Book Review: A Microsoft Life

I took a brief break from my continuing saga of Mass Effect books to read A Microsoft Life by Stephen Toulouse. aka @stepto. I don't think I would have bought this book if I hadn't heard Stepto talk on Major Nelson's podcast. I don't get a chance to listen to the episodes every week, but they provide a nice break. Stepto's relentless promotion of fair play on Xbox Live is always good to listen to. Not to mention all the good stories folks why try and skirt the rules thinking they won't be caught.

This book is not exactly what I thought it was going to be, but it was an interesting read. Firstly, I had no idea Stepto's career had been quite so long at Microsoft. It's interesting reading a first hand perspective about the launch of Windows 95 and the birth of the security industry.

I also just like reading about Microsoft. Having worked there in a few groups, I have a fairly narrow view of the company as a whole. They really don't deserve all the ire that they've gathered over the years, but they have some fantastic blunders just not understanding who they were building for. Stepto details one story of a futuristic $100 phone system (sometime in the 90s) that required a dedicated computer to operate. Of course average folks going to go out and buy another $500 machine just so their $100 phone system will work. How was this overlooked?

But even on the stuff that folks wanted, computers are complicated, unforgiving beasts. They're hard to get right. So the downfall of having a computer in every office, home, cardboard box in the world is that they will eventually have problems, and the average consumer won't have the patience to realize that it's not Microsoft's fault. They just see the name on it, and decide the onus must be on them to make something work, and since it didn't, it's clearly their fault.

Anyways. I thought this book would be a lot more about the internals of Xbox Live and all the stories of him policing the service. While that's in there (and I really enjoy those bits), his career spans a much larger swatch of time. All in all, it's a good read, with interesting stories.