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How is this possible? (Score:5, Interesting)

2007-10-26 12:46:44

by ShooterNeo (555040) on Thursday October 25, @08:31PM (#21122217)

How is this possible? Unfortunately, I haven't been able to google for exactly

how MANY developers Microsoft has versus how many apple has....but Microsoft

had at least 5000 developers that worked on Windows Vista. While they must have

lowered their standards in the last few years, originally microsoft was only

hiring top graduates from top schools like MIT and CMU.

They have a gigantic number of some of the best people they can buy.

So why does their stuff suck so much by comparison to a small corporation?

Apple cannot afford nearly the resources Microsoft has...I wouldn't be

surprised if their OS X team had 1/5 the people.

I know that skill matters...but surely the top of the class people at Microsoft

are no worse than the hippies at apple?

[ Reply to This ]

Re:How is this possible? (Score:5, Insightful)

by Kent Recal (714863) on Thursday October 25, @09:05PM (#21122605)

It's all about the vision. And the people in charge.

Just compare Steve Jobs to Steve Ballmer (or Billy, fwiw).

Which of these personalities do you think is more

likely to design an OS that you would like?

Ofcourse it doesn't boil down to individuals but looking

at the heads of a company gives you a good idea of the

companies mindset.

Apple is "cool and hip" because the people working

there *know* what "cool and hip" is.

Microsoft is not cool and hip because, well, it is

driven by people like Steve Ballmer.

The sheer headcount, on the other hand, means

nothing in the world of software developement.

Small and well focussed (on the right goals)

teams will outperform large teams everytime.

You can read up on that in "the mythical man month"

and just about any other ressource about project

management in the software industry.

In fact, developing "good" software (by any metrics)

becomes much harder the larger your team gets.

Programming is not like selling cars. It's more

comparable to an orchestra. More instrumentalists

don't necessarily improve the result but definately

increase the effort to manage them.

Re:How is this possible? (Score:5, Insightful)

by wodgy7 (850851) on Thursday October 25, @09:33PM (#21122885)

I won't comment on the quality of the programmers -- both companies draw from

similar pools -- but the way they manage those programmers is significantly

different. Probably the biggest beef I have with Microsoft's management is

their devotion to Jack Welch's (of General Electric management fame) idea of

doing a company reorganization ("reorg") roughly every 16 months. Not everyone

moves around, since certain people don't make sense to move, but there is

disruption. This kind of management "theory" makes sense when everyone is

viewed as unskilled, interchangeable production units, but it doesn't make

sense in software where the value is in slowly acquired knowledge of the source

code base, and knowledge of how to interact with everyone on the team to

minimize team issues. Reorgs flush some of that away, every time. I realize

they teach from Jack Welch's playbook in most MBA programs, but Microsoft needs

to abandon this practice. There are other major differences between the two

companies attitudes and group dynamics as well. You really have to have worked

inside one (or preferably both) to get a good comparison.

Another, more minor beef, is Microsoft's philosophy that others will put up

with things that they wouldn't personally put up with. For instance, internal

to Office, Clippy is known as TFC_* in function names... based on a comment

from Bill Gates that "I don't want to have to deal with That F*cking Clip every

time I want to print." Bill hates it, but he nevertheless still shipped it. In

contrast, Jobs would never ship a feature he hated; he'd view it as a personal

affront. This attitude pervades Microsoft. For instance, everyone at MS

realizes the overly tiered pricing scheme is customer hostile -- they know many

customers realize they're being either nickle and dimed or had -- but they

still ship it because it maximizes revenue in the short term, regardless of

damage to long-term company goodwill. Jobs won't dish out something he wouldn't

personally put up with. Perhaps it's ego, or perhaps he understands that

Apple's success depends almost entirely on goodwill. This all sounds handwavy,

but it's another major difference in the the two company philosophies.

I could spend all day comparing the two companies; it's fascinating. And no,

not everything about Apple's culture is superior.