microsoft - heads must roll

That's the consensus on mini-Microsoft's blog as a result of the news that the consumer version of Windows Vista is yet again being delayed by another six months. 

Here's a collection of the comments on his post and most of these are from "ANONYMOUS" which on mini's blog means "Microsoft employees who want to avoid retribution":

• What's the cost of Vista to date?  Five, six billion in direct costs, and maybe another hundred in opportunity costs? MSFT shareholders need to start rolling some heads, starting with the monkey-boy.

• Being a 10+ year vet I feel ashamed and sad. This company is a mess on so many levels.

• we cannot ship our OS. this is not a joke. if we don't take some radical decisions, the company is over.

• Windows Leadership - Where does accountability fit on your review criteria?! I just submitted my resignation from Microsoft today.

• Allchin should have booted out the door right at the LH reset. (and that one was from someone in the Windows product team)

• SON OF A BITCH BALLMER, WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR YOU TO RECYCLE YOUR EXECS?????

• Vista - I wouldn't buy it with someone else's money. Then again What do I know, I've only been testing the dog for the last 2-3 yrs...

• My bet: No one over level 68 gets fired. Allchin leaves at the end of the year as expected. Jawad continues to be the poster child for why there's no accountability in management. BrianV may or may not leave. I hope to dog I'm wrong and Kevin cleans house, but I'm not holding my breath.

• God, we look like DEC more and more every day.

• I really hope MSFT turns itself around, I hope for the best but realize that I have absolutely lost faith in all the levels of upper management. This Vista issue is just icing on the cake.

• And my favourite: people who put ( spaces ) inside parentheses should be gassed

I remember when Windows 2000 slipped by several years. I remember the stories of the Win2K death marches. And it was a kickass OS when it came out. XP built on top of it and it kicked ass too. So I understand the "we'll ship it when it's ready" motto. But that still doesn't excuse the continual failure to hit ship dates.

Ballmer - I know you're a Napoleon guy. One of the reasons for Napoleon's downfall (one among many) was that his top marshals ended up fat, slow, rich and unreliable. They didn't execute like they did when they were young and hungry. Yeah they had lots of experience. Yeah they had delivered for him in the past. But what's past is past. They didn't have the fire in their bellies any more.

And the trouble with Microsoft in the last five years is that you've managed the people with the fire still in their bellies out of the organization and stacked it with middle managers who live in spreadsheets. Big mistake. Big. Huge.

Comments

[Mike P]

Amen.

[Phillip Molly Malone]

Dude, be carefull. You'll ruin your impending deal with them!
;-)
Molly

[Dave Burke]

Sing it, Brother!

[Java Dude]

And what does it really matter, anyway. MS is a monopoly (proven by law) and so whether a PC gets shipped with Vista or XP doesn't really matter to MS from an economic standpoint. Furthermore, it doesn't really matter if they don't offer an upgrade because there is no competition on the desktop. Of course, it might look bad if they officially decided not to develop a next version of Windows. But in reality, they can extend deadlines as long as they want and in the market there is no accountability - because they are, indeed, a monopoly. So all of this ranting and raving is just fluff. That is the reality.