Thursday, March 23, 2006

Sinofsky to the Rescue! ... (?)

There's a new sheriff in town, and he's aimin' to gun down any rootin', tootin' varmit that can't deliver what he committed to.

Maybe.

Mary Jo Foley probably had the most succinct characterization of Mr. Sinofsky: "...a strict, schedule-bound manager who keeps the trains running on time." Holy smokes, start handing out the brown shirts emblazoned with Vienna 2009 on the front and ... or else I'm fired on the back.

Follow-up elsewhere on this:

So Mr. Turner Johnson will have a Friday morning meeting to discuss this, available for webcast later. Interesting times.

My little take: I'm especially disappointed that we're not using this as a demonstration of accountability. Show that we're reshuffling to come in to get rid of whatever mismanaged mess there is within the Windows leadership. That would restore confidence. Even if this has nothing to do with executive leadership finally having a revelation, "What-the? Vista development sure hasn't been a success... light the Sinofsky signal!" it could at least be spun that way. What the hell is wrong with not only working to fix the problem (thank you) but admitting we're fixing a problem, instead of leaving it in some sort of unsaid, abstract wink to everyone to connect the dots. Sorry, them dots are going to continue screwing up.

According to commenters in the past, Mr. Sinofsky has kept a very open door to people who want to discuss problems getting Microsoft business done and what kind of solutions are needed. He's also been pretty pro-active blogging for recruiting new Microsofties (the kind of Microsofties who like their writing as dense as last year's fruitcake). And a little bit anti-Mini. Office does seems to get things done. I have no idea how many of the disgruntled comments or ideas to fix process have come from Office-softies. So, I'm willing to take a sip of the SteveSi Kool-Aid and have hope here.

(Oh, man. For some reason just had a flash-forward vision of our 2006 Company Meeting and yet another demo of Vista. Does it get an award for the most-Company-Meeting-demo'd soon to be released product?)

In the meantime, with this potential for leadership results (will Sinofsky lieutenants soon follow in his wake?) we also have ChrisJo keeping his word: on his internal blog, someone asked if he was going to own up to forgoing his bonus if we didn't make the 8/31/06 RTM date. He said "Yes." Simple answer. Solid leadership. I'd like to hear some more VPs and Partners kick in to that refreshing "Yes" choir.

Administrivia: flipping back into moderation mode for a while. Waaaaay too many zealots crapping out comments I've got to hunt down and delete. Hopefully a temporary state. Any ideas, Clay Shirky? And for all the passionate anti-Microsoft folks out there: I hope your satisfied now that you got that neener-neener-neener out of your system. I never mind reasonable arguments from the ABM crowd, but some of what's typed just makes me wonder if you hug your Momma with those naughty fingers.

Updated: gotta pay more attention to those president's names. Thanks for the comment correction.

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