Jim Allchin Quotations

We're going to blow out the holiday season.

The fact is that we wanted everybody in the industry to be ready for this.

We're just trying to be responsive to their concerns and also be forthright about where we are in terms of being a few weeks late for quality.

We needed a few more weeks. We decided to optimize it for the entire industry.

Security is a big thing. Safety and security has been a diving factor in this release all along. We know what we need to do to in order to make this system one that people are going to be able to feel safe and secure when they get it.

I am fine now, but I made a decision then to retire at the end of 2006.

Given that the customers have wanted us to be very precise and any mistakes in that might impact their business, we decided to come out with a very high assurance date for them that they can count on.

I don't understand how IE 4.0 is going to win. My conclusion is we must leverage Windows more. We should first think of an integrated solution.

There is a few weeks' delay because the partners had asked. This is a major release and it takes a lot of time to do the appropriate qualifications. Some of the manufacturers have their systems built off shore. There are logistics that have to take place here and we are not experts on that.

We're on track to complete Windows Vista this year, but quality is the top-line message.

Our business partners in the Christmas selling season need time, and confidence, for that season. We have decided to come out with a sure date they can rely on.

I would hope that we get credit for listening to partners and ensuring that we're thinking about their businesses, not just ours or some portion of their businesses.

Microsoft will release some versions of the new operating system for big businesses in November as planned, but the consumer version will be postponed until January.

You can have nice--some people might say interruptions, or things that are bothering you. On the other hand, it's a way to keep noticing what's happening in your business.

Where we sit today, things are going according to plan, and we're feeling very good. But I always like to preface that as I did with Windows 2000, Windows XP: quality is the thing that will dictate if we're ready to go. So if we have any problems in quality, I'll slip this product. It's the thing that is at the top of my mind.

We could have just gone ahead, but I didn't think it was the right thing to do. We're setting stringent quality bars on what we do.

We needed just a few more weeks, and that put us in a bubble...where some partners would be impacted more than others.

We can and must turn this around. If you're going to kill someone just pull the trigger.

To be clear, the reason why we're doing this is because they asked us to do this. To be clear, some would like for us to continue, and some wouldn't. So what we're trying to do is think about the whole industry, and we don't see any plan in change in terms of PC forecast.

We are pushing ahead as fast as we can for all audiences, whether for the business user, the child, or the digital music enthusiast.

We are on track to complete Vista this year. Given that customers have wanted us to be very precise and any mistakes made might impact the business, we have decided to come out with a high assurance date everyone can count on.

We still feel very good we can get it to broad availability this year. If the team gets in trouble about quality, I will delay this product.

The default view will be the physical storage space, and then you can create virtual folders on top of it.

This will allow businesses to begin their final testing and deployment efforts prior to the end of the year.

We're trying to crank up the security level higher than ever. This came down to a few weeks. We're trying to do the responsible thing here.

There are literally thousands of features in this product.

We are going to continue working on all the aspects that we think are quality: That means backwards compatibility, performance--security is a big thing. As you know, safety and security have been a driving factor in this release all along ... We know what we need to do in order to make this system one that people are going to be able to feel safe and secure with when they get it.

there's plenty in there that doesn't require new hardware.

Quality was the No. 1 thing that we focused on here, and we feel good enough to lock that date in. It would have been nice to make the back-to-school time frame for pre-loading, but quality came first.

Perhaps after we get closer to shipment we can discuss the dashboard and quality metrics we have. Right now, the team needs to completely focus.

Product quality was the first priority on the first day of Vista (development) and we won't compromise on that. We needed just a few more weeks and that put us in what we would call a bubble where some partners would be impacted more than others and we decided to optimize it for the entire industry.

Product quality and a great out-of-box experience have been two of our key drivers for Windows Vista, and we are on track to deliver on both. But the industry requires greater lead time to deliver Windows Vista on new PCs during holiday. We must optimize for the industry, so we've decided to separate business and consumer availability.

Developers building embedded devices now have an open, reliable platform from which they can create innovative new solutions and bring them to market faster than ever. These solutions based on Windows NT Embedded 4.0 will enable customers to streamline and automate processes through the use of a wide range of new intelligent devices.

As far as I'm concerned, they were a complete competitor to the operating system.

That's why Sidebar is something important. You will be able to put it to the side and just watch it on the periphery, and the widescreen allows this.

This is something we will be much more hard-core about in the coming years than we have been in the past.

This CTP that we are doing in this quarter will have all the features that we had planned to put in the product.

This is a blockbuster release. It takes a lot of time to do the appropriate qualifications, and also some of the manufacturers have their systems built off-shore. Those come by things like boats . So there's logistics that has to take place here.

This is where we have to deliver, ... we'll know much more after the conference.

If you want to make a difference, and you see something that can be improved, then don't talk--improve it. My dream is for a much more agile, quality-driven engineering organization with fewer roadblocks and more open highway to speed on. ... Now, let's ship, ship, ship!

Today, the PC is often still considered just a tool, but together we need to make it a lot more than that. We need to make it a path to experiences.

We're obviously going to spend a lot in marketing because we think the product sells itself.

There is no neat distinction between operating system software and the software that runs on top of it.

Well, developers do want to touch a lot of customers. We have to make our platform very popular in order for them to do that. If we make their jobs easier, then they'll be more likely to stay on the Windows platform.

I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.

We can build a better product than Linux,

I continue to see a healthy PC market, very healthy. The machines will continue to morph; you'll see smaller machines that have more capability.

Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer, I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.

If you're going to kill someone there isn't much reason to get all worked up about it and angry - you just pull the trigger. Angry discussions beforehand are a waste of time. We need to smile at Novell while we pull the trigger.

Apple really has no presence in business, and we think Vista's going to have a huge presence in business. We think we're going to help the corporate IT stack save money.

I continue to see good growth in the mobile space; I expect to see PCs being the core driver in the home. And I mean that for entertainment along with the work-at-home space.

I am a hard-core believer that the clean desktop is the way to go... At the same time, we told OEMs that if they were going to put a bunch of icons on the desktop, then so were we.

The industry was asking for more certainty. We made a decision to move the date so everybody could be aligned.

The industry requires greater lead time to deliver Windows Vista on new PCs during holiday. We must optimize for the industry, so we've decided to separate business and consumer availability.

The gaming experience on Windows Vista is going to go beyond any of the gaming consoles and anything that's been done before.

The first step is protection from doing things inadvertently or warning you about the level of impact it could have. Then, if you let something in, Defender is there to (warn you) and you can undo it. If the thing gets in and has really done some awful things, using the equivalent of System Restore in Windows XP you can back up time and undo it.