Microsoft Secrets:
How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People

by Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby

In the first few weeks that I posted my list of recommended "general-interest" computing books, Microsoft Secrets was the second most frequently accessed item by Web visitors, just behind Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month. I suspect that most people have no idea what the book is about, but perhaps have decided that it's time to find out the real secret that Microsoft has used to achieve such stunning success.

Well, in case you don't have the money to buy the book, or the time to read it, I'll fill you in on the secret. Here it is: cod liver oil. Yep, the same ugly stuff that my parents made me swallow each morning, back in the 1950s. It keeps you from coming down with Bubonic Plague, or whatever vile diseases my parents were worried about in those days, but it also makes you mean, sassy, aggressive, hostile, acquisitive, domineering, and just downright ornery. It took my parents only two weeks to realize that cod liver oil was creating a little monster in their household ... but Microsoft has adopted it as a secret weapon. No wonder there's a shortage of codfish in the North Atlantic ...

Seriously ... Microsoft Secrets is an important book for software developers to read. It's not the usual gossipy stuff about how Bill spent his early childhood or why the Justice Department has been investigating them. Yes, there is a fair amount of discussion about the company's business strategy and marketing strategy — and if your only interest in life is writing breathakingly beautiful C++ code (an oxymoron, in my opinion), then you may find some of it boring. But if you're an aspiring entrepreneur who hopes to build a company that's even a fraction as successful as Microsoft has been, it's important to read the analysis that Cusumano and Selby provide of the company's organization, competition, leadership style, and product development strategies. The two authors clearly had access to many of the middle-level managers within the company, and they've documented and cited the details from their interviews very carefully.

Even if your interest is only technical and project-management stuff, this is a key book to read. I had a chance to visit Microsoft in 1994, and found out about their "buddy" system for testing, the daily-build process, and a variety of other details. I've passed on some of this information in various newsletter articles and book chapters (e.g., a chapter in my Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer book), but Cusumano and Selby have much more information.
There's one area where I received somewhat different information about Microsoft strategy than the authors did, and I'm not sure what this difference represents.

When I visited Microsoft, I asked several people about the use of various software engineering tools and methods, including the familiar concept of software reuse. One Microsoftie told me, "The problem with reuse here is largely a cultural one: every Microsoft programmer firmly believes that he is the only competent programmer in the whole company. Since everyone else is presumed to be an idiot, why would he reuse code written by idiots?" The "official" explanation, at least as reported by Cusumano and Selby, is somewhat different: Microsoft believes that technology is changing so quickly that most of their software will have to be thrown away or completely rewritten every three years. In that case, the economic incentive for reuse is relatively small ... but of course, some degree of reuse does take place within Microsoft, and the company's MFC class library is certainly a good example of a "reuse product" that has achieved some strategic importance.

Though the book was published in 1995, it appears that most of the writing took place in 1994, and many of the interviews of Microsofties took place in 1993. I mention this only to provide a "time-synch" with regard to current events. Though there are occasional references to "online networks" like Microsoft Network and CompuServe/AOL, there's no mention of the Internet, World Wide Web, Netscape, or Java. The authors obviously can't be blamed for this; it's just interesting to note how dramatically Microsoft has shifted its direction and priorities since the autumn of 1995.

Presumably, Microsoft has real secrets it didn't share with the authors, and that haven't been revealed in Microsoft Secrets; but the book does contain 500+ pages of good, solid information that you'd normally pay consultants an astronomical sum of money to learn. But of course, I've already given you the most important secret for success: a few bottles of cod liver oil and you'll be able to leap over tall reams of computer printout and code with both hands at the same time. If my parents had kept the dosage up when I was a kid, I'd be giving Bill a real run for the money ...