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June 27, 2008
More Bill Trivia
It's a chuckle to read Bill Gate's email that Charles referred to. And I needed that chuckle today when I spent three hours getting diverted by software not designed by Microsoft.
<rant>There were features / functionality issues related to one email system replacing another. There were implementation issues caused by a need to push out the new system without ensuring that the new system was managed consistently with the global corporate user account management process. There were issues which frustrated my efforts, and I could see what drove Bill to vent in his email.
I was gonna do this, but I had to do this other thing to get there and and then that did not work so I worked out a workaround that did not work and then I got obsessive and pursued the workaround and then, after a few hours (of learning and understanding, mind you, and passing it on to the local helpdesk), I figured it out. Hey! But I had figured out how things worked and how to make it work. I hadn't done anything to progress my original mission. It wasn't though, anything to do with Microsoft.</rant>
Anyway, there is a famous Microsoft gang photo circa 1978. They looked so fresh and young.
The Beeb has an article showing the original gang in a new photo. Microsoft grew from a dozen people to now, 90,000 worldwide.
I remember reading that Bill was so obsessive and particular that if a staff member met him on the corridor, the member could get a real shakedown on the current work and project. It's pretty hard to get that approach consistently through to 90,000 people though, and that's the thing that affects system quality. Not every hire will be another Richard Brodie - one story goes that after he left Microsoft, he came back for a chat and memed the world onto those squiggly red underlines of mis-spelt words.
Posted by Anandasim at June 27, 2008 11:39 AM
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