If you haven't heard the announcement already, you likely won't care about this post.

But MS has pulled the plug on WinFS - for now they claim. As a developer I guess I can understand the idea of wanting to 'overbuild' the crap out of something and make it just perfect. (Only I've never been allowed to do that anytime I was getting paid...) As a consumer I'm totally not happy about it though.

Lots of people have said a number of things about the decision to nuke WinFS. I could sound off for a while on my own thoughts.... but instead I'll link you to a set of excellent observations made by Paul Murphy.

Read his WHOLE post. It will only take a second - and you'll find it well worth the time (I promise). I'll wait here.

Done?

I liked the following lines:

For the first time ever a company is releasing an operating system where the primary design goals benefit someone other than the computer's owner.

Vista, to be as blunt as possible, is not being built for consumers or businesses. It's being built so Microsoft and Verizon can make money selling you movies.

What Microsoft really means is Windows Vista is secure from the threats presented by the consumer to content owners and that it provides a platform for digital distribution.

So as early as a few days prior Microsoft was hyping WinFS with sessions and classes at TechEd. They were energizing a base of hard core developers about a technology they knew would never see the light of day. It’s this behavior that has pitted me against myself when it comes to Microsoft.   

(If you didn't read his post - go read the whole thing , he makes some sobering points.)

I can't believe MS doesn't realize that they're hurting right now (i.e., I'm sure they know). Each missed date and pulled set of functionality at this point (not to mention the misdirection and lies Paul mentions) are pissing off their core base of geeks like me who are were enamoured of them. 

And remember, despite my complaining I still believe that Vista is a great new OS - with lots of new functionality and features. It's just that it's terribly SHY of the revolution promised by MS.
It has been seriously over-hyped and over-promised. Surely that wasn't intentional, but it doesn't change the fact that given what Vista COULD have been, it's fallen far short of the mark. In other words, I think that the biggest software project in the world, is starting to look  like a failure on some levels. And I'm not the only one saying that.

Hopefully when the Vista dust settles MS will hold the mother of all post-mortems, figure out what it needs (a drastic re-org), and get competative again. Otherwise I'm just going to start calling them Big Blue 2.0.