

What Sinofsky’s Departure Suggests about Microsoft - gvb
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/507746/what-sinofskys-departure-suggests-about-the-current-state-and-likely-future-of-microsoft/

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gvb
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."

~~~
cryptoz
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?

~~~
radicalbyte
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.

~~~
jspaur
OneNote actually has a touch centric app in the Windows store @
[http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-
us/app/onenote/f022389f-...](http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-
us/app/onenote/f022389f-f3a6-417e-ad23-704fbdf57117)

~~~
dubya
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/id41039524...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-
onenote/id410395246?mt=8&uo=4)

------
locacorten
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
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?

~~~
zmmmmm
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
This comment can be slightly rephrased to fit Apple as well.

~~~
sounds
Although I understand your point, there's a fundamental difference between
what Microsoft did to Sinofsky and what Apple "did" to Jobs. Sinofsky: fired,
Jobs: openly idolized to the point of being reality-distorting.

Apple without Jobs may have to wade through the same wilderness of
disillusionment, but Microsoft without Sinofsky (assuming you're correct that
Sinofsky was Microsoft's "visionary") not only gets the disillusionment,
Microsoft starts by tearing itself apart without any sort of pressure to
reform or repair the damage.

On the other hand, even assuming Microsoft is fine without Sinofsky, Windows 8
can't be considered nearly as successful as, say, the introduction of the
iPhone, simply by the nature of the release: release a new product that
requires a lot of change – and _fire_ the leader at the same time? I don't
believe even the "best case" can be considered a success.

------
Tloewald
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).

------
acqq
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
The quote comes from
<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/History_of_Microsoft_Windows>

