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Did Amazon Induce Vista's Premature Birth?
theodp writes "A recent Amazon SEC filing sheds light on the puzzling departure of Microsoft Sr. VP Brian Valentine in Sept. 2006. Valentine is the Gen. George Patton-like figure charged with pushing Vista developers, who dumped the still not-ready-for-prime-time OS into RC1 status as he bolted for a new gig at Amazon. Having repeatedly assured everyone that Valentine was staying with the company post-Vista, Microsoft backpedaled and explained that Valentine decided to leave since the company had shipped a near-final version of Vista. Not so. Although analysts fell for the PR line, it seems Valentine had actually signed an Employment Agreement way back in June calling for him to be on board at Amazon on Sept. 11 if he wanted to pick up a $1.7M signing bonus, $150K base salary, another $500K bonus, and 400K shares of Amazon stock (now worth almost $30M). Who says you have to shell out $999.95 for MS-Project to come up with accurate planned completion dates?"
There are lies, damn lies, and material misstatements to the investment community.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
How long until Amazon OS is released?
He didn`t do it for the money - he wanted the users to have a modern, lightweight operating system with great features like Aq...Aero, media controlled internet bandwith, and gazillions of bl...features. The system is very mature and st
We leave linux bashing to Forbes, The Yankee Group, Mr Enderle etc. They are much better at it. :)
Its sad how this site has gone down the tubes.
How else would it get to our computers?
Man, if I'm Microsoft and I'm generally willing to break the law to get my way when push comes to shove, I'm probably sending some guys to bust Valentine's kneecaps at a minimum.
Granted, that wouldn't help them out in the short term, but they'd lose less executives if a savage beating was part of the severance package. Hell, they probably could advertise right here on slashdot for people willing to kick a Microsoft executive in the groin for free!
"Who says you have to shell out $999.95 for MS-Project to come up with accurate planned completion dates?"
Hey, it's only $854.99 at Amazon!
A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name. -- Evan Esar
Vista wasn't really a "premature birth". It's more like putting every other ingredient into a recipe, then trying to fix it by baking it for too long.
Not a typewriter
Ahhh thank you, I failed to remember the inherit sheep like behavior of investors. :)
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Vista was delayed so long anyway, would another dozen years really make a difference? I should think an OS that's not ready is worse for investor confidence than delays people are already used to.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Amazon was just playing catch with a baseball and the ball got away. It hit Microsoft right in the womb. Shortly after Vista said "Calculating File Transfer". Microsoft and doctors thought that Vista might be in trouble so they induced the labor. Then after it was born they found out it was just a "feature". That original file transfer is still "calculating" to this day.
"RC1 isn't the shipping OS"
You sure about that?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I think they were originally planning a simultaneous release of Vista and Duke Nukem Forever.
"But this one goes to 11!"
More if the programmers qualified under Amazon's "Get 4 for the price of 3" promotion.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
"He always kept the team meetings stocked with several kegs of beer and always told the employees that if they drank too much take a cab home and expense it."
That explains VISTA!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The big secret is that Vista and Duke Nukem Forever are actually the same program. The trouble is, people keep trying to get Vista to act like an OS.
This incident has everything: 1) Overpaying executives and underpaying the people who do the work. He got stock options worth $30 million just for coming to work the first day? 2) Corporate lies and sneakiness and manipulation. 3) Absolutely no caring for customers. 4) Behavior that will eventually sink the company. Remember, at one time IBM had 100% of the PC business. Remember, IBM lost $1 billion on OS2, and then lost another $1 billion. Even the biggest company cannot treat customers badly forever.
The whole Vista experience oozes sleaziness. It's the true modern horror story. In comparison, the movie "Aliens" is for schoolchildren. What's a monster compared to Bill Gates in the role as software's "Dr. Death", degrading the quality of life of millions of people by hassling them and costing them more?
One of the biggest and most respected IT magazines is rejecting Windows Vista: Save Windows XP. Quote: "More than 75,000 people have signed InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition in the three weeks since it was launched - many with passionate, often emotional pleas to not be forced to make a change."
It's like "hit Microsoft and run and make a whole bunch of money in the process".
Sweet.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
*cough* KDE4 *cough*
I think you meant inherent. You know, as in "Correcting errors of slashdot posters is an inherent behavior of a grammar nazi."
I thought Valentine left on 14 February?
Hmmmm. Maybe he thinks investors are a sub-class, derived from sheep? You know, kind of:
class Investor: public Sheep {.......
sort of thing?
That's just silly.
Investors implement the ISheep interface, but they clearly extend the doucheBag class.