Sinofsky out at Microsoft

I didn't see this coming, but then again I'm not very ear-to-the-ground despite working here.

Sinofsky saved Windows after the Vista debacle, but I've certainly heard he was prickly to work with. Will be very interesting to see whether his successors do better....

That... is Bruce Willis.

He was in charge of Windows 8? Good riddance!

What a joke that company is becoming. :(

"Sources have said the move came amid growing tension between Sinofsky and other top executives. Sinofsky, though seen as highly talented, was viewed at the top levels as not the kind of team player that the company was looking for. "

Translation: doesn't just bless whatever idiot idea Ballmer came up with this week.

My favorite comment: "My understanding is that Sinofsky *also* refused to sign the apology letter for Apple’s Maps app."

On the other hand, it was Ballmer's deference to Sinofsky that was the final straw that lead to Ray Ozzie's spectacular send-off to Microsoft's bureaucracy. The Microsoft insiders can put in their two cents here, but the way the various tech rags tell it, Sinofsky causing Bill Gates's hand-picked successor to publicly flame out was only the most public and high-profile example of his [Sinofsky's] inability to work well with others.

I find all of the "savior" talk regarding 7 to be incredibly misleading. Not only does it completely disregard the fact that Sinofsky's smartest move was to undersell 7 until it was practically done, in sharp contrast to Vista's PR, but it ignores all of Jon Devaan's contributions to the Windows family and, especially, Windows 7.

This could very well be a case of Microsoft leadership seeing if Sinofsky could deliver on an operating system of his own with Windows 8 - instead of an iteration of a major re-design - and, upon seeing how Windows 8 is selling, deciding that all of the baggage just isn't worth it. Again, all of our Microsoft insiders would be more in the know, but the guy seems like the worst kind of tech executive, and I'm not sure he'd be any better at the top spot than Ballmer.

Ray Ozzie leaving was around the time Microsoft started to turn to shit, I presume it's related. It's a shame because I was beginning to really like Microsoft, but the last couple of years have been one retarded decision after another.

Can you elaborate on the decisions? I'm curious on what they were and why you think they were unwise. I can think of a few like the way the Zune was handled and Windows 8 itself if you disagree with the idea (or implementation) of creating a unified OS for desktops/tablets/phones. But I'm not immediately able to come up with others.

Decisions/Moves/Products by Microsoft that have annoyed me recently:

• Games for Windows Live. It became another way to make playing games on PC more awkward rather than an alternative to Steam.
• Dropping almost all of their successful and critically lauded PC games development. This seemed to be driven by some kind of confused X-box only strategy but ended up scrapping a bunch of top PC game developers for no good reason.
• Going back to following the market rather than trying to lead it. Microsoft has spent a lot of its time as a company copying smaller rivals and then doing it bigger and better so I guess its understandable they might feel comfortable in that niche. However, now their rivals are bigger than they are; Zune, Bing and Windows 8 are all examples of Microsoft trying to clone their rivals and making a bit of hash of it rather than looking at the root of the problem and building a real new alternative. People had been sticking with Windows over Linux and the Apple ecosystem because it provided a great compromise between openness and usability. Windows 8 seems to be doing its damnedest to move toward the Apple model (even if much of it is removable or just publicity driven).
• Fucking around with direct X. Ugh, as a graphics centred game developer I've grown to really appreciate direct X and the way it just did a hard job with the minimum of fuss. However, with Vista and now again with windows 8 Microsoft have been using it as an unsubtle lever to try and force people to upgrade. There is no real reason to require windows 8 for the latest versions of direct X other than to make future video games that use new graphics hardware features also require windows 8.

I'm still holding out with Microsoft though because the rule recently has been skip one OS and they make a good one, so hears hoping Windows 9 leads a Microsoft renaissance.

Sinofsky was actually fired ages ago, but Ballmer has spent the last two weeks trying to find Outlook on his Surface RT to email HR.

Also, some more serious links:
Official announcement: We all love each other, that's why I'm leaving the company!

Microsoft inside sources: Sinofsky had to go because everyone hated him. (See Jay Greene profile)

Conjecture: Numerous gaffes and poor reception of Win8/Surface weren't that bad in themselves but provided ammunition to Sinofsky's enemies.

What Dan said. Win 8 is by far the worst though. It's not the fact they tried to create a unified OS, that's a good thing. The changes they have made in Win 8 are a complete fuckup from a productivity standpoint and Win 8 points to Microsoft trying to lock the PC down, a very bad idea.

The other things that have pissed me off are mostly developer related. Microsoft have introduced a lot of good ideas over the last few years but have either given up too early or failed to support those products properly. XNA and C# were the big one for me, the way the indie channel(or whatever it's called) on the xbox was handled is another.

I think that the win8 changes are overblown. Yes the metro stuff isn't for the desktop, and it's a bit silly to have to close things by making a swipe withthe mouse. So don't use it. I use win8 everyday both at home and work, and to be honest, I rarely ever go to the new start screen. It's basically a cleaner, faster Win7.

I agree on XNA, seems odd, but I'm guessing the numbers just weren't there, I'll miss it because it was fun to use, but it's not like third parties haven't created wrappers that basically do the same thing. I agree also that XBLIG could've been really something, if properly supported, instead of letting it get eclipsed by steam so easily.

GFWL is also weird, that really should've been a contender with Steam, not sure what happened internally there.

Yeah, there's no particular reason you have to use Metro, without it you're basically exactly using Win 7. Everyone I know who has given the new Start screen a chance ends up preferring it, too.

Oh and the new DirectX just has some extensions for metro junk, it's not the sky is falling like some places seem to imply.

We'll have to see if stuff being Win8 exclusive like Skulls of the Shogun is a trend.

Oh sure right now its just metro junk, but when they do versions of DirectX 11.2 and beyond which support new features of the next gen of graphics cards it will now inherit the Win 8 exclusivity so, if games want new graphics card features, they either have to make those features win 8 exclusives or use openGL. It's arbitrary and drags a good thing that Microsoft makes into the tedious and dirty world of trying to force people to upgrade OS when they don't really need to.

GFWL was, and still is, fundamentally indistinguishable from Microsoft actively trying to sabotage the PC gaming world (albeit incompetently) to drive more gamers to the XBox 360. It's that bad.

The Windows 8 version apparently has no issues. I'm not on the team anymore and still haven't upgraded my main machine to 8 yet, so I dunno.

Incidentally Ray Ozzie left Microsoft at almost exactly the same time I left the company, so I choose to believe that it was MY departure that marked the point the company started to turn to shit. Uh huh, that's right, prove me wrong.

J Allard, is that you?!

Please, I have way more hair than that dude. But he does rock a hoodie way more fashionably than I do.