14 DAY TRIAL // Steven Sinofsky, the former boss of the Windows team who left Microsoft after Windows 8 officially shipped, applauds Apple in a series of tweets, highlighting what he believe is “the most remarkable product engineering over time in history.”
More specifically, Sinofsky, who emphasizes that he “walked in similar shoes for many years,” explains that Apple excels in three different regards, namely “the fearless multi-year strategy, the clear unified planning and prioritization, and the wildly unprecedented execution.”
The former Windows chief applauds Apple’s courage to announce its long-term plans, especially because so much can change in the meantime.
“My jaw dropped when Tim Cook discussed the transition to Apple Silicon (ASi) as a two year journey. First, that's like no time at all. Second, that's an incredibly long time to tell everyone how long it will take and that they should be patient. Seriously,” he says.
“But really that is incredibly brave when so much could potentially change, more importantly could go wrong. Every big company does multi-year planning (I did) but everyone knows those plans mean little after a fiscal year. Apple is entirely different in that regard.”
Microsoft was more “local”
Sinofsky compares Apple’s approach to the one that Microsoft itself embraced, explaining that while the software giant’s strategy wasn’t wrong, Apple’s way to go is just “different.” And of course, it sems to work better than Microsoft’s.
The Redmond-based software giant was more “local,” he explains, while Apple focuses more on strategy requirements. This is why something that’s missing right now in an app isn’t the end of the world, as the company just tries to support its long-term strategy rather than focus on just one individual group.
“While Office reliably shipped for decades planning with Windows was super difficult because Windows had a different view of planning and shipping. Plus enterprise versus OEM customers. It was a miracle when we got the summer of '95 done. The transition to NT started in 95, was supposed to take a year. Windows XP was 2001(!) So we ended up shipping ever decreasing quality products we (eg Office) had to support for that time (9x). Still Win2000 was supposed to be "it", then XP, then XP SP2, delaying all else,” he says.
Sinofsky’s entire thread is definitely worth checking out, especially because his analysis also includes a comparison with Microsoft’s strategy.