I quite agree with Lukey. The fragmentation within the Microsoft ecosystem is all the more galling when you look at the Apple side of the fence, with extraordinary integration across software, hardware and services. No, Apple's way is not perfect - and personally I don't like it all - but it's much, much closer to the "everything just works" mantra that should be the guiding principle of companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google.
Perhaps the most famous example of Microsoft internal politics was the squabbling over Tablet PC; with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, the Windows development team wanted to include software with the operating system that would make the Tablet PC proposition a bit more compelling. Recognising that the tablet concept offered the most gains in a productivity setting (in the office, working on the move, students, medical etc) rather than for the average consumer, the Windows team asked the Office team to develop a tablet-optimised version of Office XP, with larger buttons, tablet-specific features and at least one tablet-specific program.
Office flat-out refused. The exact story behind this remains subject to much debate and discussion, but the broad strokes seem to be that Office didn't much like the idea of bundling their software as part of an operating system, as this would undermine the chargeable value of other Office software packages, and would be a slippery slope (the fear being that if the Tablet PC OS included Office, buyers would expect all Windows versions to include Office). Senior management, in a frenzy of revenue protection, supported the Office position, and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition launched with no dedicated tablet-friendly software other than the inferior Windows Journal - which inexplicably still ships with Windows 7.
OneNote was made available a few months later as part of Office packages, and had many tablet-friendly features, but was never bundled with Windows Tablet PCs as was the original hope.
As you quite rightly say, Lukey, Windows Phone 7 seems to be the first example of Microsoft factions collaborating in a more meaningful way, but there remains a pervasive sense that this is happening through gritted teeth, rather than through an open-spirit of co-operation and understanding that this type of collaboration is essential in order to compete more effectively in an increasingly crowded market. Office integration in WP7 is pitiful; why in Beelzebub's name can I not transfer a Word file to my Windows Phone through Zune? Why must I sync it via the cloud through a Sharepoint server? Why is there so little I can do with an Office file once I've finally got it on my device?
Still, I've read a truly enormous amount of information on the development of Windows Phone 7 through to market over the last eighteen months, and despite what's still missing from the platform, I get the sense that this is far, far better than what we almost got. The Windows Mobile 7.0 development process - glimpses of which have been seen through leaked slides, and heard of through occasional candid comments made by insiders - seemed to have been a much less collaborative one; indeed, the screenshots of what would have been Windows Mobile 7 suggest that it was originally to be little more than a 'radical reskin' of earlier Windows Mobile versions, bringing all of the failures and foolishness that had made WinMo such a commercial disaster in recent years, but in shiny new clothes. It seems as though one day - and yes, it genuinely appears to have been as sudden as that - someone realised that what they were doing was utter folly, and called a meeting to draw attention to the fact that this wasn't going to work... and a few weeks later, 90% of the project was thrown in the bin, and a clean slate was announced, barely a few months before Windows Mobile 7 would have been released. The fact that they managed to put together a completely new operating system, with such a rich UI, and so many thoughtful features - and crucially, with the level of interdepartmental cooperation that they've so far managed - in around fifteen months is nothing short of a miracle.
Many, many holes still exist - as you point out, synchronisation between Outlook and WP7 is a nightmare, and there remain these stupid, pointless overlaps where each department stubbornly continues to develop software replicated by other departments, but one hopes this is a sign of things to come. Changing corporate mentalities is not easy in any organisation; it's even more difficult when you have an organisation as large as Microsoft, and virtually impossible when it happens under the same management team that got you into the mess in the first place. The fact that power within Microsoft has been increasingly consolidated under Steve Ballmer over the last couple of years - with executives departing but not being directly replaced, and responsibilities instead being hoovered up into the CEO's office - is not hugely encouraging, although in theory, it does enable Ballmer to cut through a lot of the bullshit that's held up decision making in previous years. I just don't see Ballmer as being sufficiently 'product-driven' to make the kind of bold moves that are needed; his protectionist corporate-driven ideals of basing everything around Windows (because that's where MS makes its big bucks) doesn't point to someone who appreciates the importance of taking a big gamble.
The 'big gamble on the cloud', which Ballmer seems to enjoy presenting as MS putting all of its eggs in the cloud basket in a very bold and daring move, is all talk until some meaningful action is seen.
Yes, it's nice to have cloud back-up through SkyDrive, but why is 5GB of my 25GB SkyDrive allowance branded as Live Mesh? And why can't I extend my Live Mesh functionality to included the full 25GB of free SkyDrive storage? If Windows 7 + Windows Live is the way forward, why is integration between the two so limited and so poorly executed? And I'm with Gavin on Windows Live Messenger 2011 - it's an absolute shower of piss.
Anyway, considering this is a thread on 'high street rebrands', I think we've gone wildly off topic. So, returning to the discussion topic - briefly, I suspect - I passed Wilkinson's in Kingston-upon-Thames a couple of days ago, and noticed that the ghastly, but well-known, slabby-italic logo was gone, and in its place was a sans-serif all lower case 'friendly' logo, as is the current trend:
Is this a new development, or another Millie's Cookies-style example of something that's been around for the best part of three years, but which I've totally failed to notice?
