MIcrosoft’s developers strike again: the day the music died.
This won’t help Zune sales, I’m sure:
Thousands of Zune portable media players made by Microsoft Corp. suddenly froze up early Wednesday, Dec. 31, labeling Internet wits to label the phenomenon “Z2K.”
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Later in the day, Microsoft finally figured it out. While writing some of the driver software, the world’s biggest software company had forgotten to compensate for leap years.
The solution? Wait 24 hours until Jan. 1.
The concept of leap years isn’t a new one and coding to account for them in software applications is well understood. This kind of mistake is just basic boneheaded project management, that’s all. In any other company it would probably be a brief head-shaking event and quickly forgotten. When it’s a company with a history of releasing products with bugs out the kazoo – such as the folks in Redmond – it serves to reinforce a reputation for shoddy workmanship. That’s something Microsoft sure doesn’t need help with.
I would suggest they make it a priority to fix this one, even if it won’t trip people up for another 4 years. It would show a genuine concern for the consumer and highlight a commitment to “making it right.” Both would go far in mitigating the PR damage this carelessness has wrought.
