Tuesday, August 23, 2005
10th anniversary of windows 95
With almost no press, media events, or even internal posters, tomorrow is the 10th anniversary of the flagship product in the company. If not for this post on Microsoft Monitor and on Micro Persuasion, i wouldn't even remember it.
I was working in a computer retailer shop in Hougang in Singapore at that time, and after closing up shop, i went down to Funan Center, the main computer shopping area, to take a look at the crowd that was gathering. Indeed there was a long line of people queueing up in line to get their hands on Windows 95.
The fun thing was that at that time, my friend's shop was working the legal and ahem... grey areas of the software industry, and had some insight into how things were then.
Supposedly, one of the first twenty copies of Windows 95 was immediately sent to Johor Bahru, to a small CD replication plant and upon the morning when the Sim Lim Square shops opened for business, they already had the pirated CDs for sale!
The pirates' quick turnaround is something of a record then!
Through the 4.91 years in the company, i'd realise that a CD/DVD isn't just a straightforward media duplication. Some people keep focusing on the media that the software is on. It isn't really just that. If it was only that straightforward....
There's a lot of work across all groups and all levels, ranging from program features, developement, testing, artwork, packaging, multiple checkpoints, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, legal, localization, meta-data about the products etc.
It's not as easy as compiling your code and burning them onto a CD! That's for sure!
technorati: microsoft windows
I was working in a computer retailer shop in Hougang in Singapore at that time, and after closing up shop, i went down to Funan Center, the main computer shopping area, to take a look at the crowd that was gathering. Indeed there was a long line of people queueing up in line to get their hands on Windows 95.
The fun thing was that at that time, my friend's shop was working the legal and ahem... grey areas of the software industry, and had some insight into how things were then.
Supposedly, one of the first twenty copies of Windows 95 was immediately sent to Johor Bahru, to a small CD replication plant and upon the morning when the Sim Lim Square shops opened for business, they already had the pirated CDs for sale!
The pirates' quick turnaround is something of a record then!
Through the 4.91 years in the company, i'd realise that a CD/DVD isn't just a straightforward media duplication. Some people keep focusing on the media that the software is on. It isn't really just that. If it was only that straightforward....
There's a lot of work across all groups and all levels, ranging from program features, developement, testing, artwork, packaging, multiple checkpoints, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, legal, localization, meta-data about the products etc.
It's not as easy as compiling your code and burning them onto a CD! That's for sure!
technorati: microsoft windows
