Ballmer Apologizes for Windows Vista – ‘Bout Time.

I love Steve Ballmer. I really do. Guy is so on-point. Got his finger on the pulse. And so passionate. Windows 1 comes with reversi, guys. Reversi. And a clock.

The title of this post isn’t one hundred percent accurate, but I’ve got your attention now, so I may as well clarify. Continuing his long tradition as the wacky, outspoken face of Microsoft, Ballmer bebopped at Microsoft’s CEO Summit yesterday, and besides being notably, er… calm, Ballmer cited the figurative facepalm of operating systems, Windows Vista, as ‘just not executed well’.

That’s big of you to admit it, Steve. We were all thinking it. Hell, we were all saying it. But Steve’s reasons actually made a decent amount of sense.

It was just not executed well, not the product itself, but we went a gap of about five, six years without a product. I think back now, and I think about thousands of man-years and it wasn’t because we were wrong-minded and thinking bad thoughts and not pushing innovation. We tried too big a task, and in the process wound up losing essentially thousands of man-years of innovation capability.

I guess that’s kinda true. The longer you wait, the more catchup you’re going to have to play. Hey, Steve, few complaints about 7, so far. Just don’t wait, er, ‘thousands of man-years’ for the next product and history won’t repeat itself, yeah?

[Via Microsoft CEO Summit Keynote]