
Six months ago, after a long gestation period, Microsoft finally released Windows Vista. Vista is a huge release; not only because of the long list of new features, but also because of its sheer size, and number of bugs and other oddities and downsides. The development process that lead to Vista has left many with a very bitter aftertaste; features were cut, codebases were scrapped, release dates postponed. A few days ago, Microsoft
released some sparse details on Vista's successor, internally dubbed 'Windows 7', and in order to prevent another Vista-like development cycle, here is what I would advise Microsoft to do.
Update: APCMag
reports that Julie Larson-Green, who was the driving force behind Office 2007's new Ribbon user interface, has been transferred to the Windows 7 GUI team.
Member since:
2005-06-29
complete failure on completion date
The only official release date EVER set by Microsoft was the one they indeed did ship it on. The other dates were NOT official; based on rumours, or individual employees making remarks on it.
feature set
Apart from WinFS and Monad, there's little I can think of that was scrapped.