Twenty-one years ago Microsoft offered its stock for sale to the public for the first time. In that time, the company has rarely been out of the spotlight, but the histories remain sketchy nonetheless. To commemorate this anniversary, I went searching for a true and proper accounting of Microsoft’s twenty-five years of business ingenuity, and I finally found it … at the InQuirer.
2001: Windows XP
MARKETING DEPT: “OK, look, we’re really sorry about ME, all right? We’re killing it off now. Finally. Here, try this, it’s shiny!”
2003: Windows Server 2003
THE MANAGEMENT: “Look, it’s been two years, we’ve had service packs and everything, it must be stable enough by now!”
2004: (…)
THE MANAGEMENT: “What do you mean it still doesn’t work? Try harder!”
2005: (…)
“MAKE IT WORK! FOR GOD’S SAKE, MAKE IT WORK! Well, throw it away and use the server version then, that seems all right. Look, they won’t know the difference, drop the database stuff, nobody remembers what we said in 1995 now! That was ten years ago! “Apple has what? 3D acceleration? So, we have DirectX. What, in the desktop? Really? What, even Stallman’s beardie-weirdies have it? Oh hell. Right, you lot, make it look like this!”
2006: Windows Vista
THE MANAGEMENT: “Look, if we trickle it out to those mugs, I mean, valued customers who’ve already paid, we can say we released it this year and it’ll buy us some more time…”
2007: No, really Windows Vista, honest
MARKETING DEPT: “Never mind the features, look at it! Isn’t it shiny? Yes! Pretty!”
Read the rest of this hilarious article, “A history of Microsoft Windows – the inside story exposed: Dates, times, approximations” at the InQuirer.
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