Shipping Seven: An Ongoing Dialog About the Next Windows, Part 3: Microsoft Speaks (August 2008)

7/9/2007
Transparency and disclosure

Transparent. Easily seen through or detected; obvious.
Translucent. easily understandable; lucid.

Today was a pretty exciting day for the folks working on servicing Windows Vista as there were a number of breathless stories about SP1 including dates and features. These stories caught us (management) by surprise since not only have we not announced any of the things in these stories, but much of what was reported was not or will not be the case. This is not a good situation to be in and I thought I'd offer some words on how we think of "transparency" relative to disclosure.

One topic I have been having an interesting time following has been the blogs and reports that speculate about how Windows will go from being an open or transparent product development team to being one that is "silent" or "locked down". Much of this commentary seems to center around me personally, which is fine, but talks about how there is a Sinofsky-moratorium on disclosure. I think that means I owe it to the team to provide a view on what I do mean personally (and what I personally mean to do), of course I do so knowing that just by writing this down I run this risk of this leaking and then we'll have a round of phone calls and PR management to do just with regards to "Sinofsky's internal memo on disclosure". But I thought it would be worth a try.

The most important thing I believe we owe our shareholders and customers relative to how and what we communicate is that whatever communicate to people be accurate and truthful relative to the work we have going on. This does not mean free from ability to change down the road. It does not mean silence until the very last minute. What it does mean is that we should recognize the potential impact our communications can have on customers, partners, and our industry and we should treat folks with great respect because when we do disclose what we're working on people pay attention?and they do more than listen as they make plans, spend money, or otherwise want to count on what we have to say.

When we have to change our plans, modify what has been said, or retract/restate things we not only look like we don't have our act together, but we cause real (tangible) pain to customers and partners. One need look no further than the Longhorn/Vista product cycle and the cost to the PC ecosystem of us being out there talking broadly before we really were able to speak with the accuracy our customers and partners assumed. Plans were made. Plans were remade. And then finally people just decided to wait until we really delivered, with some folks not really believing us until the DVD was in their hands, which meant they were no on board with drivers, compatible applications, or the support their customers expected. That example is close at hand, but we can look at examples for Server 2008, ship dates that came and went for any number of products, or even recent examples with Windows Live. This is a challenge that spans all of Microsoft, not just Windows.

All of these challenges come about because there is a mismatch between expectations and reality?that mismatch or gap is the heart of customer dissatisfaction. What we can do is be thoughtful about planning and then just as thoughtful about how we communicate those plans. That is what we are doing.

...

So our goal as an organization is to be much more thoughtful and considerate with what we disclose. Premature disclosure might make us feel like we were helping. Heck it might even make some customers and partners feel good, and some partners might even understand of the challenges we face in managing our projects. But on the whole it did not make Microsoft a good citizen of the ecosystem and it certainly did not make us good enterprise partners.

Our PMG team cannot do their job effectively if they end up in reactive mode.

Stories like the ones about SP1 (or similar leaks about Live Services) make getting the word out pretty impossible. It puts us on the defensive. It confuses customers. It makes it so the message we want to get out there?the features we delivered, the quality of the work, the scenarios we enable, etc.?just doesn't make it through the cacophony of chatter about the rumors, partial information, and other guesses. Of course we can't be proactive about how we wish to be new and improved if we are always responding to these situations.

On the lack of communication about Windows 7:

We want to make sure that when we do share information, that the information we share is accurate and reliable, and that we have in place the mechanisms for feedback such that the feedback is really taken seriously with respect to our plans. The reactions that we've had to some of the lessons learned in Windows Vista are really playing into our strategy of getting together a great plan for Windows 7, and working with all the partners in the ecosystem in a very deliberate way, such that the end result is a very positive experience for all of us.

On Apple's ability to define the client market during Microsoft's silence:

I think that Apple has a very visible campaign, and we work with partners, and have a very different approach to how we're communicating our product. In a way, what I would say is Apple isn't really talking about where they're going, and that was the root of your question.

On the schedule for Windows 7:

Windows 7 is a major undertaking, and we're going to produce a major release of the product. Then what we do is we work on the plans, we get feedback from different partners at different times in the plans, and really the disclosure is when we start to talk about the information that's actionable and exciting about the product. The timing of it depends a lot on what we wanted to achieve, and you've certainly heard us, and we've been very clear, and will continue to say that the next release of Windows, Windows 7, is about three years after the general availability of Windows Vista, and we're committed to that, and we've signed up publicly to do that.

A major release? Really?

We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7; in fact, they'll work the same.

We're going to not introduce additional compatibilities, particularly in the driver model.

Windows Vista was about improving those things.

We are going to build on the success and the strength of the Windows Server 2008 kernel, and that has all of this work that you've been talking about.

The key there is that the kernel in Windows Server 08 is an evolution of the kernel in Windows Vista, and then Windows 7 will be a further evolution of that kernel as well.

So, memory management, networking, process management, all of the security hardening, all of those things will carry forth, and maintain the compatibility with applications that people expect.

Finally, we are going to make sure that the release is available both in 32 bit and 64 bit, which is an additional help for maintaining compatibility, particularly with device drivers. As the 64-bit ecosystem catches up, we expect more and more people, particularly enthusiasts, to be running 64 bit. For many people that's a great scenario today. I know I run 64 bit on most of my machines, including my primary laptop

There will be a lot of features in Windows 7. It's a major release. I talked about the kernel and driver compatibility and (application) compatibility, but there is a lot more for us to talk about ... and I think that each customer segment will have its own way of understanding what it means for them to be a significant release ... it also might mean, oh, well, if you're not re-architecting the whole thing, then maybe it's not a major release.

Windows Vista established a very solid foundation, a multiyear foundation, particularly on subsystems like graphics and audio and storage and things like that, and Windows 7--and then Windows Server 2008 built on that foundation, and Windows 7 will continue to build on that foundation as well.

On disclosure:

Everybody wants to know sooner than later what we're doing. And what we're always trying to balance is, well, if we make mistakes, then that has repercussions in the ecosystem that we don't really want to have, and we really want to be a responsible team as part of the overall ecosystem.

There are many different models for disclosure that different companies work in, and I talked about the one that we're basing on the lessons that we learned from Windows Vista. But, of course, you could look at any of the other vendors in the marketplace, and see how they deal with disclosure, and come up with different models, and speculate about the pros and cons that they really see. I think that we're just focused--the No. 1 goal we're focused on is really the responsibility that we feel, and the respect that we have for all of our customers and partners, and making sure that what we share with them is really accurate and actionable, and that we are focused, like I keep saying, promise and deliver.

a quick heads up

Howdy,

We haven't been in touch directly in a while, but I wanted to give you a heads up about a new blog that we are starting this week. As we lead up to a series of events this fall that will feature Windows 7, we thought it would be fun for us to start a blog about how we make Windows 7. The blog will be hosted (and written) by myself and Jon DeVaan and will focus on the overall engineering aspects of building Windows 7. Think of it as a companion to the overall external communications about Windows 7.

I ask that you not discuss or write about this till the blog posts since we aren't really letting folks know in advance and we would not want to offend anyone. :-)

The blog will be hosted on http://blogs.msdn.com.

--Steven Sinofsky

Over the past 18 months since Windows Vista's broad availability, the team has been hard at work creating the next Windows product.

The audience of enthusiasts, bloggers, and those that are the most passionate about Windows represent the folks we are dedicating this blog to. With this blog we're opening up a two-way discussion about how we are making Windows 7.

We strongly believe that success for Windows 7 includes an open and honest, and two-way, discussion about how we balance all of these interests and deliver software on the scale of Windows. We promise and will deliver such a dialog with this blog.

We have two significant events for developers and the overall ecosystem around Windows this fall. The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) the following week both represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7. This blog will provide context over the next 2+ months with regular posts about the behind the scenes development of the release and continue through the release of the product.

Starting from the first days of developing Windows 7, we have committed as a team to "promise and deliver". That's our goal?share with you what we're going to get done, why we're doing it, and deliver it with high quality and on time.

Applets and Gadgets
Assistance and Support Technologies
Core User Experience
Customer Engineering and Telemetry
Deployment and Component Platform
Desktop Graphics
Devices and Media
Devices and Storage
Documents and Printing
Engineering System and Tools
File System
Find and Organize
Fundamentals
Internet Explorer (including IE 8 down-level)
International
Kernel & VM
Media Center
Networking - Core
Networking - Enterprise
Networking - Wireless
Security
User Interface Platform
Windows App Platform

Some have said that the Windows team is just too big and that it has reached a size that causes engineering problems. At the same time, I might point out that just looking at the comments there is a pretty significant demand for a broad set of features and changes to Windows. It takes a set of people to build Windows and it is a big project. The way that I look at this is that our job is to have the Windows team be the right size?that sounds clich? but I mean by that is that the team is neither too large nor too small, but is effectively managed so that the work of the team reflects the size of the team and you see the project as having the benefits we articulate. I'm reminded of a scene from Amadeus where the Emperor suggests that the Marriage of Figaro contains "too many notes" to which Mozart proclaims "there are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required, neither more nor less." Upon the Emperor suggesting that Mozart remove a few notes, Mozart simply asks "which few did you have in mind?" Of course the people on the team represent the way we get feature requests implemented and develop end to end scenarios, so the challenge is to have the right team and the right structure to maximize the ability to get those done?neither too many nor too few.