The Secret Origin of Windows

A first hand report by Tandy Trower, the product manager who ultimately shipped Windows 1.0, has been posted by Technologizer.

Trower, who worked at Microsoft from 1981-2009, was assigned a task that four product managers had already tried and failed. He recounts the inside story of his experience in transforming Windows from vaporware into a product that has left an unmistakable imprint on the world.

A couple of weeks later, Ballmer called me in and proposed that I transfer over to manage Windows. Sounds like a plum job right? Well, that wasn’t so obvious at the time. Windows had been announced the previous year with much fanfare and support from most of the existing PC vendors. However, by the time of my discussion with Steve, Windows still had not shipped within the promised timeframe and was starting to earn the reputation of being “vaporware.” In fact Ballmer had just returned from what we internally referred to as the “mea culpa” tour to personally apologize to analysts and press for the product not having shipped on time and to reinforce Microsoft’s definite plans to complete it soon.


Read More [via Daring Fireball]