I don't normally post twice in the same day (or even twice in the same week), nor do I typically post short little blubs, but I just saw this link and needed to comment on it.

You see, I know a little something about manufacturing since it's the industry I work in and this quote made me lose my lunch: "First, MS has under resourced that product unit in all engineering areas since the very beginning. Especially in engineering support functions like test, quality, manufacturing, and supplier management. There just weren't enough people to do the job that needed to be done. The leadership in many of those areas was also lopsided in essential skills and experience."

Everything about that is deplorable. It basically means that in every critical technical area from design to ship was understaffed. The worse part is where he says that that management didn't have the essential skills and experience. This is a chronic problem in US manufacturing and a key reason why we are lagging behind other countries; lately any kid with an MBA is allowed to run an engineering department even if said kid has no technical expertise.

Okay, sorry to go on an operations rant, but to hear that Microsoft understaffed the entire design, development, and engineering team, gave them bad leadership, and was so arrogant as to think they could solve the problems on the fly for a MAJOR gaming system tells me a lot about what they think of their customers regardless of all the good Bill and Melinda do in their time off.