[ramanujan]

> Google is really the only company in the world that can rival Microsoft's speed in development (when it sets its mind to it)

I'm curious -- what MS product specifically are you thinking of here?

I think Apple at a minimum has consistently out-executed Microsoft. Nintendo, VMWare, and Facebook also all come to mind (along with any other small company that MS acquired).

The most interesting things from MS I've heard about recently are Project Natal, Pivot, and Azure.

Are you thinking of something in particular?

[omnigoat]

I'm thinking about the (No Internet Explorer) -> Internet Explorer 3.0 jump, which has been cited before as an example of what Microsoft is capable of when it suddenly throws the 'code red' flag (ie, Netscape and the internet are suddenly important). I can also think of Win98 -> Win98SE jump, and Visual Studio 6 -> Visual Studio 2005 (remember, they didn't start development on VS.NET/2003 until around 2000/2001).

Don't mistake speed of releases or popularity or innovation for the speed of development. Nintendo is a particularly poor example, I think, since I'm currently working with their tools... they are last-decade. I'm not even talking about the Wii's capabilities (which are Gamecube-era), I'm talking about their software: IDEs, compilers, etc. They struck gold with the Wii, but Microsoft went from (No Console) -> XBox360 within... like, 5 years? Nintendo's been playing this game for 25+ years, and without the unmitigated success of the Wii their console division would be bankrupt now (seriously!)

Microsoft's ability to develop (notably, but not limited to) software is unparalleled save for Google. Innovation, iteration, or popularization are all different matters.

[bartl]

>I'm thinking about the (No Internet Explorer) -> Internet Explorer 3.0 jump

But they didn't build that from scratch, they bought the original Mosaic codebase.