Steven Sinofsky worked at Microsoft from 1989-2012 and oversaw the Office (1998-2006) and Windows (2006-2012) teams. In this excerpt from his draft book, Hardcore Software: Inside the Rise and Fall of the PC Revolution, he writes about three Office viruses, WM/Concept.A, Melissa, and ILOVEYOU. Along with besieging PC users, they led the company to reassess some of its fundamental philosophies about its products. ILOVEYOU—the last, most infamous, and pernicious of these attacks—first hit inboxes on May 5, 2000, 20 years ago today.
Microsoft was not always an enterprise company. In fact, for the first 10 years of my time at the company, starting in 1989, Microsoft was decidedly and almost entirely dependent on retail sales—selling one copy of Office or Windows (with a new PC) at a time at stores now long forgotten, such as CompUSA, Egghead Software, or Computer City. After the release of Office 97 (the product that introduced Clippy, that helpful assistant that was criticized…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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