But these initiatives eventually bear fruit

Steve Ballmer should make room tonight on the Nasdaq in New York. The temple is high-tech values that le boss of Microsoft should present to the heads of business us the professional version of Windows Vista, the new operating system again Editor (see also page 22). The public version airing, January 30. Windows Vista comes more than five years after the placing on the market of its predecessor, Windows XP, and with approximately two years behind the original schedule. But the magnitude of the approach also explains the offsets and repeated delays that have accompanied the creation of Vista.

A construction site

pharaonic

Because the project is huge. "Windows Vista is probably the largest software ever made", said Bernard Ourghanlian, technical director and security at Microsoft France. It contains 67 million lines of code, against about 35 million to its predecessor, Windows XP. The ensemble is to validate on hundreds of models of PC and thousands of devices and applications used with Windows. Alone, the Vista development team has tested the compatibility of the software with more than 800 applications from around 150 publishers. Hundreds of thousands of users downloaded versions of test development, which resulted many millions of trials. A scale yet never met before.

But the realization of Vista is also a challenge in terms of management. The Windows Vista development team has approximately 6,000 people distributed on almost a decade of hierarchical levels. Very pyramid, this organization builds based on small teams of 6 to 8 people (program managers, testers, developers...). Designed as a means of preserving the creativity, this mode of organization is not an exception in the world of software, but it reached an unprecedented scale in the case of Vista. In comparison, a large software development in France is 300 to 500 people. "To avoid skidding, manage this in almost military fashion", says internally. Interdependencies between the teams are strong, and if one of these delays, this can affect the entire chain.

The obsession

Security

September 18, 2001: the Nimda virus infects in twenty-four hours more than 2 million computers worldwide and cause, within a few days, 1.5 billion of damage. At Microsoft, the event is date. The Publisher becomes aware that the security can no longer be optional. The impact of an attack on Windows is too high because of the wide dissemination of the software. January 15, 2002, Bill Gates launches the initiative known as "Trusted computing", designed to put safety at the heart of the strategy of the group. Practical translation: in March and April 2002, the editor stops all developments on Windows and forms all of the employees of the division to the security. A radical cultural change. The priority now is to write a "robust" said code Under the leadership of Steve Lipner, a security expert who was known by his work for the US Department of defence, Microsoft is developing a new methodology. All possible threats must now be modeled at the phases of design programs, to reduce the "attack surface" malicious software. Penetration tests are carried out on each of them and, when a project approach to an end, it is fully reviewed by a team independent, specialized in security. Finally, all developers are now evaluated on their ability to write code "secure" and not only on their ability to keep time. Another consequence: Microsoft intends to secure Windows XP, launched in October 2001, and puts its best developers on the realization of a major update, Service Pack 2", which will be delivered in August 2004. Meanwhile, Windows Vista does not advance or even same patina.

The return

in box starting

August 26, 2004, Jim Allchin, the pattern of the Windows cluster, brings together hundreds of developers in the grand auditorium of Microsoft in Seattle. He announced a return to square one of the project known at the time under the code name "Longhorn." "Windows became too complex to understand and develop," says Michael Silver, analyst at the Gartner Group research firm." There were far too many interdependencies between the different parts of the software. As soon as modifying a piece of code, it had consequences on other locations in a proportion of difficult to assess. "Internally, some were also beginning to talk about Longhorn and a new"cairo", the name of a project launched by Bill Gates in the mid-1990s and who has never led. Aware to go to the wall, Microsoft decides to "réarchitecturer" the operating system. The Editor takes a more modular approach to limit the interactions between the different parts of the software. Rebuilt, Vista takes the form of a stack of 50 "software layers", in which each layer interacts more with those below it and not above. The work is greatly simplified.

At the same time, Microsoft emphasizes the quality of the code. A man will play a key role

at this level: this was Amitabh Srivastava. A graduate of the Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, this joins brilliant scientific team of Windows development in December 2003, after six years with the pole search for Microsoft. In charge of the heart of Vista, it advocates a massive use of automatic tools to reduce the number of bugs and reduce development cycles. The leverage effect can be significant. According to experts, about 80 of the cost of software development is linked to the identification and correction of bugs.

Internally, the question is not easy to decide. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates is concerned about the reaction of the teams, particularly fearing that such a requirement of quality limits innovation and reduces the production of the developers. But these initiatives eventually bear fruit. The first version of test Beta 1 of Windows Vista was released on July 27, 2005 and available to developers code updates to accelerate.

Ambitions

journals downward

However, Microsoft had to abandon part of its ambitions on the way. In August 2004, the Publisher decided not to include the WinFS (Windows File System) file management system in Vista. Project dear to the heart of Bill Gates, WinFS was yet to be one of the major innovations of Vista. Its objective Addressing the inflation of information stored on hard disks and facilitate access to documents. In practical terms, a search on the name of a client should, for example, to collect invoices, plans or accounts created in intention, without having to browse all documents for indexing. In short, the tool should be much more powerful that search engines such as Windows Desktop Search, Google Desktop Search or Apple's Spotlight. An ambitious project, but the editor developers face on the man/machine interface. "We have tried dozens of interfaces, but the people did not understand how they work," explains Bernard Ourghanlian.

After much hesitation, Microsoft decides to develop WinFS separately. The project is more or less officially abandoned for Windows end of June 2006. Either a few weeks after the announcement, by Bill Gates, in his next start. In the end, the editor he sinned by arrogance "Microsoft has incredible confidence in what the software can do and in the capacity of its teams to write software, said Michael Cherry, analyst with Direction on Microsoft." On a certain side, it is a good thing because it motivates the teams and facilitates innovation. On the other, it is dangerous because it leads them to be too optimistic in their estimates.

The concerns

Brussels

End of September 2006, the world leader in security software, Symantec, dispatched two experts in Brussels. Objective: to alert the European Union on the "anti-competitive" of Microsoft. The editor complains about the lack of information provided on Vista and considers that this will prevent it developing compatible with platform software, providing, as a result, an advantage competitive key to Microsoft. Now by the number two of the industry, McAfee, the speech does not necessarily unanimity in the security specialists, but it resonates with Brussels. As, since one year, the General Directorate for competition warned that some features of Vista (search engine-software) could contravene European rules on the abuse of dominant position. Between Microsoft and Brussels, the tension rises gradually. "Security is a fundamental problem for European consumers and we hope that the Commission will not pursue to remove some of the major features in Europe", says Microsoft. "This is not the Commission to give a green light until Vista is on the market, but Microsoft to ensure that its products comply with the rules of competition", said Brussels. Concerned, Microsoft eventually compromise and undertakes, on October 13, to provide more information security software vendors. It also gives users the choice of their PC default search engine. The announcement leaves doubtful Symantec but it ensures the release of Vista in Europe on the planned dates.

A key project

for the industry

The impact of Windows Vista will be major, for the high-tech industry as for Microsoft. Operating system activity represents 30 of the revenues of the editor and about 60 of its operating income. According to the IDC research firm, the new Microsoft software should be installed on more than 100 million computers in 2007. For each euro invested in Windows Vista in France, the entire ecosystem should be about 13 euros, according to IDC. Microsoft hopes that 20 of companies have adopted Vista here in 12 months. A forecast which satisfies all the observers. The Gartner Group research firm believe him, that the Vista business version will be installed on 4.2 of the computers by the end 2007 and 6.2 of the PCs. But a small part of the market still represents a large number for Microsoft. "If at the end of 2007, only 1.3 of the 800 millions of PC users bought this new system, this will generate while 800 million in additional revenues for Microsoft," said Goldman Sachs.