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Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky Leaves Microsoft
CWmike writes with this excerpt from Computerworld: "Steven Sinofsky, the executive in charge of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system and the driving force behind the new OS, is leaving the company effective immediately, Microsoft announced late Monday. Sinofsky was also the public face for Windows 8 and its new Metro interface, posting constant updates in a Windows 8 blog that charted its development. His last post, fittingly, was entitled 'Updating Windows 8 for General Availability.' The OS was officially launched at the end of last month. According to the All Things D blog, there was growing tension between Sinofsky and other members of the Microsoft executive team, who didn't see him as enough of a team player. But Microsoft's official position is that the decision was a mutual one. Sinofsky had only good things to say about his former employer." Also at SlashCloud.
Posting anonymously because... well...
Anyway, the guy had a Jobs complex. That sort of attitude may have worked in a "one trick" company like Apple (not trying to start a flame war on that, but Apple has a VERY stovepiped set of products as compared to Microsoft). All it did was piss people off in the other business groups at Microsoft, though.
Like many of the oustings at Microsoft over the last 4-5 years, this is a good one, and a positive sign for the company.
And lest there be any confusion on it -- at Microsoft, once you're Partner level, decisions to leave are always "mutual".
Agreed. Paul Thurrott - who admittedly is two steps shy of being a raving Microsoft fan - noted that Microsoft says "We bet the company on this" at the drop of a hat - the launch of the Zune products, the launch of the Xbox, the Office Ribbon, etc... such pronouncements are conspicuously absent in the Windows 8 announcements because they really did bet the company on this.
I have Windows 8. As a semi-power-user, the learning curve took me all of a day. I'm sure that's enough to get screams of protest from people who dislike any kind of change. And of course that's the majority of computer users. But it's an acceptable operating system and I can completely understand Microsoft's drive to unify the user experience across phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and servers ( although for anyone that does not know this already, Microsoft Server 2012 can run without a Microsoft GUI, just PowerShell ). It's a bet on the long term future, and regardless of whether it pays off I think it was a sensible bet.
If they're ditching Sinofsky for genuine personnel reasons, that's fine. If they're thinking of making Windows 9 more like Windows 7, I think they're kneecapping their long term future for near term benefit.
During Windows Vista and previous development, private beta testers (not internal to MS) were given a constant stream of new builds to test. Microsoft was very responsive and bugs were generally fixed very quickly. I know this will surprise people, but at least for me, Vista was quite bug-free at launch because all the ones I found during the beta were fixed.
Sinofsky took over for Windows 7, and the change in testing procedure was jarring. We got a total of two builds over the entire program -- Beta 1 and RC. The effects of this were that many bug reports weren't reproducible on their much newer internal builds, so the bugs either didn't get fixed or testers were wasting effort. When the RC was released, Microsoft actually deleted many old bug reports and told everyone not to submit anything that didn't result in a BSOD or failed install, which let a lot of glaring cosmetic bugs get through. I can only imagine this was so they could reduce their official bug counts at launch.
The botched Windows 7 testing lead to the weirdest thing I could imagine -- in the middle of the program, there was basically a revolt among the testers. So much so that some took to labeling themselves "proud" testers in their signatures to separate them from the frustrated majority.
For Windows 8 -- we all pretty much knew it was going to happen -- there was no external testing at all. I guess after Vista's performance issues and the poor handling of 7, it was pretty easy for them to decide testers weren't helping them.
Sinofsky had only good things to say about his former employer
When I was laid off years ago, in order to get my severance package, I had to sign an agreement to *not* say bad things about the company in the press. I imagine this guy had $Millions on the line if he does say anything disparaging. Hell, if the MS lawyers are any good, they made sure that any companies that he forms within N years have to use MS products exclusively. (or at least for the public facing computers)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
I'm sure that's enough to get screams of protest from people who dislike any kind of change. And of course that's the majority of computer users.
Lots of computer users have a rather negative experience with Windows. At work they have locked down low power systems. At home they have cheap systems loaded to the gills with crapware. I'd say Windows Power users, which is a large chunk of the /. crowd, and always has been, hate the change to Windows 8. I suspect the vast majority of end users will love the change to Windows 8. One of the things that people don't notice and I was floored by is that computer literacy is crashing. Gen-Xers and Millennials are very competent on computers. iGen on the other hand find the historical accumulation on systems like Windows too complex. They like other OSes with less historical baggage (Android, Win mobile, MeeGo, iOS...). That's an important constituency.
It's a bet on the long term future, and regardless of whether it pays off I think it was a sensible bet.
Agreed. Ubiquitous computing is a very exciting program. And whether it works or doesn't it is great to see Microsoft exercising technological leadership again.
If they're ditching Sinofsky for genuine personnel reasons, that's fine. If they're thinking of making Windows 9 more like Windows 7, I think they're kneecapping their long term future for near term benefit.
Exactly. Windows 9 should be like Windows 8 but even further. Win7 should be a guest OS running on the Hypervisor, which doesn't boot by default. Like the Classic environment when Apple switched to OSX. That starts to really strongly push the user base away from Win32 applications. If developers find out next year that's the intent they will start writing Metro GUIs to allow their apps to install in both environments (sort of like the Carbon porting libraries).