6 ms·
He was always polarizing and that his stock was rising is equally contentious, IMO. Windows 8 was late, Surface seems to be underwhelming and his inability to b
by psychotik 14y ago
He was always polarizing and that his stock was rising is equally contentious, IMO. Windows 8 was late, Surface seems to be underwhelming and his inability to be a real team player are all likely factors here, as is his rumored disagreement with Ballmer (though I had Ballmer on the losing end of that one).
You're right that this will change Microsoft at a deep level, but I think odds are good that it's a change for the better.
Personally, Sinofsky was one of the biggest reasons I left Microsoft. He was willing to ditch potentially game-changing products/features spanning multiple industries because it didn't align with his idea of software engineering, which was more suited for boxed software like Office than for rapidly deploying services. He didn't/doesn't get services - he's a boxed software guy at his core. All the Office Live stuff happened after he left Office - arguably he should have seen it coming and been ahead of the game while he was running Office.
- barista 14y agoI don't get this point. Windows 8 is probably the most connected windows ever. The store, Skydrive ads, all are driven by services behind the OS. I don't think that Sinofsky opposed or didn't get services.
- sriramk 14y agoAlso, he and SteveB were supposed to be on good terms.
- psychotik 14y agoAnd Windows 7 had none of the services that it should. It's 2012, don't you think it's a bit late already?
- kineticflow 14y agoProbably because Microsoft was deathly afraid of being accused of "bundling".
- ww520 14y agoWasn't Windows Vista beyond bad at the time? Windows 7's mission was to retrofit that. Adding more features (cloud, services, whatever) would have delayed the fix to the damages caused by Vista. He's probably more focused in delivering a solution fast then. On that he had succeeded. The lack of services in Win7 was more of a fault of the guy(s) causing the Vista fiasco in the first place.
- cookingrobot 14y agoVista wasn't a fiasco. It was a rushed, focused, and pragmatic fix to the fiasco that was Longhorn. Don't remember Windows Longhorn? That's because Vista was a success.
- zizee 14y agoWindows Longhorn was the internal codename for Vista. I think that you are thinking of Windows 7 being rushed, focused, and pragmatic fix to the fiasco that was Vista. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista From the first paragraph of the article: Prior to its announcement on July 22, 2005, Windows Vista was known by its codename "Longhorn" edit: ref to wikipedia edit2: suggestion to parent.
- JanezStupar 14y agoTrivia. Longhorn was supposedly a completely new architecture. The filesystem was supposed to be SQL Server based plus other architectual astronautery. It was an executive dreamed clusterfuck with no technical merit. Quite similar to IBM's Workplace project, which also never came to fruition. Both (Longhorn and Workplace) were the culmination of RDBMS hype, where companies left and right tried to solve every problem by using hammer as a tool of choice. Back to Longhorn, it has been chronically late and finally the project got dumped and rebased upon NT stack. Thus Vista was indeed a rushed attempt of fixing the Longhorn fiasco and after that Win7 was a solution to the Vista fiasco. Thus from the viewpoint of how bad it could (and indeed should) have been. Both Vista and Win7 were an exceptional success. Also it made me really appreciate how nimble and agile Microsoft really is.
- geoffw8 14y agoA bit late for what? Out of the major OS's MS is the largest, I'm writing this on a mac, and would loathe to have to use a PC but you have to appreciate that for most consumers when MS delivers something it is right on time. They (the consumers) are unintentionally blind to the landscape, this will be new to a ton of people and/or right under their noses for the first time. This is the time.
- kabdib 14y agoSeems early to deem Surface a failure.
- psychotik 14y agoBut I said it was underwhelming. Underwhelming != failure.
- colmvp 14y agoEven as a Mac only guy, I don't see how Surface is thought to be underwhelming. I think the tablet gestures they have, especially using the edges, are steps beyond the iPad and iOS and I expect Apple to copy them at some point in time. And then the actual interface is pretty nice as well: distinct, clean, beautiful. Again, I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple riffing on them.
- psychotik 14y agoHow do you hype a product, and release the lesser of the two variants (RT vs Pro)? How do you go months without announcing a price, and then don't price it competitively? How do you release a product where your flagship apps (Office suite) doesn't run in the new paradigm? How do you not have a working email client? Need more...?
- funkyhomosapien 14y agoHow can she slap? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdzi74GnPeI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdzi74GnPeI
- icelancer 14y agoI like it as a product to disrupt the market. I think the product itself is incredibly underwhelming and would agree with psychotik.
- aik 14y ago
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bitwize 14y agoHe was always polarizing and that his stock was rising is equally contentious, IMO. Windows 8 was late, Surface seems to be underwhelming and his inability to be a real team player are all likely factors here, as is his rumored disagreement with Ballmer (though I had Ballmer on the losing end of that one). If Microsoft is as full of smart people as is rumored, Sinofsky is far from the only guy there who disagrees with Ballmer. If Ballmer fires them and installs yes-men in their place it'll be the end of Microsoft.
- duncans 14y agoDon't forget that Sinofsky was that guy that convinced BillG that the web/internet was the way forward rather than the closed proprietary AOL-like MSN of the time with his "Cornell is WIRED!" email/memo: http://www.cornell.edu/about/wired/ http://www.cornell.edu/about/wired/
- Already__Taken 14y agoIt must take a pretty bold conviction to think you are right and Bill Gates is wrong. I could trust how saying he's hard to work under would be legitimate. Could be hard for someone like that to take advice from engineers below him who have half or less the experience.
- debacle 14y agoThen half of the Internet has pretty bold convictions.