Roadmap (Table of Contents)

Chronology of Hardcore Software

Steven Sinofsky
Jan 28Share

If you are looking for a good overview of this substack, see Introducing Hardcore Software.

The following is a chronological table of contents of all posts for Hardcore Software. Each post will link to what came before and what comes next (once that post is out) or you can come here at any time and read the stories in order. You can also use this page as a quick way to find what you’re looking for if you want to share a post with a friend or co-worker.

Each chapter represents a series of posts, usually about five to ten posts. The links will be filled in as posts are mailed out. Threads/Ask-Me-Anything posts will also be listed here as they are added.

Prologue: Becoming a Hacker (1982-1989)

Chapter I (1989-1990)

Chapter II (1990-1993)

Chapter III (1993-1994)

  • Executing on the Expansive Vision of Bill Gates

  • Good to Know

  • Filling the Void Left by IBM

  • Competition, Architecture, and Left Field

  • Microsoft’s Two Bountiful Gardens

  • BillG the Manager

  • Cairo: Innovation versus Shipping

  • EMS: Expanding Breadth versus Coherency

  • New Ideas and IQ for the Information Superhighway

  • ThinkWeek

  • The Expense Report

Chapter IV (1994)

  • Discovering “Cornell is WIRED!”

  • Trapped

  • Blue Suede Pumas

  • Demonstrating the Internet

  • Internet Offsite

  • In the Middle

Chapter V (1994-1995)

  • Synchronizing Windows and Office (the First Time)

  • Winning the Suite

  • The Office Product Unit, OPU 

  • Office94, Office96

Chapter VI (1995)

  • Delivering Office as One Product (the First Time) 

  • Working with Chicago

  • Red Squiggles

  • Capone

  • Designed for Windows 95

  • Start Me Up

Chapter VII (1995-1997)

  • Creating the First “Real” Office

  • Massive Scale

  • Enter, Clippy 

  • DIM Outlook

  • Our First Big M&A Deal

  • Incompatible Files

Chapter VIII (1998-2000)

  • Prioritizing a New Type of Customer

  • Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing

  • Orgs, Reorgs, and a Code Name

  • Pizza for 20 Million People

  • Go Get This Rock

  • We Have a Vision

  • HTML: One of the Most Destructive Things

  • Bloat, First Attempt

  • Outlook Storage, First Attempt

  • Steve and Steven Get New Jobs

  • RTM

  • Steven-San . . . Mother Tree

Chapter IX (1999-2001)

  • Expanding Office in the Enterprise

  • Enterprise Agreements

  • Synergy Times Two

  • From Vendor to Partner

  • ILOVEYOU

  • Watson, Come Here

  • Split Up Microsoft

  • Managing a Verdict

  • Dawn of .NET

  • Enter SharePoint

  • Outlook Storage, Take Two

  • MYR-CDG

  • Office eXPerience

Chapter X (2001-2003)

  • Building an Entire Product Line

  • Office.NOT

  • NetDocs

  • Notes on Tablet PC Innovation

  • **DO NOT FORWARD**

  • Outlook Pride, Finally

  • Transitions

Chapter XI (2003-2006)

  • Betting Big to Fend Off Commoditization

  • Defining Bloat

  • Well, How Did We Get Here?

  • Perfecting the Design

  • We Love It

  • We Need Sub-second Keyboard Access

  • We Must Have Classic Mode

Chapter XII (2006-2007)

  • Living the Odd-Even Curse

  • Office Hours

  • Who Is on Our Team? 

  • The Curse

  • Decision Making

  • Agile Execution

  • Discipline Excellence

  • The Reorg Pivot

  • Planning Big Bets

  • Rebooting the Ecosystem Relationship

  • Ultimate Speedbumps

  • I’m a Mac.

Chapter XIII (2007-2010)

  • Making the Best Windows, Yet

  • Netbooks Falling from the Sky

  • All Things D-Day

  • Welcome to Windows 7

  • The Golden Master

  • Launching Windows 7

  • Chapter XIV. Reimagining Windows from the Chipset to the Experience 

  • Seventh Time’s a Charm, Maybe?

  • Facing Disruption

  • To Worry or Not?

  • The Magical iPad

  • A Plan

Chapter XV (2010-2012)

  • Missing the Revolution

  • Chipset

  • Platform

  • Experience

  • //build It and They (Might) Come

  • Surfacing a New Device

Epilogue: The End of the PC Revolution (2013)

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