This is true, and I think it accounts for a lot of the difference in quality between their products. But in this case, it sounds like there just weren't clear,

This is true, and I think it accounts for a lot of the difference in quality between their products. But in this case, it sounds like there just weren't clear, enforced rules about integration, interoperability, and usability. Not once in the email does Gates reference an existing, company-wide set of standards. Even a company like Microsoft is capable of having and enforcing such a thing, and it would actually boost productivity over the long run. If all the different teams are doing their own thing and subject to an off-the-cuff usability review only after they've shipped, they will ultimately spend more time making revisions than they would have spent targeting standards from the start. I've no idea what Microsoft was like at the time, so maybe they did have such a thing, but if there was, I can't imagine it had much priority in the corporate culture.