(2024-04-13) Review Hardcore Software By Steven Sinofsky

Paul Thurrott: Review of Hardcore Software by Steven Sinofsky. Hardcore Software: Inside the Rise and Fall of the PC Revolution by Steven Sinofsky is an insider’s account of the events that drove MS-Windows and the PC first to prominence and then to their inevitable downward slide. If you care about this history as much as I do, you should read it immediately

Yes, Hardcore Software can be a bit of a slog. The book is overly long and riddled with grammatical issues, and would benefit from a professional editor

his analysis of these events in the context of history is what makes the book so rewarding, even when I disagree with him.

I’ve already re-read several sections of Hardcore Software repeatedly. This is rare. The last book to have this effect on me was Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs, and for the same reasons. Both books describe major milestones in a personal computing history that I’m heavily invested in and am quite knowledgeable about, and yet both also provide unique views and information about those events

while the two of us often had an adversarial relationship, Sinofsky’s book helps to humanize him, despite its almost complete lack of personal information

The story told in Hardcore Software spans decades. Sinofsky joined Microsoft in the late 1980s straight out of college

a right time/right place stint as the technical assistant to Bill Gates set the stage for his future successes by amplifying Sinofsky’s presence and stature within Microsoft far beyond his pay scale or responsibilities

That perch next to Microsoft’s leader also gave him a unique view of the entirety of the company at the time,

From the outside, Windows was where all the action was in the 1990s, as Microsoft rode its success to dominance. But from inside the company, Sinofsky saw only chaos and missed deadlines, and when his time with Gates came to a close, he chose the steadier, more professional and polished MS-Office side of the house.

Sinofsky was promoted repeatedly in rapid succession, and he eventually led the Office team. During this tenure, the team evolved Office from a bundle into an integrated suite and managed a focus shift from individuals to businesses, a key factor in the success of Microsoft’s broader transition of this era.

he presided over a wholesale reimagining of the product that was controversial at the time but incredibly successful.

The contrast between the stable and predictable output of Sinofsky’s team and the chaotic mess over in Windows wasn’t lost on Microsoft’s leadership

Sinofsky was tasked with bringing his particular set of skills to Windows. Perhaps he could achieve the impossible there as well.

The culture clash was immediate, with Sinofsky and a core team of trusted lieutenants upending Windows and making it work more like Office had, more rigorously and structured. The results are well understood: Windows 7 was delivered on time and as promised, the problems of its predecessor and setting up the platform for the next decade...Well, Windows 8 was another story... I was looking for closure. It was during this time that Sinofsky and I clashed, and I was looking for answers. Why was Windows 8 such a disaster?

Sinofsky had identified a nexus of challenges that would prove that success to be temporary. The web had decimated native Windows app development. The iPhone had refocused personal computing on mobile devices, diminishing the role of the PC.

He chose to reimagine Windows instead, and boldly. It was the right decision. As he explains in Hardcore Software, Windows 8 would embrace the web and mobile paradigms that threatened the platform. But the product was doomed from the start: In addition to some coincidences of timing... Sinofsky also contributed to the coming defeat via a series of radical decisions, some of which still confuse me today.

He knew that Windows 8 was too much, too soon, but he doesn’t acknowledge that it was also wrong, an all-or-nothing touch-first release that customers understandably rejected.

he also knew that Windows 8 was incomplete, and he was relying on subsequent revisions to the product to fully realize his reinvention of the product. But then he undermined that future by abruptly leaving Microsoft just as Windows 8 limped to market

did he jump or was he pushed?—but his explanation of this crucial event in Hardcore Software feels purposefully incomplete.

In the 12 years since Sinofsky’s departure

There have also been three leadership changes and a dramatic drop in quality, reliability, and predictability.

I would love to know what he really thinks about the creeping enshittification of Windows 11, in particular, and how he might have handled demands from Satya Nadella that Windows be contorted to make sense within Microsoft’s broader focus on the cloud and then AI.

Sinofsky certainly has his opinions, many of which I disagree with. And his Apple envy and self-aggrandizing nature can get in the way.