Microsoft Employees Vent Anger Over Vista Delay
Microsoft Employees Vent Anger Over Vista Delay
by , 3:35 PM EDT, April 10th, 2006
An anonymous Microsoft employee who calls himself "Mini-Microsoft" demanded in a March 21 blog post: "Vista 2007. Fire the leadership now!" His frustration over the Windows Vista delay led to more than 500 comments on the subject, many of them coming from Microsoft employees who also vented their anger anonymously.
"Vista's deployment is going to come from people buying CPUs with the OS pre-installed, not dancing down the CompUSA aisle as they clutch that boxed version of Vista to their loving chest," Mini-Microsoft wrote. "So not only did we miss last year's opportunity, we're missing this year's opportunity, too.
"With the convergence of high-tech media, this holiday season would have been an explosive nodal point to get Vista out for a compounded effect."
While most of the comments agreed with him, one visitor stopped by to say: "If you had spent the last 5 years of your life grinding away to get this thing out the door, you would have realized the only thing worse than slipping the date, would have been to lay a turd in August ... we'll be living with the Vista codebase for a long, long time. This is the right thing to do for the product ... At the end of this year, do you want Vista? Or do you want XP SP2 ME?"
On March 27, Mini-Microsoft followed up with a post in which he explained his rationale for the earlier diatribe: "I'm extremely passionate about Microsoft for doing this blogging intervention to put it back on track and live up to its potential." He also said that he raised the bar for comment approval, noting: "I'm just plain not interested in hosting your anti-Microsoft negativity."
Two days later, he opted for "a bit of a blog break [to] let things cool down here."
Observer Comments
Mon Apr 10, 2006 4:53 pm Subject: I'm sure he does need a break
He'd better hope things do cool down before microsoft figures out his name. Most large companies have policies about posting things anonymously because it leads to people stating things about their companies that are not flattering, intentionally or otherwise.
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with his point of view, but I'm sure his blog post wasn't necessarily appreciated by microsoft management. He should definitely hope he remains anonymous.
Tue Apr 11, 2006 4:34 am Subject: The question is…
Reading through some of the comments I kept seeing a common point; Vista has had so many things promised and then dropped that now there's no compelling reason to upgrade from XP when it does arrive. This has been MS's problem for a number of years. In our office we haven't even finished moving from Win2000 to XP simply because functionally there's no pressing advantage to XP. We didn't even start installing XP until SP2 came out and I won't start installing Vista until SP1 and likely SP2 is out for it. MS has too long a history of "laying a turd" and then fixing it with service packs. So I don't see Vista being a huge success. MS will crow about initial sales but it won't be a Win95 stampede.
BTW several comments mentioned "Client appcompat %". I'm not a coder and don't work for MS so does anyone know what that means?
there really wasn't much a reason to upgrade to tiger either...
os 9 to panther is what i, and i'm sure a vast majority of the user base, did upgrade to (everything up to panther was miserably buggy, but at least the progress was made in such a short time.)
due to virtualization, i will upgrade to 10.5 this winter.
thats 2 MAJOR (OS X then 10.5 -- i would consider the migration to a new chipset pretty major) upgrades since 2001... around the same time XP came out...
Microsoft simply needs to tell all the people out there to s*** or get off the pot and drop support for everything up to vista, thats what apple did... they ended up with an incredibly elegant, stable OS with just enough emulation of the former OSes to allow a smooth(ish) transition for most users... the longer they keep using 20+ year old technology in their OS, the longer it's gonna look (and more importantly, perform) like a 20+ yr old OS...
people are still using windows 95 on their main computer for heaven's sake!!!
How do you get passionate about working for Microsoft?
Well considering it has spawned more stock millionaire's than probably any other company in history, I can understand how somebody could become passionate about that.
Exact same reason Monkey Boy did his jig, do you think he loves Microsoft for it's products? No way, he loves em cause his no-talent lucky-to-get-a-job-as-a-shoe-salesman ass became a bazzillionaire because of Microsoft.
QuoteGuest wrote:
there really wasn't much a reason to upgrade to tiger either...
I'd disagree there. Between Spotlight and the significantly faster OS performance, Tiger was an upgrade I was glad to buy, and would do so again.
Vista, on the otherhand, is starting to look more and more like just another Service Pack for Win XP. Not compelling, that.
Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.
Recent Headlines - Updated November 9th
- Mon, 2:51 PM
- Apple Stock Watch - Radio Shack Jumps 14% on iPhone Deal, Apple Up 3%
- 2:25 PM
- Games - EA Scoops Up Social Games Publisher Playfish
- 1:51 PM
- Deal Brothers - Western Digital 1TB SATA Intellipower Hard Drive: $84.99
- 10:58 AM
- News - StarHub Signs Singapore iPhone Deal
- 10:36 AM
- Hot Forum Topic - Reader Speculation: What’s in Apple’s Tablet?
- 10:08 AM
- News - Apple Kicks Off New Credit Program
- 9:26 AM
- News - Apple Launches Reserve and Pick Up Program
- 8:49 AM
- News - ikee Worm Rickrolls Jailbroken iPhones
- 8:14 AM
- Product News - Client Folder Maker 3.5 Adds Snow Leopard Support
- Sun, 11:59 AM
- Mac Geek Gab Podcast - MGG 226: Magic Mouse, Apple Battery Secrets, Q&A
- Sat, 7:58 PM
- News - Apple TV 3.0.1 Update Fixes Missing Content Bug
- Fri, 7:45 PM
- Rumor - Taiwan Leak Shows Verizon UTMS/CDMA iPhone for Q3 2010
The Mac Observer Reader Specials
- TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com
RamJet Memory: Mac Pro 8-core 8GB Kit $199.99, 4GB Kits $109.99! Sale on MacBook and MacBook Pro 8GB kits $549.99! New MacBook DDR3 2GB for $49.99. iMac and Mac mini 4GB Kits for $79.99! 1TB SATA Hard Drives for $109.99! Click here
OWC: Mercury On-The-Go FW800+USB2 up to 1.0TB. Bus Powered, no external power supply needed. Macworld Editors Choice, CNET Very Good Starting from $99.97, 500GB $159.99. Click here
If you're using a Mac, then you've gotta check out Full Tilt Poker for Mac. This Full Tilt Poker bonus code does the unthinkable, it actually rewards!For the latest Apple products use Ciao, a price comparison website, to find laptops like MacBook Air. Then find the best prices on MP3 players and use our comparison tool to evaluate mobile phones like the Apple iPhone.
Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

