blog.spathis.com

Few days ago I mentioned the debacle of Vista slipping yet again. Then this story hits the blogosphere. It pissed off quite a few folks and the truth is the story is pretty lame. If Microsoft had to re-write 60% of Vista it would take far longer than the few weeks slip they announced. Either the original writer got it very very wrong or the mother of all death marches is happening up in Redmond.

Alot of people have been counting Microsoft out, I wouldn’t for a second. They have some brilliant talent and a sizable warchest. The Vista delay is a pain in the a**, and when it ships it better blow people away. Microsoft is still very much in the game, remember the last time everyone said Microsoft lost its edge, they turned around and crushed Netscape, before that they ate the lunch of companies like Wordperfect. Microsoft has always been a little late to the party but when they get there they have this tendency to eventually win.

Wow, Microsoft just slipped Vista again. This is monumental news, the 2007 season will be much bleaker for computer retailers without computer & spiffy new Microsoft OS to hype, then again, maybe Apple will wise up and get wider distribution of their computer. Something serious must be up inside of Microsoft, reading the blogs of various Microsofties it is readily apparent there is discontent in the ranks.

Folks are already comparing the windows group at Microsoft to the Apple in the mid ’90’s when we got the entire Apple Copland fiasco. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Paul Allen didn’t go off to start another operating system company like Steve Job did with Next. When Vista does ship it better be a blockbuster for Microsoft.

Links to get you started:

• http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/03/22/windows-vista-delayed/
• http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/vista-2007-fire-leadership-now.html
• http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=174087

Update:

• http://www.microsoftmonitor.com/archives/014461.html

Another Update: More from Scoble at http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/03/25/can-this-week-ever-end/

Google is sponsoring a brilliant series of talks in their New York city office. I unfortunately missed Guido Van Rossum (you can catch it on google video) last month. This evening I had the opportunity to listen to Andy Hertzfeld reminisce about the good old days at Apple computer and the building of Apple, the Macintosh, the people involved, and creating an entire industry. Andy was absolutely hilarious and is a huge Woz fan.

When I was young Woz, Andy, Jef, Bill, Jobs, Burrell, etc…were childhood heroes. I absolutely adored the Mac and the team that created that insanely great computer. Andy has posted many of his stories over at http://www.folklore.org. Listening to Andy speak gives you a great view on what the silicon valley of the late 70’s was like and why it became such an incredible incubator of innovation and wealth creation. Not to mention a tremendously fun place to work! Andy’s talk should be up at google video in the next few days.

Best prank ever can be found over at Bruce Schneier’s blog Schneier on Security, prank description can be found here.

Update: Fascinating post from John McCarthy on Edward Teller and Heisenberg

Even the packaging looks amazing, see it all after the jump…

If you haven’t seen the new wordpress.org go see it now. I can’t wait to install it, looks really slick. Now all I need is some time…

By the way, Happy Holidays and all that…

After months of planning PubSub just announced the launch of structured blogging. This is an incredibly key initiative and Marc Canter and his company Broadband Mechanics have done pioneering work. Kudos to Phil Pearson for plugins well done.

Structured blogging is really gaining traction and we made it to the top of tech.memeorandum.com, in case you missed it, here is a pic. Nice job everyone, now lets get the community building applications and defining the schemas…

This week I am attending the Syndicate Conference. We (the company I work with) will be making some major announcements all around Structured Blogging. I haven’t been this tickled pink about a technology in quite some time.