Microsoft spent five years to produce Vista, the most underwhelming product of the decade. Considering the (at least) 5,000 person-years that went into it, and "You wonder where the money went" becomes the understatement of the century.

Now it's going to spend another three years on the _next_ version of Windows? Is this a joke?

Let's say it slips only one year, so it'll be out in 2011, with an average of only 500 bodies a year working on it. All those FTEs for all that time produces... what?

On one hand, they're the victims of their own success. I don't need another UI paradigm for my desktop or my office applications -- I'm very satisfied with how they are now.

OTOH, if they have the microkernel now, why do they need to put it in the oven for 4 years? And how important is the size of the core anyway, given memory trends? Even in embedded devices - and they have a slimmed-down Windows for those now, anyway.

To me this seems to be the negative inverse reciprocal of a morale boost. And a puzzler. What am I missing?

Hi John, I was thinking about the mindset of engineers who like things orderly and precise.

The guts of Windows are a jumble - Jim Allchin said a big reason Vista was delayed was because of interdependencies in the code.

Fresh start seems to be a theme over there. I think it's interesting to see how that manifests itself in the new products.

Looking at it strictly from an engineer's mindset, I agree. But by the time this NaI Windows gets out, think of how far the rest of the computing universe will have moved.