January 23rd, 2009

Flight Simulator Crash

Next to MS-DOS, the Flight Simulator series is the main reason that would make this world really sad without Microsoft. Don't say anything about Vista, please! Linux has been around with much better GUIs since mid 1990s, and Windows XP or Vista didn't come with anything really innovative for the user, and I am not the only one to think about it this way. Anyway, we're not going to start a war now, because something really sad happened: Flight Simulator crashed!

According to various sources, and officially confirmed by Microsoft, the studio responsible for the outstanding Flight Simulator is going all the way down, despite the fact they have been doing this for more than two decades, and all their games were great.

Unfortunately, it seems the crisis also struck Microsoft, with about 5,000 employees to be laid off, of which 1,400 were fired on the spot, and the remainder will lose their jobs over the next 18 months.

I don't know why, but I am not surprised to hear that Kelda Rericha of Edelman, Microsoft's public relations firm, says they decided this within Microsoft's Internal Entertainment Business "to align our people against our highest priorities." Mumbo-jumbo, as usual.

They should turn Windows into open-source software and focus on games, instead of laying off people who never released products so lame as Windows Millennium or the more recent Vista...