Windows is broken and Microsoft has admitted it. In an unprecedented attempt to explain its Longhorn problems and how it abandoned its traditional way of working, the normally secretive software giant has given unparalleled access to The Wall Street Journal, even revealing how Vice President Jim Allchin, personally broke the bad news to Bill Gates.
Allchin is co-head of the Platform Products and Services Division. "It's not going to work," he told Gates in the chairman's office, the paper reports. "[Longhorn] is so complex its writers will never be able to make it run properly. "The reason: Microsoft engineers were building it just as they had always built software. Thousands of programmers each produced their own piece of computer code, to be stitched together into one sprawling program.But Longhorn/Vista was too complex: Microsoft needed to begin again, Allchin told Gates.Allchin's warning recognised a growing threat from Google, Apple Computer, makers of Linux and corporate buyers - the latter horrified about security problems. Allchin and a small team demanded a revolution in how Microsoft works.
Microsoft's Jim Allchin
Accordingly, according to the Journal, Microsoft then went down the Linux path of first developing a solid kernel for what's now called Vista. It is now adding the features it wants, one by one. Gates was eager for his programmers to add a fundamental change to Windows called WinFS that would let PC users search and organise information better. WinFS was so troublesome that engineers began talking about whether they could make the "pig fly". Images of pigs with wings started appearing in presentations and offices.
The Journal says the Longhorn crisis helps explain the sweeping restructuring that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced last week, splitting the company into three major business units. The goal is to force Microsoft to be more nimble in producing and delivering software. The result: Microsoft has thrown out years of computer code in Longhorn and started out with a fresh base. It has now set up computers to reject bug-laden code automatically. The new Vista will be simple. Bells and whistles will hopefully come later - including WinFS.
According to the WSJ, Gates resisted at first, pushing for Mr. Allchin's group to take more time until everything worked. Over the next few months, Mr. Allchin and his deputies would also face protests from programmers who complained he was trying to impose bureaucracy and rob Microsoft of its creativity.
"There was some angst by everybody," says Mr. Gates of the period. "It's obviously my role to ask people, 'Hey, let's not throw things out we shouldn't throw out. Let's keep things in that we can keep in.' "
Ultimately, Mr. Allchin's warning proved cathartic and led to what he and others call a transformation in Microsoft's most important product. A key reason: the growing threat from rivals such as Google Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and makers of the free Linux operating system. In recent years these companies have been dashing out some software innovations faster than Microsoft. Google has grown particularly effective at introducing new programs such as email and instant messaging over the Internet, watching how they perform and regularly replacing them with improved versions.
Microsoft's Windows can't entirely replicate that approach, since the software is by its nature a massive program overseeing all of a computer's functions. But Microsoft is now racing to move in that direction: developing a solid core for Windows onto which new features can be adde
WTF - it really is an article, dig it here: Microsoft Windows Is Offically Broken. Is this a 'parody' or not? If not, why was it deleted, esp since it was just posted to their site today (so it *shouldn't* be a dupe here on/.)
Label this OT if you want, but a few mins ago/. had a story called "IT: Microsoft Windows is Officially Broken" - it appeared to have comments too, but when I went to read it, it was gone. Switch back to the front page; also gone. Hmmm...I'll post a screeny here: http://cryer.us/images/slash_story.png
I've installed both Hoary and now Breezy Colony CD2 from my combo cdrom drive to a SATA harddrive, and have never had a booting issue. Are you using some funky/old BIOS or ?
an open system would follow an open society and *all* could benefit - wouldn't that be a nice/new way to look at rebuilding of places like NO, and other inner city places. hopeful perhaps, but it'd be a nice application and solve may of society's (current) ills.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Windows Is Offically Broken
David Richards & WSJ - Monday, 26 September 2005
From: http://www.smartofficenews.com.au/Computing/Platfo rms_And_Applications?article=/Computing/Platforms% 20And%20Applications/News/E5T7U6H8&page=1
Windows is broken and Microsoft has admitted it. In an unprecedented attempt to explain its Longhorn problems and how it abandoned its traditional way of working, the normally secretive software giant has given unparalleled access to The Wall Street Journal, even revealing how Vice President Jim Allchin, personally broke the bad news to Bill Gates.
Allchin is co-head of the Platform Products and Services Division. "It's not going to work," he told Gates in the chairman's office, the paper reports. "[Longhorn] is so complex its writers will never be able to make it run properly. "The reason: Microsoft engineers were building it just as they had always built software. Thousands of programmers each produced their own piece of computer code, to be stitched together into one sprawling program.But Longhorn/Vista was too complex: Microsoft needed to begin again, Allchin told Gates.Allchin's warning recognised a growing threat from Google, Apple Computer, makers of Linux and corporate buyers - the latter horrified about security problems. Allchin and a small team demanded a revolution in how Microsoft works.
Microsoft's Jim Allchin
Accordingly, according to the Journal, Microsoft then went down the Linux path of first developing a solid kernel for what's now called Vista. It is now adding the features it wants, one by one. Gates was eager for his programmers to add a fundamental change to Windows called WinFS that would let PC users search and organise information better. WinFS was so troublesome that engineers began talking about whether they could make the "pig fly". Images of pigs with wings started appearing in presentations and offices.
The Journal says the Longhorn crisis helps explain the sweeping restructuring that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced last week, splitting the company into three major business units. The goal is to force Microsoft to be more nimble in producing and delivering software. The result: Microsoft has thrown out years of computer code in Longhorn and started out with a fresh base. It has now set up computers to reject bug-laden code automatically. The new Vista will be simple. Bells and whistles will hopefully come later - including WinFS.
According to the WSJ, Gates resisted at first, pushing for Mr. Allchin's group to take more time until everything worked. Over the next few months, Mr. Allchin and his deputies would also face protests from programmers who complained he was trying to impose bureaucracy and rob Microsoft of its creativity.
"There was some angst by everybody," says Mr. Gates of the period. "It's obviously my role to ask people, 'Hey, let's not throw things out we shouldn't throw out. Let's keep things in that we can keep in.' "
Ultimately, Mr. Allchin's warning proved cathartic and led to what he and others call a transformation in Microsoft's most important product. A key reason: the growing threat from rivals such as Google Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and makers of the free Linux operating system. In recent years these companies have been dashing out some software innovations faster than Microsoft. Google has grown particularly effective at introducing new programs such as email and instant messaging over the Internet, watching how they perform and regularly replacing them with improved versions.
Microsoft's Windows can't entirely replicate that approach, since the software is by its nature a massive program overseeing all of a computer's functions. But Microsoft is now racing to move in that direction: developing a solid core for Windows onto which new features can be adde
WTF - it really is an article, dig it here: Microsoft Windows Is Offically Broken. Is this a 'parody' or not? If not, why was it deleted, esp since it was just posted to their site today (so it *shouldn't* be a dupe here on /.)
Hmmm...developing story!
Label this OT if you want, but a few mins ago /. had a story called "IT: Microsoft Windows is Officially Broken" - it appeared to have comments too, but when I went to read it, it was gone. Switch back to the front page; also gone. Hmmm...I'll post a screeny here: http://cryer.us/images/slash_story.png
I've installed both Hoary and now Breezy Colony CD2 from my combo cdrom drive to a SATA harddrive, and have never had a booting issue. Are you using some funky/old BIOS or ?
an open system would follow an open society and *all* could benefit - wouldn't that be a nice/new way to look at rebuilding of places like NO, and other inner city places. hopeful perhaps, but it'd be a nice application and solve may of society's (current) ills.