Tech: Is Microsoft Squabbling Internally?
March 22, 2006 — -- In addition to disappointing retailers and partners in the PC market, Microsoft's decision to delay the release of its long-anticipated Windows Vista operating system until early 2007 suggests the company has had problems integrating its once-autonomous technology divisions, analysts said.
Though the announcement only delays the new operating system's scheduled release date by months, it's just the latest in a string of development holdups. Originally, Microsoft planned to release an operating system called Longhorn in 2005, but technology and company politics forced it to dump one proposed feature in the new system and push the release date back to the second half of this year.
The latest delay will likely affect holiday sales at retail stores like Best Buy, as well as at PC companies like Dell that use Microsoft Windows.
Analysts said the major problem was Microsoft's eagerness to pack extra features into Windows Vista. In its initial concept phase, Vista was to include its own database filing system, known as WinFS, that would allow users to apply database features like address books to such functions as e-mail and instant messaging, and even across online networking sites like MySpace.com.
But one analyst said developers who worked to integrate WinFS into the operating system had difficulty coordinating between previously autonomous divisions within the company. Clashing cultures and incentives between the Windows client division, which previously oversaw all Windows operating system work, and the server and tools division, which was in charge of database management, slowed down the process.
"There were political problems and technical problems," said Rob Helm, director of research at Directions on Microsoft, an independent analysis firm that focuses solely on Microsoft. "The two divisions have different business incentives, and the company, knowingly or unknowingly, set up a situation where their business incentives were not the same as their technology incentives."
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