There are some changes at MS. The accelerated release schedules being used by some teams. I doubt we would see that if Sinofsky was still there. Will it make a difference for MS? We'll have to wait and see.

>Point well taken. I guess MS 's high profile or at least its presence in so many areas and that methodology of multiple teams developing in a Darwinian kind of way make the differences stand out. Still, it really is hard to believe some of the company could be so tone deaf ( metro, the whole phone fiasco ) and some be so adept ( VS and as you pointed out the embracing of open-source methodologies in ASP .NET)
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>I still think very top management is to blame when you have this kind spectrum. I was never a Steve Jobs fan for a lot of reasons, but the one thing he seemed to bring at Apple was a unified strategic vision. I don't think MS has that.