Stone axe image During the wonderful 4th of July weekend, I discussed with a friend the widening gap between the world of commercial software development and the world of “advanced technology”. I am talking specifically about Microsoft products here, but I suspect this situation is more widespread.

Software technology is moving way too fast. It looks like in Microsoft products become obsolete the moment the final release gets out of the door, or even slightly before that. If today you complain to Microsoft about a bug in Visual Studio 2008, they will look at you as if you are saying your 20,000 years old stone axe is not sharp enough. “Look”, they will tell you, “we appreciate you buying the axe in Bill Gatestone store 20,000 years ago. But stone axes are no longer supported. We have power saws now. Yes, our power saw product is in beta, it does not have an installer and it occasionally explodes, but when it comes out in a couple of years, it is supposed to be much, much better than the stone axe”.
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