[Paul_Heery]

Originally Posted by Jim Allchin, (Then) Microsoft Co-President, Platforms & Services Division

I'm not sure how the company lost sight of what matters to our customers (both business and home) the most, but in my view we lost our way. ... our teams lost sight of what bug-free means, what resilience means, what full scenarios mean, what security means, what performance means, how important current applications are and really understanding what the most important probems are customers face are. I see lots of random features and some great vision, but that doesn't translate into great products.

...

I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft. If you run the equivalent of VPC on a MAC you get access to basically all Windows applications software ... If we are to rise to the challenge of Linux and Apple, we need to start taking the lessons of "scenario, simple, fast" to heart.

Jim Allchin wrote this in an internal Microsoft email on January 07 2004. Allchin retired in early 2007 - on the day that Microsoft officially released the Windows Vista operating system to consumers.