What Sinofsky’s Departure Suggests about Microsoft
technologyreview.com
technologyreview.com
Another thing I find difficult to understand is why not have a Metro-fied implementation of C#'s (and other MSIL languages') base classes. Then you would have something like Android's architecture independence and a considerable based of apps.
Except that they still don't get it, or if they get it they are completely unable to deliver. They are marketing the Surface RT and showing that it runs Office - the old-style-1990's-desktop-PC-UI Office. That's not impressive. Nobody wants that.
So the question is: Does Microsoft truly still not get it? Or do they get it, and are choosing not to / unable to deliver the proper experience?
From the video review in The Verge of the Surface RT a little while ago, it looks like Office on the tablet has exactly the same Save dialog, for example, as desktop. How on Earth are you supposed to navigate that with your fingers? Tiny little buttons, changing the folder tree, etc. It looks absolutely miserable.
But these days, those tin dialogs and buttons are a joke. Heck, I've been bitching about non-resizable dialogs in Office for years.
Both have killer Use Cases whilst mobile; you can be productive with both tools with a touch interface and without a keyboard.
I'm surprised that they've not noticed that.
In some way it was an impossible task.
It's quite amazing because office seems to be the only reason the desktop mode exists in RT. So it means that it was apparently easier to port all of the Windows desktop to ARM so as to run Office (subobtimally) in desktop mode than it was to put a touch-based UI on Office. It's hard to think this was an optimal choice of direction, they must have been forced to do this as a least worst option ... the only way to ship office in time. But what does that say about Office? How bad must the internal code be, or the team managing it, or the process they have, if re-skinning it is more effort than porting all of the Windows desktop?
"Least worst option" sums it up.
Metro feels like compromise to keep people tied to the desktop.
The basic problem is that both Windows and .NET are platforms, .NET has been the developer-face of Microsoft. When Windows projected its API to C++, Javascript and .NET, developers naturally feel wronged. However, making DevDiv look good has not been Steve's task (or that's what Steve believed so). Steve's job is to deliver a platform with the broadest reach.
This whole Sinofsky drama is a really good lesson for everyone. Nobody is indispensible. Microsoft will be fine without Sinofsky.
Either what you say is right – Microsoft is fine – or what you say is wrong and Microsoft has a bleak future. We don't knkow why Sinofsky left, but to play devil's advocate:
What if Sinofsky did do a good job of working with other executives but Ballmer felt threatened by a potential successor?
Or what if Sinofsky was just set up to take the fall, since high-level executives at Microsoft must be aware of the difficulties the world is going to face with Windows 8?
And either of these could have to do with Sinofsky, or not. Honestly the whole speculation about what this portends for Microsoft is humorous.
So they fire the assertive asshole and fix none of the other problems that required him to be that way in the first place.... what happens next?
Apple without Jobs may have to wade through the same wilderness of disillusionment, but Microsoft without Sinofsky (assuming you're correct that Sinofsky was Microsoft's "visionary") not only gets the disillusionment, Microsoft starts by tearing itself apart without any sort of pressure to reform or repair the damage.
On the other hand, even assuming Microsoft is fine without Sinofsky, Windows 8 can't be considered nearly as successful as, say, the introduction of the iPhone, simply by the nature of the release: release a new product that requires a lot of change – and _fire_ the leader at the same time? I don't believe even the "best case" can be considered a success.
I used those bloody damn awful Performas, and was part of Schlumberger's migration from Mac to Windows 95.
Then Steve came back and we got all the cool pro stuff [drawing a blank over the toilet seat iMac of course...]
In essence, sinofsky was tasked with sorting out office development and then with doing the same with windows. In the end he seems to have been a classic empire builder, and windows was the larger empire (within Microsoft).
"The Windows product at this point had ballooned to about 50 million lines of “spaghetti code,”"
and then in gives credit to Sinofsky for everything good in Windows that follows whereas Wikipedia has completely another story:
"In December 2003, Allchin enlisted the help of two other senior executives, Brian Valentine and Amitabh Srivastava, the former being experienced with shipping software at Microsoft, most notably Windows Server 2003,[13] and the latter having spent his career at Microsoft researching and developing methods of producing high-quality testing systems.[14] Srivastava employed a team of core architects to visually map out the entirety of the Windows operating system, and to proactively work towards a development process that would enforce high levels of code quality"
What's the truth?
Interestingly, Allchin had resounding success with WinXP, not so much with Vista, and retired on the day that Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers. Deja vu.
Ref: