Sorry for the blog slowdown. I just sent Shel my changes on the last chapter on our book.
The process of writing a book with Shel was much better than I expected it to be, but it did occassionally take my attention away from my blog — particularly this week when we’re under deadline to get it done.
It’s weird, I sense my own blogging is about to change quite a bit for a whole lot of reasons (the blogosphere is getting too big for even me to track, for one, and there are tool and service changes coming that made me give up my linkblog (that is obsolete and as soon as one company I’m working with gets their stuff out you’ll see why). I spent the day today editing videos (some of which I shot two months ago) and cleaning out my office. I realized I was in a rut. Cleaning out my office was my way of saying “enough.”
One thing I’m getting ready for? Windows Vista (I setup a computer specifically to play around with it). Look at what Mary Jo Foley is writing: Microsoft Needs to Come Clean About Vista.
Oh, I agree there wholeheartedly. You know, I’m afraid of writing about Windows Vista. Why? Because we went out so early and created so many lofty expectations last time (big mistake) that I just wanted to crawl in a hole and say nothing. Which is pretty much what I’ve done now for about a year. Plus, Windows is such a big product, with so many people involved (thousands), with such high expectations on it, that saying anything without really understanding all the pieces is just asking for trouble. There are only a few people who understand all the pieces, and they are just hard to get face time with.
I wanted to just let you get the product and see it for yourself and let you come to your own conclusions about whether it was good or not without my input. I also just didn’t want to get into the “is this feature in or out” guessing game. Again, that’s real dangerous if you don’t know all the pieces. I go back to when I interviewed Bill Gates in 1994 and he promised me that Visual Basic would ship on the Macintosh. It never did. So, in my mind it’s better to be quiet and let the market discover the product after we ship. I know I’ll forget that lesson about 40 times over the next year, but it’s a good one to remember.
She asks: “What is Microsoft gaining from hiding the fact that some of the features originally slated for Vista and Longhorn Server have been pulled from the products?”
The problem, Mary Jo, is that features are still sliding around a bit. So, we’re afraid of coming out and muddying the waters even further. This is going to be a messy period. There will be rumors and false reports. These will happen no matter what we do. I’ve decided to just stay quiet until the PDC.
The PDC will be a pivotal event for Windows Vista. That means another four weeks of muddy water on our behalf. Sorry about that.
I’ll apologize on behalf of Microsoft. We haven’t done a good job of coming clean on Windows Vista. Mary Jo is right. Last year was a painful one on this team. Does it really matter anyway? The word-of-mouth networks now are so efficient that if it sucks you’ll know it within an hour or two of its release. And, accordingly, if it rocks you’ll know that too. Nothing we do will change that (the only thing we really can do is guide you to look at various nooks and crannies in the product so you can discover more about what makes it useful. Which is just what we’ll be doing at the PDC, next month.
Speaking of the PDC, I hear we’re very very close to selling out (within days is what the marketing folks told me). If you don’t have your tickets yet, I would do that first thing in the morning or else you probably won’t be going.
Oh, regarding hardware: it’s too early to know that. Nearly every team I am visiting is doing performance work right now. Until they are done with that work (which probably won’t happen until close to the release candidates which will come next year) there’s really no way to accurately tell you what kind of hardware you’ll need. Based on what I’m seeing, though, if you want the best experience you’ll want a fairly beefy machine with a great video card (128MB video card is needed to see the full Aero experience). But even all that might change (obviously that isn’t great for a lot of laptop and Tablet PC users, so the teams are working to make everything more performant. We really won’t know just how successful those teams will be until next year sometime.
A few other things, too. 1) If there’s something you want to know about Windows Vista, leave it here in my comments or over on the Coffeehouse in Channel 9 and I’ll try to get you an accurate answer. 2) If you are on a Windows Vista team and you’d like to come on Channel 9 to explain the features your team is working on, please send me email at rscoble@microsoft.com.
Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.
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