JD on EP

MS is acting like they are going to change the world by jumping to release dates and creating what they think "hype". But the truth is that nobody really cares now, MS has already 'lost' its credibilty and they cant change that now. Its not about being skeptical, it was a givin that MS will delay the whole product line up that they are comming out with simply because of the fact that they revealed information way to early on in the game when they barley had an Alpha build.

Well, thats quite a release rollback. M$ might be better served to keep more tight-lipped about this stuff. I understand creating hype, but when you can't deliver close to on time, on multiple fronts, people are going to start to take you less seriously. Yes, even with a 800k lbs. gorilla like Microsoft. People will also start to think this stuff is merely trial balloon kind of stuff.

Perhaps with the release of the Flex 2 SDK MS feels it will need more to persuade developers it has a better product?

Flex 2 shipped at least three months before it was expected to and the alpha's and beta's were on labs.adobe even when it still was labs.macromedia. I'm glad I'm not one of the developers eagerly awaiting this product. How do you "adopt" something that isn't there?

MS, good night and good luck.

First of all, those codenames are far sexier than the official names. Sparkle sounds good.

But what's the sense of running after others so far behind? Windows Vista feels great but hey, it's been done before; well, somewhat. And when "Expression" finally arrives, it will have been done before. Well, somehow.

Why is that they take so long to understand what people really love about software? Do they think that selling stuff is just for the bulk of users at the office that couldn't care less about user experience?

I don't know.

Why is that they take so long to understand that passion is important about software? That thrilling people is a mayor issue? They don't seem to care if people are disappointed.

Microsoft can do extraordinary things in an extraordinary bad fashion.

Innovation has never been a core competancy of MS. Apple's/Adobe's/Macromedia's product development strategy has always seemed to originate from a creative marketing/positioning question, "What area of the culture do we want to revolutionize next? How can we empower our customers to do more with their CPU's?" MS PM's (while I know far fewer of them) seem to be asking, "What fast growing feature/benefit of (usu corporate) computing can we dominate worldwide by developing a free tool that is incorporated into the OS?" The entire company seems to be motivated to build moats around their OS fortress. The OS on Xbox...the OS on PDA's...the OS on laptops: what new free app can we wrap into it that will keep the licensing there, permanently?

Sparkle/Expressions and the whole WPF --which seemed so damn promising at PDC-- appears to be driven by the same cultural product development motivation of protecting market share. I'd love to hear evidence to the contrary, as there is so much raw developer talent there and such truly brilliant management that's been underutilized over the years; but I have yet to see it.

A company's culture is colored by the leaders. Throwing chairs, bullying, lying, cheating etc. eventually set the tone of motivation for the whole outfit. Now, after about five years of Mr. Bumbler running things the poison of small mindedness is coming to light. Talented developers can find work many places, Google, Adobe or in a smaller shop. Who in their right mind would want to help a bunch of crumbs get richer? Thank goodness the European Union is holding their feet to the fire. There is a number one platform, and it weighs in at about a meg...