5 ms·

A Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab (2006)

207 points by ingve 1y ago

jmpman 1y ago
The only reason I periodically want a Windows PC is because Office is better on Windows than Mac… and gaming. Whoever decided to nerf the Mac Office version, probably helped Microsoft make a few extra billion.
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
*and printer lab
donatj 1y ago
It hurts my heart so badly that when you read a post of such vintage the outward facing links are almost certainly all broken. We've lost so much.
- LorenDB 1y ago
  And that's why archive.org exists.
  - foobarbecue 1y ago
    Yep, but it's missing a lot (feels like about half missing) and it's a fragile single point of failure that's constantly under threat (political, legal, economic, cyberattack).
    - BobbyTables2 1y ago
      Wondered about this one too. Even the Library of Alexandria was destroyed at some point…
      - CamperBob2 1y ago
        At several points, actshually. There has never been a good time to let our guard down, but there's seldom been a worse one.
- xandrius 1y ago
  Don't be sad, here it is in all its glory: https://web.archive.org/web/20250109120355/http://davidweiss.blogspot.com:80/2006/04/tour-of-microsofts-mac-lab.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250109120355/http://davidweiss... And make sure to consider donating to the Internet Archive if this made your heart slightly less achy today :)
  - Archonical 1y ago
    The OP was referring to outbound URLs. Those are still broken.
    - xandrius 1y ago
      For me they worked, you need to change the capture date when viewed within IA.
- ethan_smith 1y ago
  The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) can often recover those broken links from 2006-era blog posts, preserving at least some of what would otherwise be lost.
hidd 1y ago
(2006)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
hedgehog 1y ago
If I recall correctly this was ground level of building 115, now renamed Studio G. Someone from Mac BU cruising the halls on a Razor scooter while wearing a propellor beanie once gave me a peek in that lab.
- mrpippy 1y ago
  In Redmond? I seem to remember MacBU was in San Jose, maybe that was before this post? Or were things split between the locations?
  - hedgehog 1y ago
    Yes, Redmond. The lab in the post looks like Redmond but I'm not sure where else Mac BU was, as a Mac user I thought it was cool to see the lab but it wasn't related at all to my work.
  - allenu 1y ago
    I started working in MacBU about 3 years after the article. It was split between the two locations when I joined. (Outlook for Mac and PowerPoint were both in California.) These photos look like Building 115 to me, though I didn't go into this particular lab often. After this, the team moved to Building 31 and later Building 35, if I remember correctly. One thing that was interesting about MacBU was that it was in a completely separate division from the rest of Office (i.e. Windows Office). That gave the team a really cool outsider vibe and the team had a really nice close-knit culture.
    - fingerlocks 1y ago
      And now moved to the new Building 4
BobbyTables2 1y ago
Don’t get me wrong, love the writeup… Ancient history now but perhaps less so in 2006. But if I took pictures of my employers’ lab and posted on my personal blog, they might not be thrilled… And if I were to seek permission, they’d want it on the company website instead…
- zerkten 1y ago
  Blogging on personal blogs was somewhat condoned back then. There was a period when MS was really encouraging personal blogs and then they pulled back from this to focus on blogs hosted on their platform. Channel 9 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_9_(Microsoft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_9_(Microsoft)) was taking off and they were doing video all around their campus. It was a real look behind the curtain and probably an element of the foundation for their adoption of open source.
- graublau 1y ago
  what harm was caused?
- sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago
  Like that time someone gave a tour of Twitter HQ on TikTok and it inadvertently exposed that they and their coworkers basically did nothing all day but drink cappuccinos and eat free company food. You could tell these guys were genuinely thrilled they got free sugary drinks in 2006. That was considered a serious perk back then.
  - rconti 1y ago
    It was. I was a teenager in the northwest in the 90s, and remember how aspirational it was to work somewhere that gave employees that kind of latitude.
  - saagarjha 1y ago
    Of course they did, taking pictures of people doing work would be the specific concern that was raised in the comment above yours. So all you're going to get is a look at the company fridge.
iwontberude 1y ago
lol they made a reference to Sanford and Son (“the big one”)
- nickswalker 1y ago
  The author is likely referring to the potential for a Cascadia megaquake: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
  - rconti 1y ago
    This. The northwest has been talking about "the big one" for ages. I was in SoDo for the Nisqually quake in 2001, that's still the biggest quake I've been in, and I've been in the Bay Area for over 20 years now.
  - iwontberude 1y ago
    Booooring
DarkSource 1y ago
I really feel for whoever had to test all those printers
- tomcam 1y ago
  Microsoft never ever got the mad props it deserved for its extensive testing and compatibility work. I remember going through reviews where we had to fix bugs from our competitors to preserve compatibility for earlier versions of their own products that had taken shortcuts. I’ve often wondered if part of the declining quality of its products is that those actions were simply never given the respect they deserved.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    I read the "USB cart of death" post from Raymond, and I really respected them for that. I'm sure there are many great engineers, minds and all-round nice people who work at Microsoft, but when the company does what it does and screws people over and over, the act of the whole shadows the acts of individuals. These acts (of Microsoft, the company) doesn't make them bad people, but makes respecting them as a whole a lot harder.
    - tomcam 1y ago
      Very well put
rconti 1y ago
For a moment I thought the "free drinks" fridge had Surge in it, but that turns out to be some Seagram's product.
wpm 1y ago
Man that rack full of Xserves and Xserve RAIDs still looks great. The whole lab is impressive. Must've been fun times.

207 points by ingve 1y ago

The only reason I periodically want a Windows PC is because Office is better on Windows than Mac… and gaming. Whoever decided to nerf the Mac Office version, probably helped Microsoft make a few extra billion.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago

*and printer lab

donatj 1y ago

It hurts my heart so badly that when you read a post of such vintage the outward facing links are almost certainly all broken. We've lost so much.

LorenDB 1y ago
And that's why archive.org exists.
- foobarbecue 1y ago
  Yep, but it's missing a lot (feels like about half missing) and it's a fragile single point of failure that's constantly under threat (political, legal, economic, cyberattack).
  - BobbyTables2 1y ago
    Wondered about this one too. Even the Library of Alexandria was destroyed at some point…
    - CamperBob2 1y ago
      At several points, actshually. There has never been a good time to let our guard down, but there's seldom been a worse one.
xandrius 1y ago
Don't be sad, here it is in all its glory: https://web.archive.org/web/20250109120355/http://davidweiss.blogspot.com:80/2006/04/tour-of-microsofts-mac-lab.html https://web.archive.org/web/20250109120355/http://davidweiss... And make sure to consider donating to the Internet Archive if this made your heart slightly less achy today :)
- Archonical 1y ago
  The OP was referring to outbound URLs. Those are still broken.
  - xandrius 1y ago
    For me they worked, you need to change the capture date when viewed within IA.
ethan_smith 1y ago
The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) can often recover those broken links from 2006-era blog posts, preserving at least some of what would otherwise be lost.

hidd 1y ago

(2006)

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

hedgehog 1y ago

If I recall correctly this was ground level of building 115, now renamed Studio G. Someone from Mac BU cruising the halls on a Razor scooter while wearing a propellor beanie once gave me a peek in that lab.

mrpippy 1y ago
In Redmond? I seem to remember MacBU was in San Jose, maybe that was before this post? Or were things split between the locations?
- hedgehog 1y ago
  Yes, Redmond. The lab in the post looks like Redmond but I'm not sure where else Mac BU was, as a Mac user I thought it was cool to see the lab but it wasn't related at all to my work.
- allenu 1y ago
  I started working in MacBU about 3 years after the article. It was split between the two locations when I joined. (Outlook for Mac and PowerPoint were both in California.) These photos look like Building 115 to me, though I didn't go into this particular lab often. After this, the team moved to Building 31 and later Building 35, if I remember correctly. One thing that was interesting about MacBU was that it was in a completely separate division from the rest of Office (i.e. Windows Office). That gave the team a really cool outsider vibe and the team had a really nice close-knit culture.
  - fingerlocks 1y ago
    And now moved to the new Building 4

BobbyTables2 1y ago

Don’t get me wrong, love the writeup… Ancient history now but perhaps less so in 2006. But if I took pictures of my employers’ lab and posted on my personal blog, they might not be thrilled… And if I were to seek permission, they’d want it on the company website instead…

zerkten 1y ago
Blogging on personal blogs was somewhat condoned back then. There was a period when MS was really encouraging personal blogs and then they pulled back from this to focus on blogs hosted on their platform. Channel 9 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_9_(Microsoft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_9_(Microsoft)) was taking off and they were doing video all around their campus. It was a real look behind the curtain and probably an element of the foundation for their adoption of open source.
graublau 1y ago
what harm was caused?
sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago
Like that time someone gave a tour of Twitter HQ on TikTok and it inadvertently exposed that they and their coworkers basically did nothing all day but drink cappuccinos and eat free company food. You could tell these guys were genuinely thrilled they got free sugary drinks in 2006. That was considered a serious perk back then.
- rconti 1y ago
  It was. I was a teenager in the northwest in the 90s, and remember how aspirational it was to work somewhere that gave employees that kind of latitude.
- saagarjha 1y ago
  Of course they did, taking pictures of people doing work would be the specific concern that was raised in the comment above yours. So all you're going to get is a look at the company fridge.

iwontberude 1y ago

lol they made a reference to Sanford and Son (“the big one”)

nickswalker 1y ago
The author is likely referring to the potential for a Cascadia megaquake: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
- rconti 1y ago
  This. The northwest has been talking about "the big one" for ages. I was in SoDo for the Nisqually quake in 2001, that's still the biggest quake I've been in, and I've been in the Bay Area for over 20 years now.
- iwontberude 1y ago
  Booooring

DarkSource 1y ago

I really feel for whoever had to test all those printers

tomcam 1y ago
Microsoft never ever got the mad props it deserved for its extensive testing and compatibility work. I remember going through reviews where we had to fix bugs from our competitors to preserve compatibility for earlier versions of their own products that had taken shortcuts. I’ve often wondered if part of the declining quality of its products is that those actions were simply never given the respect they deserved.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  I read the "USB cart of death" post from Raymond, and I really respected them for that. I'm sure there are many great engineers, minds and all-round nice people who work at Microsoft, but when the company does what it does and screws people over and over, the act of the whole shadows the acts of individuals. These acts (of Microsoft, the company) doesn't make them bad people, but makes respecting them as a whole a lot harder.
  - tomcam 1y ago
    Very well put

rconti 1y ago

For a moment I thought the "free drinks" fridge had Surge in it, but that turns out to be some Seagram's product.

wpm 1y ago

Man that rack full of Xserves and Xserve RAIDs still looks great. The whole lab is impressive. Must've been fun times.