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Did Microsoft tell the WinFS team why they decided to cancel the product? If so, can you reveal what the real reason was?
by didgetmaster 1y ago
Did Microsoft tell the WinFS team why they decided to cancel the product? If so, can you reveal what the real reason was?
- WalterGR 1y agoI mean, it’s not like whenever a project is cancelled at Microsoft they bring team members into a room and say, “We’re totally going to lie to the public (and therefore the shareholders) but here’s the real reason...” Maybe all the nuances aren't fully communicated publicly when a project is cancelled, but I don’t recall having a sense that what was said publicly was any different than our understanding internally. But that was almost 20 years ago. The majority of the teams I was on during my time there were ‘internal startups’: Mira, NetGen, WinFS, MatrixDB. Like startups anywhere, projects being unceremoniously cancelled was par for the course.
- didgetmaster 1y agoI don't remember Microsoft ever really giving the public a reason for canceling it. It just seemed to disappear with everyone just speculating what the reason was. Was there a press release that I missed?
- WalterGR 1y agoI vaguely recall something being posted to the blog. I doubt the blog is still up. I could google around and check the Wayback Machine and so forth, but it would probably be faster if you did it yourself. I don’t have any inside info, I’m afraid.