Rudolf Henning

I was reading through Channel 9 this morning and came across a question about when (or if) the service pack for Visual Studio 2003 would be released. There was one of the comments that made me start thinking just how bad things have become with Microsoft (and even in general) release dates.

To quote from this guy's response: "Can't say I'm surprised.  There are two things Microsoft does more nowadays than anything else:  1) Miss release dates and 2) Lie about future release dates.  What a winning combination, eh?  Needless to say, given Microsoft's latest round of screw-ups, it's no wonder my confidence in them is nearing an all time low nowadays."

I can't help thinking about the now notorious DNF (that is Duke Nukem Forever for those that has been out of this world for the past decade). It would seem that Microsoft is starting to have the same 'attitude' of 'we'll release it when its ready'. It would have been ok if this was for new and future products but when we start talking about service packs and patches then waiting around till its done only irritates people already using the buggy software. Worse still is the lying about release dates and not even making an attempt to apologise when the date slips past.

Channel 9 thread

Just to clarify, I don't have anything (ok mostly) against Microsoft in general. It's a business like many others trying to make money and sometimes some of their products are actually quite good. Also, I'm not saying they should try to release everything asap full of more bugs just to have to release patches for the patches for the original screw-up.. :p
Then again they are not alone in this respect. Probably just a case of the highest tree getting the most wind.

Ok, perhaps I should start taking bets on whether Vista or DNF would be release first. Hell, DNF might actually stand a chance!