To be fair, this is a story from the product management/marketing side. I always felt sorry for those poor folks, as (at least back when I was there) they were

To be fair, this is a story from the product management/marketing side. I always felt sorry for those poor folks, as (at least back when I was there) they were consulted early in the planning process for some market segment/user investigations and then basically ignored until the product was either finished or killed. I was always impressed with the quality of work that they were capable of, but it was never clear to me how to involve them in the actual business of building products. To wit, I can't remember a single member of product marketing present at any product review up through the senior-VP level (which, after Bill checked out, was effectively the top of the management chain, unless you wanted to do something cross-company such as include Office for free in MSDNAA).