discussion factual. I've been watching everything we've been saying and no one has ever asked for that. Please provide a blog post where a MSFTie asked for that.
Finally, have you ever built an operating system? Which one? Why should we assume you're an expert on anything you say? You don't even have the balls to use your real name and link to your own blog and/or resume.
The UMPC tables were the busiest ones all conference long.
Even the 12-year-olds like them: http://www.whatisnew.com/blogs/dailynews/archiv...
BTW, I'm one of those guys who thinks that Windows has indeed many, many problems... and I don't expect much from Vista either. But hey, denying the things it does pretty well and the hard work by the people behind it is not fair either.
I wonder how many people would believe a story quoting something like: "60% of the almost ready 100-story building will be re-built". It might be an ugly building, maybe it's not very secure considering the bad neighborhood it's in, but you just can't do that.
That's totally appropriate in your case and as stated, I appreciate you even commenting. However, it is NOT appropriate for the company generally imo given the stakes and the stakeholders affected. As pissed off as I am about this most recent slip, I understand the imprecise nature of software development (though not what appears to be chronic misestimation within the Windows team). What I don't understand and absolutely reject, is the avoidance, lack of candor and in some cases downright misrepresentation that typifies senior MS management communication. Allchin's email for example is a complete joke. The press release annnouncing the Sinofsky move as aiding "growth and agility" is similarly a joke. Do Bill/Steve think they can just bullshit their way out of problems vs facing them openly/honesty and directly? Is that what they want MS to stand for? No need to answer that btw since I'd like you to keep your job :-) IMO, Ballmer should stand up, take direct responsibility for the failure, apologize personally for reiterating the timeline as recently as last month and then give an unequivocal statement on where things are at and what the confidence level is in the new dates. That would be leadership, that would be accountability, that would be honesty and doing your job as a CEO. And along the way, he might just win over a few company detractors not to mention convince shareholders like myself that he should stay on despite 5 years of evidence to the contrary.
Demand to find out what happened...sure. But save the calls for termination until you have a chance to find out what actually happened. Then, if they screwed up as badly as it looks right now then you can start asking for firings.
Right now you sound just as sensationalist and wreckless as the people you are complaining about.
Heheh. Personally, I feel perfectly fine agreeing with you. They did ask me to do a Channel 9 video, but the story leaked before we got a chance to sit down and do it properly. I think that was part of the problem here too.
I've been urging senior leadership to just speak clearly and forthrightly when they announce stuff like this. But, just goes to show that I'm not in PR.
PR needs a blogger in the worst way. Someone who can answer questions in real time and get key stakeholders on the phone (or even better, in front of a video camera).
kalbzayn, what happened is someone wrote a story without getting any factual evidence and an editor made it worse by running the story and making a sensationalistic headline. When crap like this gets into print at a professional news outlet, there needs to be consequences. Obviously I don't have the ability to get anyone fired. That's up to these folks' bosses. But this story did pretty significant damage. Who's gonna pay for my time (and for other people's time who are dealing with this?)
If Vista were a car from GM, wouldn't they have to tell the industry whether they have a problem with the tires, transmission or the gear box?
The first line of the press release says, "... is on target to go into ..." If you want to fire the journalist, why don't you also fire the PR person who used creative fiction to announce a schedule delay?
As to the rest of this: when we find a problem in our software that puts our customers at risk we do have a disclosure process.
As to PR: heheh, coming up with creative writing is part of their job!
Who said that? IE is still integrated into several components of Windows (and several components of Windows, like the help system, still relies on IE being there).
OK, so the first 'half definitive' link I could find was at http://www.businessweek.com/mediacenter/podcast... . No, it doesn't say that it's 'uninstallable', but it does say that it "loses much of the privileged relationship with Windows". Other links said that it is only being separated from Windows Explorer and from what I had read (and can't find right now) the components that were still required were from the IE6 code. From the way I understood it, IE7 was a browser only, while IE6 code was still used for the 'Windows components'.
Also, who at Microsoft wanted you to applaud? Please keep this discussion factual. I’ve been watching everything we’ve been saying and no one has ever asked for that. Please provide a blog post where a MSFTie asked for that.
You got me: no-one asked for an applause, I was just using a figure of speech. Generally, however, companies do not do things that will be seen as annoying their customer base... so I must have incorrectly assumed that with this separation, it was an attempt to make the user happy.
Finally, have you ever built an operating system? Which one? Why should we assume you’re an expert on anything you say?
No, I haven't built an OS. I don't recall which one you wrote, though, so... Sorry, just playing :)
You're right, but I wasn't even trying to be taken as an expert. Your reaction, however, makes me think that you believe that the deep inter-relationship between parts of Windows does not cause problems? I don't know what you believe, so it's an honest question.
I do wonder, though (and still honestly), if this is not a problem, why bother pulling the driver stuff out in to user space when it was put there in the first place for speed? Hey... who knows, I could have all my wires crossed and I'm always willing to learn (and eat my words).
You don’t even have the balls to use your real name and link to your own blog and/or resume.
Ummm... 'Lincoln' is my real name. Maybe you meant my full name or something? I don't blog (for proof: watch how badly formatted this message comes out!) and I don't have a resume online, but does that make my questions / arguments / discussion any less valid?
Robert, the fact a software product is "usable" isn't evidence it doesn't require a total rewrite or rearchitecture in order to add new features to it. Think of it like a suspension bridge, you can't just "add" lanes to it indefinitely without reworking the suspension architecture.
Back in the day, MacOS 8 worked fine for me, but it had reached the end of the line and rather than rewrite, Apple started over on a *bsd model.
Any chance of Microsoft doing that? It could potentially be a good product.
Perhaps, but this issue isn't just a standard PR one - you're talking a major rumor following a major embarassing delay on one of your core cash cows. IMO, what MS really needs is a senior leadership team that demonstrates via their actions that they value honesty vs "truthyness" and take personal ownership/accountability (especially in a case of this magnitude) vs just demand it from others. This isn't something you should have to lobby for, it should be your minimum expectation. It certainly is mine. Anyway, over and out and thx again for not being afraid to at least face the music on behalf of the company. If they're going to pull more boners like this, you should put in for a pay raise :-)
Lincoln: >I don’t recall which one you wrote, though, so...
Good point, but I hang around with people who build OSs so am passing along their words more than mine.
>Your reaction, however, makes me think that you believe that the deep inter-relationship between parts of Windows does not cause problems?
It causes problems, but also makes it a platform that Windows developers can rely on. Howso? Ever write a help system? If you know there's an HTML rendering engine around (which you can on Windows due to the IE integration) it makes it a lot cheaper and easier to do. See, every feature both solves problems and brings more complexity, which could bring more problems. The trick isn't to get rid of the feature, but to get rid of the problems.
>does that make my questions / arguments / discussion any less valid?
Actually, it does. Because we don't know what your expertise and/or biases are.
Read about it here on Windows ITPro
http://www.windowsitpro.com/articles/index.cfm?...
Bob, this is embarrassing, but it's not a huge delay on a project with thousands of people working on it. To make Christmas retail it would have needed to be out by August. When we missed Beta 2's dates we could see that wasn't going to be done.
It's a messy story, no matter how you tell it, cause we really wanted it to be done by August, but I'm glad they weren't willing to push out a crappy product just to make a date.
I think you are way out of line here -- calling for firing of people, especially journalists. I just reread the article -- it does not claim (but I can see where it might be taken that way) that 60% of Vista code will be rewritten before release either in the headline the blurb at the top of the page nor the article itself.
In fact the article is in no way sensational --- only the headline itself.
The claim is that 60 % of Vista is scheduled to be rewritten -- which probably has a lot of truth in it. Now admittedly the way the headline and blurb are presented and the juxtaposition of information is perhaps deliberately inflammatory. And a large number of people (including you) seem to have taken the bait.
I can't see where any damage is done here to Microsoft. I think if anything you have damaged the reputation of the people involved in writing the article. In fact the current situation is largely of Microsoft's own making (I would call it a self inflicted wound) and if you are calling for firings you should look internally in Microsoft to place the blame.
Journalists NEED to at least get some people from Microsoft on the record when they report stuff like this. Journalists are trained that there are two sides to every story. I got an F when I went to press with only one source (their source was even worse, an anonymous one). Sorry, this is TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE journalism. And it did deep damage. You aren't seeing all the people who are getting calls on this and you aren't seeing all the time that's wasted when a journalist just prints something they think is plausible without checking it out.
The stock downturn is probably because of a number of new developments that have surfaced and not because of the 60% article:
Forbes: Microsoft Vista: Not 'People Ready'
Microsoft officials acknowledged that Office 2007 is now going to launch in 2007, not 2006.
Exploit Unleashed for highly critical IE Hole
Not a good week for MS fans...
Time will tell, but I'm siding on the Scobleizer for now. Thanks for the transparency, Robert.
BTW the story in this case seems to have very little to do with the headline -- so the journalist in this case is probably not part of the picture. At worst it was a poorly written headline. And maybe as you say it was deliberate. My reaction to it was perhaps predictable but if you reread my weblog you will see the 60% info was peripheral to what I was talking about.
Perhaps nobody can see past the headline and read the story?
As I said though this mess is largely of Microsoft's making and the people getting the calls should look inward instead of outward for the root cause of their calls and frustration
I thought he was actually locked in a room, playing Oblivion.. :)
You mean the beta that Allchin publicly stated MS just decided not to do in favor of the CTP? Again, not trying to be argumentative, but that's what I mean by "truthyness" vs honesty from Snr. mgt.
It’s a messy story, no matter how you tell it, cause we really wanted it to be done by August, but I’m glad they weren’t willing to push out a crappy product just to make a date.
Totally agree with the importance of getting it right vs making a ship date (esp after 5 years). But like I said earlier, if Nov and Jan slip as well, MS's credibility will be zero and knowing that in advance, management should have selected those dates only if they felt they were 100% achievable. If the real confidence is nil and those dates were selected simply to ease into another delay a few months from now (as is being widely reported), then MS's "truthyness" will simply be exposed for what it really is - lies. I'm giving mgt the benefit of the doubt one last time but I'm less than optimistic. Anyway, I really am going now. BTW, at some point an interesting Channel 9 interview would be why MS doesn't simply switch to either a BSD core or Singularity or some other more modular/lighter weight kernel. Presumably there are some things that would buy along with a number of things it wouldn't (i.e. Windows architecture advantages)? We hear all about the obvious baggage of the current Windows architecture but there must be some good things right? :-) I've looked all over for even one whitepaper discussing the pros esp vis a vis Linux or BSD and have yet to find one. As you can imagine, there is no shortage of ones arguing the reverse. Just a thought...
We are becoming used to a rapid release world where things come out one feature at a time. We get worked up about Writely and Ajax apps with very limited functionality.
Windows Vista, on the other hand, can not be released in iterations. It has to be released all at once - or the majority of it any way.
This means that Microsoft has to make its best guess at a release date and live with the consequences. Could they develop the OS in a more agile way? Probably. But they aren't.
How many of us are really waiting on pins and needles for Vista anyway? It will be nice when it arrives, but until then how is our lives adversely impacted?
I'm seeing here a bunch of people who are anxious to rag on Microsoft and less people really hurt by a delay in shipment.
Then an editor should be fired. But the headline is being repeated. Several times already. So, yes, people are buying the totally false headline.
>So you are saying there is no plan anywhere in Microsoft that indicates that any Vista code needs to be rewritten at any time in the future?
Not in the Vista timeframe. We're locked down except for fixing bugs for the most part. Vista was demonstrated publicly at Mix06 (attendees could play with it) so the system itself is fairly far along and no plans that we know about to rewrite parts of it for Vista are underway. Now, for Vienna? Of course, but that's not what the story or the headline said.
"This means that Microsoft has to make its best guess at a release date and live with the consequences. Could they develop the OS in a more agile way? Probably. But they aren’t."
Here's the problem with this. MS - partiicularly after this - comes off as though they did exactly the opposite.
(1) The show some bits in PDC '03 and speak of three pillars.
(2) They totally backtrack off this and instead incorporate parts of each pillar in XP, as Vista, or as something to be released after Vista.
But it's #3 that really is hurting them now.
(3) They make an announcement in summer 2005 that sounds like features be damned... we're releasing by end of 2006 and would rather drop any unfinished features instead of missing - yet another - scheduled ship date.
This isn't how projects, even gigantic projects like this, should be managed. Others are right here - it's mainly a self-inflicted wound.
I should have been more transparent with my point:
The "Professional Press" have become very unprofessional, and this is just another example of why I laugh.
... - but I agree with you - people, especially ones who are paid to do such things, should research, fact-check, not lie, etc.
It's all good... I believe that Henry Ford once said that the collective knowledge of his staff was his knowledge for the taking. That is to say, he knew the sum of everything they knew, as he was able to ask them for that knowledge at any time.
If you know there’s an HTML rendering engine around (which you can on Windows due to the IE integration) it makes it a lot cheaper and easier to do. ... The trick isn’t to get rid of the feature, but to get rid of the problems.
I absolutely agree with that. I think the problem is when things get 'too' integrated. The same functionality could be achieved by a cleanly separated, linkable library that just does HTML rendering. But for some reason we can embed executables into an HTML page as ActiveX and let it run...
Actually, it does. Because we don’t know what your expertise and/or biases are.
I would say that what I say should be argued against despite who I am. Knowing my full history can only show if I have a bias: it can't show that I don't have one. If what I say is wrong, it's wrong. If Stephen Hawking said tomorrow that the world is flat, it doesn't make it any more true :)
I don't think calling for people to be fired is any more appropriate here than when someone-whose-name-shall-not-pass-my-lips claimed a while back that Sinofsky should be fired.
Transmeta Working on Secret Microsoft Project
And speaking of secret Microsoft projects, Todd Bishop of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" reports that Microsoft is working with chipmaker Transmeta on a mysterious hardware project. There are few details about the hardware project, but one must wonder if it has anything to do with the aforementioned portable video game unit. This much is clear: If Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble talks this one up, we'll all know it's not a big deal. Between Windows Vista and the sad little Ultra-mobile PC, that guy's been the kiss of death lately.
Really? Perhaps we have a semantic issue here. When you find a bug you don't "rewrite" the code; you just fix the bug. Using your terminlogy, if 60% of the code has bugs, then 60% would need to be "rewritten", while most people would says that substantial fixes are required. This could just be a simple misunderstanding.
By the way, editors and journalists do make mistakes. Calling for their firing is an extreme solution. Would you fire the Windows management team if they missed a ship date? Oops. Couldn't resist. :)
Excellent job of handling the situation and communciating (even when tired)
keep up the good work keeping the world informed
I remember a few years ago, when the public had to rely on press, or press releases to get news.
I welcome your comments anytime, regardless if you're a day late from travelling.
So are you UP or Down from vegas gambling? When I saw you last you were up.
I also found this interesting...
"bloggers don’t have as much credibility as those who are paid to write and report on news. Translation: how can you fire a blogger?"
Wait a minute... I thought blogging was the "new media"? The I guess we shouldn't put much credence in anything we see on Memeorandum?
Last, get over yourself. Of course everyone on the Windows team is going to deny the story, even if it was true. Particularly if they know you are going to blog about it.
First, thanks for being a sounding board at a time when half the world is spinning about this news with no "official" word from the company.
Second, I don't want to get involved in the game of whether someone should be fired and/or whether you have the right to demand that...
but I DO want to speak to the issue of semantics. Certainly, the headline was sensationalistic. But relative to what the end result means, I would contend [as a long time and vocal Microsoft shareholder FYI] that the REALITY of this news is potentially far more damaging and disappointing.
Let's accept for a second that Vista is NOT in need of a 60% code re-write, or even a 10% code re-write. What we still don't know is:
A) When will Vista go gold and be GA for consumers?
B) How could a company the size and import of Microsoft not have been intimately aware that Vista wasn't going to be GA in January just a few days ago when they came out and assured the world it would be!?!?
As a shareholder who happens to be quite familiar with the software world, I can accept delays in ship dates on occasion. But the cold hard facts are Microsoft's return in R&D spend has been diminishing in dramatic fashion over the years and the company, as an investment, DESPERATELY needs Vista to ship and be the sea changing OS we've been led to believe. Plain and simple.
That's not hyperbole, that's the honest truth.
Something of this magnitude NEEDS to be addressed at the highest levels of Microsoft. We need Ballmer or Bill front and center, giving a line-in-the-sand declaration on the state of Vista and Office 2007, explaining exactly when to expect the products and why, despite the largest coding force in the world, the company can't meet deadline after deadline after deadline.
Robert, what happened to Steve Ballmer saying Vista was on track on March 16, 2005 in a nationally-televised interview on a "financial" channel (MSNBC), then two days later Microsoft announces that's not true? Should anybody be fired for that?
http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=bde48829-fe74...
And, BTW, what's up with that link requiring me to use proprietary garbage like Internet Explorer to view it? Firefox has played WMP files for me perfectly in the past. Did Microsoft learn ANYTHING from the antitrust trial or are you still trying to tell me it's too complicated to make a video play back in standards-compliant, not Windows-only web browsers?
"Excellent job of handling the situation and communciating (even when tired)
keep up the good work keeping the world informed"
Please explain yourself. Particularly the bit about keeping us informed. Robert is doing his job - for sure. But doing an excellent job of keeping us informed? That just has me dizzy over figuring out what you mean.
Oh, and that is meant with no disrespect to Robert. He's simply a guy in the middle here. He's fond of talking about how hard it is to turn a ship with 55,000 (now 57,000?). Well, this week proves it.
Still - he did nothing to "keep us informed".
Silly me - I thought from the title (misleading as it was) that he might actually talk about the bad news in "informative" ways. Go figure... instead all he wanted to make we remember is that he had lunch with them.
Silly me.
So Robert - did Ballmer lead you on like he did the rest of that group that Forbes so clearly talked about? Or were you simply listening with glazed eyes like everyone else?
Please. Minds wish to be "informed". Why - WHY - such silence over Longhorn... LongYawn?... Vista... Horizon? It's not "a few weeks" over deadline. Try a few years.
Business doesn't care until things get to x.2 releases. So I'm guessing it matters more about "people" now. (I refuse to deal in marketing-speak, so I'll refrain from the MS approved phrase.) But you've delayed Vista for "people" now for 2+ years. And still no end in sight.
Sucks to be an MS employee, huh?
If he said that it's on target to be released by the end of the year, then he'd be correct. That's what the target is.
>We need Ballmer or Bill front and center, giving a line-in-the-sand declaration on the state of Vista and Office 2007, explaining exactly when to expect the products and why, despite the largest coding force in the world, the company can’t meet deadline after deadline after deadline.
Because this is software. It's done by imperfect human beings. It's not done by a machine. When you get thousands of human beings to work together doing anything, let me know, OK?
Dmad: you get over yourself. That's absolutely not true that people will lie to me openly. If they are willing to do that, I'm willing to out them. You are a troll and one that's quite rude and probably is working for a competitor anyway. Who knows, we have no idea who you are.
Why so defensive? Do you require everyone you have a "naked conversation" with to hand you their resume beforehand? It seems whenever someone questions your credibility you fire back with the irreleant ad-hominem comment about their credibility. This is YOUR blog. You are the one that needs to maintain credibility, not the ones that comment.
Until today I found you to be very nice - then you decided to twice take me to task because I won't give you my last name (which BTW my emails to you do contain).
That's enough for me. Unsubscribed. Too bad - I would've liked to know why you have this blind spot for RSS over Atom - as your latest post clearly says.
Anyways, I wish you the best! And please, someday tell us outsiders what REALLY has been going on at the company you work for this past 12 months. So far I don't think you've been "transparent" enough on this subject....
Peace!
I've done more than 600 interviews, most of which are an hour long. You're welcome to watch them. They give you far more insight into the company than anything that I could post here.
Personally, I don't even know which Dave you are. There's no way for me to see who you are from your postings here and no way for me to match your name up with emails you've sent me.
You didn't take your vacation Scoble?
I did take a vacation. You didn't notice that I didn't post for a few hours this week? :-)
Truthfully I'm content with the Microsoft products I have used for the past couple of decades (literally all of the consumer and office software made by MS) I've also used every OS that Microsoft has released without much hassle!
I take 'Patches' and 'Fixes' in stride (The world is imperfect in all venues) .... I do not however understand (to use an analogy) why from the expectant consumers vantage point it appears that at Microsoft right now the left hand is somewhat broadly disconnected from what the right hand is doing.
A company of Microsofts stature (and accomplishments/expertise) should have a little more management finesse when it plans for the development timeline of a major software product and its release date. The whole scenario smacks of a series of almost ironic Dilbert cartoon strips at the very core of the company.
PS: Bob I'm no tech Geek or expert in anything ... despite spending about 10,000 hours using these infernal machines ... I'm still just a well worn 57 year old Canadian writer (Not about Technology) who works and plays from a home office ... I'm competent in using the technology of the age by way of reading and applying others instructions/knowledge ... I can Wow them in my small village and among family and friends by what I can do with the software and hardware on a beige box (or White, Black, Grey & even Multicoloured) but it wouldn't cut me much slack or attention in a tech-lab ... but out here where it counts I can 'produce' results with the best of them using more applications than it is safe to give an old codger ...
So my 'Bias' - as such - is that of a 'User' in the 'Real World' .... just thought I should add that as you have concerns about who one is and where they are coming from (Oh yes -- I have no tech stock [0]in my limited investment portfolio)
Thanks for the very current Blog postings Bob ... but in closing I must reiterate that I still would like to read unadorned words sans sarcasm about why incessant delays are now so commonplace at Microsoft?
The problem is, how do you explain this? I know a book publisher. He often has single authors who miss deadlines. How do you explain that?
It isn't something that you can really explain to anyone's satisfaction. If we knew the problem totally we'd fix it. We're studying the problem. We're trying to get better. Software delays are nothing new and nothing exclusive to Microsoft.
"If we knew the problem totally we’d fix it. We’re studying the problem."
That is what I was looking for ... Thank You!
I have had the opportunity to work with large numbers of professionals on 'critical' projects ... we met our deadlines in a manner that would be considered proportionality remarkable ... When on rare occasion we could not meet those deadlines we ensured that those who would be impacted adversely were given early notice so as to minimize negative results. We always tried to keep 'lead-time' within known team performance parameters ... but I will grant you the explanation above is more than suffice to my concern as a simple 'Day-To-Day' user of Microsoft products ...
I wish you well Bob ... and a life away from the R race that is an integral constuent of the IT business.
PS: If your ever lost on a backroad in Northern Saskatchewan follow the road grids home ....
Windows Me
"Windows Me: PC Health Features Keep PCs Stable, Secure and Reliable -- and Take the Frustration Out of Computing for Home Users"
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/200...
Windows 2000
"Our primary goal is to improve security and safety for all our customers -- consumers and businesses, regardless of size -- through a balance of technology innovation, guidance and industry leadership," Gates said. "We're committed to continued innovation that addresses the threats of today and anticipates those that will undoubtedly emerge in the future."
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/f...
Windows XP
"Windows XP is the most secure and dependable operating system we have ever produced."
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/a...
Windows Vista
"In Vista, it should be much more difficult for unauthorized programs (like Viruses and Trojans) to affect the core of the OS and secretly harm your system."
Whose credibility is fired here?
If so, then I don't mind if Vista delays even for years :)
You are responsible for your own brain. Others cannot taint it without your consent.
http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Computing/Software...
Never post when angry.
People still have to convince me that they have been personally harmed by the delay.
I see a lot of second guessing of internal Microsoft processes and personal attacks here. What I don't see is a firm statement that says, "You know, I've been waiting up at night wishing on my lucky star that Vista will come down and save my marriage. Now that it's late, I've got to hire a family attorney."
Please, someone, tell me the reason for the outrage here. I need some context.
I'm sorry if you doid and I missed it, but my eyes are hurting and I'm about to go back to bed. But hoenstly. If you take a good look into it you might notice that there will be a rewrite, but it's not oing to be of megaginatormic proportions. 60% Qualifys as that word I just mentioned. It's going to be 10, maybe 15% rewrite, and not a very crucial part to the os anyway.
For someone with a penchant for shooting your mouth off first, and checking facts second as you have, or writing links that are somewhat misleading, you may want to check your FIRE THE BASTARDS jihad.
You kind of don't have real moral high ground for this Robert. Really.
Mean, sensationalist, knee-jerk, shrill and attack dog, ouch. Dave Winer rubbing off on you. The fact that you are a happy-go-lucky fun-guy teddy bear in person is your saving grace, as it sure doesn't come thru on the blog. Kiss of Death indeed.
And you are a dimwit Marketing guy, this was sorta a pointless no-hit story, until you decided to toss it on the front page with the controversy. Crying bloody murder makes things headlines, you should know that. MP3's were nothing, domain of the geek, until Napster was sued, getting it headlines and millions and millions of users, making P2P impossible to stop no matter how many 12 year old girls they decide to sue. Quietly dismissing, and it's onto the new topic, screaming, and demanding someone's head, well people will think some truth to it. Your loud rants actually produce the opposite impact. This is what people call, irony.
I'm only going to say this once, so you had best pay attention:
Thanks for doing a great job! You and Lord Raymond Chen are my favorite MS bloggers! Hang in there, for I assure you there are those among us who appreciate your hard work!
James
As for Scoble, his is a guy who wants every one to believe that he is the authority on Microsoft. He’s not Mark Smith the former editor of Windows Magazine and a good friend has in the past broken many a good Microsoft yarn and he is not as painful as Scoble to put up with.
It also appears that Scoble has a bigger ego than Donald Trump and is more emotional than John McEnroe with a bad line call.
The bottom line is that Microsoft are in deep shit with Vista and both Microsoft and Intel could well have the consumer market taken away from them by one of 4 key players, IBM and Sony, Apple and Google in the near future.
Despite all the billions in the bank, years of so called research and employees who think that they are god’s gift to the tech world Microsoft has failed the consumer by delivering software that does not work. Microsoft Media Centre is a classic example.
Even I know from talking to consumers in the CE market that what they want is easy to use entertainment software that works across, vision devices, audio and automation applications.
What Microsoft has attempted to do is deliver Vista as an all singing all dancing OS for application and entertainment computing when research shows that consumers are NOT interested in application computing when sitting in front of a screen watching a movie or downloading music or playing games.
If Microsoft were half smart, but then again they do have Scoble on there side they should have initiated a marketing strategy whereby they got consumers to fork up for two OS licence fees. One for application computing the second for a slick entertainment OS, or alternatively thrown the entertainment OS in for free.
The big fear for both the Windows team and the Xbox team right now is that the likes of IBM and Sony could deliver a stunning easy to use entertainment/automation OS running on a PS3 type box. They already have the IBM Sony developed Cell processor which no one has really seen in action. I am told it is white hot and delivers blistering speed and graphics so I would not be writing Sony off as a key player in the CE and gaming market.
Or alternatively Apple come along and steal their OS market share in the CE market by delivering a MAC OS media centre type solution running on an Intel Viiv platform. Just imagine the CE market in 3 years time with Apple and Sony IBM going head to head, with Microsoft only getting a look in with the Xbox. It’s highly possible.
Despite all the billions, years of so called research and stru
Hey, if they'll buy the first story, they'll buy this one too.
http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/smart-house-p...
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cf...
It appears he's been stealing stories from other news organizations and then pretending he wrote them, for years. The claim is that he's plagiarized hundreds of stories by copying and pasting. He claims that it wasn't him, his PC was hacked...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdtvJAKEHeU