FWIW Mario historically--
In one of the famous leaked memos from Jim Allchin to Bill Gates and Steve
Ballmer which became public in litigation, and caught so many people's eye
because Jim Allchin said he would get a Mac for irony if he weren't with
MSFT, Allchin prodded Gates and Ballmer to change Vista because he perceived
it as a resourcehog. This was in 2004 and a lof of components were
retooled from scratch then, to insure it was not a resource hog, and I agree
with Carey--it's not a resource hog--it has many features built in to
insure this if you get under the Vista hood, but you can help resource
efficiency in the ways I mentioned: I'm going to post the memo that became
public and Jim Allchin's comment on it later:
This memo was sent by Jim Allchin in 2004:
"This is a rant. I'm sorry.
"I am not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers
(both business and home) the most, but in my view we lost our way. I think
our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what
full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how
important current applications are, and really understanding what the most
important problems are customers face are. I see lots of random features and
some great vision, but that doesn't translate into great products.
"I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft. If you run the
equivalent of VPC [Virtual PC] on a Mac you get access to basically all
Windows application software (although not the hardware). Apple did not lose
their way. You must watch this new video below. I know this doesn't show
anything for businesses, but my point is about the philosophy that Apple
uses. They think scenario. They think simple. They think fast. I know there
is nothing hugely deep in this.
"http: //
www.apple.com/ilife/video/ilifeO432C.html [Note: Link is now dead]
"I must tell you everything in my soul tells me that we should do what I
called plan (b) yesterday. We need a simple fast storage system. LH
[Longhorn] is a pig and I don't see any solution to this problem. If we are
to rise to the challenge of Linux and Apple, we need to start taking the
lessons of 'scenario, simple, fast' to heart. Jim"
On point to your comment that Vista is a resource hog, which it is
absolutely not, here is context that Jim Allchin posted as to this memo:
"As part of one of Microsoft's on-going lawsuits, a piece of email that I
sent to Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates recently became public. It was a rant
encouraging a change to the way we were building Windows at the time. In
the email, I made a comment for effect about buying a Mac if I was not
working at Microsoft. Taken out of context, this comment could be
confusing. Let me set the record straight:
a.. This email is nearly 3 years old, and I was being purposefully
dramatic in order to drive home a point. The point being that we needed to
change and change quickly. We did: We changed dramatically the development
process that was being used and we reset the Windows Vista development
project in mid-2004, essentially starting over.
b.. 2-and-½ years later, Windows Vista has turned into a phenomenal
product, better than any other OS we've ever built and far, far better than
any other software available today, in my opinion. It's going to be
available to customers on Jan 30, and I suggest everyone go out and get it
as soon as you can. It's that good.
The spirit of being self-critical continues to flourish at Microsoft.
Within Microsoft everyone considers it their duty to always put their
convictions and our product quality ahead of everything else. That was the
intent of my mail to Bill and Steve, and I consider it a great example of
how this company can focus and do what's right for customers."
jim
