Mental Ward

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Heroes Happen Where?

It's here! It's here! Can you believe it?! Today is the 'launch day' for three critical new Microsoft products: Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. I'm so excited I think I might have a stroke.

Yawn.

The issue, of course, is that VS 2008 was released last year; SQL 2008 won't be released until the summer or later; leaving Windows 2008 as the sole product actually being launched today. Does that thrill your toes?

Microsoft, of course, will try and trumpet this day as the pinnacle of civilization; that's what they do. The reality is somewhat less impressive, however: One product out the door.

And there was great rejoicing all across the land.

This isn't to minimize the importance of Windows 2008, which, by all accounts, is a very strong offering right out of the gate -- and something needed after five years of waiting since the last major server OS from Redmond. But Microsoft, with typical blow-hard-iness, started building anticipation a long time ago for what it originally termed a "Global Launch Wave" of epic proportions. When it started looking more and more like these releases weren't going to be synched the way Microsoft hoped, the company changed slogans to "Heroes Happen Here," which, for my money, is about as meaningful as if they'd changed the slogan to "Red Tricycle Bulldozers".

Major, major yawn. Microsoft, stop letting your marketing department run the company. In situations like this, it just makes you look dumb.

Posted by Keith Ward on 02/27/2008 at 12:48 PM


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