The World As Best As I Remember It : Broken Windows Theory This is an unusually candid article, which apparently was pulled for awhile and then restored, which explains why Windows Vista is taking so long. I honestly couldn't put more damaging language together about Microsoft if I tried, and this from a guy who should know. He's not bitter, just honest. Try this:

Deep in the bowels of Windows, there remains the whiff of a bygone culture of belittlement and aggression. Windows can be a scary place to tell the truth.

When a vice president in Windows asks you whether your team will ship on time, they might well have asked you whether they look fat in their new Armani suit. The answer to the question is deeply meaningful to them. It's certainly true in some sense that they genuinely want to know. But in a very important other sense, in a sense that you'll come to regret night after night if you get it wrong, there's really only one answer you can give.

Every once in a while, Truth still pipes up in meetings. When this happens, more often than not, Truth is simply bent over an authoritative knee and soundly spanked into silence.