Hacking for fun and profit

James Allchin, co-president of Microsoft’s Platforms & Services Division:

I’m not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers, both business and home, the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are, and really understanding what the most important problems our customers face are.

(source)

We already knew that Mr. Allchin, please continue.

I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that does not translate into great products.

Well at least you have great marketing.

I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.

Why not? Just use the best tool for the job (hint: not Microsoft). After all you are still using Linux servers in portions of your site (via Akamai). And you used Linux for your main site a couple of years ago after worm and virus attacks (Microsoft hides behind Linux for protection). Microsoft just doesn’t get security but hey, you already said that :)

And I’m sure you still remember how your own techies admitted that FreeBSD was superior to Win2k for massive server installs when they migrated the frontend of Hotmail? Oh, and I think the Hotmail backend is still running Solaris?

And of course, since you are responsible of Microsoft’s operating systems, you know that your programmers use Perforce instead of Visual Source Safe?

And of course you know that between your own employees, for every MSN search user there are FOUR Google search users?

I think I get the point Mr. Allchin: If Microsoft doesn’t eat its own dog food anymore because it has lost its way, all your costumers should start doing the exact same thing:

USE THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB (Hint: NOT Microsoft).