Microsoft, scrapping things and starting over... and failure...
- Thread starter dlalonde
- Start date
I think World of Technology is going to be divided to:
- Low Quality Product with week Support which causes Cheap One
and
- High Quality Product with Strong Support which causes Expensive One
and World Technology Market needs Both of them, and I think MS has been chosen the First part
- Low Quality Product with week Support which causes Cheap One
and
- High Quality Product with Strong Support which causes Expensive One
and World Technology Market needs Both of them, and I think MS has been chosen the First part
Honestly, your history is a little off. You kind of lost me in the first sentence when you imply that OSX was so groundbreaking that it caused MS to get tripped up.
OSX had no noticeable impact on Microsoft at that time and to this day that is basically still the case. MS did scrap many *parts* of Longhorn, but it wasn't because of anything that Apple was doing. It was because some of the technical goals turned out to be more complicated than anticipated and because MS was suddenly having to alter their software to comply with government restrictions due to their new Monopoly status. Also, during those years between XP and 7, Microsoft was heavily focused on the enterprise and modern development tools (which was a very successful effort).
The idea that MS had little or no competition in the 80's and 90's is not accurate either. They were up against huge (at the time) and established companies like IBM, HP, Novell, SCO, and Oracle. They eventually won most of those battles and Windows, Office, etc. became the "standards", but it certainly wasn't a competition free environment. If anything, the competition was much more brutal than today and in many of those fights MS was the underdog.
As far as Windows 8, that isn't really "starting over" any more than Windows Vista or Windows XP were starting over. It is change designed to keep up with constantly evolving technology. Windows 8 is basically Windows 7 + touch apps and a touch optimized start menu. I realize that a lot of people haven't handled that amount of change well (much like they didn't with Vista and XP), but keeping things stagnant to make all the change-adverse people out there happy is a sure way to fail in the technology industry. Anyway, my point is that they didn't "restart" with Windows 8. It is almost completely backward compatible with Windows 7 (more so than nearly any previous version change).
I agree with your Xbox Music example though. I wish they had just rebranded Zune and used that as a starting point.
Anyway, I agree with your overall premise that MS should commit to their goals more often than they have. I just don't think some of the history or examples you gave are accurate. However, MS releases a lot of products. Much more than most people are aware of. Microsoft is unique in that they compete in nearly every realm of computer technology and they are in first, second, or third place in each. Nearly all of their competitors only compete in 2 or 3 major areas of computer technology. They have certainly made some missteps over the years, but it's like the saying goes...
"Show me someone that has never made a mistake and I'll show you someone that has never done anything."
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Reflexx
New member
I think part of this was due to the old "stack ranking" system they had in place for evaluating and promoting employees at Microsoft (at a lot of other tech companies).
It rewarded a lot of individual performance, but it discouraged teamwork. So pretty much everyone tried to do their own thing and make it "the thing".
Now that MS has abandoned that method of evaluating employees and adopted "One Microsoft", they are reassessing everything. They're looking at some stuff that worked, but really wasn't built to grow in cooperation with others.
They're in the process of trying to not only reorganize their personnel structure, they're reorganizing the way their software is written. It's supposed to play nicely with other departments.
Over time, this will make it incredibly strong. However, the disadvantage with having to cooperate with so many others is that things move more slowly than if you only had to worry about your own department.
It rewarded a lot of individual performance, but it discouraged teamwork. So pretty much everyone tried to do their own thing and make it "the thing".
Now that MS has abandoned that method of evaluating employees and adopted "One Microsoft", they are reassessing everything. They're looking at some stuff that worked, but really wasn't built to grow in cooperation with others.
They're in the process of trying to not only reorganize their personnel structure, they're reorganizing the way their software is written. It's supposed to play nicely with other departments.
Over time, this will make it incredibly strong. However, the disadvantage with having to cooperate with so many others is that things move more slowly than if you only had to worry about your own department.
We'd have to compare sources. Because I remember reading otherwise at the time. Plus, Mac OS X was highly successful compared to earlier versions as it was the first time Mac OS was no longer seen as a closed "incompatible with PCs" machine but rather a full personal computer (in the purest meaning of the word). Plus, it's undeniable that much of the graphical interface from Vista as well as some software are copied over, or at least highly inspired, from Mac OS X. That part is a fact. The rest, like I said, we'd have to check with our respective sources to know who's right. But it's a little pointless overall.
As far as Longhorn, I've read in the past (and just confirmed here) that it wasn't just "some parts" of it but rather that "Longhorn OS that was abandoned after years of development and almost entirely rewritten for release as Windows Vista."
In the 90's, of course there were other players like IBM, HP, Novell, SCO and Oracle, I'm not saying otherwise. I was talking about home users, not companies. But I do understand how I was vague about this. In the 90's, not many households had systems based on something else than Windows 3.11, 95, 98 and so on.
For Windows 8, take everyday ends users and remove their main screen (the desktop) to show them a new screen by default, relegating the desktop to an app that you have to find at first with no obvious ways of going back to the start screen, that's called starting over. What Microsoft tried to do with Windows 8 was to focus on touch screens in which the desktop is less useful. But they went too fast and all over the place, hence de heavy criticism. I'm not saying they rewrote their OS. I'm saying they tried to change the system so the desktop would be replaced by the start screen. For people who don't use computers that often or who don't like change (there are a lot) that was like starting over. It was like saying "You know the desktop with the start menu you've been using for 20 years? Well now it's gone. Deal with it".
Jas00555
Retired Ambassador
Does it really matter who stole what from who? I mean, OS 10.10 stole aero view and the transparency effects from Vista. iOS also copied the card view. I really don't see how copying features makes it "better".
Jas00555
Retired Ambassador
I also fail to understand why starting over, if the current system if broken, is a bad thing. I mean, I get that you can argue that they should've done it right the first time, but I don't think any company can get everything right the first time.
Jas00555
Retired Ambassador
It doesn't matter indeed. Was never the point.
That's actually part of my point. These things were not broken! Zune was not broken. Even the Music+Video hub was not broken. Longhorn looked promising at the time, it was not broken. They just wanted their graphics to be comparable to Mac OS. Windows 7 was not broken, there was no need for a major overhaul... and so on.
I miss groups myself. Having all my closest friends on a single live tile. Family on another. Just so I could see the l their feeds...RUINED!
Yep! Also, although I get why they changed it, I don't understand why the People Hub didn't just become a non-system app like Xbox Music so they could update it accordingly to changed in different networks. There was probably a reason we don't know about but it's still a shame.
a5cent
New member
*Sigh*. It's hard to have a constructive conversation when we must rely on such crappy journalism for our facts. Not your fault of course. I only read the parts of the article related to Longhorn, and a lot of it is just plain wrong.
At around the time Vista was released, I worked at a large software company with very close ties to MS' Windows division. I can tell you first hand that Longhorn is what most came to know as Windows Vista. It's the same thing. Longhorn was not abandoned, and the OS was not rewritten from scratch. What MS did abandon were a lot of the features they had originally planned to include in Vista/Longhorn. It doesn't sound like that is what the author meant, but it's the only thing I can come up with if I don't want to accuse the author of just making stuff up.
Anyway, Cleavitt76 got it right. There are a few developers on this site with a lot more knowledge than your average tech journalist.
Oh yeah, but despite this misrepresentation, I'd also agree with your overall assessment that MS too often tends to throw things out and start over again. That accusation should go towards the developer division however. The windows division doesn't generally do that. The change from WP7 to WP8 is the only exception I can think of, and that was necessary because the Windows kernel just wasn't ready at the time and MS needed to put something on the market rather sooner than later.
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I just discovered that you can in fact still make and edit groups!!! The difference now is that before you could access it from the dialer. Now you can only do it from going to the people hub direct from the apps list. My faith has been restored!
Thanks for the precisions!
I thought they'd scrapped most of it (not as in they rewrote the whole thing obviously but took the basis of XP and wrote a whole new interface around it). Wonder why it took them so long though.I agree for WP7 to WP8, changing kernel was a good (and logical) move.
Ebuka Allison
New member
The dialer sends you to the PHONEBOOK because it is assumed that if you're in the dialer app, you intend to make a phone call. The people hub works as it always did.
Wiki has a pretty good explanation of the history of the Longhorn project...
Windows Vista - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I actually don't think that Vista was copying OSX. I know to some it appeared that way, but it very well may have been the other way around. The features that were introduced in OSX at that time were only a handful of the features MS had already been working on for Longhorn. Leaked versions of Longhorn (which I played with at the time) had those features years before OSX had them in the public eye. The Vista look and feel (which is mostly just a transparent version of the XP UI more than a copy of OSX) is noticeable to end users, but it was probably the least complicated part of the planned Longhorn/Vista feature set. Apple and MS have copied each other for years. No doubt about that. MS didn't scrap an entire OS project and create Vista to copy Apple though.
It's more complicated than that one liner quote suggests. MS didn't just throw away Longhorn and start from scratch with Vista. Longhorn was the project codename for the Vista product, not a product of it's own. The problem was that MS was too ambitious and disorganized with the Longhorn project to get it out the door on time. They had started building Longhorn on the XP codebase, but the planned Longhorn feature set took so long to develop that the XP codebase had become obsolete during the project. The Windows codebase had been going through major changes in parallel for Windows Server 2003 due to Microsoft's focus on enterprise competition (they now develop consumer and server OSes in unison). Longhorn was eventually restarted with the Windows Server 2003 codebase and features that had been completed up to that point were copied over. That restarted Longhorn project based on the Windows Server 2003 codebase and new features that had been developed in the first attempt became the Vista product. The final Vista product mostly contained a subset of features that had been in the plans from the start.
Agreed. I misunderstood what your were trying to say.
You call it "starting over" I call it "too much change at once", but I get your point.
MS clearly underestimated how easily confused people would be by the changes in Windows 8 and overestimated how willing the average consumer is to learn something new. No argument there. However, the desktop hasn't been "relegated to an app" just because it's represented by a tile on the Start Screen. It still does everything it did in Windows 7. Also, Microsoft certainly never said, "The desktop is gone. Deal with it." That is the buzz that some people have created and spread, but that was never Microsoft's message or plan (as evident by the fact that they desktop is still there and MS still write new desktop software themselves).
Anyway, my point is that I see that example as a step forward too quickly rather than a good example of a restart (backwards then forwards). After all, MS needed to do something to embrace touchscreen and tablets. In that regard, Windows RT is actually a better example of starting over. At least Windows 8.x give people the ability to keep using their Windows software and most of their workflows. I think a better example of your original point is the removal of the "hubs" concept in Windows Phone in favor of the fairly boring IMO single-purpose-apps concept.
Oh I know they didn't say it and that it wasn't meant like that. But I'm an IT you see and I deal with people trying to deal with Windows 8 and I guarantee you it's not just a buzz. That's actually the way they feel.
But I understand what you mean when you differenciate "starting over" and "too much change at once".
Yeah, I'm in IT too and I see the same thing with certain people (mostly those that haven't actually tried it). I personally think MS is ahead of its time with Windows 8 from a technical perspective. However, in terms of marketing it, well, they let it get away from them and so from a consumer perspective you are probably correct. Many [clueless] consumers probably perceive it as yet another MS restart. Maybe it's a good example after all.
Yeah, I'm in IT too and I see the same thing with certain people (mostly those that haven't actually tried it). I personally think MS is ahead of its time with Windows 8 from a technical perspective. However, in terms of marketing it, well, they let it get away from them and so from a consumer perspective you are probably correct. Many [clueless] consumers probably perceive it as yet another MS restart. Maybe it's a good example after all.
Oh yes it is ahead. At first I was thrown off by it but quickly loved it (which is why I'm all Microsoft now). But most people I help don't want to learn a new thing especially with such a big learning curve. I get the feeling a lot if people are like that hence Microsoft bringing back the Start button and soon Start menu.
Eventually when we'll all be using touch screens, I hope Microsoft doesn't wipe it and change interface again though ha ha! ;-)
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