Doldrums at Microsoft?

Is it just me... or has Microsoft done absolutely nothing since 2003?

In 2003 a lot of stuff was released, I'll admit:

• Windows Server
• Visual Studio
• DotNet 1.1
• Exchange
• Load of "Windows Server Suite" titles
• Quite a few games
• SP2
  
• And stuff

2004? Virtualy nothing... spare one or two Server Suite apps.

2005?

Only "big" thing I'm seeing is Visual Studio 2005 and the IE7 Beta.

So what's everyone working on?

Desktop search, MSN Music (if anyone actually uses it is another story), erm... can't think of anything else but there was bound to be something.

Oh MSN Messenger 7, complete with new 'can't live without' functionality - nudges and winks !

err... how about... let's see.... Channel9????

Stitch 2.0 wrote:

err... how about... let's see.... Channel9????

Channel9 was in development in 2003

Keep in mind software takes longer and longer per
release.. And Microsoft do release new stuff all at
the same time, look at the year before that, nothing
much happened then either.

I also think Microsoft likes to give its corp. users
a break and then hit them with a big bill right when
they forgot how much they paid last time they got a
big bill from Microsoft.

In my opinion, Microsoft are short of ideas for some
of their products (e.g. Office)..

ISA Server 2004?

Biztalk 2004
SQL Server 2005

Longhorn does seem to have turned into a Death March of sorts. At the very least the project has done a very good job of emulating the "when will it ever be done"/"how are we supposed to get it done with the requirements keep changing" behaviour of the Netscape/Mozilla project.

Looks like we should get Whidbey this year and along with Team System that's a very substantial product.

I agree it seems Office are short of ideas. A lot of the stuff in Office2k3 seems to me at least to have been changes for changes sake, particularly in the user interface. I guess that's why they acquired Groove recently - to breathe a bit of life into the productivity apps division.

It's not all bad though, 2004 did bring Halo 2!

W3bbo wrote:

So what's everyone working on?

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

No, wait, I got that the wrong way round. I could tell you, but then marketing would kill me.

The Security efforts have certainly put a dent in products released.

W3bbo wrote:

Stitch 2.0 wrote:err... how about... let's see.... Channel9????

Channel9 was in development in 2003

oops....

jonathanh wrote:

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

No, wait, I got that the wrong way round. I could tell you, but then marketing would kill me.

Can you get away with telling us what area it's in?

Same [area] as your previous project?

Manip wrote:

Can you get away with telling us what area it's in?

Same [area] as your previous project?

Oh, it's the same thing, it's just that we now (finally) have an official name. But of course this name must be kept Uber Top Secret until the big announcement next month.

The amusing part is that it won't really be top secret - they'll tell select members of the press in advance, to "build the buzz". You know all those stories that begin "Next week, Microsoft is expected to announce..."? Totally marketing driven. And then on the day itself the entire press corps will have been given advance notice, so that they can write all their stories and be ready to file as soon as it's "official".

The whole marketing world is a very weird, you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours kind of place, with lots of these little "rules" that have evolved over the years to make everyone's jobs easier. It'll be interesting to see how it evolves over the next few years now that blogs have been added to the mix.

prog_dotnet wrote:

Microsoft Products 2005

1. Instanbul Windows Messenger (Voip client for LCS 2005)
2. Meh, you win this round
   
3. .NET Framework 2.0
4. Indeed
   
5. ACS (Audit Collection System)
6. Is?
   
7. ActiveSync 4.0
8. ActiveSync 3's been around since 1999
   
9. ADAM 2.0
10. Is?
    
11. AntiSpyware
12. Yeahyeah
    
13. AntiVirus ?
14. They'd probably get sued by Symantec
    
15. ASP.net 2.0
16. Woo and yay for XHTML (shame it isn't S-XHTML though)
    
17. Automated Deployment Services 2.0
18. There was a version 1.0?
    
19. Biztalk 2004 64
20. Commerce Server 2002 64
21. Commerce Server 2006 beta
22. Corperate Error Reporting 3.0
23. CRM 2005
24. Digital Image Suite 11 ?
25. Adobe CS still pwns
    
26. Encarta 2006
27. They do that every year, doesn't count
    
28. Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 (includes some elements of Edge Services like Sender ID)
29. Exchange Server Best Practices Analyzer Tool 2.0
30. Fingeprint reader in Intellimouse Explorer
31. That's hardware, not software
    
32. Hot Patch Technology Support (part of common engineering initiative)
33. ISA 2004 Enterprise Edition
34. ISA 2004 Service Pack 1
35. Live Meeting 2005
36. What was wrong with Exchange Instant Messaging?
    
37. Longhorn Beta (client)
38. Longhorn Server Beta 1
39. Mappoint 2005/2006 ?
40. Thus new Autoroute, Streets, Trip Planner, and all that malarky
    
41. Microsoft Data Protection Server (DPS)
42. Aiieee.... the eeeviillsss of DRM
    
43. Money 2006
44. Every year, doesn't count
    
45. Monthly IMF (spam filter) updates for Exchange 2003
46. MSN Messenger 7
47. I'd rather have "FunWebProducts" that install that
    
48. MSN Search desktop
49. You should see my My Documents dir, its neatly organised
    
50. MSN Search web
    
51. Google all the way, yeah baby!
    

So nerrr

W3bbo wrote:

Encarta 2006 They do that every year, doesn't count

I'm not so sure the Encarta dev team would agree.  (nor any other outfit that actually ships a quality product on schedule every year)

You want just stuff released or >good< stuff?

Leave em alone and let em work.

W3bbo wrote:

Is it just me... or has Microsoft done absolutely nothing since 2003?

In 2003 a lot of stuff was released, I'll admit:

• Windows Server
• Visual Studio
• DotNet 1.1
• Exchange
• Load of "Windows Server Suite" titles
• Quite a few games
• SP2
  
• And stuff

2004? Virtualy nothing... spare one or two Server Suite apps.

2005?

Only "big" thing I'm seeing is Visual Studio 2005 and the IE7 Beta.

So what's everyone working on?

Wasn't Win XP SP2 released in 2004? And i think it was a big enough accomplishment!

Channel 9 was released on April 6, 2004.