088. Planning the Most Important Windows Ever
"There is no more important project at Microsoft. There's no more important software project in the world. —BillG speaking at the Windows 7 Vision meeting July 27, 2007
One of the main challenges in leading a big team is that nothing ever seems to finish—there’s always more to building a team. Even at milestones, one looks ahead and sees more work to do. In the first few months I had been working on Windows so far, we re-organized the team in a huge way and shipped Windows Vista, only to then have to figure out how to plan a product release with this entirely new organization, while building an improved engineering culture. The planning work began in earnest in December 2006 and concluded July 2007. This is the story of those months and what it was like and what management tools we used to develop a product plan for what would become Windows 7.
Back to 087. Reorg! Why Are We Together, Exactly?
SteveB loved to talk about his discussions with engineers as he tried to better understand the company’s execution and culture challenges. He would say “I talked to this engineer on the team, and they told me ‘Look, everything is completely screwed up and everybody telling you how to fix it is wrong.’” Steve would continue to listen to a litany of problems and why everyone was being “dumb” wondering what he could possibly do. Then the engineer would look up and say to Steve, “But I [emphasis on “I”] know exactly what to do and how to fix it.”
My problem was I was also that engineer. I saw the problems and “knew” what to do. Except it was my job and I had to lead the team to fix the problems.
Fortunately, early on there was a set of like-minded engineers who were willing to sign up and take on the challenge of building a culture and now a plan for what comes next. From the very start it was not just me driving the cultural changes, but the set of leaders put in place from our big re-org.
Change across thousands of people, each of whom knows exactly what should be changed, is not a one-time event. Change takes repetition. It takes calendar time. It takes making some mistakes and using those as learning or teaching moments. While everyone was anxious for change, thousands of engineers must be given time to think and reach the point—on their own—of agreeing to a certain kind of change.
![Several members of the team have asked for more explanation on the parts of the vision process and a roadmap of what to expect during this exciting time. Listed below is a quick primer and some definitions of terms that you will see used often over the next few months. Best of all the ideas • The planning process has parts of product planning, technical investigation, learning, sharing, a socialization of ideas, and above all it is designed to help us make changes in team focus and structure, while minimizing the risk of such changes. • The goal of the vision process is to get the best of all ideas that meet our customer and business goals. The process is not top down, but bottom up. No one person is the keeper of the vision or the source of all inspiration. Most of all, we work to brainstorm tons and not get emotionally attached to features before we’ve gone through a more global roll up and analysis (i.e. no pet features, well, at least not early on). • Overall the process is highly social and informal. There will be very few big, formal meetings, and most ideas will be vetted by documents, demos, sketches, and discussions. There will be dozens of offsites and retreats on various areas within each team, cross-team, and with partner teams. Ideas need to be written down and that is the primary “work product” during the planning phase. “Writing is thinking” is a key mantra—PowerPoint slides don’t count. This does mean that when you’re given a document to review, you will probably want to review it and use that as a chance to provide feedback and input. • A key element of this entire process is about reducing risk. A big part of this is front-loading our discovery as much as possible. Plus, our goal is to build an amazing product that redefines the business we are in—whether customers like what we do, will buy it, or will find it useful is highly uncertain. We will do a ton of qualitative research around these topics which will help us understand the uncertainty, but we cannot eliminate it. The uncertainty is really about “will people buy this”, “will it turn out to be a paradigm shift”, etc. The risk we need to eliminate is “do we understand the technology”, “can we come up with a plan”, etc. This is a detailed discussion, but an important point to understand—it all boils down to “innovation can happen on a schedule”. • We are writing a product plan, not carving things in stone. If the market changes or a great idea comes along we are experts at being flexible. The whole point of reducing the upfront risk is so we can absorb change mid-course when it may occur. How we work together • Development and Test’s role during this time will be to participate in planning, contribute ideas, learn about new technologies, brainstorm on possible implementations, and focus on our pre-cursor milestone –MQ. • Product Management’s role is to define business priorities and strategies. They partner closely with product planning on customer segmentation, value propositions, and early SKU planning. • Product Planning’s role is to provide data to support the entire process. Planning does not have “line” responsibility (writing specs, picking features) which makes them objective arbiters of the prioritization and process. Planning is where all our research is done. A key characteristic about product planning is that it is not the group that “plans the product” (oxymoronic though that may be). The planning team will be roughly divided up so that a planner has responsibility for a feature team area and of course all planners are on the lookout for new and interesting scenarios they learn about through the industry, customer visits, field interaction. Think of product planners as the long-range radar – with one foot in our current plans and the other in the future plans beyond our current release. • Program Management’s role is to ultimately define the features that will be in the product and write the specs. They are the advocates for the customers and the implementers of our strategy. Program managers are not the source of all the ideas. A core job skill of program management is to ensure that all the best ideas are collected and included in the product. Program management runs this process and owns the final output which is a vision statement. • UX Design’s role will be to visualize the interaction design of our vision. With Vista we had wonderful “proto-sketches” of the product that we were able to quantitatively and qualitatively test with potential customers. This team is expert in interaction design and integrating complex ideas into a user experience and will continue to help us visualize our work going forward. • UX Research’s role is to provide insight and information into how customers work, live, and use our products that inform the design and features we choose. User research partners closely with program management, product management, and product planning to make sure we have the best information about our customers. They also help define how we measure success and are responsible for developing systems to measure and validate our work with customers. Elements of the plan • Planning memo – This is a high level document that simply outlines the areas that we will go investigate further, and outlines the shared assumptions that span our planning work. It covers the state of the market – including business, customers, partners, competition, and challenges. It outlines our strategy for our product. It sets the shared themes and bets that span all the features the product. It outlines the feature teams and areas for investment in, as well as the questions to be asked and answered as part of team planning. It sets the timeline and schedule for both planning and product delivery. The planning memo is not the plan. It is not the vision and it is not the feature set. The planning memo starts our planning process and is intended to be used by the feature teams to develop the vision and the feature set for their areas. These feature teams are the experts on the scenarios and specifics for their area and are responsible for building best of breed solutions to meet customer demand. Think of the planning memo as a “request for ideas” in a set of strategic areas we know about. Its purpose is to create a beginning focus on the planning themes, but it is not designed to eliminate ideas being contributed in other areas. • Team Vision Drafts – Once the planning memo is distributed we will have about 15-20 different planning themes to work on. These cover the full spectrum of the “opportunity map” as far as we can tell (which is by design). The feature team GPMs will coordinate for their area. There will be lots of discussions, brainstorming, cross-group collaboration, investigations, offsites, etc. The output of this work will be a vision draft document as well as a brownbag presentation. • Vision checkpoint meeting – We will meet to review the vision drafts of each feature team. The input for this meeting is the vision draft with the associated presentation and prototype. Following the vision checkpoints for each feature team, the team leaders will load-balance as needed to make sure that scenarios and bets are appropriately funded across our suite. • Vision – The leaders will work with GPMs to take the learnings from the team visions and work to prioritize what we think will work (reduce risk) and balance that with business goals (the uncertainty element). This process creates the pillars and selects our marquee features. There will be an offsite around the pillar creation and the supporting elements that all of you will of course be part of. The vision is then circulated among the GPMs, Dev Managers, and Test Managers. Part of the vision will be proto-sketches for each pillar. • Vision Presentation – Once the vision is done we will have a huge presentation for the entire team. This will be the introduction of what we’ll do with our teams and with our partners. • Legacy Features – One super important area is how we manage to maintain all the code we’ve already shipped. We’ve got to figure out who will own, test, and re-release all the existing code we have and insure compatibility. This gets harder each release because we continuously grow features. This is the biggest responsibility for Test thus they drive this process. The Vocabulary • Vision – the ultimate goal of all this work. The vision is a memo that outlines the state of the business, the competitive state of the product, the business objectives, clear articulation of the value proposition of the product by customer segment, project tenets, and the 4-7 vision pillars. • Vision Pillars – these are the main areas of investment for the product. A vision pillar is something like “No-brainer upgrade” or “Trustworthy computing”. They key to a pillar is that it is supported by 5-10 specific features that we know we will implement. These specific features are the heart and soul of the product and a commitment from the team—when we take these features and create a protosketch we will get a very good sense of the product. • Planning Themes – these are the items in the Planning memo leading up to the vision. The goal of these themes is to cover the broadest span of potential product/feature areas while at the same time providing some scope of ownership so brainstorming and research can happen. Most of the input and activities we will have will be around specific planning themes—trying to work in specific scenarios, trying to understand what the best ideas are for an area. • Big Bets –A big bet in these documents represents a technology bet—often from a customer perspective the technology is premature or even “unarticulated in need”. But it is our company strategy. A big bet crosses all the vision pillars and a big bet “trumps” customer or market “requirements”. Big Bets come from BillG or the entire company strategy, or they can just be a technology we want to bet on. • Tenet – these are very specific principles in the product cycle. Here you will see things like platform requirements, performance, tools and processes. These are important for articulating the core engineering principles we will all abide by. • Feature team - these describe the engineering focus areas for the next release. Each Feature team is lead by a discipline triad comprised of a Group Program Manager, Development Manager and Test Manager. • Feature Squad – this describes the triad teams within a feature team. A feature squad represents a subset of work in a feature team. • Feature Crew – this is the most discreet level of work and does not map to the organization but rather an individual feature. Several members of the team have asked for more explanation on the parts of the vision process and a roadmap of what to expect during this exciting time. Listed below is a quick primer and some definitions of terms that you will see used often over the next few months. Best of all the ideas • The planning process has parts of product planning, technical investigation, learning, sharing, a socialization of ideas, and above all it is designed to help us make changes in team focus and structure, while minimizing the risk of such changes. • The goal of the vision process is to get the best of all ideas that meet our customer and business goals. The process is not top down, but bottom up. No one person is the keeper of the vision or the source of all inspiration. Most of all, we work to brainstorm tons and not get emotionally attached to features before we’ve gone through a more global roll up and analysis (i.e. no pet features, well, at least not early on). • Overall the process is highly social and informal. There will be very few big, formal meetings, and most ideas will be vetted by documents, demos, sketches, and discussions. There will be dozens of offsites and retreats on various areas within each team, cross-team, and with partner teams. Ideas need to be written down and that is the primary “work product” during the planning phase. “Writing is thinking” is a key mantra—PowerPoint slides don’t count. This does mean that when you’re given a document to review, you will probably want to review it and use that as a chance to provide feedback and input. • A key element of this entire process is about reducing risk. A big part of this is front-loading our discovery as much as possible. Plus, our goal is to build an amazing product that redefines the business we are in—whether customers like what we do, will buy it, or will find it useful is highly uncertain. We will do a ton of qualitative research around these topics which will help us understand the uncertainty, but we cannot eliminate it. The uncertainty is really about “will people buy this”, “will it turn out to be a paradigm shift”, etc. The risk we need to eliminate is “do we understand the technology”, “can we come up with a plan”, etc. This is a detailed discussion, but an important point to understand—it all boils down to “innovation can happen on a schedule”. • We are writing a product plan, not carving things in stone. If the market changes or a great idea comes along we are experts at being flexible. The whole point of reducing the upfront risk is so we can absorb change mid-course when it may occur. How we work together • Development and Test’s role during this time will be to participate in planning, contribute ideas, learn about new technologies, brainstorm on possible implementations, and focus on our pre-cursor milestone –MQ. • Product Management’s role is to define business priorities and strategies. They partner closely with product planning on customer segmentation, value propositions, and early SKU planning. • Product Planning’s role is to provide data to support the entire process. Planning does not have “line” responsibility (writing specs, picking features) which makes them objective arbiters of the prioritization and process. Planning is where all our research is done. A key characteristic about product planning is that it is not the group that “plans the product” (oxymoronic though that may be). The planning team will be roughly divided up so that a planner has responsibility for a feature team area and of course all planners are on the lookout for new and interesting scenarios they learn about through the industry, customer visits, field interaction. Think of product planners as the long-range radar – with one foot in our current plans and the other in the future plans beyond our current release. • Program Management’s role is to ultimately define the features that will be in the product and write the specs. They are the advocates for the customers and the implementers of our strategy. Program managers are not the source of all the ideas. A core job skill of program management is to ensure that all the best ideas are collected and included in the product. Program management runs this process and owns the final output which is a vision statement. • UX Design’s role will be to visualize the interaction design of our vision. With Vista we had wonderful “proto-sketches” of the product that we were able to quantitatively and qualitatively test with potential customers. This team is expert in interaction design and integrating complex ideas into a user experience and will continue to help us visualize our work going forward. • UX Research’s role is to provide insight and information into how customers work, live, and use our products that inform the design and features we choose. User research partners closely with program management, product management, and product planning to make sure we have the best information about our customers. They also help define how we measure success and are responsible for developing systems to measure and validate our work with customers. Elements of the plan • Planning memo – This is a high level document that simply outlines the areas that we will go investigate further, and outlines the shared assumptions that span our planning work. It covers the state of the market – including business, customers, partners, competition, and challenges. It outlines our strategy for our product. It sets the shared themes and bets that span all the features the product. It outlines the feature teams and areas for investment in, as well as the questions to be asked and answered as part of team planning. It sets the timeline and schedule for both planning and product delivery. The planning memo is not the plan. It is not the vision and it is not the feature set. The planning memo starts our planning process and is intended to be used by the feature teams to develop the vision and the feature set for their areas. These feature teams are the experts on the scenarios and specifics for their area and are responsible for building best of breed solutions to meet customer demand. Think of the planning memo as a “request for ideas” in a set of strategic areas we know about. Its purpose is to create a beginning focus on the planning themes, but it is not designed to eliminate ideas being contributed in other areas. • Team Vision Drafts – Once the planning memo is distributed we will have about 15-20 different planning themes to work on. These cover the full spectrum of the “opportunity map” as far as we can tell (which is by design). The feature team GPMs will coordinate for their area. There will be lots of discussions, brainstorming, cross-group collaboration, investigations, offsites, etc. The output of this work will be a vision draft document as well as a brownbag presentation. • Vision checkpoint meeting – We will meet to review the vision drafts of each feature team. The input for this meeting is the vision draft with the associated presentation and prototype. Following the vision checkpoints for each feature team, the team leaders will load-balance as needed to make sure that scenarios and bets are appropriately funded across our suite. • Vision – The leaders will work with GPMs to take the learnings from the team visions and work to prioritize what we think will work (reduce risk) and balance that with business goals (the uncertainty element). This process creates the pillars and selects our marquee features. There will be an offsite around the pillar creation and the supporting elements that all of you will of course be part of. The vision is then circulated among the GPMs, Dev Managers, and Test Managers. Part of the vision will be proto-sketches for each pillar. • Vision Presentation – Once the vision is done we will have a huge presentation for the entire team. This will be the introduction of what we’ll do with our teams and with our partners. • Legacy Features – One super important area is how we manage to maintain all the code we’ve already shipped. We’ve got to figure out who will own, test, and re-release all the existing code we have and insure compatibility. This gets harder each release because we continuously grow features. This is the biggest responsibility for Test thus they drive this process. The Vocabulary • Vision – the ultimate goal of all this work. The vision is a memo that outlines the state of the business, the competitive state of the product, the business objectives, clear articulation of the value proposition of the product by customer segment, project tenets, and the 4-7 vision pillars. • Vision Pillars – these are the main areas of investment for the product. A vision pillar is something like “No-brainer upgrade” or “Trustworthy computing”. They key to a pillar is that it is supported by 5-10 specific features that we know we will implement. These specific features are the heart and soul of the product and a commitment from the team—when we take these features and create a protosketch we will get a very good sense of the product. • Planning Themes – these are the items in the Planning memo leading up to the vision. The goal of these themes is to cover the broadest span of potential product/feature areas while at the same time providing some scope of ownership so brainstorming and research can happen. Most of the input and activities we will have will be around specific planning themes—trying to work in specific scenarios, trying to understand what the best ideas are for an area. • Big Bets –A big bet in these documents represents a technology bet—often from a customer perspective the technology is premature or even “unarticulated in need”. But it is our company strategy. A big bet crosses all the vision pillars and a big bet “trumps” customer or market “requirements”. Big Bets come from BillG or the entire company strategy, or they can just be a technology we want to bet on. • Tenet – these are very specific principles in the product cycle. Here you will see things like platform requirements, performance, tools and processes. These are important for articulating the core engineering principles we will all abide by. • Feature team - these describe the engineering focus areas for the next release. Each Feature team is lead by a discipline triad comprised of a Group Program Manager, Development Manager and Test Manager. • Feature Squad – this describes the triad teams within a feature team. A feature squad represents a subset of work in a feature team. • Feature Crew – this is the most discreet level of work and does not map to the organization but rather an individual feature.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F212eddb2-f7c6-45ba-9a55-68b34413212f_6363x2743.png)
Every step over the next few months, from the time of putting an organization in place to starting the real building of products, we (the leaders) would be confronted with two realities. First, we had to remind everyone on the team consistently and repeatedly of the process we were using and how we aimed to work together. Every. Single. Communication. At times it felt like we were reading the inside of the box of a board game at every meeting. Second, every time we made a mistake and didn’t ourselves follow that process, expect someone to point that out and for that to become a moment of humility.
It was a constant push-pull with so many wanting to know what we were telling people to build while we were busy pushing back and saying how we needed them to figure that out. At the same time what we wanted to do would look radically different from the past. It wasn’t a top-down plan. It wasn’t a disconnected set of innovations. It was not about consensus of design as in design-by-committee, but a coherence of a plan. The investments (as we would say) were going to fit together into a holistic product plan across our new organization: WEX, LEX, IE, and COSD. After every step in the process, we regrouped as a leadership team and not only talked about what parts of the process we needed to improve, but we turned that into coaching and more outbound communication such as my Office Hours blog. At the same time, we were continuously adapting to what was understood, misunderstood, and especially challenged when it came to process.
An example of cultural change that was front and center was a desire to match the old Windows team in terms of scorecards or KPIs by automating or operationalizing key requirements. I would be out there talking about vision and scenarios and collaboration—abstract concepts that need to be made concrete by the team—only to find out some people were trying to make a vision scorecard or building an automated testing tool to check if scenarios were complete or tools to red/yellow/green dependencies between different teams. We’d come across this and then would need to course correct and talk about how accountability works without constant monitoring by others nor overwhelming bureaucracy.
Every email and memo, every team meeting, every 1:1 was a not just an opportunity to reinforce the new cultural norms, but a requirement for us to do so. The first and most important test was developing a product plan for the next release following Vista. For us to get to the finish line with a coherent product all at the same time and all on time we would need to get to the starting line at the same time.
First, we needed a product name. By now you know I was never a fan of codenames.
Windows had always had somewhat clever (too clever) code names with layers of meaning. As a consumer of these code names, they neither made for secrecy, as one could routinely read about the release code names in trade press, nor did they make it easy to remember what someone was talking about. “Is that in Nashville or Memphis? I can’t remember.”
Windows Vista was the sixth major release of Windows and it was version 6.0.6000 for techies. So, by fiat I christened the code name of the release Windows 7. I thought I was being the opposite of clever and we could simply move on, as we had done when we picked Office 9. Oops. Immediately I made two mistakes. First, did I reach consensus on this name? Second, did I even understand the ramifications of the name I picked unilaterally?
This sparked a debate that only geeks would participate in (at the time and once the name was made public), which was: How did we count versions of Windows? Technically, this was not the seventh major version, as some would debate. My view: Windows 1.0, Windows 2.x, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. But wait, there was Windows NT, and there was Windows 98, 98SE, and Millennium edition.
It turned out there were lots of ways to count and lots of ways to have more than six previous releases or fewer than six. Essentially, everyone could be right. I probably received two dozen emails with different algorithms for counting how many releases of Windows had been done, ranging from “well, it was really only four” to “at least a dozen.”
I stuck with seven.
Crisis averted by executive authority. Temporarily.
The test and engineering system team informed me that we could not possibly “bump the major version number,” as this would cause a whole slew of problems for application compatibility. It turned out many existing Windows programs were bad at checking what version of Windows was running and failed to run if the “major version” (that would be the first digit) was incremented. I knew this from Office 95 when we skipped several version numbers to align all the apps.
Marketing had input too: that we had to make it version 7.0 because if not the press would think we were doing a minor version and then enterprise customers would not see the need to upgrade. So even though the engineering system did not want the major version number changed, the marketing team did.
This whole notion of “major” versus “minor” as the press characterized releases would drive me nuts. It seemed as though a major release was one that broke a lot of stuff and finished late. A minor release was one that worked because it polished features and finished on time. My view, no surprise, would be based on resources. Did we have everyone working on the release or did we peel off a subset of people to work on something less for less time than a normal release? Windows 7 had everyone, 100 percent. And we were determined not to break things. And we were going to finish on time. It was a major release.
I had an urge to quit before we even started. If this trivial thing was going to be so consuming, imagine what the whole release was going to be like. Yikes.
Despite the uproar, we stuck with the Windows 7 code name, and the ultimate irony turned out to be that we eventually stuck with the name for the commercial product as well.
Planning moved forward, but it became clear that there was a new challenge at every step of the journey. There were two sides to every situation we faced.
Some people on the team wanted to be left alone, confident in what they would be working on and that there was nothing to be gained by delaying the start of the work. In some sense this was true because some parts of the product were known. We knew we needed to improve the engineering system, for example, and we knew we would do another turn of the crank on many areas, such as performance, device drivers, and security.
On the flipside, there were the people who wanted to be told precisely what to do, simply because they had frequently and repeatedly come up with ideas only to have the rug pulled out from under them by new strategies, scheduling, or resource constraints. Those people wanted to know what success would look like for them as individuals and on a granular level. The big picture was not their concern.
This made things tough.
It was tempting to remove constraints on the “correct” people and tell others what to do. It would feel quite good to be making progress and to be able to report work is happening, especially to the anxious executive team above me. Even identifying the right teams along these lines would fall into old behavior patterns we wanted to break, mainly, that there were always the elites in Windows who were given freedom to do what they felt was right, while other too often teams fell victim to management processes. I believed that we could do better if we followed the old Shipping Software adage and got everyone to the starting line at the same time. The goal was to get the maximum number of ideas on the table via broad participation of domain experts and create a holistic product plan from that—a Windows version of our Office approach to participatory design.
The planning memo was a tool developed in Office to begin the process of the release and to kick off a participatory design process. Over several iterations we came up with a format that provided a structure such that people could investigate what to build, without having the conclusion in advance and without necessarily having organizational ownership or structure in place. It was planning but without a pre-ordained plan arrived at by execs beforehand or retrofitted from known technology efforts already underway. It was a tool for empowering the team to ensure the best ideas came forward.
The organization needed to transform before we could transform the product and culture, but we would still need to avoid the perils of shipping a product defined by an org structure. Perhaps the biggest change we would make was the transformation of the next level of the organization away from the history of product units to a large group of feature teams of development, testing, and program management. Windows 7 (WEX, IE, and COSD) ended up being about 45 teams with about 1400 software engineers. In addition, there was a design and research team of about 100 people and about 20 product planners dedicated to Windows and reporting to JulieLar. We had a large team responsible for international versions of Windows coordinating the work with translation resources around the world.
The idea of less than 50 teams was important because each milestone would involve a meeting with teams and that needed to be manageable. I didn’t think we could scale beyond that, but frankly I thought we had more than enough by way of resources to build a great product. If we could better organize, we could simultaneously tap more creative energy from within the team while improving efficiency and causing the whole to operate smoothly and pleasantly.
In the process of organizing the team we moved several significant-sized teams to the division that makes Xbox, including the Media Center, music rights management, and the non-platform elements of gaming. Some other teams, notably what remained of Windows Presentation Foundation (Avalon) moved to join with the rest of the .NET Framework, putting an end to a cross-division skirmish. A small subset of Avalon that also moved was building a cross-platform browser-plugin that supported video playback and conferencing, codename Jolt. That plugin would eventually be renamed Silverlight and offered as a competitor to Adobe Flash while also serving as a developer platform for a new Windows Phone. The resulting Windows team became much more focused on delivering and building for Windows and these divisions were excited to have more control of key technologies that did not need to be part of the Windows platform. I was very happy to do these moves.
While some were amazed that we could create $150 billion in market capitalization with only a few thousand engineers, I still thought the team was a bit large. Office created as much with 20 to 40 percent fewer people. I wasn’t there to cut costs and never even thought about reducing headcount. Bloat, inefficiency, and lack of clarity in a product, however, come from too many people especially when poorly organized.
In the abstract, it is easy to see the attraction of small-focused teams tackling problems independent of each other versus a flexible and agile (though perhaps monolithic) group that adjusts to changing needs at scale. In practice, and especially at any scale, the small, multidisciplinary team rarely has an outsized impact in the context of a big business and always finds itself challenged to hire and grow deep engineering talent. Furthermore, when organized in such a manner the teams do not share in a larger mission and as a result the overall product loses the ability to shift resources around as needs arise. If a key feature team needs more resources, the head of engineering (AlesH or BenFa) can load balance across the whole organization without disenfranchising a multidisciplinary manager who would feel undermined by losing their resources to another manager. I was certain this would be important with Windows 7 because the teams had not previously done rigorous scheduling or hit a ship date.
This was a truism based on what Microsoft had achieved, not a theory or abstract concept, and was my rationale for why a structure of flexible feature teams wasn’t a management fad that would swing back in the other direction down the road. Windows was one product, and we would organize and operate like we were building one product.
![The development strategy framework or "funnel". Technology assessment and forecasting feeding into development goals then project plan then management an d execution and improvement at the end outside the funnel feeding back. The development strategy framework or "funnel". Technology assessment and forecasting feeding into development goals then project plan then management an d execution and improvement at the end outside the funnel feeding back.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb930598a-f679-48af-9272-44007436eae8_1960x1631.png)
JonDe, JulieLar, and I, with important contributions from marketing and product planning, wrote the December 2006 memo, Planning Windows 7, outlining the state of the business and putting forth product and business priorities. The planning memo puts a large bounding box around the release but is not yet the plan. It kicks off a process, inviting participation from everyone on the team. Using the familiar Harvard product development funnel, we were opening up the funnel to ideas.1
Who knew that hitting Send could be so stressful? Again.
Julie and her counterpart in COSD, ChuckC, would drive the planning process and own the resulting plan, which would be a document called the Vision for Windows 7. Julie, having been part of the process in Office several times, would be the key owner. Julie also wrote an outline of the overall vision process, a primer basically, that was sent and resent many times throughout the next few months. The first challenge was that a good portion of the PM team believed the planning memo was the plan, when it was a framework to think about what the plan could be. To others, this memo and process seemed to be bureaucratic or arbitrary process getting in the way of what everyone knew we needed to do. Out of the gate the need to talk about building a coherent and cohesive plan where everyone on the team was accountable to promise and deliver was our key leadership message.
![TO: Windows Experience Team; Core Operating System Division FROM: Julie Larson-Green, Jon DeVaan RE: Planning Windows 7 Client INTRODUCTION Congratulations on completing Windows Vista! It is a tremendous release and is already receiving accolades. On behalf of all of Microsoft, our partners, and the hundreds of millions of customers anticipating Windows Vista, thank you for your efforts and for your continuing enthusiasm for building Windows—as a team you came together and built the highest quality, most secure, and most feature- rich operating system on the planet. Without a doubt, Windows is and will continue to be the most important and most widely used software anywhere. This document is the Windows 7 Planning Memo for the next release of Windows client. It outlines the shared assumptions in our planning work across the Windows Experience (WEX) and Core Operating System Division (COSD) teams and explores our connection to Internet Explorer, Windows Live, Windows Server, and other internal partner teams. It covers the state of the market, including business, customers, external partners, competition, technologies and challenges. It outlines the areas for investment in Windows, as well as the questions to be asked and answered as part of planning. It also sets the timeline and schedule for the Windows 7 product plan and is the first big step toward a holistic vision that directly support the business priorities established by Windows Product Management. Given other priorities and different release schedules, the plan for Windows 7 will assume no new work from the Server teams that build client components. We will continue to work closely with the server team to complete Longhorn server, followed by R2 for Longhorn Server. Windows 8 will be our target for joint planning across Client and Server. Think of this planning memo as a “request for ideas” in a set of strategic areas of investment. Its purpose is to put emphasis on shared planning themes, but it is not designed to be all-inclusive nor eliminate ideas being contributed in other areas. It is a framework to provide direction for further exploration of concrete feature ideas. As such, this planning memo is not the plan. It is not the vision nor the feature set. The planning memo starts our planning process and will be used by the WEX and COSD teams to develop the vision and the feature set for their areas. These teams are the experts on the scenarios and specifics for their areas and are responsible for building the best customer solutions. Some reading this memo will think it is probably too long, especially since it is not the plan itself (though the reviewer’s guide for Windows Vista ran nearly 300 pages). Some might think this is too short since how could it cover all of Windows in just thirty pages. Similarly, some might wish there was more detail and some might think this is too constraining. This planning memo balances all of these issues and more and represents a way of focusing our ideas and assuring organizational alignment in the pursuit of those ideas. While reading this document is an investment of an hour or so, it is an investment that will pay off in the weeks and months to come. It is a critical part of us working together as a team. | Introduction 1 This is the first time our new organizations have gone through planning together so it is important to outline the process we will use across Windows; including roles and responsibilities. Our overall objective is to create a learning organization that works together cooperatively on shared goals leading to a great product delivered on time. That starts with a clear planning process that we use for this release and then refine for the next release. A transparent and repeatable planning process helps reduce risk in our engineering and uncertainty in our ability to align with customer and business priorities. It also creates a context in which innovation can occur. Innovation starts with you. Following this planning memo, we all begin creating the vision. Visions discuss proposed scenarios and customer promises for each feature team. They should clearly address investments in each of the themes that span the release. And they should ask and answer the questions posed in this memo. This effort will be led by Program Management, working with all the engineering and marketing discipline leaders. The PM leaders will work across dependent teams as they are writing their vision drafts to ensure scenarios and features that span teams are represented end-to-end. Issues that arise must be resolved as part of the visioning process. At the end of the planning process, we will load balance across teams to make sure that the top scenarios and themes are funded for the release. This memo talks a lot about teams, because we expect teams to be operating together—including all members of the team and all disciplines, sharing information, debating issues constructively, and reaching a shared view of how the team will move forward. The output of the planning process is a single vision document that spans the work in Windows 7. This will include the value proposition, tenets, top level schedule, shared bets, and feature commitments across our teams. We expect to publish the vision document in May. By the time we get to the vision document we will have narrowed down what will and won’t be in the next release; if it isn't in the vision document, it isn't part of Windows 7, so now is the time for making sure your ideas are heard. Finally, we will establish a release rhythm that meets internal and external expectations, inspiring people to align rather than bet on incremental out-of-band releases. We have been spread too thin on too many releases that are not valued by enough customers. This means we want the team to be focused on Windows 7 so we maximize the impact of the release. This first cycle will be a bit of a challenge in that it is our first together. Some will be worried we might not make the dates for Windows 7, some might not have faith we will stick to the plan, and still others will remain convinced that we simply must get some deliverable done sooner. We are making a big bet that focusing our limited engineering abilities on a reliable, predictable, and planned release will maximize the benefit for customers, shareholders, and partners, and will also be the most efficient way for us to deliver value. TO: Windows Experience Team; Core Operating System Division FROM: Julie Larson-Green, Jon DeVaan RE: Planning Windows 7 Client INTRODUCTION Congratulations on completing Windows Vista! It is a tremendous release and is already receiving accolades. On behalf of all of Microsoft, our partners, and the hundreds of millions of customers anticipating Windows Vista, thank you for your efforts and for your continuing enthusiasm for building Windows—as a team you came together and built the highest quality, most secure, and most feature- rich operating system on the planet. Without a doubt, Windows is and will continue to be the most important and most widely used software anywhere. This document is the Windows 7 Planning Memo for the next release of Windows client. It outlines the shared assumptions in our planning work across the Windows Experience (WEX) and Core Operating System Division (COSD) teams and explores our connection to Internet Explorer, Windows Live, Windows Server, and other internal partner teams. It covers the state of the market, including business, customers, external partners, competition, technologies and challenges. It outlines the areas for investment in Windows, as well as the questions to be asked and answered as part of planning. It also sets the timeline and schedule for the Windows 7 product plan and is the first big step toward a holistic vision that directly support the business priorities established by Windows Product Management. Given other priorities and different release schedules, the plan for Windows 7 will assume no new work from the Server teams that build client components. We will continue to work closely with the server team to complete Longhorn server, followed by R2 for Longhorn Server. Windows 8 will be our target for joint planning across Client and Server. Think of this planning memo as a “request for ideas” in a set of strategic areas of investment. Its purpose is to put emphasis on shared planning themes, but it is not designed to be all-inclusive nor eliminate ideas being contributed in other areas. It is a framework to provide direction for further exploration of concrete feature ideas. As such, this planning memo is not the plan. It is not the vision nor the feature set. The planning memo starts our planning process and will be used by the WEX and COSD teams to develop the vision and the feature set for their areas. These teams are the experts on the scenarios and specifics for their areas and are responsible for building the best customer solutions. Some reading this memo will think it is probably too long, especially since it is not the plan itself (though the reviewer’s guide for Windows Vista ran nearly 300 pages). Some might think this is too short since how could it cover all of Windows in just thirty pages. Similarly, some might wish there was more detail and some might think this is too constraining. This planning memo balances all of these issues and more and represents a way of focusing our ideas and assuring organizational alignment in the pursuit of those ideas. While reading this document is an investment of an hour or so, it is an investment that will pay off in the weeks and months to come. It is a critical part of us working together as a team. | Introduction 1 This is the first time our new organizations have gone through planning together so it is important to outline the process we will use across Windows; including roles and responsibilities. Our overall objective is to create a learning organization that works together cooperatively on shared goals leading to a great product delivered on time. That starts with a clear planning process that we use for this release and then refine for the next release. A transparent and repeatable planning process helps reduce risk in our engineering and uncertainty in our ability to align with customer and business priorities. It also creates a context in which innovation can occur. Innovation starts with you. Following this planning memo, we all begin creating the vision. Visions discuss proposed scenarios and customer promises for each feature team. They should clearly address investments in each of the themes that span the release. And they should ask and answer the questions posed in this memo. This effort will be led by Program Management, working with all the engineering and marketing discipline leaders. The PM leaders will work across dependent teams as they are writing their vision drafts to ensure scenarios and features that span teams are represented end-to-end. Issues that arise must be resolved as part of the visioning process. At the end of the planning process, we will load balance across teams to make sure that the top scenarios and themes are funded for the release. This memo talks a lot about teams, because we expect teams to be operating together—including all members of the team and all disciplines, sharing information, debating issues constructively, and reaching a shared view of how the team will move forward. The output of the planning process is a single vision document that spans the work in Windows 7. This will include the value proposition, tenets, top level schedule, shared bets, and feature commitments across our teams. We expect to publish the vision document in May. By the time we get to the vision document we will have narrowed down what will and won’t be in the next release; if it isn't in the vision document, it isn't part of Windows 7, so now is the time for making sure your ideas are heard. Finally, we will establish a release rhythm that meets internal and external expectations, inspiring people to align rather than bet on incremental out-of-band releases. We have been spread too thin on too many releases that are not valued by enough customers. This means we want the team to be focused on Windows 7 so we maximize the impact of the release. This first cycle will be a bit of a challenge in that it is our first together. Some will be worried we might not make the dates for Windows 7, some might not have faith we will stick to the plan, and still others will remain convinced that we simply must get some deliverable done sooner. We are making a big bet that focusing our limited engineering abilities on a reliable, predictable, and planned release will maximize the benefit for customers, shareholders, and partners, and will also be the most efficient way for us to deliver value.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5da6af03-e484-4dde-bf7d-c3fa6d36a991_3889x2529.png)
The planning memo was over 30 pages, but the first two pages were essentially instructions for how it works or “the inside of the box” as we described it—another example of the ongoing repetition of how we will work.
The planning memo is where the business enters into thinking. With most of the team and audience engineers, we would use every product start to reiterate the business fundamentals and what levers were being explored.
It is in the planning memo we talk about the kinds of challenges the financial side of the business face, as we did in Office with respect to enterprise sales. In Windows there were multiple constituencies: PC makers (OEM) representing a huge portion of Microsoft’s business concentrated in just a few customers, developers who make use of API innovations in Windows, ecosystem hardware partners who supply components to OEMs and peripherals to end-users, enterprise customers that run their business by deploying Windows desktops and laptops, and of course consumers and end-users. Also critical was the role the core Windows operating system played for Windows Server. Nearly every aspect of Windows impacts two or more of these directly and generally speaking it was not the type of challenge that had been pushed down to teams the way we were working to do.
The first section of the memo focused on the need of Windows to bring energy and health to the PC business, especially by finding scenarios where home users would have more than one PC and where business users would see value in more feature-rich editions of Windows. Unlike the Office business, the Windows business was much more sensitive to the sales of new PCs rather than the core value proposition to enterprises.
It is worth keeping in mind that “renewed growth” and “health” were somewhat counterintuitive to any business metrics readily visible to the team—Microsoft’s history of paranoia was definitely present in our planning, and that was a good thing. There were no material signs that the PC expansion was slowing. We still had not seen the giant leap Apple would make in “personal computing” with the iPhone that was announced in January 2007. In the coming months (exactly 3 months) Steve Jobs would announce that there would be an SDK to build apps for the iPhone and iPod. Phones were getting smarter, but people were decidedly still reliant on PCs for the internet.
About three-quarters of Windows revenue came from sales directly to PC makers. While we talked about one billion Windows users, they were only our customers in an indirect way. People bought PCs and those PCs came with Windows, which was purchased by the OEMs. Even if a person had a problem with Windows on their PC, support was provided by the OEM and not Microsoft. Effectively, Windows is a business with fewer than 10 customers, but those happen to be Microsoft’s largest customers by orders of magnitude. This idea of a buyer and a user being different parties with different influences on the product development process was quite familiar to me from the rise of enterprise customers in Office. Where in Office we had an ever-present struggle over the needs of the enterprise versus the needs of individuals across the product, Windows had a much more uneven approach. Some teams were extremely focused on OEM customers while others were entirely focused on end-users.
Contrary to most perceptions, the cost of Windows on a new PC (that is the price to OEMs baked into the final consumer-visible price of a PC) was a fairly low percentage of a PC price and the price had remained largely unchanged for years. This would soon become an issue with the introduction of Netbook PCs (to be discussed in Chapter XIII), but by and large the Windows license was both unchanged and a constant source of frustration from PC makers because of that inflexibility. For a variety of reasons, Microsoft lacked the kind of pricing power one might have expected in such a market. This was in contrast with the price of the Intel portion of a new PC, which was much higher and had increased over the years as Intel provided more and more integrated capabilities and provided more pre-assembled parts of a PC with each new processor generation.
![Year PC (000) Mac (000) PC Share 1981 35 100.0% 1982 240 100.0% 1983 1,300 100.0% 1984 2,000 372 84.3% 1985 3,700 200 94.9% 1986 5,020 380 93.0% 1987 5,950 550 91.5% 1988 11,900 900 93.0% 1989 17,550 1,100 94.1% 1990 16,838 1,300 92.8% 1991 14,399 2,100 87.3% 1992 18,300 2,500 88.0% 1993 27,750 3,300 89.4% 1994 47,901 3,800 92.7% 1995 59,719 4,500 93.0% 1996 70,870 4,000 94.7% 1997 82,070 2,800 96.7% 1998 93,310 2,700 97.2% 1999 117,626 3,825 96.9% 2000 134,738 3,840 97.2% 2001 133,500 3,174 97.7% 2002 152,295 3,098 98.0% 2003 168,856 3,098 98.2% 2004 173,193 3,507 98.0% 2005 218,500 4,534 98.0% 2006 234,097 5,303 97.8% Year PC (000) Mac (000) PC Share 1981 35 100.0% 1982 240 100.0% 1983 1,300 100.0% 1984 2,000 372 84.3% 1985 3,700 200 94.9% 1986 5,020 380 93.0% 1987 5,950 550 91.5% 1988 11,900 900 93.0% 1989 17,550 1,100 94.1% 1990 16,838 1,300 92.8% 1991 14,399 2,100 87.3% 1992 18,300 2,500 88.0% 1993 27,750 3,300 89.4% 1994 47,901 3,800 92.7% 1995 59,719 4,500 93.0% 1996 70,870 4,000 94.7% 1997 82,070 2,800 96.7% 1998 93,310 2,700 97.2% 1999 117,626 3,825 96.9% 2000 134,738 3,840 97.2% 2001 133,500 3,174 97.7% 2002 152,295 3,098 98.0% 2003 168,856 3,098 98.2% 2004 173,193 3,507 98.0% 2005 218,500 4,534 98.0% 2006 234,097 5,303 97.8%](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb7c1ef88-f8e5-45fe-81e4-4e00c8fa9b2a_1740x1240.jpeg)
PC sales in 2006 were about 240 million units worldwide. That was an astounding number and our responsibility to do the right thing and better things for all those units. The predictions for 2010 and beyond (from analysts such as Gartner and IDC) showed no end in sight for PC growth, breaking through 400 million in the years to follow. However, as frothy as that might have seemed, there were concerns that the growth rate was finally starting to slow. In fact, 2006 appeared to be the first year since economic downturns when the overall growth rate slipped and never reversed that trend with any staying power. Nevertheless, PCs were forecast to grow about 10 percent (adding 25 million PCs, or about the size of the entire global PC-installed base in 1990). The most interesting trend was a bottoming out of sales of desktop PCs—the laptop had supplanted the desktop PC in work, and totally dominated the home PC market. Computing was becoming ubiquitous, and laptops represented both mobility away from home and in the home. Gone were the days of computers taking over a whole tabletop permanently.
As a reference point, worldwide PC sales for 2019 were forecast to be slightly above 230 million following a pandemic surge approaching 325 million that appears to have receded.
To say the business was entirely dependent on OEMs would vastly understate the potential with business customers who would add the enterprise version of Windows to both new and existing PCs, which represented a substantial uplift in pricing (and that translated directly to profit.). As important as this was, it was much more a matter of packaging and pricing as the company had long ago shifted to developing a wide array of business-friendly features for Windows, starting with security and business networking, with much more in the works.
A significant evolution of the Windows business, rooted in both upsell and competing with Linux, was the release of a low-end SKU, called Home, and a more expensive SKU, Professional. Where Office had different applications (or modules), Windows had different features. The emphasis on these SKUs began with Windows XP but was put into full force with Windows Vista. This is a classic product strategy, but due to the nature of the Windows business the financial upside is enormous. A small percentage in unit upsell from Home to Professional is a price increase of tens of dollars multiplied by tens of millions of units, and all of that is essentially zero incremental cost to Microsoft. The leverage was magical. [To those keeping track of present-day Microsoft quarterly earnings, there’s a consistent talking point about the role of business SKUs in Windows revenue.]
Unique to Windows was the desire to make sure developer APIs were consistently available in the most broadly distributed SKU. Everyone wanted every API to be in Home. This constraint is what made specialty SKUs like Windows Media Center or Tablet PC destined to fail with third-party developers—the APIs developers would use to target those PC form factors were only in those narrowly available SKUs (with expensive hardware.) Seeing the tiny sliver of market, developers would rather attempt to roll their own solution rather than ride the tiny coattails of a niche market. This would become important as we broadened Windows 7 to include touch, where most of that support existed only in the Tablet PC specialty SKU.
The Windows Ecosystem could be thought of as four sets of deeply dependent yet independent entities, each believing that they contributed an outsized effort when there was success while each believing the other parties had more than their fair share of responsibility when things were not going well: Microsoft, Intel making and selling CPUs and associated chips and storage, PC OEMs and hardware makers (Independent Hardware Vendors, IHVs), and software developers (Independent Software Vendors). The mutual dependencies are illustrated by a cycle:
PC and hardware makers depend on Intel and Microsoft to deliver a complete PC experience.
Microsoft depends on Intel to continue to drive demand with faster chips and new capabilities while enabling PC makers to take advantage of those.
PC OEMs depend on IHVs to enable all sorts of new hardware capabilities that will excite consumers and drive demand.
Microsoft courts the fourth leg of this stool, the independent software vendor (ISV or “Developers, Developers, Developers” as SteveB would calmly state) such as Adobe, Autodesk, Intuit, or PC game makers to make applications for a new version of Windows with new APIs or that require new hardware (such as faster graphics cards), which in turn require new PCs.
A new version of Windows without cool new PCs or new PCs without cool new chips or hardware or new software that didn’t take advantage of any of those were all reasons why the ecosystem could become unhealthy. This codependency created an enormously tense network made up of a small number of large public companies, each with quarterly earnings reports. Also, at the time, in the United States, Japan, and Europe, PCs sold through a large number of retail stores so companies such as Best Buy, Dixons, or MediaMarkt were also part of this equation, and they were ruthless champions of low price and opportunity for margin.
![BIG BETS There are a few bets that we will make as a team and that will require work from all of us toward realizing our vision. These bets represent initiatives across the team. As the planning process evolves we will better understand the model for how development along these lines will move forward. For some initiatives we might follow a model that expects every team to contribute to the work. For some we might choose to have all the work done by a shared team with expertise from across the product. Or we might choose an alternate model. As a management team we will commit to no unfunded mandates. In all cases, work on these bets is key to our success and will be rewarded as an important contribution just as much as work within a specific feature team on team-specific features. Hardware-driven Innovation. Future OS releases should exploit new hardware innovations in processors, networking, storage, and other areas. Windows, at the core, is about memory, connectivity, processes, and disk, and we will be creative in how we take these to a new level. Advancements in chip architecture, such as multi-core, open up new possibilities for performance. Our core operating system will exploit such processor evolution, as well as other hardware innovations in GPU utilization, networking, storage, and other areas. The best experience of the new OS will be on the newest hardware, but the Windows 7 should install and run the base value proposition on any Windows Vista-capable PC. Virtualization. PC virtualization technology enables one or more virtual machines to run simultaneously on a single PC. We will embrace virtualization on a number of different levels and think through the impact of hardware virtualization, application virtualization and API virtualization, and our business team will develop licensing and business models to support these innovations. The concept of virtualization represents a big shift in our thinking and provides opportunities to us as the Windows development team and to our customers. Virtualization can potentially drive cost down for us around application compatibility efforts, management, and hardware utilization and can also provide protection against rogue software and malware to improve the everyday user experience. Virtualization also represents user experience challenges like complex window management issues and well as data and state migration issues. State Separation and Roaming Our focus must be on separating the user state from the state of the OS from the state of applications. User state represents data created and generated by applications to a variety of useful settings and customizations and is often laboriously collected by customers over time. We need to provide robust and performant mechanisms to roam the user state seamlessly between devices. Having a way to manage all user state is also essential for solving upgrade problems and offering a value proposition to consumers and enterprises for multiple machines and replaceable machines. | Big Bets 10 Windows Live Our company has bet on the combination of software and services as our winning strategy against pure web competitors. We are uniquely positioned to offer such a powerful combination to customers in all segments, from consumer, to businesses, to developers, to our partner ecosystem. While differences in release cycles make integrated planning for Windows and Windows Live more challenging, we will deliver outstanding scenarios with Windows Live Wave 3 running on Windows 7, using the open and documented APIs of Windows Live. We will also think about unique developer scenarios and APIs for the combination of rich client and third-party services. For instance, we might be able to engineer controls that are win32, bound to web data, and also light-up controls when using a plain old web page in IE. No other company in the world can deliver this kind of value to developers. Continuing Bets Security. The world continues to become more expert at exploiting computer systems. Much of the escalation comes as hacking moves from amateur status seekers to professional criminals and state espionage agencies. Microsoft is gaining credit as we have significantly improved over recent years and we show better on the overall statistics than competitors. We are not perfect, however, and the sheer numbers of Windows machines means that we need to be much better than our competitors and yet more secure than we are today. New technologies are emerging that can help customers keep their systems and data more secure. We can help end users by making the security experience simpler. 64-bit and Multi/Many Core. Since it is clear that there will be a large number of 32-bit devices when our next OS release comes out, we need to continue to invest in both 32- and 64-bit systems. The investments we need to make are not only in the low level of the operating system, since we need to be able to explain to customers and developers how to manage the complexities associated with this dualism. During this transition we need to enable the ISV ecosystem to properly address the needs of users running the 64-bit native computing platform because today’s experience suffers from missing extensions and drivers. The user experience must not degrade on the most modern and most expensive computing platform. During the planning process we will decide critical issues such as upgrade from 32- bit to 64-bit and how to use 64-bit as a chance to break from particularly burdensome compatibility and security challenges. Our processor partners are also investing heavily in processors with many cores on one chip, increasing the demands on Windows to provide support for large processor counts for servers, and transparent strategies for clients to derive value from the large amount of computing power that will arrive through multiple cores in each CPU. System Layering and Componentization. Windows is the most sophisticated and open software product known to mankind and our development and servicing process faces challenges that are tied to that sophistication. In order to improve agility, predictability and reduce the cost of maintenance, we need to invest into rationalizing the overall architecture of the system. We cannot afford to take Windows offline and spend years reworking the architecture without delivering customer value to the market, so we must develop a plan to do this in stages over several releases of Windows. We need to focus our investments along the areas that impact our other big bets. BIG BETS There are a few bets that we will make as a team and that will require work from all of us toward realizing our vision. These bets represent initiatives across the team. As the planning process evolves we will better understand the model for how development along these lines will move forward. For some initiatives we might follow a model that expects every team to contribute to the work. For some we might choose to have all the work done by a shared team with expertise from across the product. Or we might choose an alternate model. As a management team we will commit to no unfunded mandates. In all cases, work on these bets is key to our success and will be rewarded as an important contribution just as much as work within a specific feature team on team-specific features. Hardware-driven Innovation. Future OS releases should exploit new hardware innovations in processors, networking, storage, and other areas. Windows, at the core, is about memory, connectivity, processes, and disk, and we will be creative in how we take these to a new level. Advancements in chip architecture, such as multi-core, open up new possibilities for performance. Our core operating system will exploit such processor evolution, as well as other hardware innovations in GPU utilization, networking, storage, and other areas. The best experience of the new OS will be on the newest hardware, but the Windows 7 should install and run the base value proposition on any Windows Vista-capable PC. Virtualization. PC virtualization technology enables one or more virtual machines to run simultaneously on a single PC. We will embrace virtualization on a number of different levels and think through the impact of hardware virtualization, application virtualization and API virtualization, and our business team will develop licensing and business models to support these innovations. The concept of virtualization represents a big shift in our thinking and provides opportunities to us as the Windows development team and to our customers. Virtualization can potentially drive cost down for us around application compatibility efforts, management, and hardware utilization and can also provide protection against rogue software and malware to improve the everyday user experience. Virtualization also represents user experience challenges like complex window management issues and well as data and state migration issues. State Separation and Roaming Our focus must be on separating the user state from the state of the OS from the state of applications. User state represents data created and generated by applications to a variety of useful settings and customizations and is often laboriously collected by customers over time. We need to provide robust and performant mechanisms to roam the user state seamlessly between devices. Having a way to manage all user state is also essential for solving upgrade problems and offering a value proposition to consumers and enterprises for multiple machines and replaceable machines. | Big Bets 10 Windows Live Our company has bet on the combination of software and services as our winning strategy against pure web competitors. We are uniquely positioned to offer such a powerful combination to customers in all segments, from consumer, to businesses, to developers, to our partner ecosystem. While differences in release cycles make integrated planning for Windows and Windows Live more challenging, we will deliver outstanding scenarios with Windows Live Wave 3 running on Windows 7, using the open and documented APIs of Windows Live. We will also think about unique developer scenarios and APIs for the combination of rich client and third-party services. For instance, we might be able to engineer controls that are win32, bound to web data, and also light-up controls when using a plain old web page in IE. No other company in the world can deliver this kind of value to developers. Continuing Bets Security. The world continues to become more expert at exploiting computer systems. Much of the escalation comes as hacking moves from amateur status seekers to professional criminals and state espionage agencies. Microsoft is gaining credit as we have significantly improved over recent years and we show better on the overall statistics than competitors. We are not perfect, however, and the sheer numbers of Windows machines means that we need to be much better than our competitors and yet more secure than we are today. New technologies are emerging that can help customers keep their systems and data more secure. We can help end users by making the security experience simpler. 64-bit and Multi/Many Core. Since it is clear that there will be a large number of 32-bit devices when our next OS release comes out, we need to continue to invest in both 32- and 64-bit systems. The investments we need to make are not only in the low level of the operating system, since we need to be able to explain to customers and developers how to manage the complexities associated with this dualism. During this transition we need to enable the ISV ecosystem to properly address the needs of users running the 64-bit native computing platform because today’s experience suffers from missing extensions and drivers. The user experience must not degrade on the most modern and most expensive computing platform. During the planning process we will decide critical issues such as upgrade from 32- bit to 64-bit and how to use 64-bit as a chance to break from particularly burdensome compatibility and security challenges. Our processor partners are also investing heavily in processors with many cores on one chip, increasing the demands on Windows to provide support for large processor counts for servers, and transparent strategies for clients to derive value from the large amount of computing power that will arrive through multiple cores in each CPU. System Layering and Componentization. Windows is the most sophisticated and open software product known to mankind and our development and servicing process faces challenges that are tied to that sophistication. In order to improve agility, predictability and reduce the cost of maintenance, we need to invest into rationalizing the overall architecture of the system. We cannot afford to take Windows offline and spend years reworking the architecture without delivering customer value to the market, so we must develop a plan to do this in stages over several releases of Windows. We need to focus our investments along the areas that impact our other big bets.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F73e0e654-dff5-4455-b078-2dc4ee8f35f7_3864x2502.png)
The second section of the planning memo outlined what were called big bets. We hoped this would engage the architects and long-term thinkers by laying out significant challenges that we knew would need to be scoped and refined. Intentionally, there was only a small number of these so as to scope them to a single release. The constant discussion on bets was about how to define a bet as a set of steps that could be accomplished over reasonable time periods and incremental success, rather than one giant leap a decade later.
One of the unique things about Windows being part of the PC ecosystem while also being an open platform was that when new hardware was available to integrate into PCs, PC manufacturers could build PCs with support for new devices or peripherals without built-in Windows support. OEMs would write their own code from device drivers through user interface to support a new hardware gadget (for example WiFi or a fingerprint reader.) Unfortunately, this created a problem. Too often, such support did not have great APIs for developers or was not always integrated into Windows in a way that allowed others to make the most of it. But with Windows releases not being so reliable and PC makers always looking for an advantage over the competition, waiting for Windows to figure out support for new peripherals never really happened. With Windows 7 we set out to get ahead of some classes of devices (such as printers, graphics, storage, and so on) with a big bet on hardware-driven innovation but would leave it to the planning process to identify areas where such an approach would work.
There were two other big bets of note. Virtualization was becoming a huge push across the industry. But on that front, Microsoft was falling behind. Interestingly, at many team levels, there was a deep resistance to virtualization because of security concerns that the whole system could be compromised. There were also business concerns due to the Windows business having a foundational belief of one Windows license for every CPU. All the while, virtualization was growing rapidly and on every CIOs radar precisely because of security. Their belief was that virtualization was inherently more secure. It was also the core technology that would enable cloud computing and as such it was critical that we get it right. Competitively, virtualization was critically important for the Windows Server business. VMWare, the inventors of virtualization, was rapidly becoming a technology powerhouse under the leadership of Paul Maritz—yes, the former leader of Windows. Ironic moments such as this were in no short supply.
We also wanted a big bet for the typical Windows consumer, which would give us a chance to incorporate Windows Live services as a key part of the overall value proposition for Windows. Historically, Windows had duplicated services provided by MSN (the predecessor to Windows Live), ostensibly for a whole variety of reasons from legal to performance to security, and at the same time the MSN services did not do any work to shine on new versions of Windows. The ultimate achievement of this was the debacle when Microsoft shipped both Windows Messenger and MSN Messenger on new PCs and both had different sign-on, networks, and features. Another example was when the Windows Mail program did not do a good job connecting to Hotmail. This gave us a chance to say, “We will plan on not duplicating work,” at a minimum, but also push to do great work that could potentially compete with Apple or maybe Google.
In order to account for the heavy lifting that would be required to build on the Vista foundation and yet also fix it to the degree we needed to, we defined a big bet that we called “continuing bets.” This provided a catch-all to plan on the needs for improved PC security, 64-bit computing, and overall cleanup work. The fact that the release ultimately succeeded in cleaning up or completing this work led to the frustrating belief by some that Windows 7 was, in fact, a minor or cleanup release.
The traditional Windows view loved big bets—that felt like the kind of work we did for Longhorn. Many on the development side were perfectly happy to define a release by making progress on big bets, even if the manifestation of big bets would take years and the visible features not particularly visible.
From Julie’s perspective, the plan or vision for Windows would be start with planning themes. Rather than a plan itself, the memo contained ten planning themes. A planning theme was a precursor to a specific main pilar of the release. Themes are an invitation for brainstorming and creativity within that theme. Prior to this there is a step to even pick these themes, but that is a small group and done relatively top-down. The planning themes were broad strokes. The introduction of those themes was really an invitation to begin a process whereby the specific groups of engineers (feature teams) work together to define what it might mean to deliver on that theme—a literal call to innovate and be creative. The themes for planning Windows 7 included:
Refining the Vista User Experience
Building Customer Confidence
Embracing the Best of Web Development
Helping OEMs and IHVs Win the Hearts of Customers
Turning IT Pros into Windows Evangelists
Making it Easy to Add or Replace a PC
Lighting Up Everywhere with Servers and Services
Finding Everything Easily
Connecting Multiple Devices to Multiple PCs
Embracing Hardware Advances for Better Multimedia Experiences
Over the next three months there were countless offsites, meetings, design sketches, and more to arrive at more detailed views of what features might be built. It was this part of the process that is both the most uncertain and nerve-wracking for me. I not only had no idea if the ideas being generated were good, but I didn’t even know if the teams were converging. There’s no way to even measure this. In the back of my head, I was also wondering if there were developers writing code for new features that we won’t even want to ship while PM was off figuring out what to make. If the goal of the planning process starting with the planning memo was to bake a cake, then I just couldn’t open the oven every 15 minutes to check without ruining the cake.
Over the three months from the planning memo to the creation of a product vision the team is not producing code. The PM team was producing slide decks, PM prototypes, design sketches, and even a little bit of prototype code. The development team participated in this part of the process but was also tasked with watching the market telemetry for Vista and fixing a lot of bugs. The test and development teams together were working to improve the daily build and test process—an enormous undertaking that GrantG referred to as building out “the factory floor.” The 6 years of Vista development and the numerous side releases of Windows had made for a neglected engineering process. There was plenty of work to go around. Having the time to address these pain points and to do so together without a crisis enabled even this type of work to become part of the culture change. JonDe dug into every aspect of the daily development process, which he had become acutely aware of in his role leading Engineering Excellence. Fixing the factory floor would prove to be an enormous win for morale and efficacy.
Then suddenly the cake was ready. There was a vision. Reading this, one might really want to know what precisely went on for those months. How did the team go from brainstorming to a plan? The lack of a concrete description of this is why it has always been somewhat magical. It really isn’t magic, but it is empowerment, accountability, and creativity. There was never an answer other than build a great product, but pieces had to fit together, and everyone had to agree and reach a shared view of what was being committed to and being built. Every offsite, prototype, and sketch were talked about, debated, and considered. Most were thrown out for any of a myriad of reasons.
There was, however, one bit of magic and it was connected to a cultural change. The typical (in Windows and elsewhere) executive management role is one where teams go off and generate ideas and come back with a plan, for approval. Invariably during a meeting for approval the plans would be changed with the incorporation of executive feedback. The problem I always had with this was the underlying assumption that an executive thinking on the fly about whatever specifics or details arose during one meeting for an hour after weeks (or months) of work was truly value added or just value changed. I never had that much confidence. We started from an assumption that the plan was already approved, and the meeting was a confirmation of the plans the team created and was accountable to. The magic was that leading up to those review meetings we were, JulieLar in particular, in a constant and iterative conversation about ideas, tradeoffs, and specifically adherence to the evolving product vision. This led to a much deeper sense of ownership and buy-in and avoided the historic problems of swoop and poop or simply random executive thoughts.
We called the transformation of planning themes to the product vision a pivot (Microsoft loved to use the word pivot in just about every context, especially because it had nothing to do with basketball.) We were pivoting from a long list of themes with ideas of problems to be solved to a much shorter list of vision areas each with specific scenarios we would implement. This is why the vision represented a true product plan.
On July 27, 2007, we gathered the team at the Meydenbauer Convention Center—yes the entire Windows product team was invited—for a meeting where we presented the product vision. The all-team meeting was another step in the culture change. It would be the first time the whole of the Windows team got together to hear the entire product plan—the committed product plan—for a Windows release before coding started. It was so important to me that everyone really experience what we intended to build and to have that moment when as a team we commit.
Just as we did with Office, the product vision consisted of a substantial memo (this time with a bit more up front on how to read the memo), a series of produced design sketches showing each of the main themes of the release as we intend to develop them, a mock press release created by marketing showing how the release would be communicated upon shipping, and my favorite the one page cheat-sheet for the vision.
![ROLE QF THE VISION Not • Stretch goals, big stick, creativity foreclosure device, management goofiness, obstacle, complete list of everything we will do, finite state machine.. The Vision is: • Our commitment to Microsoft, Customers, Partners • Our product plan • Our decision making and prioritization tool • Our business, product, engineering goals • Our definition of success ROLE QF THE VISION Not • Stretch goals, big stick, creativity foreclosure device, management goofiness, obstacle, complete list of everything we will do, finite state machine.. The Vision is: • Our commitment to Microsoft, Customers, Partners • Our product plan • Our decision making and prioritization tool • Our business, product, engineering goals • Our definition of success](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F819f1bd8-e6b7-43a6-8164-a2f3e1283ab5_1600x1200.jpeg)
Even though we had been together for more than year as a team, and Windows Vista had been in market for six months already, we were still transforming and growing as a team. While everyone really wanted to know what everyone else was going to build (by this time most people knew what they were going to start to build) I wanted us to continue to build the culture. I had a slide defining a successful Windows 7 as a set of key traits feeding into success (using Office SmartArt of course): promise and deliver, develop satisfying features + scenarios, create partnerships [not dependencies], participate and communicate, learn and iterate and improve. Still, we had one more slide articulated how to use the vision. At this point, if you’re not convinced management is repetition…
![WINDOWS SEVEN VISION SUMMARY VISION AREAS Windows 7 will deliver amazing value to our customers by focusing our efforts on five vision areas: Specialized for Laptops Windows 7 will significantly enhance the laptop experience, make them more responsive, energy efficient, easier to network, easier to interact with, and more secure. Designed for Services Windows 7 will enable new capabilities via integrated web services such as Windows Live, connected applications and gadgets, and an all-up web experience to access information and stay current. Personalized Computing for Everyone Windows 7 will work the way you do, let you access and find files across all of your PCs, make it easier to manage windows and the desktop, and enable files and settings to follow you anywhere. Optimized for Entertainment Windows 7 will get the most from the latest digital entertainment tech- nology, allowing you to access, view, and interact with media the way you want, anywhere, with high fidelity. Engineering for Ease of Ownership Windows 7 will make the PC ownership experience easy out of the box, keep your data protected, while also lowering the cost of deploying, managing and administering Windows. ENGINEERING CHANGES FOR WINDOWS 7 Planning process Largest investment in cross-team, scenario-based planning of any Windows version to date. Decisions informed by customer data New standard for the availability of relevant data to inform engineering. Increased investment in specs, dev designs and test plans Solid, written plans in place for every feature prior to the start of coding. Front loaded schedule with frequent re-stabilization and quality checks One milestone schedule with well-defined implementation and stabiliza- tion phases. Flattening the FB's and distributing decision making Far broader and shallower branch structure, with increased capacity of our automated RI gates. Consolidated, transparent and data-driven status tracking and re- Pigtheright status reporting system based on Visual Studio Team Foun- dation Server. Centralized test execution labs Central test execution teams and labs leveraging WTT. Clearly defined quality metrics with ongoing measurement and reporting Common quality metrics, measurement systems and a consolidated quality metrics dashboard. Clear philosophy for adjusting dates and schedules Milestone process to check our progress against our plans and make adjustments when necessary, with changes planned as a team based on data provided by the team. SCHEDULE Milestone Start M1 Coding starts 9/4/07 M1 Integration 10/18/07 M2 Coding starts 1/7/08 M2 Integration 2/14/08 M3 Coding starts 3/27/08 M3 Integration 5/8/08 M3 Escrow 6/19/08 Beta I 6/19/08 9/18/08 RTM 1/22/09 End 10/17/07 12/5/07 2/13/08 3/26/08 5/7/08 Weeks fw 6W 6w 6W 6w 6/18/08 7/2/08 Zw 9/17/08 (Escrow fork) 13w 1/21/09 (Escrow fork) 18w 5/13/09 15w MICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL TENETS This is how we'll build Windows 7 and the shared technology bets that are important for this release: Design for interoperability We are committed to making Windows work well Performance breakthroughs for key scenarios with products from other manufacturers, in accor- dance with the principles established by Microsoft We will achieve great performance by tuning the leadership. system and actively fixing performance bugs, while measuring impact of user actions on end-to Security is a key promise to customers -end scenarios. We will build security features that are simple to Reliability improvements continue to be critical use, manageable, valuable, and actionable, while for our customers continuing to reduce the vulnerability of Windows We will design features so they do not crash or to attacks. fail unexpectedly, and proactively fix issues to Win 7 will target the same client hardware exceed reliability of Windows Vista at SP1. configurations as Windows Vista Design for sustainability, manageability and We will deliver a good experience on Windows supportability Vista logo'd hardware with a minimum of 1Gb of We will plan ahead for the sustaining and support RAM, while also taking advantage of latest hard- of all components that we ship with proper instru- ware. mentation. Win 7 will be compatible with applications and Designed for every market and every language device drivers on Windows Vista Windows 7 will enable simple worldwide deploy- Windows 7. Deprecated features and technologies Silting tor al feature part, acros: lit supported languages. will be identified and made public as part of Betal and mitigation plans to address compatibility Improved Accessibility for all users impact. We will deliver a great experience for customers with accessibility needs, making Windows 7 the Getting ready for 64-bit only We assume that by Windows 7, many OEMs will most accessible operating system available. ship 64-bit installs by default, particularly for desktop replacements, and Windows 7 is likely our last 32-bit release. VALUE STATEMENTS BY AUDIENCE Mainstream Consumers Windows 7 with Windows Live offers a personal and familiar way for you to get your technology working together so you can easily pursue your passions and try new things. Enthusiasts Windows 7 will help amplify your experience by delivering more control, unique performance enhancing features and support for the latest hardware and software advances. Emerging Markets Windows 7 is a Genuine Windows OS that makes it possible for government and industry partners to bridge the digital divide in emerging markets with advances in PC affordability, reliability and design. Small Business Windows 7 enables a small business owner with little IT expertise to more easily manage their business PCs and quickly access all their business information, in or out of the office. IT Pros Windows 7 offers the most cost-efficient, agile and secure platform for IT Professionals, supporting the needs of a dynamic business Information Workers Windows 7, the hassle-free operating system for today's always connected world, lets you maximize your impact in the office or on the go. Business Decision Makers Windows 7 delivers the most secure, reliable and agile operating system for dynamic businesses seeking increased regulatory compliance, productivity and return on IT investment. Partner Ecosystem The health of the overall Windows ecosystem is dependent on a healthy and diverse collection of part- ners, including our OEMs, IHVs, and ISVs/developers. The table below summarizes the areas of biggest impact for these key partners: OEM IHV • Increase appeal of laptops DEVELOPERS/ISV • Increase appeal of mobile com- • Develop mobile-aware apps " LestiaRsenere bronzers to - Recite dev & support costs Pavel fo runars to discelerand create compelling end-to-end• Increase demand for home try new applications experiences networking hardware • Enable High Fidelity applications ° Enable PCs tailored to indi- • Increase demand for home ° Easier to install, maintain and vidual needs media ecosystem service rich applications • Increase appeal of higher-end® Device Improvements PC configuration, beyond • Lower cost of deployment and system performance management • Reduce support costs WINDOWS SEVEN VISION SUMMARY VISION AREAS Windows 7 will deliver amazing value to our customers by focusing our efforts on five vision areas: Specialized for Laptops Windows 7 will significantly enhance the laptop experience, make them more responsive, energy efficient, easier to network, easier to interact with, and more secure. Designed for Services Windows 7 will enable new capabilities via integrated web services such as Windows Live, connected applications and gadgets, and an all-up web experience to access information and stay current. Personalized Computing for Everyone Windows 7 will work the way you do, let you access and find files across all of your PCs, make it easier to manage windows and the desktop, and enable files and settings to follow you anywhere. Optimized for Entertainment Windows 7 will get the most from the latest digital entertainment tech- nology, allowing you to access, view, and interact with media the way you want, anywhere, with high fidelity. Engineering for Ease of Ownership Windows 7 will make the PC ownership experience easy out of the box, keep your data protected, while also lowering the cost of deploying, managing and administering Windows. ENGINEERING CHANGES FOR WINDOWS 7 Planning process Largest investment in cross-team, scenario-based planning of any Windows version to date. Decisions informed by customer data New standard for the availability of relevant data to inform engineering. Increased investment in specs, dev designs and test plans Solid, written plans in place for every feature prior to the start of coding. Front loaded schedule with frequent re-stabilization and quality checks One milestone schedule with well-defined implementation and stabiliza- tion phases. Flattening the FB's and distributing decision making Far broader and shallower branch structure, with increased capacity of our automated RI gates. Consolidated, transparent and data-driven status tracking and re- Pigtheright status reporting system based on Visual Studio Team Foun- dation Server. Centralized test execution labs Central test execution teams and labs leveraging WTT. Clearly defined quality metrics with ongoing measurement and reporting Common quality metrics, measurement systems and a consolidated quality metrics dashboard. Clear philosophy for adjusting dates and schedules Milestone process to check our progress against our plans and make adjustments when necessary, with changes planned as a team based on data provided by the team. SCHEDULE Milestone Start M1 Coding starts 9/4/07 M1 Integration 10/18/07 M2 Coding starts 1/7/08 M2 Integration 2/14/08 M3 Coding starts 3/27/08 M3 Integration 5/8/08 M3 Escrow 6/19/08 Beta I 6/19/08 9/18/08 RTM 1/22/09 End 10/17/07 12/5/07 2/13/08 3/26/08 5/7/08 Weeks fw 6W 6w 6W 6w 6/18/08 7/2/08 Zw 9/17/08 (Escrow fork) 13w 1/21/09 (Escrow fork) 18w 5/13/09 15w MICROSOFT CONFIDENTIAL TENETS This is how we'll build Windows 7 and the shared technology bets that are important for this release: Design for interoperability We are committed to making Windows work well Performance breakthroughs for key scenarios with products from other manufacturers, in accor- dance with the principles established by Microsoft We will achieve great performance by tuning the leadership. system and actively fixing performance bugs, while measuring impact of user actions on end-to Security is a key promise to customers -end scenarios. We will build security features that are simple to Reliability improvements continue to be critical use, manageable, valuable, and actionable, while for our customers continuing to reduce the vulnerability of Windows We will design features so they do not crash or to attacks. fail unexpectedly, and proactively fix issues to Win 7 will target the same client hardware exceed reliability of Windows Vista at SP1. configurations as Windows Vista Design for sustainability, manageability and We will deliver a good experience on Windows supportability Vista logo'd hardware with a minimum of 1Gb of We will plan ahead for the sustaining and support RAM, while also taking advantage of latest hard- of all components that we ship with proper instru- ware. mentation. Win 7 will be compatible with applications and Designed for every market and every language device drivers on Windows Vista Windows 7 will enable simple worldwide deploy- Windows 7. Deprecated features and technologies Silting tor al feature part, acros: lit supported languages. will be identified and made public as part of Betal and mitigation plans to address compatibility Improved Accessibility for all users impact. We will deliver a great experience for customers with accessibility needs, making Windows 7 the Getting ready for 64-bit only We assume that by Windows 7, many OEMs will most accessible operating system available. ship 64-bit installs by default, particularly for desktop replacements, and Windows 7 is likely our last 32-bit release. VALUE STATEMENTS BY AUDIENCE Mainstream Consumers Windows 7 with Windows Live offers a personal and familiar way for you to get your technology working together so you can easily pursue your passions and try new things. Enthusiasts Windows 7 will help amplify your experience by delivering more control, unique performance enhancing features and support for the latest hardware and software advances. Emerging Markets Windows 7 is a Genuine Windows OS that makes it possible for government and industry partners to bridge the digital divide in emerging markets with advances in PC affordability, reliability and design. Small Business Windows 7 enables a small business owner with little IT expertise to more easily manage their business PCs and quickly access all their business information, in or out of the office. IT Pros Windows 7 offers the most cost-efficient, agile and secure platform for IT Professionals, supporting the needs of a dynamic business Information Workers Windows 7, the hassle-free operating system for today's always connected world, lets you maximize your impact in the office or on the go. Business Decision Makers Windows 7 delivers the most secure, reliable and agile operating system for dynamic businesses seeking increased regulatory compliance, productivity and return on IT investment. Partner Ecosystem The health of the overall Windows ecosystem is dependent on a healthy and diverse collection of part- ners, including our OEMs, IHVs, and ISVs/developers. The table below summarizes the areas of biggest impact for these key partners: OEM IHV • Increase appeal of laptops DEVELOPERS/ISV • Increase appeal of mobile com- • Develop mobile-aware apps " LestiaRsenere bronzers to - Recite dev & support costs Pavel fo runars to discelerand create compelling end-to-end• Increase demand for home try new applications experiences networking hardware • Enable High Fidelity applications ° Enable PCs tailored to indi- • Increase demand for home ° Easier to install, maintain and vidual needs media ecosystem service rich applications • Increase appeal of higher-end® Device Improvements PC configuration, beyond • Lower cost of deployment and system performance management • Reduce support costs](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F202a0b04-f4f5-41dd-90a3-3bf4e9a5ec90_2480x3302.jpeg)
Before JulieLar would take the stage and share the vision themes and features, we had a special speaker. Although now formally transitioned from his role as Chief Software Architect to philanthropist and Chairman of the Board, I thought it would be important for BillG to share a personal view on the role of Windows within Microsoft. He delivered a wonderful and improvised talk without any slides. It was a mix of history and enthusiasm for the most recent innovations lasting about 15 minutes. He spoke of the patience we showed in building Windows after the first releases that were too early and the bet on having Office for Windows which made Windows better and Office better. I did ask Bill to emphasize competition knowing that was near and dear to him, given I had already shared with him my view that there was a bit of a lack of fire in that regard. The iPhone was just weeks on the market and the potential impact on the PC industry was just becoming clear and did not escape Bill’s mention, including some speculation about a tablet-sized device for reading (this will be discussed in Chapter XIV.) He also touched on Linux competition which was acute in the enterprise space and on servers. The highlight for me was when Bill held up the vision one-pager and reinforced that this was the product he was expecting, and he too would behave and not ask people about things not part of the plan—the team applauded and that made for quite a moment for me. That moment didn’t last long as he then told the team it wasn’t critical that we hit the ship date as long as we got all the scenarios working—that is the Office baggage described in previous sections where Office somehow cheats by cutting features to ship on time. There is a recording, but it is poor quality—just a camcorder in the back of the room.
JulieLar presented the vision itself. It was a work of art. From a dead stop after Vista she pulled the entire PM team across WEX and COSD through a foreign process (an Office process no less.) I could see the excitement and almost amazement from the team as I stood in the back of the room doing all I could to get a sense for the vibe. The vision for the release had five areas:
Specialized for Laptops
Designed for Services
Personalized computing for everyone
Optimized for Entertainment
Engineered for Ease of Ownership
![This is an animated GIF cycling through the slides describing the above vision areas. This is an animated GIF cycling through the slides describing the above vision areas.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa5e9efbd-1470-4495-b37f-32e5ada314fe_1200x900.gif)
Each of these were detailed with scenarios, business motivation, and a definition of success and then illustrated with a narrated design sketch.
Following this ChuckC, Julie’s counterpart from the Windows Core System team in COSD, presented the project tenets. These were the non-negotiable aspects of the project:
Design for interoperability
Security is a key promise to customers
Runs with existing hardware
Application and driver compatibility
Getting ready for 64-bit only
Performance breakthroughs for key scenarios
Improved Reliability
Design for sustainability, manageability, supportability
Design for every market, every language
Improved accessibility for all users
Chuck outlined the project schedule which included three milestones—each an opportunity to re-evaluate, adjust, re-allocate resources, and adapt the plan. We would begin coding in 5 weeks, after the US Labor Day holiday. Windows 7 RTM was set for May 13, 2009.
![MOCK PRESS RELEASE – OUTLINING OUR TEAM’S COMMITMENT TO DELIVING WINDOWS Seven May 13, 2009 Today Microsoft Releases Windows Seven As Promised Next Generation Platform, Services, Hardware and Devices Debut That Enhance the End-user Experience and Business Value Seattle- May 13, 2009 – Microsoft today announced the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Seven, the newest version of its Windows Operating System. Windows Seven was designed from the ground up to put the user in control and provide great experiences and services–from entertainment to enterprise productivity -- at home, at work, and on the go. Released just three days before the date that Microsoft forecasted when it released the first beta, Windows Seven is a clear demonstration of Microsoft’s renewed focus on delivering compelling platform offerings on a predictable schedule. “We are very excited by the enthusiasm, feedback, and support from the millions of customers and partners who are already using Windows Seven test releases,” said Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President of Windows and Windows Live. “Because of our goal to support 100% of Windows Vista applications, services, and devices, the hard work that the eco- system has invested in making Windows Vista ready for customers makes Windows Seven ready to go, right now,” said Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President of the Windows Core Operating System. Windows Seven builds on the foundation of Windows Vista by focusing on key customer scenarios including improved support for laptops, entertainment, and seamless integration with online services. Microsoft has also designed Windows Seven for extensive personalization so that makes it easy for you to work the way you want to work, while automating the process of maintaining a Windows-based PC. As part of Microsoft’s continued investment in software as a service, Microsoft designed Windows Seven to be extended to the internet for customers who choose to use Windows Live and other online services. While Windows Seven helps customers to get the most from online services from third parties, Windows Live is specifically designed to extend the Windows Seven experience, using the rich set of client services available through documented APIs that are available to developers around the world. Together, Windows and Windows Live enable the best solution for communication, social networking, entertainment and sharing digital memories including photos and videos. “We see Windows Seven as a significant breakthrough for the industry,” said Fred Consumer of Very Influential Consumer Oriented Research Firm. “When used with the latest version of Windows Live, Windows Seven delivers a customer experience that goes well beyond any alternative offering and has created a family of experiences that is approachable to the broadest set of customers.” The pre-release software has been widely available and feature complete since Beta 1 which has enabled in-depth, pre-release reviews worldwide. “Windows Seven’s ease of use on laptops and the simple connection to devices and integration with online services make this an upgrade you’d be lucky to have if you’re running Windows Vista or considering a new laptop,” according the Phoebe Tech, president of the Influential Digits User Group in Metropolis. Microsoft has also designed Windows Seven to address key requirements of business customers of all sizes. Small businesses without servers will be able to quickly and easily connect all their company’s computers, and search and access information on any PC in the organization. Enterprises are expected to deploy Windows Seven in production far more rapidly than any previous version of Windows, due to the ease of upgrading from Windows Vista, and enhancements that will greatly reduce the cost of managing PCs and complying with government regulations. “Windows Seven makes it easier for companies to realize the promise of a dynamic enterprise,” said Mark Consultant, Senior Research Director at Important Firm That Consults to Mega-Companies. “At the same time, Microsoft has also delivered a compelling desktop solution for small business.” For more information on Windows Seven, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. ######### Microsoft, Windows Vista, Windows Seven and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. The content contained in this fake press release is totally preliminary and the third party quotes are made up and aren’t from real people. If you are a non-employee and are reading this, ask yourself: what would your mother think! Note to the development team: If you have feedback on the packaging, pricing, positioning or marketing plan for Windows Seven, please mail the Audience Owner Alias in the Product Management Group at mailto:Win7AO@microsoft.com MOCK PRESS RELEASE – OUTLINING OUR TEAM’S COMMITMENT TO DELIVING WINDOWS Seven May 13, 2009 Today Microsoft Releases Windows Seven As Promised Next Generation Platform, Services, Hardware and Devices Debut That Enhance the End-user Experience and Business Value Seattle- May 13, 2009 – Microsoft today announced the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of Windows Seven, the newest version of its Windows Operating System. Windows Seven was designed from the ground up to put the user in control and provide great experiences and services–from entertainment to enterprise productivity -- at home, at work, and on the go. Released just three days before the date that Microsoft forecasted when it released the first beta, Windows Seven is a clear demonstration of Microsoft’s renewed focus on delivering compelling platform offerings on a predictable schedule. “We are very excited by the enthusiasm, feedback, and support from the millions of customers and partners who are already using Windows Seven test releases,” said Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President of Windows and Windows Live. “Because of our goal to support 100% of Windows Vista applications, services, and devices, the hard work that the eco- system has invested in making Windows Vista ready for customers makes Windows Seven ready to go, right now,” said Jon DeVaan, Senior Vice President of the Windows Core Operating System. Windows Seven builds on the foundation of Windows Vista by focusing on key customer scenarios including improved support for laptops, entertainment, and seamless integration with online services. Microsoft has also designed Windows Seven for extensive personalization so that makes it easy for you to work the way you want to work, while automating the process of maintaining a Windows-based PC. As part of Microsoft’s continued investment in software as a service, Microsoft designed Windows Seven to be extended to the internet for customers who choose to use Windows Live and other online services. While Windows Seven helps customers to get the most from online services from third parties, Windows Live is specifically designed to extend the Windows Seven experience, using the rich set of client services available through documented APIs that are available to developers around the world. Together, Windows and Windows Live enable the best solution for communication, social networking, entertainment and sharing digital memories including photos and videos. “We see Windows Seven as a significant breakthrough for the industry,” said Fred Consumer of Very Influential Consumer Oriented Research Firm. “When used with the latest version of Windows Live, Windows Seven delivers a customer experience that goes well beyond any alternative offering and has created a family of experiences that is approachable to the broadest set of customers.” The pre-release software has been widely available and feature complete since Beta 1 which has enabled in-depth, pre-release reviews worldwide. “Windows Seven’s ease of use on laptops and the simple connection to devices and integration with online services make this an upgrade you’d be lucky to have if you’re running Windows Vista or considering a new laptop,” according the Phoebe Tech, president of the Influential Digits User Group in Metropolis. Microsoft has also designed Windows Seven to address key requirements of business customers of all sizes. Small businesses without servers will be able to quickly and easily connect all their company’s computers, and search and access information on any PC in the organization. Enterprises are expected to deploy Windows Seven in production far more rapidly than any previous version of Windows, due to the ease of upgrading from Windows Vista, and enhancements that will greatly reduce the cost of managing PCs and complying with government regulations. “Windows Seven makes it easier for companies to realize the promise of a dynamic enterprise,” said Mark Consultant, Senior Research Director at Important Firm That Consults to Mega-Companies. “At the same time, Microsoft has also delivered a compelling desktop solution for small business.” For more information on Windows Seven, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential. ######### Microsoft, Windows Vista, Windows Seven and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. The content contained in this fake press release is totally preliminary and the third party quotes are made up and aren’t from real people. If you are a non-employee and are reading this, ask yourself: what would your mother think! Note to the development team: If you have feedback on the packaging, pricing, positioning or marketing plan for Windows Seven, please mail the Audience Owner Alias in the Product Management Group at mailto:Win7AO@microsoft.com](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb26d6382-3776-4c7b-a1ad-d10622188baf_6811x2929.png)
Mike Sievert (MSievert), the CVP of marketing (and as of this writing, the CEO of T-Mobile) provided a detailed overview of the current state of the business and opportunity. KevinJo spoke about the importance of Windows Live, which was in the process of executing a plan to run on a shorter schedule and would have a releases of services for Windows 7 at availability. He also addressed what was top of mind for both of us, which was adhering to the newly announced Windows Principles a series of proactive steps to managing the business that the legal team put forth on their own in hopes of setting a different tone with regulators.2
JonDe spoke to the deep technology shifts in the PC industry where the COSD team had historically focused their energy and where the big bets at the core OS level were critical, especially for Windows Server which shared the OS. He spoke to the work we needed to continue including:
Multi-core and many-core
Virtualization
GPUs
Wireless
Storage and non-volatile memory
Power management
New and popular devices: GPS, biometrics, web-cameras
Diverse form factors
To set an example, the meeting went like clockwork and lasted three hours, and there was even a break. After the meeting, I sent out the full memo to the whole team. I recently acquired a new ultra wide-angle lens for my (then fancy) DSLR and took a team photo. Everyone was in their limited-edition color-coded t-shirts which was always done tongue in cheek but certainly plays like something one would see on a bad take of a tech on HBO. I still see these Windows 7 t-shirts around town, which amazes me. I even saw one in a yoga class in Silicon Valley, years after vision day.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_5760,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe8d6809f-afdd-465c-a6e3-5e2d4fbdb3b2_3008x1558.jpeg)
I followed up with an Office Hours blog post expanding on my themes of what would make Windows 7 a successful release.
![At the start of the meeting I had a chance to offer 5 qualities that I believe will make for a successful Windows 7 effort. The vision describes the product and the business. I thought it would be a good idea to describe the team and what it looks like from a team perspective to be successful. The following is the slide presented: Promise and Deliver. We are being very clear and up front with our plan and we expect everyone to be part of promising and delivering. This applies at the top level in terms of the features and schedule. But it applies in everything we do - cross team partnerships, commitments between dev/test/pm, and work across development and product management to name a few. There is no system to game, only a plan. There is no glory in "under promise and over-deliver", only confusion. There is nothing to be gained by getting out there and over-promising, only dissatisfied customers and partners. So together we're all committed to making a great plan -not too aggressive, not too conservative-and executing on the plan. When people ask if we are date driven or feature driven, the answer is easy-we are commitment driven. We will get done what we say we will get done when we sav it will be done, and it will meet the qualities we set forth in the tenets for the release. Develop Satisfying Features and Scenarios. At the team meeting Bill Gates helped us to see the value in really thinking through and doing the extra work to finish the scenarios. He talked about maybe doing less extensibility, fewer options, less complexity and spending the same amount of energy to deliver a compelling user experience, to finish the job and to really deliver the most satisfying experience with new technology that we possibly can. From a competitive perspective, our ability to deliver an out of box and satisfying experience is our biggest risk and our biggest opportunity. This means the answers of "we didn't have a good UI" or "we're expecting a third party to add that" are not good enough for Windows 7. The schedule and feature list needs to include all the work to develop the scenarios we outlined, and to develop them completely so they are satisfying for customers. Create Partnerships. Windows 7 will be a product of all of Microsoft. It isn't just WEX or COSD. It will require us to forge working partnerships across the team- these partnerships go beyond dependencies that need to be managed. These partnerships are about thinking about customers and not organizations. If we fail to deliver on a scenario then it is the failure to create a partnership, not an "org failure" or a "dependency problem". And each member of the team is responsible for creating those partnerships as needed. The good news is that the Vision serves as a tool to make sure we are all on the same page. There are no competing schedules, different sets of goals, and certainly a strong commitment from management to support the commitments we made. And keep in mind, partnerships are not just across the organization but between disciplines, between everyone and their lead or manager, and so on. Participate and Communicate. Windows 7 is everyone's product and we need everyone to participate in the process. We want to knock down silos and make sure everyone is an active participant in building Windows 7. The best thing everyone can do is be sure to be there, front and center. Join the team meetings. Participate in training. Go to the brown bags. Attend team meetings. Be an active participant. At the same time be an active communicator. Don't just send out notes, but follow up and make sure you were clear and were heard. Be accountable for your own efforts to be part of the team. Learn, Improve, Iterate. With all we are doing and all that we are trying to get done, there will be mistakes. As Jon DeVaan talked about, the "good" type of mistakes are the ones where we're working on the plan and working to deliver the vision and something didn't go the way we expected, but we gave it 100% of our effort and thoughtfulness. Our team is ok with that. Part of participating and communicating is taking on the effort to make sure that "bad news travels fast". We want to pull together and do what we can to address mistakes, as a team. As a team we're always looking for feedback and always looking to improve. At each milestone we'll take some time to understand what we need to improve and what needs to change, and we'll improve what we can. As a team we will learn and improve and iterate. The next 5 weeks will be pretty intense as we drive to get M1 specs complete, inspected, and a dev schedule ready to go. It will also be exciting to really get going. Congratulations to everyone on the team for reaching this milestone. We are now officially transitioned from planning to execution and the "baton" (so to speak) has passed from program management to development. I also want to remind everyone about the confidential nature of the plans, the meetine, and all of our work before we release the product. We talk a lot about the concepts of responsibility, transparency and accountability and nothing symbolizes these more than the Windows plan. The process to develop the plan could not have been more transparent as it involved hundreds of people, offsites, brown bags, team meetings, open calls for input, review and so on. One would be hard pressed to name a company anywhere that has such an inclusive planning process and where the resulting plan is made available in detailed form to so many people. Along with this comes responsibility-we all shoulder the responsibility of being part of the plan and part of the team and turning these plans into reality. And of course we are all accountable for our commitment to delivering the plan. The first thing we can all to do assure success is to maintain the integrity of the process by following our path of deliberate disclosure. So please do your part. As always, I welcome your feedback in email, in person, or here. I look forward to being stopped in the hallways and hearing about cool features that are in winmain or great scenarios that are coming together. We got a great sample of that work at the feature team tables at the team meeting and look forward to even more. -_Steven At the start of the meeting I had a chance to offer 5 qualities that I believe will make for a successful Windows 7 effort. The vision describes the product and the business. I thought it would be a good idea to describe the team and what it looks like from a team perspective to be successful. The following is the slide presented: Promise and Deliver. We are being very clear and up front with our plan and we expect everyone to be part of promising and delivering. This applies at the top level in terms of the features and schedule. But it applies in everything we do - cross team partnerships, commitments between dev/test/pm, and work across development and product management to name a few. There is no system to game, only a plan. There is no glory in "under promise and over-deliver", only confusion. There is nothing to be gained by getting out there and over-promising, only dissatisfied customers and partners. So together we're all committed to making a great plan -not too aggressive, not too conservative-and executing on the plan. When people ask if we are date driven or feature driven, the answer is easy-we are commitment driven. We will get done what we say we will get done when we sav it will be done, and it will meet the qualities we set forth in the tenets for the release. Develop Satisfying Features and Scenarios. At the team meeting Bill Gates helped us to see the value in really thinking through and doing the extra work to finish the scenarios. He talked about maybe doing less extensibility, fewer options, less complexity and spending the same amount of energy to deliver a compelling user experience, to finish the job and to really deliver the most satisfying experience with new technology that we possibly can. From a competitive perspective, our ability to deliver an out of box and satisfying experience is our biggest risk and our biggest opportunity. This means the answers of "we didn't have a good UI" or "we're expecting a third party to add that" are not good enough for Windows 7. The schedule and feature list needs to include all the work to develop the scenarios we outlined, and to develop them completely so they are satisfying for customers. Create Partnerships. Windows 7 will be a product of all of Microsoft. It isn't just WEX or COSD. It will require us to forge working partnerships across the team- these partnerships go beyond dependencies that need to be managed. These partnerships are about thinking about customers and not organizations. If we fail to deliver on a scenario then it is the failure to create a partnership, not an "org failure" or a "dependency problem". And each member of the team is responsible for creating those partnerships as needed. The good news is that the Vision serves as a tool to make sure we are all on the same page. There are no competing schedules, different sets of goals, and certainly a strong commitment from management to support the commitments we made. And keep in mind, partnerships are not just across the organization but between disciplines, between everyone and their lead or manager, and so on. Participate and Communicate. Windows 7 is everyone's product and we need everyone to participate in the process. We want to knock down silos and make sure everyone is an active participant in building Windows 7. The best thing everyone can do is be sure to be there, front and center. Join the team meetings. Participate in training. Go to the brown bags. Attend team meetings. Be an active participant. At the same time be an active communicator. Don't just send out notes, but follow up and make sure you were clear and were heard. Be accountable for your own efforts to be part of the team. Learn, Improve, Iterate. With all we are doing and all that we are trying to get done, there will be mistakes. As Jon DeVaan talked about, the "good" type of mistakes are the ones where we're working on the plan and working to deliver the vision and something didn't go the way we expected, but we gave it 100% of our effort and thoughtfulness. Our team is ok with that. Part of participating and communicating is taking on the effort to make sure that "bad news travels fast". We want to pull together and do what we can to address mistakes, as a team. As a team we're always looking for feedback and always looking to improve. At each milestone we'll take some time to understand what we need to improve and what needs to change, and we'll improve what we can. As a team we will learn and improve and iterate. The next 5 weeks will be pretty intense as we drive to get M1 specs complete, inspected, and a dev schedule ready to go. It will also be exciting to really get going. Congratulations to everyone on the team for reaching this milestone. We are now officially transitioned from planning to execution and the "baton" (so to speak) has passed from program management to development. I also want to remind everyone about the confidential nature of the plans, the meetine, and all of our work before we release the product. We talk a lot about the concepts of responsibility, transparency and accountability and nothing symbolizes these more than the Windows plan. The process to develop the plan could not have been more transparent as it involved hundreds of people, offsites, brown bags, team meetings, open calls for input, review and so on. One would be hard pressed to name a company anywhere that has such an inclusive planning process and where the resulting plan is made available in detailed form to so many people. Along with this comes responsibility-we all shoulder the responsibility of being part of the plan and part of the team and turning these plans into reality. And of course we are all accountable for our commitment to delivering the plan. The first thing we can all to do assure success is to maintain the integrity of the process by following our path of deliberate disclosure. So please do your part. As always, I welcome your feedback in email, in person, or here. I look forward to being stopped in the hallways and hearing about cool features that are in winmain or great scenarios that are coming together. We got a great sample of that work at the feature team tables at the team meeting and look forward to even more. -_Steven](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4fb4d83f-4818-4cc9-bda3-e98bde6e4408_3629x2184.png)
The day could not have gone better. I had been through many vision days in Office, but this one was truly a special moment. I genuinely felt like we had reached a milestone of cultural change within the team.
I was of course kidding myself. I only felt that way because for 15 months non-stop I had been saying the same thing over and over again gradually improving. But we were just now starting the real work. Other than my own fatigue, there was no evidence yet to support an assertion that we would get the release done. In reality, I remained terrified. I couldn’t even hide it. KevinJo sent me mail after the meeting saying he felt the meeting was great, but he thought I seemed down.
I was not down—the day was really excellent. I was, however, worried. Would this be enough? Would we get done on time? Was on time even soon enough? We had so much to do. We had so much to fix, starting with the relationships with PC makers who were truly suffering with Windows Vista.
On to 089: Rebooting the Ecosystem
Revolutionizing Product Development: Quantum Leaps in Speed, Efficiency, and Quality by Steven C. Wheelwright, Kim B. Clark (1992)
https://news.microsoft.com/2006/07/19/brad-smith-new-america-foundation-windows-principles/
Just a small correction. You mention twice that the iPhone had already been a year in the market by this vision day in July 2007, but that timeline is off by a year. The iPhone shipped on June 29, 2007.