“Microsoft Corp. announced a broad reorganization Thursday of the unit that produces its flagship Windows operating system, two days after the company said the new consumer version of Windows would not be ready for the holiday season as planned,” Allison Linn reports for The Associated Press. “The company said a reorganized Platforms and Services division will be made up of eight new and existing groups, including the Windows and Windows Live Group, led by Steven Sinofsky, who currently heads development of company’s Office business software system. Other groups will focus on core operating system, online business products, and the servers and software tools businesses.”
“Vista will be the first new version of Windows since XP was released in late 2001. Some analysts had originally expected Vista to launch as early as 2003. But the system release was delayed, first by a companywide effort to improve security of all Microsoft products. At another point, Microsoft also decided to attempt to overhaul the operating system so it would be easier to add new features,” Linn reports. “Over time, the company has scaled back its goals for Vista, deciding not to ship the product with an advanced system for storing and organizing data, called WinFS. Microsoft does plan improvements to how users can find things like pictures, e-mails and documents, but the more sophisticated WinFS system won’t be added until later.”
Linn reports, “As previously announced, Jim Allchin, co-president of the Plaforms and Services division, will retire next year. Until then, he and co-president Kevin Johnson will continue to lead the division, while Sinofsky will focus on planning future versions of Windows.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s flagship is a submarine outfitted with screen doors. Until next year, Allchin and co-president Kevin Johnson will continue to lead the division? “Lead” as in, “the initiative in an action; an example for others to follow, show (someone or something) the way to a destination” or “lead” as in, “a heavy ductile metal; leaden: sluggish, heavy, lumbering, slow, burdensome, cumbersome, boring, dull, unimaginative, uninspired, monotonous, heavy, labored, wooden, lifeless, plodding, depressing, and oppressive?”
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Seems like they’re playing my old game of rearranging the deck chairs on my beloved Titanic.
It is a known fact that once the sales guy climbs up to the top position in a company it starts falling apart. Sales guys should never run anything but sales.
great quote but:
The following quotation, or variants of it, is frequently attributed to Petronius:
“We trained hard … but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”
This quotation is not by Petronius; the earliest reference to it dates only to 1970. There are references to it originating among disgruntled British occupying forces in post-1945 Germany (Petronian Society Newsletter, May 1981). The true author is unknown.
It’s not quality you are paying for, it’s just one way Microsoft can screw you. XP Home is the low price, XP Pro you have to give them some exrea of your hard earned money, and XP Server is where you really get screwed.
They should change the name from Microsoft to givemeyourmoney
Steve Balmer to Johnson, Sinofsky, and Allchin: “Break out the Duct Tape boys, we can fix this Vista Thingie… Now what was it supposed to do? I know, cut that piece off, oh and that one too, now pass me a philips… No philllips, not regular…”
If MSFT had any brains. They’d scrap Vista like Apple scrapped Copland. Release XP SP3 in January including only the features they can actually ship quickly. Keep it simple.
Buy the % of SCO they don’t already own. Graft a Windows GUI on top of a SCO Unix kernel. Use the Virtual Machine technology they bought from Connectix to run XP and earlier in a virtual machine. They might find that by using a new code-base that they could get all those dropped features into SCOWindows quickly.
Remember that commercial from the past Super Bowl with a bunch of monkeys partying around in the office? I always wondered if they filmed that commercial on location somewhere in Redmond.
The funniest line in the whole article is:
“Sinofsky will focus on planning future versions of Windows.”
Isn’t VISTA a future version of Windoze?
LMAOAROF
synthmeister
Thanks very much. It seems you do learn something new every day.
Hey, I got “earth” as my magic word. Thom Yorke would be proud
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I love the quote. Unfortunately, have also experienced it a few times as well.
honestly, i’m shocked that we haven’t seen a shareholder lawsuit to remove the board of microsoft for it’s top down ineptitude.
Tommy Boy, that’s a great idea but unfortunately that would put MS four more years behind having a modern OS.
It was an expensive pill for Apple to move to OS-X and I didn’t like going through the change but it was worth it. I think the same is true of the move to Intel, in the end it will be worth it.
MS could do the SCO thing in the background (for future release) but right now all they can do is try to scrape something together to push out and try to live up to their press.
It’s obvious from the latest Vista delay, MS needs a miracle, how much does one cost?
“Trending for dummies
Mac OSX 10.1 vs. Windows XP = XP Dominant OS
Mac OSX 10.2 vs. Windows XP = XP Dominant OS
Mac OSX 10.3 vs. Windows XP = XP Dominant OS
Mac OSX 10.4 vs. Windows XP = XP Dominant OS
See the trend yet, kids?”
Mercedes vs all others = all others sell more cars (less respected)
Lexus vs all others= all others sell more cars (less priased)
Lotus vs all others=all others sell more sport cars (less refined)
Ferri vs all other= all other sell more (but can not match the look)
Windows (thousands of Virus’,loggers, spyware vs Apple….uhhhh-none
Windows (dollars/time spent on upkeep) vs Apple…um, Far less!!!!
Windows (we have a problem with security-delay Vista) vs Apple….uh-nope!
Windows (we must make the interface easier-delay Vista) va Apple….10.4
Windows (watch Apple and copy) vs Apple (watch Windows and Laugh!)
Desired cars…smaller production number-but envyed (longed for)
Desired OS…..Macintosh (Envyed by Bill Gates- copyed for the masses)
Note that the masses purchase…… but look at what they want.
Macintosh=repect, praise, envy, beauty, refinement, and copied loosely for the unknowing masses that leap for joy at the excitement that others experience every day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Are YOU ready for VISTA- Microsofts copy of Apples OS…….OH YES YOU ARE! And you are will die to get it.
Well I am having fun with the real deal……………………………………………
See a TREND? Or are your eyes so old they no longer see?
“TRENDING FOR DUMMIES”
As I write this on my laptop from a storage closet, I too work inside the beast in Redmond. The atmosphere is unbelieveable on my floor. Pulling six figures in middle management, most of my days are spent playing XBOX 360° and my iPod. Upper management doesn’t have a clue about what work I am doing, nor have they bothered to check on my department in three months, so I continue to live the sweet life — getting paid for doing nothing, playing games and listening to my iPod most of the day with an occasional email or two. Pretty soon I will apply for work elsewhere, but I find it difficult to look ahead and know someday I will need to actually work again. My pregnant wife and kids don’t even know what I do everyday. They are under the impression that I am doing important things for the company on a daily basis. I don’t have the heart to tell them what really goes on around here. I mean, why do you think Vista keeps getting delayed? There are others here doing the same thing… I can see it in their faces. They know as well as I do that… oh sh*t, I gotta go.
I wonder if this will really help pushing vista out the door sooner. Pushing because I assume it will be far from ready when they push it out on unsuspecting (and ignorant) consumers.
So ripping the guts out of vista wasnt enough, they had to cut the heads off their programmers as well…..
Its like Apple is running things over at the MS camp. – I dont think Steve could do a better job at running the fucking company into the ground.
Next thing you know they’ll be stopping distribution of office…
Micro$oft makes me a living which I can feed my family.
What does Apple do?
Fire me because I’m not brainwashed enough.
Edgely…love the quote
Microsoft is proving Johnathan Swift’s adage that “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” The foundations of Windows are so fragile, that it can not be bent, beaten or kludged into shape to support the features desired.
Steve Jobs understood that before he came back to Apple. He had already proved that NeXtStep was up to the task — even if it was not a commercial success — and what remained to be done at Apple was to use the same foundations for OS X.
That leaves Apple on fundamentally firm ground, while Microsoft struggles in the tar pit, someday to be an exhibit in a museum between the mastodons and the giant ground sloths.
haha, well I just can’t get enough micro$uck bashing…Flame on!!!! Really far too easy, gimmie mac or linux ANY DAY.
Anyone notice when reading the comments etc at the mini-microsoft blog that the job rankings all have titles that sound like MLM business titles (Amway) or perhaps Scientology/cult titles?
check out this article”
“60% Of Windows Vista Code To Be Rewritten”
http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Computing/Platforms?Article=/Computing/Platforms/R7G5G6U4
Bill Gates of Microsoft has hired Apple to complete their modern flagship operating system ‘Vista’ after a complete reorganization of their Windows division.
Longhorn was supposed to ship in 2001. Five years later it is so loaded with complexity, so interconnected in miriads of ways between its many parts and the outside, that it is undebuggable, unsecurable, and practically unusable – about what you’d expect from a company that is unmanageable.
Best start from scratch: target 2010?
Wow! I guess Micro$haft doesn’t have OS2 to steel and has to make their own OS this time.