5 ms·

What Sinofsky’s Departure Suggests about Microsoft

35 points by gvb 14y ago

gvb 14y ago
It is very interesting that Sinofsky was unable to get Office "Metroified" before release of Win8rt. That indicates a failure of the Office code base or a failure of the Office division's ability to adapt. This is doubly interesting in that Office is where Sinofsky "made his mark."
- Zigurd 14y ago
  A Metro-fied Office would have been very nice. It might have even "made" the product as a tablet with a new kind of UI. Another thing I find difficult to understand is why not have a Metro-fied implementation of C#'s (and other MSIL languages') base classes. Then you would have something like Android's architecture independence and a considerable based of apps.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  Yes, this is what really blows my mind. Microsoft has spent 10+ years shipping desktop software on tablets. Everyone seems to think that Surface and Windows 8 is the new beginning, where Microsoft realizes that it has to change something for software to work nicely with touch-based interfaces. Except that they still don't get it, or if they get it they are completely unable to deliver. They are marketing the Surface RT and showing that it runs Office - the old-style-1990's-desktop-PC-UI Office. That's not impressive. Nobody wants that. So the question is: Does Microsoft truly still not get it? Or do they get it, and are choosing not to / unable to deliver the proper experience?
  - ebf 14y ago
    I would argue that plenty of people want a full-featured version of Office on a tablet. Especially one with a useable keyboard.
    - cryptoz 14y ago
      I completely agree about it being full featured! I think nearly everyone on the planet wants that. There's no reason to remove features based on it being on a tablet, but there's plenty of reason to change the UI to make the buttons easier to touch. From the video review in The Verge of the Surface RT a little while ago, it looks like Office on the tablet has exactly the same Save dialog, for example, as desktop. How on Earth are you supposed to navigate that with your fingers? Tiny little buttons, changing the folder tree, etc. It looks absolutely miserable.
      - watmough 14y ago
        It might have been cool 4 years ago. But these days, those tin dialogs and buttons are a joke. Heck, I've been bitching about non-resizable dialogs in Office for years.
      - Metrop0218 14y ago
        They actually switched the Office interface into a 'touch friendly' mode that spaces out the buttons quite a bit more to avoid missed touches. Speaking as a Surface user, this works but is definitely missing some elegance.
  - radicalbyte 14y ago
    They should focus on getting OneNote and Outlook working with Metro, and get them running on the Surface and Samsung Note style phablets. Both have killer Use Cases whilst mobile; you can be productive with both tools with a touch interface and without a keyboard. I'm surprised that they've not noticed that.
    - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
      Onenote already runs on metro and is kind of nice, actually.
    - jspaur 14y ago
      OneNote actually has a touch centric app in the Windows store @ http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/onenote/f022389f-f3a6-417e-ad23-704fbdf57117 http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/onenote/f022389f-...
      - dubya 14y ago
        MS actually has OneNote in the iOS App store as well, though it's surely severely gimped: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-onenote/id410395246?mt=8&uo=4 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-onenote/id41039524...
- wslh 14y ago
  I don't see "Metroification" as an easy thing. Probably you need to leave features to adapt to a more restricted UI. In some way it was an impossible task.
- jsankey 14y ago
  To be fair any code base with the age and size of Office is a massive thing to manage. Completely rethinking the UI is hard enough, but then implementing it? It would be miraculous if they managed that the first time out of the gate.
- zmmmmm 14y ago
  > It is very interesting that Sinofsky was unable to get Office "Metroified" It's quite amazing because office seems to be the only reason the desktop mode exists in RT. So it means that it was apparently easier to port all of the Windows desktop to ARM so as to run Office (subobtimally) in desktop mode than it was to put a touch-based UI on Office. It's hard to think this was an optimal choice of direction, they must have been forced to do this as a least worst option ... the only way to ship office in time. But what does that say about Office? How bad must the internal code be, or the team managing it, or the process they have, if re-skinning it is more effort than porting all of the Windows desktop?
  - Cbasedlifeform 14y ago
    My thoughts exactly (but expressed much more eloquently!). "Least worst option" sums it up.
  - bztzt 14y ago
    Porting all of the Windows desktop is essentially negative effort, in that the new parts of the shell are (intentionally) so technically intertwined with the pre-existing parts that it's easier to just port everything than try to separate them.
- JuDue 14y ago
  Balmer never believed in simplified apps from the beginning. Metro feels like compromise to keep people tied to the desktop.
- teyc 14y ago
  Sinofsky doesn't run Office anymore. His charge was to deliver Windows. The basic problem is that both Windows and .NET are platforms, .NET has been the developer-face of Microsoft. When Windows projected its API to C++, Javascript and .NET, developers naturally feel wronged. However, making DevDiv look good has not been Steve's task (or that's what Steve believed so). Steve's job is to deliver a platform with the broadest reach.
locacorten 14y ago
Although Sinofsky's accomplishments are clear, he also has managed to do a great job of alienating everyone else. If Sinofsky were a little wiser, he could've done the exact same thing while trying to be nice to the rest of Microsoft. Instead, he really embraced his little dictator role and enjoyed making people both inside and outside his organization squirm. This whole Sinofsky drama is a really good lesson for everyone. Nobody is indispensible. Microsoft will be fine without Sinofsky.
- sounds 14y ago
  Time will tell. Either what you say is right – Microsoft is fine – or what you say is wrong and Microsoft has a bleak future. We don't knkow why Sinofsky left, but to play devil's advocate: What if Sinofsky did do a good job of working with other executives but Ballmer felt threatened by a potential successor? Or what if Sinofsky was just set up to take the fall, since high-level executives at Microsoft must be aware of the difficulties the world is going to face with Windows 8?
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    >Either what you say is right – Microsoft is fine – or what you say is wrong and Microsoft has a bleak future. And either of these could have to do with Sinofsky, or not. Honestly the whole speculation about what this portends for Microsoft is humorous.
  - zmmmmm 14y ago
    The real "what if" to me: what if getting things done in Microsoft simply requires an assertive asshole? Perhaps the main reason Sinofsky has succeeded where so many others stubmled inside Microsoft is because he is like that? Worse, maybe the cause and effect goes the other way, perhaps he was like that because it was necessary, and Microsoft is in denial? So they fire the assertive asshole and fix none of the other problems that required him to be that way in the first place.... what happens next?
    - nsns 14y ago
acqq 14y ago
As far as I understand, the article misrepresents most of what happened with Windows. Writing about what happened after XP, the cause of problems is apparently: "The Windows product at this point had ballooned to about 50 million lines of “spaghetti code,”" and then in gives credit to Sinofsky for everything good in Windows that follows whereas Wikipedia has completely another story: "In December 2003, Allchin enlisted the help of two other senior executives, Brian Valentine and Amitabh Srivastava, the former being experienced with shipping software at Microsoft, most notably Windows Server 2003,[13] and the latter having spent his career at Microsoft researching and developing methods of producing high-quality testing systems.[14] Srivastava employed a team of core architects to visually map out the entirety of the Windows operating system, and to proactively work towards a development process that would enforce high levels of code quality" What's the truth?
- gvb 14y ago
  The quote comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista. Allchin was responsible for the move from Win95/98/ME to XP (moving to the NT core technology), and then subsequently to Vista. Vista was widely panned. Sinofsky took over to move from Vista to Win7, and now Win8... so I believe both are correct in that they were sequential. Interestingly, Allchin had resounding success with WinXP, not so much with Vista, and retired on the day that Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers. Deja vu. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Allchin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Allchin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows
- bztzt 14y ago
  The article is wrong, Sinofsky came on at the very end of Vista development and had little to do with getting it out.
Tloewald 14y ago
Seems to me like a solid article -- it kind of explains a good deal, including microsoft's blindness to the idea of treating office as its platform (if Microsoft has been aggressive about porting office to iOS and android it probably wouldn't care who won the platform wars -- instead it has simply made it abundantly clear to many people who considered office indispensable that they can dispense with it). In essence, sinofsky was tasked with sorting out office development and then with doing the same with windows. In the end he seems to have been a classic empire builder, and windows was the larger empire (within Microsoft).

35 points by gvb 14y ago

gvb 14y ago

It is very interesting that Sinofsky was unable to get Office "Metroified" before release of Win8rt. That indicates a failure of the Office code base or a failure of the Office division's ability to adapt. This is doubly interesting in that Office is where Sinofsky "made his mark."

Zigurd 14y ago
A Metro-fied Office would have been very nice. It might have even "made" the product as a tablet with a new kind of UI. Another thing I find difficult to understand is why not have a Metro-fied implementation of C#'s (and other MSIL languages') base classes. Then you would have something like Android's architecture independence and a considerable based of apps.
cryptoz 14y ago
Yes, this is what really blows my mind. Microsoft has spent 10+ years shipping desktop software on tablets. Everyone seems to think that Surface and Windows 8 is the new beginning, where Microsoft realizes that it has to change something for software to work nicely with touch-based interfaces. Except that they still don't get it, or if they get it they are completely unable to deliver. They are marketing the Surface RT and showing that it runs Office - the old-style-1990's-desktop-PC-UI Office. That's not impressive. Nobody wants that. So the question is: Does Microsoft truly still not get it? Or do they get it, and are choosing not to / unable to deliver the proper experience?
- ebf 14y ago
  I would argue that plenty of people want a full-featured version of Office on a tablet. Especially one with a useable keyboard.
  - cryptoz 14y ago
    I completely agree about it being full featured! I think nearly everyone on the planet wants that. There's no reason to remove features based on it being on a tablet, but there's plenty of reason to change the UI to make the buttons easier to touch. From the video review in The Verge of the Surface RT a little while ago, it looks like Office on the tablet has exactly the same Save dialog, for example, as desktop. How on Earth are you supposed to navigate that with your fingers? Tiny little buttons, changing the folder tree, etc. It looks absolutely miserable.
    - watmough 14y ago
      It might have been cool 4 years ago. But these days, those tin dialogs and buttons are a joke. Heck, I've been bitching about non-resizable dialogs in Office for years.
    - Metrop0218 14y ago
      They actually switched the Office interface into a 'touch friendly' mode that spaces out the buttons quite a bit more to avoid missed touches. Speaking as a Surface user, this works but is definitely missing some elegance.
- radicalbyte 14y ago
  They should focus on getting OneNote and Outlook working with Metro, and get them running on the Surface and Samsung Note style phablets. Both have killer Use Cases whilst mobile; you can be productive with both tools with a touch interface and without a keyboard. I'm surprised that they've not noticed that.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    Onenote already runs on metro and is kind of nice, actually.
  - jspaur 14y ago
    OneNote actually has a touch centric app in the Windows store @ http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/onenote/f022389f-f3a6-417e-ad23-704fbdf57117 http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-us/app/onenote/f022389f-...
    - dubya 14y ago
      MS actually has OneNote in the iOS App store as well, though it's surely severely gimped: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-onenote/id410395246?mt=8&uo=4 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-onenote/id41039524...
wslh 14y ago
I don't see "Metroification" as an easy thing. Probably you need to leave features to adapt to a more restricted UI. In some way it was an impossible task.
jsankey 14y ago
To be fair any code base with the age and size of Office is a massive thing to manage. Completely rethinking the UI is hard enough, but then implementing it? It would be miraculous if they managed that the first time out of the gate.
zmmmmm 14y ago
> It is very interesting that Sinofsky was unable to get Office "Metroified" It's quite amazing because office seems to be the only reason the desktop mode exists in RT. So it means that it was apparently easier to port all of the Windows desktop to ARM so as to run Office (subobtimally) in desktop mode than it was to put a touch-based UI on Office. It's hard to think this was an optimal choice of direction, they must have been forced to do this as a least worst option ... the only way to ship office in time. But what does that say about Office? How bad must the internal code be, or the team managing it, or the process they have, if re-skinning it is more effort than porting all of the Windows desktop?
- Cbasedlifeform 14y ago
  My thoughts exactly (but expressed much more eloquently!). "Least worst option" sums it up.
- bztzt 14y ago
  Porting all of the Windows desktop is essentially negative effort, in that the new parts of the shell are (intentionally) so technically intertwined with the pre-existing parts that it's easier to just port everything than try to separate them.
JuDue 14y ago
Balmer never believed in simplified apps from the beginning. Metro feels like compromise to keep people tied to the desktop.
teyc 14y ago
Sinofsky doesn't run Office anymore. His charge was to deliver Windows. The basic problem is that both Windows and .NET are platforms, .NET has been the developer-face of Microsoft. When Windows projected its API to C++, Javascript and .NET, developers naturally feel wronged. However, making DevDiv look good has not been Steve's task (or that's what Steve believed so). Steve's job is to deliver a platform with the broadest reach.

locacorten 14y ago

Although Sinofsky's accomplishments are clear, he also has managed to do a great job of alienating everyone else. If Sinofsky were a little wiser, he could've done the exact same thing while trying to be nice to the rest of Microsoft. Instead, he really embraced his little dictator role and enjoyed making people both inside and outside his organization squirm. This whole Sinofsky drama is a really good lesson for everyone. Nobody is indispensible. Microsoft will be fine without Sinofsky.

sounds 14y ago
Time will tell. Either what you say is right – Microsoft is fine – or what you say is wrong and Microsoft has a bleak future. We don't knkow why Sinofsky left, but to play devil's advocate: What if Sinofsky did do a good job of working with other executives but Ballmer felt threatened by a potential successor? Or what if Sinofsky was just set up to take the fall, since high-level executives at Microsoft must be aware of the difficulties the world is going to face with Windows 8?
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  >Either what you say is right – Microsoft is fine – or what you say is wrong and Microsoft has a bleak future. And either of these could have to do with Sinofsky, or not. Honestly the whole speculation about what this portends for Microsoft is humorous.
- zmmmmm 14y ago
  The real "what if" to me: what if getting things done in Microsoft simply requires an assertive asshole? Perhaps the main reason Sinofsky has succeeded where so many others stubmled inside Microsoft is because he is like that? Worse, maybe the cause and effect goes the other way, perhaps he was like that because it was necessary, and Microsoft is in denial? So they fire the assertive asshole and fix none of the other problems that required him to be that way in the first place.... what happens next?
  - nsns 14y ago

acqq 14y ago

As far as I understand, the article misrepresents most of what happened with Windows. Writing about what happened after XP, the cause of problems is apparently: "The Windows product at this point had ballooned to about 50 million lines of “spaghetti code,”" and then in gives credit to Sinofsky for everything good in Windows that follows whereas Wikipedia has completely another story: "In December 2003, Allchin enlisted the help of two other senior executives, Brian Valentine and Amitabh Srivastava, the former being experienced with shipping software at Microsoft, most notably Windows Server 2003,[13] and the latter having spent his career at Microsoft researching and developing methods of producing high-quality testing systems.[14] Srivastava employed a team of core architects to visually map out the entirety of the Windows operating system, and to proactively work towards a development process that would enforce high levels of code quality" What's the truth?

gvb 14y ago
The quote comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista. Allchin was responsible for the move from Win95/98/ME to XP (moving to the NT core technology), and then subsequently to Vista. Vista was widely panned. Sinofsky took over to move from Vista to Win7, and now Win8... so I believe both are correct in that they were sequential. Interestingly, Allchin had resounding success with WinXP, not so much with Vista, and retired on the day that Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers. Deja vu. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Allchin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Allchin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Windows
bztzt 14y ago
The article is wrong, Sinofsky came on at the very end of Vista development and had little to do with getting it out.

Tloewald 14y ago

Seems to me like a solid article -- it kind of explains a good deal, including microsoft's blindness to the idea of treating office as its platform (if Microsoft has been aggressive about porting office to iOS and android it probably wouldn't care who won the platform wars -- instead it has simply made it abundantly clear to many people who considered office indispensable that they can dispense with it). In essence, sinofsky was tasked with sorting out office development and then with doing the same with windows. In the end he seems to have been a classic empire builder, and windows was the larger empire (within Microsoft).