Jim Allchin, group VP in charge of Windows, told the Wall Street Journal he dropped the bombshell last summer, simply telling Gates "It's not going to work". Longhorn was so complex that Microsoft's developers would never be able to make it run properly, Allchin told Gates.
The root of the problem was Microsoft's historical approach to developing software - the so-called 'spaghetti code culture' - where the company's thousands of programmers would each develop their own piece of code and it would then all be stitched together at the end.
The new approach was to develop a clean solid core code base for Windows which new features could more easily be added to over time and Allchin introduced new tools that would automatically reject buggy code.
Microsoft has revealed plans to release a third service pack for its Windows XP operating system. "There will be a Service Pack 3 for Windows XP," Bernard Ourghanlian, technical and security director at Microsoft France, confirmed, revealing that Microsoft's OS is set for another major update. Windows XP SP3 will be available sometime next year--after the launch of Windows Vista, which "is the priority for the development teams," according to Microsoft France.
To fix its traffic and education woes, the Puget Sound region should take a cue from Microsoft and emphasize agility and continuous improvement, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said yesterday.
"We want to see the region continuously improve just as we do our own company, and there are certainly opportunities," Ballmer told 1,200 business leaders at the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce's annual luncheon meeting.
Ballmer's speech reinforced the political tone of the meeting, where chamber leaders called on members to vote down Initiative 912, a measure that would repeal gas taxes funding road improvements. They also called for considering an overhaul of the state tax system.
Microsoft's yearly confab for its Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) has begun at the company's Redmond campus. The event will connect 1,500 MVPs with over 1,000 Microsoft employees representing 90 technologies and provide insight into the future directions of the company.
Among the topics of discussion this week will be Smart Personal Objects Technology, otherwise known as SPOT, which has struggled to take off in the marketplace. Microsoft executives will also sit down with MVPs today to discuss the company's reorganization and the next wave of products slated to arrive with Windows Vista.
Striking a blow to Microsoft, the U.S. Patent Office this week reaffirmed a key Web-browsing patent that the software maker is accused of infringing.
In a decision made public Wednesday, the patent office upheld the validity of a patent held by the University of California and its Eolas Technology spinoff. In 2003, a jury awarded more than $500 million in damages to the university and Eolas, but an appeals court this year partially upheld Microsoft's appeal, saying the company should be able to present evidence that similar inventions predated Eolas' patent application.
Firefox's once-strong surge against Microsoft Internet Explorer is showing signs of losing momentum, a Web metrics firm said Wednesday.
San Diego-based WebSideStory released market share numbers for Firefox, IE, and other browsers that noted Firefox has crept up from April's 6.75 percent to September's 7.86 percent, a single percentage point gain in five months. During the first few months after its November, 2004, release, Firefox was adding another point each month.
"It looks like Firefox has hit the push-back point," said Geoff Johnston, an analyst with WebSideStory. "We always knew there was a finite number of early adopters out there and a finite number of Microsoft haters who would switch to something new, but we didn't know what that number was.
With the launch of SQL Server 2005 coming in November, Microsoft has formalized the implementation guidance and marketing support it will provide to its partners and customers.
The support comes in the form of two initiatives, Project REAL and SQL Server Front Runner, both highlighted by Bill Baker, Microsoft general manager of business intelligence, during a keynote at the 2005 Professional Association.
Project REAL, is a set best practice guidelines for implementing SQL Server 2005 in a business intelligence scenario. The idea behind it is to use the guidelines against a real, live customer production system.
Microsoft showed off its preliminary work on the second beta version of Internet Explorer 7 at the Hack in the Box Security Conference here, and came away with some good feedback, company managers said Thursday.
"It's the first time we've ever come out ahead of a product release to present and get feedback," said Tony Chor, group program manager at Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, referring to the company's presentation to a hacker-specific group.
The world's richest man is finally making $1 million a year.
Microsoft said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that Bill Gates received $600,000 in salary and $400,000 in bonus in its most recent fiscal year, an 11 percent increase in total compensation for the company's chairman and chief software architect.
In addition, the company detailed raises for Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and three executives promoted last week to new roles as divisional presidents, pushing the total compensation of each to $1 million or more.
An admitted counterfeiter has agreed to pay Microsoft and Symantec $1.1 million in restitution, a victory in the software industry's fight against software piracy.
The award is part of a plea agreement in a criminal software piracy case in Houston, Symantec said Tuesday. The case came to court after a yearlong investigation by the Houston police and the FBI into the activities of Li Chen, who was found to have 5,100 copies of counterfeit Symantec software at his Houston business, Symantec said.