5 ms·

Not entirely sure any of these can be attributed to Ballmer but Microsoft has been entirely successful in the enterprise. Active Directory (copied, but markete

• balakk 13y ago
  Azure probably will get credited to Ray Ozzie. Rest of them are from Gates era. There are some monumental fuck-ups that happened under his guard though - Vista, Windows Phone are enough proof.
  • danieldk 13y ago
    Vista Most hardware was not powerful enough for Vista when it was released. It's the pressed who killed it. Windows 7 received glamorous reviews. However, in hindsight, Vista and 7 are not all that different. Most of the changes that daily users would encounter are cosmetic. Windows Phone Microsofts primary problem was that it was late and (as one of the consequences) there are not that many Windows Phone apps. However, WP7 and WP8 were generally quite well-received by the media. Windows Phone is really a nice phone OS, what Microsoft f*cked up is the transition from WP7 to WP8.
    • Pxtl 13y ago
      Vista was a catastrophic death march until it launched, though. It was pushed back year after year after year. The long gap between XP and Vista was not intentional.
      • smacktoward 13y ago
        Not only was Vista development pushed back, but the whole process was restarted two years in when it became clear that the original version was a disaster (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista#Mid-2004_to_Mid-2005:_Development_.22reset.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista#Mi...).
    • smacktoward 13y ago
      > Most hardware was not powerful enough for Vista when it was released. It's the pressed who killed it. But Microsoft gave them the gun by agreeing to the OEMs' demand to create a "Vista Capable" classification, for machines that were too underpowered to run Vista well (see http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/channel-programs/206905984/tracing-microsofts-vista-capable-debacle.htm http://www.crn.com/slide-shows/channel-programs/206905984/tr...). The OEMs didn't care about customer experience, they just wanted a "Vista!" sticker they could slap on as many machines as possible. MS had to know these machines would make Vista look bad; they should have resisted the demand. But they didn't, so tons of people bought machines they thought would run Vista acceptably, only to find out they did not. So they (understandably) thought Vista was just a dog that couldn't run well even on "Vista certified" hardware.
    • eterm 13y ago
      Hardware wasn't powerful enough because Vista was terrible. At the time of Vista's launch I had a 2yr old PC running ubuntu with compiz with full 3D effects (but more importantly generally working window composition) while adverts on TV were trying to tell me Vista had "WOW!" while it ran poorly on new machines but actually had not much in the way of wow! like visuals. And even if many changes between vista and 7 were "cosmetic", that's how people interact with their PCs, and things like having different UI styles all over the place is a huge dealbreaker that puts people off using it. (See also: Windows 8).
    • gregd 13y ago
      Frankly, I'm still bitter over Windows ME
• JonnieCache 13y ago
  If we're marking off the copies, the last two in that list weren't exactly original ideas either.
  • gregd 13y ago
    Sorry, I wasn't so much pointing out what were copies as I was trying to (albeit terribly) point out that Netware was actually BETTER than AD at that time (access-based enumeration anybody???)
    • JonnieCache 13y ago
      Nah I was just being childish tbh. Your point was far more useful.
• excitom 13y ago
  Small point, but SQL Server was developed by Sybase.
  • thisisdog 13y ago
    They rewrote the whole thing without the licensed code from Sybase since version 4 or whatever the edition.