In 2010 Microsoft held a "funeral" for the iPhone after launching the windows phone 7

[Nycturne]

A nightmare scenario for an IT manager, I'm betting they lost people over that.

I don’t think I follow.

 

[Eric]

I don’t think I follow.

Just that IT puts that sort of effort in just to have all those changes is a huge challenge. I’ve been a part of that sort of thing a few times, just looking at it from their perspective.

 

[Yoused]

Just that IT puts that sort of effort in just to have all those changes is a huge challenge. I’ve been a part of that sort of thing a few times, just looking at it from their perspective.

It is not really IT, though, it is product development. "IT" usually refers to management of company servers and tools, not so much creation of new technologies.

 

[Nycturne]

Just that IT puts that sort of effort in just to have all those changes is a huge challenge. I’ve been a part of that sort of thing a few times, just looking at it from their perspective.

I guess I still don’t completely follow.

It is not really IT, though, it is product development. "IT" usually refers to management of company servers and tools, not so much creation of new technologies.

This. The corporate IT isn’t directly involved in the engineering infrastructure like this, and there wasn’t much in the way of public-facing infrastructure at the time if I remember correctly. This sort of reset doesn’t throw out perfectly good code (or infrastructure) either, so there was less “wasted effort” than one might think.

If anything, the change in direction kept people from leaving, as Microsoft would have looked just like RIM and Nokia did holding steadfast to the past. You still need to be working towards something that the employees believe in, and a good number of us saw that capacitive touch UIs were the future.

 

[Eric]

Maybe I'm the one who doesn't follow In any organization I've ever worked for IT handles all of the corporate computing, including communications and infrastructure, especially in the days before cloud computing.

Some context: The org here had spent 18 months on Windows Mobile 7 to see it killed right as it was ready to release, the VP pushed out, and then spent another 18 months rebuilding from the ashes. So after spending three years churning, and two crunch cycles, management wanted to let the org decompress once it was over the finish line.

I took "the org" to mean the place of employment, no? If they (IT) spent 18 months to push it out, then another 18 months to rebuild, then surely this was a huge frustration for that team and when that happens it's commonplace to lose staff over such an event. Think moving from Blackberry to iPhone and suddenly half of your apps don't work, etc. It's a huge time investment for that team to roll these sorts of changes out. Source: I've spent nearly 30 years in IT as both staff and in management.

 

[Yoused]

Maybe I'm the one who doesn't follow In any organization I've ever worked for IT handles all of the corporate computing, including communications and infrastructure, especially in the days before cloud computing.

IT uses the computing tools that are available to them, decides who should be using what equipment and how much server time/resources and fixes problems that arise. They do not design operating systems and software, they use it. That guy driving the city bus? He is using it, but most likely wast not involved in its design or construction, nor was basically anybody working in dispatch or the garage. Same basic thing.

If there is an IT department at Microsoft, they are only tending to the equipment. The actually OS coders are not in IT, they are in Dev.

 

[Eric]

IT uses the computing tools that are available to them, decides who should be using what equipment and how much server time/resources and fixes problems that arise. They do not design operating systems and software, they use it. That guy driving the city bus? He is using it, but most likely wast not involved in its design or construction, nor was basically anybody working in dispatch or the garage. Same basic thing.

If there is an IT department at Microsoft, they are only tending to the equipment. The actually OS coders are not in IT, they are in Dev.

IT handles all of the MDM for any organization.

The org here had spent 18 months on Windows Mobile 7 to see it killed right as it was ready to release, the VP pushed out, and then spent another 18 months rebuilding from the ashes.

If it was rebuilt from the ashes, I can assure you IT was heavily involved in the rollout and configuration of all those devices after a failed deployment, regardless of what is or isn't developed on the rebuilt platform. That seems overlooked here for whatever reason but this sort of thing can be stressful on them all the way from the top down to the employee level and that's when you lose people. Obviously he said that wasn't the case here but I've seen it happen a lot in my career.

 

[Nycturne]

IT handles all of the MDM for any organization.

Okay, I think I understand where the misunderstanding is.

At this point in time, MDM in Windows Mobile was through Exchange ActiveSync (as rudimentary as it was by today’s standards). Guess what Windows Phone used initially? Exchange ActiveSync. But MDM would continue to evolve going forward much like it would on iOS.

Apple’s first go with MDM on iOS was in iOS 2 with… Exchange ActiveSync. Interestingly, Terry Myerson was still part of Exchange when that happened. Meaning this would have been right before the shakeup.

If it was rebuilt from the ashes, I can assure you IT was heavily involved in the rollout and configuration of all those devices after a failed deployment, regardless of what is or isn't developed on the rebuilt platform. That seems overlooked here for whatever reason but this sort of thing can be stressful on them all the way from the top down to the employee level and that's when you lose people. Obviously he said that wasn't the case here but I've seen it happen a lot in my career.

Windows Mobile 7 never released, meaning there were no devices to prepare for or deploy. Final retail devices would have taken months to arrive after RTM as the manufacturers need time to do final internal validation and fixes (not to mention request critical fixes from Microsoft if needed), and get through carrier validation tests. So device orders for those in the company that got devices from IT would have been in Spring after a Fall RTM. And there weren’t any major changes in the OS for IT to adopt at the time. Those would be in the Windows Phone 8 era I believe as MDM evolved, as Exchange ActiveSync was already configured and “self-service” in many ways.

Ultimately, the ship changed directions before IT would have been involved for the sort of deployment you are thinking of, and wouldn’t have been aware of the devices in the pipe that got canceled.

Also, Windows Phone 7 was never a full rewrite, that wouldn’t have been possible in 18 months (one release cycle). Both Windows Mobile 7 and Windows Phone 7 were built on the same core (Windows CE), and much of the lower level work that was specific to phones survived as well (the UI clearly didn’t, and there was a lot of work evolving things like the SDK). A lot of folks on lower level teams were still evolving the platform.

This isn’t much different from how iOS uses Darwin, or iOS 7‘s UI refresh didn’t change everything for management or core functionality.

EDIT: When I talk about “the org” in this context, I’m referring to the engineering org that made up Windows Mobile / Windows CE. It’s not really right to call it a “team”, due to the sheer size of it. Everyone you see in the parade video that’s participating is an engineer, an engineer in test (a title since retired), a project manager, a team lead, or a general manager.