Ballmer Acknowledges Mistakes, Offers Insights on Roadmap at MIX08
2008-03-07

By Jeffrey Schwartz

Read the complete article

In a rare display of contrition, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday acknowledged frustration with the acceptance of Windows Vista and the company's failure to upgrade its Internet Explorer browser more routinely, as well the questionable decision to pursue separate development paths for Internet Explorer and the .NET Framework.

Speaking at his MIX08 keynote address in Las Vegas, Ballmer acknowledged that tying IE to the operating system may have stifled innovation, given it was well over five years between the releases of IE 6 and IE 7, both of which were tied to the releases of Windows XP (released in 2001) and Vista (released last year).

"That was a painfully long gap between releases of browser innovation," Ballmer said. "You won't see those kind of gaps on Windows. I think we now understand how we get things enough decoupled to incubate new innovations in the browser separate from the operating system and then roll them back into the operating system."

Those remarks were particularly noteworthy given that Microsoft officials took the hard line that …

Read the complete article