Microsoft to avoid transparency with Windows 7

Glyn Moody hits the nail on the head with his critique of Microsoft's proposed approach to Windows 7: Say little so that the market expects little.

It's not an unreasonable approach, and Microsoft did get burned for actually warning the market about what it would be providing, only to have to endure the consequences of not living up to the expectations it set, but I'm not sure it can afford to go back. Stating that it will be "more careful" with Windows 7, Microsoft's representative noted:

"We know that when we talk about our plans for the next release of Windows, people take action," [Microsoft] said. "As a result, we can significantly impact our partners and our customers if we broadly share information that later changes."

Well, yes. But that's the whole point behind transparency. As Glyn notes, it's not that easy to do in practice, but it's increasingly critical in the opening 21st Century.

[Mr. Dee]

Its not necessarily about transparency but it does play a part. The major theme for Windows 7's development is under promise, over deliver. The transparency of the project really hurt the products reputation. The constant refocus throughout development and dropped features really made developers wait until Longhorn RTMed as Vista when they should have at least start to test their code and device drivers on it after the reset in August 2004.

[The_Decider]

The market already expects little from Microsoft. And they rarely even meet those low expectations. Producing a quality product is a step in the right direction, but are they capable of doing such a radical thing?

[Igiveup2]

Is The_Troll capable of saying anything of substance?

[The_Decider]

Can idiotic MS fanboys name of thing of substance or even 1 innovative idea from MS? Or do you just post ironic statements about substance while never providing any?

[alegr]

Is there anything short of complete demise of Microsoft, that would earn a praise from Mr. Matt Asay? Whatever they do, it's either wrong, or suspicious, or sinister.

[Igiveup2]

In the engineering professions, releasing preliminary information that confuses people is a big no-no that can expose you to legal liability. It looks like that communication standard could be seeping into the software industry. The costs of miscommunication are very real in both worlds.

[jimmyed2000]

I think Mr Dee has it backwards.

If there was a constant refocusing throughout development is it really fair to blame transparency for the reputation ding? Or is the constant refocusing really the problem? But isn't that really the point of agile? I suspect that the problem is the way that Microsoft is executing might be the real problem. Of course if you blame 'transparency' then the fix is easy - take the transparency away. Will that really solve the problem?