Episode · Hardcore Software by Steven Sinofsky (Audio Edition)
107. Click In With Surface
20 Nov 2022 · 1 hr 26 min
Episode notes
Happy Holiday to those in the US. This is a special double issue covering the creation and launch of Microsoft Surface, an integral part of the reimagining of Windows from the chipset to the experience. To celebrate such a radical departure from Microsoft’s historic Windows and software-only strategy this post is unlocked, so please enjoy, and feel free to share. I’ve also included a good many artifacts including the plans for what would happen after Windows 8 released that were put in place. The post following this is the very last in Hardcore Software . More on what comes next after the…
Podcast
Hardcore Software by Steven Sinofsky (Audio Edition)
Steven Sinofsky · Business · English
Personal stories and lessons from inside the rise and fall of the PC revolution as narrated by the author. Sinofsky joined Microsoft in 1989 as a software design engineer on C++. Over the next 23 years he worked across many major products and teams including C++ and Visual C++, Office for six major
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4 Dec 2022 · 54 min
108. The End of the PC Revolution [Epilogue]
Welcome to the final installment of Hardcore Software . It has been an amazing journey in the 115 or so sections including bonus posts. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to those of you that have followed along the journey of the PC and my own growth and lessons. Thank you very very much. I have a few more bonuses planned, including a compendium of Microspeak and a bibliography of books and magazines that I collected. For paid subscribers I will be sending out an update on how billing will end and for “True Blue” subscribers please expect an email on receiving your compiled version of the work.…
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13 Nov 2022 · 51 min
106. The Missing Start Menu
This section was the most difficult to write. At least people look back favorably on Clippy. The Windows 8 Start screen lacks any kitsch or sentimental value. It was the wrong design for the product at the wrong time and ultimately my responsibility. This is not the story of the design. There are better people to write about the specifics. This is not a story of ignoring feedback or failing to heed the market, but a story of just what happens when you’re out of degrees of freedom. This is the story of the constraints and the rationale for how we managed a situation that we saw as a quagmire.…
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6 Nov 2022 · 56 min
105. New Ultrabooks, Old Office, and the Big Consumer Preview
The previous section detailed the release of the Windows 8 platform, WinRT, for building Metro-style apps. In the reimagining of Windows from the chipset to the experience, we’ve covered all the major efforts. In this section, we will describe the latest in PCs that will contribute to Windows 8, which Intel called Ultrabook™ PCs We will also introduce the Windows Store where developers could distribute apps. The really big news will be the Consumer Preview or beta test for Windows 8 where millions will experience the product for the first time. It might surprise readers, just as with the…
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30 Oct 2022 · 1 hr
104. //build It and They Will Come (Hopefully)
Imagine building a computing platform that powers a generation. Now imagine taking the big step of building the replacement for that platform while the original needs to keep going for another decade or more. This is the story of unveiling the new Windows 8 platform for building modern apps, WinRT, at the first //build conference. The difficulty in telling this story is how everyone knows how the world came to view Windows 8. The developer conference of 2011 was a different story entirely. We still had to work through the big issue within the world of .NET developers and their extreme…
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23 Oct 2022 · 37 min
103. The End of Windows Software
A reasonable question to ask is “Why did Windows 8 need to create a new platform?” Not only did Microsoft have Win32, the tried-and-true real and compatible Windows platform, but the company had pioneered the .NET platform and with Windows Phone 7 extended that platform to phones with Silverlight. This post is my take on the history and how we ended up at this point. It takes us way back and shows how sometimes what emerges as a major strategic problem can trace its origins back much earlier than one might think. In the next section we will unveil the platform to developers at the //build…
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16 Oct 2022 · 58 min
102. The Experience
A challenge that comes with writing down experiences occurs when writing about events that readers lived through, have strong opinions about, and feel they know the full story. My purpose here is to share what we were thinking and doing at the time, how a broad set of people reacted, and then to offer my views of the reasons leading to the results. That is a way of saying this section is going to start with what we set out to do, not where we ended. Back to 101. Reimagining Windows from the Chipset to the Experience: The Chipset [Ch. XV] We set out to reimagine Windows, but it is interesting…
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