Quote of the Day: On Vista v. Mac OSX
In advance of Apple’s apparent announcement that it will release Leopard (OSX 10.5) and maybe even give us a specific spring ship date, I don’t see how anyone can disagree with the following, regardless of which platform you prefer (or are forced to prefer, as the case may be):
In a nutshell, Vista vs. Mac OS X is Revolution vs. Evolution. It’s about a massive, long-delayed upgrade that has to account for almost 6 years of progress by its competitors, versus a well-executed strategy of regular updates. While updating an operating system is never something that can be called easy, Apple’s strategy has been the better one for keeping their OS on top of things, something Microsoft has admitted to in a roundabout way.
If you dig into this (and read some of the Microsoft and agile methodology blogs) - the real nut of this problem is management - in two areas: Both the source code and the development teams need to be clearly and cleanly managed in such a way that internal friction and miscommunication is severely reduced, innovation is made possible, and accountability is obvious. Apple always gets the props for top-notch product design, but there’s no way they can accomplish these things unless they have a lean, mean organization that stays on task. And this can’t be all Steve. Someday perhaps that story will be written by a knowledgeable insider.
(In contrast, the Microsoft blogs - mentioned above, sorry I don’t have links handy - are public evidence that Redmond is awash in slipshod management, bad internal processes and layers of organizational FUD.)
Comment by Brendan — January 8, 2007 @ 1:00 pm
#1, I’ve done a post or two on how MS sometimes seems like GM was during the 1980s — constantly reorganizing and steadily deteriorating.
Comment by TBlumer — January 9, 2007 @ 2:32 am