Grading Microsoft's efforts at the PDC

Michael Gartenberg | September 15, 2005, 12:03 PM

Yes, I know it's a little early, but I'm about to hop on a plane so the PDC is over for me :). Remember, the PDC is for developers, not for end users so my focus is on the messaging to that community. That said, I give MSFT a solid A (in 2003 it was a C-). While a lot of stuff looks half baked, that's ok, it's not supposed to be finished. Folks I talked to were excited about LINQ, Office 12, Workflow stuff and of course Vista. It seems there's an appropriate buzz going on that will serve Microsoft well, IF they can execute on the next part of the timeline. That's where is gets interesting. The PDC is for developers, but everyone, developer or otherwise, watched and saw all the messaging. I heard one reporter grumble that the beta Vista bits didn't support his sound card yet. It's not supposed to, but that doesn't stop folks from wanting it to. Beta 2 will mark the likely first push of the bits to end users. That's when the challenge of a marketing strategy will come into play and that's where I fear Microsoft is most weak at the moment. The technology looks good and seems to work well, especially given where we are in time. The critical part of Vista success will come from how well Microsoft can get the message out about it to all the folks that need to hear it, in the way they need to hear it.