I have never understood this sentiment. If it's such an easy pattern to spot, how come someone in senior management at Microsoft hasn't spotted it too? Is your

I have never understood this sentiment. If it's such an easy pattern to spot, how come someone in senior management at Microsoft hasn't spotted it too? Is your average internet commenter really smarter and more perceptive than one of the world's largest and most successful companies? Furthermore, has Microsoft not grown as a company at all for the last ten years? Has the IT environment not changed at all either? And is history destiny? I would argue no to all those notions. I think Microsoft in 2012 is a much more disciplined, focussed, and frankly ambitious company than it was in 2002 or 2006. The development of 7 and especially how the company communicated with the public about 7 was a quantum leap from Vista. As far as I can tell, Microsoft has carried forward all of those improvements into the process of building 8. If it is making mistakes with Windows 8, they are entirely different genres of mistakes than it made with Vista or ME.