Why Vista slipped

You mean the explanation that he's now afraid of and pulled? Is it an explanation by example: MS tries to do something, it garners comments and complaints, it goes wrong, it gets pulled, they start over?

His post has been deleted!

How open and transparent Microsoft is.

"No 'external" pressure".

Sounds like weasel words to me.

Not really a naked conversation there... is it?

errr...ahem, Robert, the 'great post' is not there anymore...

I removed the post of my own volition, with no external pressure whatsoever. I wanted the discussion around the topic to be as productive as possible, but instead it's just been a magnet for Linux and Apple fanatics to spread rhetoric.

Some folks have shared great perspectives, but the vast majority have just been detracting. Because of this, I've pulled the post.

Btw, google still has a cached copy of that blog. Just search "The World As Best As I Remember It" (WITH QUOTES) and its the first link...

Robert,

One does have to wonder why would anyone delete a post that clearly explains to the rest of the general public the delay for shipping Windows Vista. Personally I believe that the "pressure" from the internal development teams who comprise Vista gave him some flak for posting what really happened. Unfortunately since I was unable to see his original post I can only guess as to its contents.

Does deleting a post stop detractors? I say nay it does not. In fact deleting this post could have been one of the biggest blunders anyone in Microsoft could have done from a PR standpoint in a long time. This makes me seriously question the new leaf that Microsoft has supposedly turned over in being more transparent and open to its customers.

Yes I agree Windows Vista is perhaps the largest software development project known to man, so then explain what took so long and why you wanted the project to work properly. Deleting the message that explains just that does no one a service.

Phil, you could simply disable commentson the entry. People are still interested in at least reading your post.

"I wanted the discussion around the topic to be as productive as possible, but instead it’s just been a magnet for Linux and Apple fanatics to spread rhetoric."

Oh, boohoo, when an Apple or Linux supporter claims that their projects are of similar design but don't have the same management, strategic, etc... shortcomings, it's rhetoric. When you claim that Microsoft is embarking on the largest, most ambitious project eva, it's informative? Get a clue, you are spewing more rhetoric than anyone in the conversation.

it says "Server is too busy" :(

Here's why Vista slipped: Windows was already a profoundly flawed and huge mess when your company's executives decided that it could accomplish three or four of the most significant OS-related projects ever without having ever solved any of these goals in 20+ years of research... While it attempted to deliver these projects without knowing whether or not they could be achieved, it became apparent that the system was so flawed that it was several years behind more basic systems in terms of security and other issues. Meanwhile, while you were running in circles, other companies made significant achievements in projects that became obvious and necessary (GPU-accelerated graphics, web-service apps, etc...)... Meanwhile, the ever present problem: that Microsoft develops system level code in its apps or app code in its system or it builds 3 or 4 APIs at a time all with backward compatibility meant that every group was on a different page. Then there are significant management issues and reorganizations (I've counted about 4 in the last 2 years when during the DOJ trial they claimed that any reorg was impossible). And... your company is so paranoid and megalomaniacal it must chase after every other successful product or piece of code ever created even though it has largely been successful with 2 products alone.

Mike: it was up when I linked to it. I think it's a server problem. It hasn't been pulled. It got Slashdotted and Dugg and Scobleized. :-)

<strike>It's up now. I just got to it.</strike>

What's funny is PR told him to repost it (he pulled the post down again cause it's causing too much negative conversation in his point of view).

My advice to corporate bloggers: do NOT delete a post. EVER. It causes your company HUGE negative PR. 

"It hasn't been pulled. It got Slashdotted and Dugg and Scobleized."

"What's funny is PR told him to repost it (he pulled the post down again cause it's causing too much negative conversation in his point of view)."

Shouldn't this indicate something: even Microsoft's Marketers cannot remember that what they said five seconds ago, contradict themselves, and then keep on going blissfully ignorant or their own stupidity, hoping that everyone believes them when they say, "everything's okay."

"we"? isn't it "they" now?

Goebbels: it demonstrates that not everyone is professional at PR, especially developers. Bloggers shouldn't post anything that they don't want to see on the front page of the New York Times or used against them by anti-Microsoft forces.

Michiel: I'm still an employee of Microsoft and will be until June 30th.

"Goebbels: it demonstrates that not everyone is professional at PR, especially developers."

Um, Scoble, my comment was directed at YOU! not Philip. You claimed it wasn't pulled (it was) and then a second later that it was "pulled it down again" (which it wasn't, it was pulled once) which contradicted a sentence you typed 2 seconds ago.

You don't need to tell me you aren't professional, but that's not the point. My point was the whole lot of you are disfunctional and will say anything to make yourselves happy.

Edited for the sake of clarity (and humor):

Um, Scoble, my comment was directed at YOU! not Philip. I did quote you, didn't I?

You claimed it was NOT pulled (it was) and then a second later that: “he pulled the post down again” (which it wasn’t, it was pulled once; how do you do something again that you didn't do in the first place?) which contradicted the previous 2 sentences, and presumably, that thought (however wrong it was) should have been in your head a second ago.

Goebbels: Phillip posted it a while back, then pulled it a few days ago. Mini noticed that. Liz Lawley told me about it. I warned PR (and Phillip) that wasn't a good thing to do. Frank Shaw, VP there, told him to put it back up. He did that yesterday. It promptly got Slashdotted. Now he pulled it down again. Sigh.

The post that was there is gone and all that is left is carefully formatted (complete with stategic bold text!) marketspeak.

Transparency?

This is why you left Microsoft, Robert.

its on Channel nine coffeehouse (full text)

Anon: no, it's not why I left. I actually liked helping people not make mistakes that would get negative PR (although not many people can stomach the rough and tumble world of being a public face of Microsoft). I left cause there's incredible opportunity out there in the video space.

Goebbels: you are making me almost pro-microsoft. Is that your secret goal?

As several people remarked the post isn't really gone anyway; Google cache has it, presumably until the sun goes out and maybe beyond. The guy might as well put it up again. I can imagine Marketing is probably getting nervous as they are wont to do.

Philip might as well put it back and close the comments; case closed. Its a decent enough post and there are some interesting comments.

I liked the one that stated that the OS should be invisible; it should enable the user to accomplish whatever task he requires with minimal fuss.
On YouTube I recently watched Jobs show off NeXTSTEP release 3 way back in what, 1994 or so? It's quite depressing because on the one hand he is talking about 500$ fax modems (!) and on the other he is showing off stuff that some OSes (not just windows, others too) STILL can't pull off well. Even OSX hasn't really gone beyond what is shown there except for some extra shiny bits & bells & whistles.
Check it out, it is an interesting but of compuhistory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A

Scoble: thanks for the clarification, I thought your exit was a done deal already.

Robert, however, many times you retell it, that doesn't change your post where you are wrong and contradictory... as I said, demonstrating system wide incompetence at Microsoft.

As for the article, it's relatively good, but it's conclusion is weak:

"Are Vista-scale software projects essentially uncontrollable by nature? Or has Microsoft been beset by one too many broken windows? "

This shows typical MS thinking: 1. "vista-scale" is a poor moniker; "large" projects, ambitious projects, any kind of project can be manageable... "vista-scale", whatever that means, maybe not.

Moreover, I'm only given the option of "vista-scale" projects being uncontrollable OR Microsoft is decaying faster and faster and will continue to do so because of past failues (the broken window theory)?

One would hope people asking these questions would propose solutions and/or move on rather than proclaiming any task of importance uncontrollable and/or the company is going to sh!t. Even as a Microsoft detractor I know numerous steps that could help them. The final questions should be: can we change? how de we change? what is the progress/benefits of changing.

Also, the story does kind of read as if it is proud of how unwieldly and fcked up management and code is at Microsoft. As if that complexitity and lack of progress is a bade of honor.

My 2 Cents.

he has removed the post ...even in our young world of blog ethics/etiquette with few rules somehow that does not seem right? Moderate the comments, not the original content, would be my take - yours?

I think what Phil and his so-called "audience" of (quite frankly) ABM zealots, didn't realise, was that both he and they were talking at crossed purposes. Phil was saying "what an astonishingly weird place Windows Division is", and "I'm so-o-o glad to be outa there".

The ABM zealots were saying "There! We told you so! What an amazingly horrible place Microsoft is" and "We need to be outa there".

How does this come about? How can one man, commenting about the weird culture that resides within a single segment of his company, come to act as a rallying call to those who wish that company ill?

I guess what the ABM zealots cannot see, is that most of Microsoft resembles the Windows Division (and most especially COSD!), in the same sort of way that Mayland resembles the surface of Mars...

What poor old Phil cannot see, on the other hand, is why the latent ideology and culture, that he so ably described, as residing within one of one of Microsoft's most *prominent* product development groups, has somehow seeped out into the public domain, and has come to represent the entire company in the eyes of a lot of the general public (and, certainly, in the eyes of the ABM zealots!).

The world thinks Microsoft /is/ Windows: that's the problem. Describe why Windows is so horrible, and they think you're describing why Microsoft is the Devil.

To all the ABM zealots, out there: here's a message especially for you. Most Microsoft employees are nice; they're clever; lots of them use Linux at home, and - yes - even OS X! I've know many of them say how elegant expose is, for instance, and how on-the-fly defragmentation really makes Windows XP's decade-old solution really look like the ancient kludge that it really is.

They're honest: they want to make things better. Many of them come from a UNIX background and can bash on a commandline like you could only dream about. Leave them alone.

And to the blogging world, in general - stop destroying what you create, eh? We may end up with a situation where the best argument in favour of Google, will be the size of it's flamin' cache, since that's where all the GOOD content went! If that happens, then they really WILL end up owning the world since they'll be the only ones with any good content!

{By the way, is this the same Phil Su that was talking to my colleague Simon when heand I were at glasshaus (before that all went tits-up)? You'll notice I don't say Simon *who*: I'll name no second names -not even my own - since no other innocents need drawing into this hopeless fiasco.... If it /was/ the same Philip Su, then I definitely recall you as being a first class reviewer. I sorely miss working with people of your calibre, as often as I did back then, and I miss trying to develop content that we thought might make a difference.)

Colophon: No bold tags were injured in the production of this comment (PhilSu, take note ;)!) All this was typed out in Konqueror, which is why it has so few spelling errors (by my standards): make of that what you will, fan boys!

You can find his post on DuggMirror:
http://www.duggmirror.com/software/The_Reasons_...

It was a sorta boring article any way. It's not like he said anything most people didn't know. Scoble put a nice face on Microsoft, sort of like a Scoble-Tox. A little injection of Humility here, a little Humbleness there, a little liposuction around the corporate bloat to make them appear leaner. Robert you did a great job, I am sure the ground troops are stellar. Microsoft needs a top-down pruning. Set your people FREE! Identify the nay-sayers, FIRE THEM ALL! Shake the bushes! Just Do It!

The reason (read excuse) for removing this post is weak. So what if there are detractors? Just let them post and don't respond or worry about it. Or, as someone else already suggested, turn comments off.

As Scoble also said, it's bad PR. Makes people wonder if these terrible Apple and Linux people making negative comments is just a good reason (excuse) to remove the post.

Truth is simply bent over an authoritative knee and soundly spanked into silence.

Funny, same feeling I got in all my dealings with Microsoft, truth is never the thing.

I wish it was a perfect world and Microsoft would start from scratch and develop a new OS that had no legacy attachments or mandates. Develop it, grow it and let people switch when they can or when they want to. Stop further development for the older software just keep supporting it for a few years unti lthe corporate world finally swithes.

Actually that does not seem so far fetched when they develop several versions of Vista. But what do I know, I just have to use the software not build it.

Thay are waiting for Mac OS X Leopard to be released by Apple so they can copy as much features from it to Windows Vista. That's why Vista had been slipped:D

Jesus, Phil! This blog entry is like a friggin' mirage: it goes; it comes back; it goes; it comes back....

Just stop pissing around with it, turn of comments, and leave it be. And stop changing the text. I used to be a tech editor: believe me, this is good copy!

You've thrown a very big, well-aimed grenade right into the middle of Windows Div. Mini is clapping and Scoble says you're right. Congratulations.

Hopefully that grenade will roll far enough so that it explodes right int he middle of COSD. Maybe (even) the RIF will start there: anti-protons flying out into the div.

You've done exactly what you intended. Well done, lad: now sit still, and enjoy the fireworks.

Great post, Scoble. Thanks for the link, I was curious into some inside perspective on the delay, which Phil was great in posting it.

Well, as the first post on PhillipSu's "Broken Windows Theory" article, I'm wondering if I did anything wrong by referring to "The Mythical Man-Month" ... or by pointing out that this sort of problem has been sidestepped in my (Unix/Linux) neck of the woods by making use of independently controlled interfaces, and then having the different teams just ignore the rest. That's rabid zealotry?

Or was it that I remembered the MS Win2K slippage? Or the OS/2 slippage? If the software is solid enough, your customers will forgive you the slippage; if not, and it's wasted time and space, you've just bought yourself a ticket to nowhere.

Maybe it was because I mentioned minimsft? I'm rather fond of minimsft, mostly because he doesn't bullshit. There is something rotten in the State of Microsoft, and minimsft wants to get it set right. You, Robert, point out that most 'Softies are just ordinary geeks, and that's fine by me. minimsft makes the point that they've got reason themselves to be angry about some of Microsoft's corporate behaviour, and that, I am afraid, is a free speech issue.

I know MS has a million and one reasons why they don't want to do Windows from scratch or rewrite massive portions of core systems (I'll never tire of giving reasons why explorer.exe should be redone), but when you're jumping from 40 million lines of code to 50 million by version, something is wrong.
Someone in the comments there mentioned MSR's Singularity OS, and that is a concept that I *really* hope takes the place of the old code. Take a clean, new managed OS, layer on WOW16 & GDI, etc. emulation, add WinFX as well so you wind up with an API-compatible Windows with an entirely new architecture underneath. If VisiCalc or some app doing some funky linking breaks, so be it, because the burden of maintaining something that is this long in the tooth isn't going to get better if the lines of code increase at this rate.

Comment by PhilipSu — June 15, 2006 @ 11:52 am
>7. I removed the post of my own volition, with no external pressure whatsoever. I wanted the discussion around the topic to be as productive as possible, but instead it’s just been a magnet for Linux and Apple fanatics to spread rhetoric.
Well posting sorry internal state in public, did you really expect productive (to MS) discussions?

>Some folks have shared great perspectives, but the vast majority have just been detracting. Because of this, I’ve pulled the post.
I am unconvinced about absolute honesty of this entire post episode. I still think there is a marketing aspect to it, or maybe a diversion tactic to hide the real reason for Vista being delayed. (Like its still badly badly broken ...?)

What do you think Scoble? Or perhaps I should ask you to comment after 30-June. Geee it IS after 30 June.