Microsoft says that Vista isn't "People Ready" yet:

Microsoft execs also talked about "Impacting People," then they dragged out fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, who seemed very "impacted" as he sang praise for Microsoft programs. Actually, he was reading meaningless statements from a TelePrompTer. Here is one of his quotes, verbatim: "When you combine people and technology, you have a very powerful combination." Think about that. Just let it sink in for a minute...

...No one mentioned the fact that in 1997, Microsoft held a similar event in New York City to declare that IBM's "big iron" was dead, because Windows NT--remember Windows NT?--was going to "scale up" and replace the mainframe. I wonder if Ballmer ever feels like the guy in Groundhog Day, reliving the same press conference, over and over. I know I do.

Lyons makes some points, but overall, he makes himself look as much the idiot as he portrays Ballmer. "Remember Windows NT"... yes I do, it still runs on many servers in my corporation. Mainframes? Yeah, I haven't seen a room sized space warmer in a decade. I recall large companies and institutions giving away their Cray's because the maintenance bill for keeping them cool far outweighted their performance, which was being surpassed by desktops running... Windows NT.

Ballmer probably does feel like Bill Murray's character of Groundhog Day... except everytime Ballmer relives such a day, he and his company makes billions. One would think a senior editor of Forbes would understand the concept. I guess Mr. Lyons longs for the days when an IBM could put out a device and then rest on their laurels never refining or improving their wares to match market demands. No doubt Microsoft will go this way (and already has in many respects), but I think with the leadership of Forbes Magazine, I suspect the magazine will become extinct first (IBM came close).

I too found the Windows NT comment both odd and ignorant. The core of Windows 2000, XP, Vista (and 2003 Server) is the evolution of Windows NT!

The rest of the comments are just silly. This paragraph kills me:

"Given Microsoft's delays I can't believe open-source stuff still hasn't caught on for desktop computers. It's amazing, but people will wait months and months for products that are so complicated that no ordinary person can figure out how to use them."

Why would anyone upgrade a working system simply because its replacement is delayed? And if they were dissapointed, why would they chose an unfamiliar operating system that ran none of their current software and is less usable that Windows XP? (News flash: the "ordinary person" can't figure out how to use Linux et. al. but can work their way around Windows.)

Then to assert that Apple's latest OS is a paragon of reliability and ease of use is beyond silly. It's nice and has some very nice design points, but also has its share of quirks. (Among which is the limited amount of over-priced hardware with which it will work.)

But the statement "And they're here. Today." illustrates again, just how clueless the writer is. Windows XP is here. Today. So is the previous incarnation of OSX and Windows 2000 and Mac 10.5 and....

Having said this, I do hope Apple puts on a full court press, so to speak. Microsoft has proven the adage that competition is good. And if Novell or Red Hat can improve the usability of Linux and make it easier to use, the same holds true.

I too found the Windows NT comment both odd and ignorant. The core of Windows 2000, XP, Vista (and 2003 Server) is the evolution of Windows NT!

The rest of the comments are just silly. This paragraph kills me:

"Given Microsoft's delays I can't believe open-source stuff still hasn't caught on for desktop computers. It's amazing, but people will wait months and months for products that are so complicated that no ordinary person can figure out how to use them."

Why would anyone upgrade a working system simply because its replacement is delayed? And if they were dissapointed, why would they chose an unfamiliar operating system that ran none of their current software and is less usable that Windows XP? (News flash: the "ordinary person" can't figure out how to use Linux et. al. but can work their way around Windows.)

Then to assert that Apple's latest OS is a paragon of reliability and ease of use is beyond silly. It's nice and has some very nice design points, but also has its share of quirks. (Among which is the limited amount of over-priced hardware with which it will work.)

But the statement "And they're here. Today." illustrates again, just how clueless the writer is. Windows XP is here. Today. So is the previous incarnation of OSX and Windows 2000 and Mac 10.5 and....

Having said this, I do hope Apple puts on a full court press, so to speak. Microsoft has proven the adage that competition is good. And if Novell or Red Hat can improve the usability of Linux and make it easier to use, the same holds true.

Impact is not a verb.

Uh, maybe I'm not catching some irony or something, but, from webster.com:

Main Entry: 1 im·pact
Pronunciation: im-'pakt
Function: verb
Etymology: Latin impactus, past participle of impingere to push against -- more at IMPINGE
transitive senses
1 a : to fix firmly by or as if by packing or wedging b : to press together
2 a : to have an impact on : impinge on b : to strike forcefully; also : to cause to strike forcefully
intransitive senses
1 : to have an impact
2 : to impinge or make contact especially forcefully
- im·pac·tive /im-'pak-tiv/ adjective
- im·pac·tor also im·pact·er /-t&r/ noun

Mainframes? Yeah, I haven't seen a room sized space warmer in a decade. I recall large companies and institutions giving away their Cray's because the maintenance bill for keeping them cool far outweighted their performance, which was being surpassed by desktops running... Windows NT.

Funny that. My manager and I were gaming what we needed to do to make the cluster of applications and servers I support fully 24x7 services. Script this, hack that, cluster the servers over here ... all to deliver a bar code label and edit an inventory database.

We're both old enough to remember the 'end of the mainframe era' when stuff like this was taken for granted - that the computing environment needed to run the business would 'just be there' without a lot of fiddly hacking around with batch jobs and shell scripts.

It all costs less of course. Except when it doesn't.

My take is that Microsoft painted itself into a corner. It's too dependent on Windows and Office. Given that there are free replacements for both (which incidentally are good enough for a number of businesses to switch, but not good enough for a mass switchover), I don't see these products continuing to provide the revenue to which Microsoft has grown accustomed, and they don't appear to me to have a replacement. ".NET" appears to be just a rebranding of their OS and Office suite along with tie-ins to other MS products like their webserver (IIS) and development environment. I don't think it'll be enough.

OTOH, I don't see a lot of incompetence in MS's leadership. They realize the pickle they're in and have attempted a number of things to get out of it. They might succeed.

Microsoft's big problem, as I see it, is that their business strategy -- integrating all the software to exclude competitors -- is at odds with good engineering. Their system is now so big, inadequately specified, and so increasingly interconnected that their development speed has gone to pot. From what I read in MS blogs they've tried to address this by increasingly heavyhanded process dictates, but this has only slowed them further and alienated their engineers.

Microsoft may have maneuvered itself into the 'coffin corner' of software development.