Show Stopper! Cloth: THE BREAKNECK RACE TO CREATE WINDOWS NT AND THE NEXT GENERATION AT MICROSOFT [Hardcover]

Showstopper! is a vivid account of the creation of Microsoft Windows NT, perhaps the most complex software project ever undertaken. It is also a portrait of David Cutler, NT's brilliant and, at times, brutally aggressive chief architect.

Cutler surely ranks as one of the most impressive software engineers the field has ever produced. After leading the team that created the VMS operating system for Digital's VAX computer line--an accomplishment that most would regard as a lifetime achievement--he went on to conceive and lead the grueling multi-year project that ultimately produced Windows NT. Both admired and feared by his team, Cutler would let nothing stand in the way of realizing his design and often clashed with his programmers, senior Microsoft management, and even Gates himself. Yet no matter how involved he became in managing his 100-programmer team, he continued to immerse himself in every technical detail of the project and write critical portions of the code himself.

Showstopper! is also a fascinating look at programmer and managerial culture behind the Microsoft facade. The portraits of the men and women who created NT not only reveal the brilliance of their work but the crushing stress and the dislocating effects that new wealth had on their lives. For some team members, the NT project ultimately destroyed their marriages, friendships, and virtually every human relationship outside of work. Showstopper! also reveals the uncertainties, false starts, and blind alleys that dogged the project as Microsoft repositioned NT from an improved OS/2 to something that would ultimately challenge both OS/2 and Unix for the title of the world's most powerful operating system.

Released in mid-1993, Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT software is arguably the best attempt yet at a universal operating system for personal computers, allowing PC users to open a file, move text or graphics, calculate a row of numbers and run several word processors, spreadsheets and other applications at once. With Windows NT (which stands for New Technology), Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates hopes to extend his dominion, with NT serving as the foundation for everything from desktop systems to corporate information networks. Critics, however, observe that the hardware required for NT is expensive and note that a forthcoming Microsoft operating system, Chicago, may eclipse NT. Wall Street Journal reporter Zachary tells how Microsoft wizard David Cutler and his team of programmers, working intensely for five years, overcame technical snafus, thousands of bugs, workplace skirmishes and collapsing personal lives to create Windows NT. This is both an enlightening primer on the management of complexity and a rare behind-the-scenes look at the cutthroat software wars.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Wall Street Journal reporter Zachary has produced a well-written saga of the makings of a high-tech product. The characters in the story all seem as if they've jumped from the pages of a Hollywood script, including wacky workaholics but mostly millionaires, all of whom delight only in computer challenges, not everyday life. Yet somehow the tale of Microsoft's drive to bring Windows NT to market, at a $150-million and 250-employee cost, seems to be missing the passion of some other recent accounts of newly minted business successes. Maybe it's the subject matter; the beginnings of a new operating system claiming to herald the information highway are perhaps too far removed from most Americans' lives. Or maybe it's the fact that silicon valleys, whether in San Jose or Seattle, Boston or DuPage County, have lost their dazzle and allure. Still, it's a good read, for Zachary has done his homework well. Barbara Jacobs

A suspenseful, user-friendly account of Microsoft's five-year effort to develop Windows NT (for new technology). Wall Street Journal correspondent Zachary delineates the blood, toil, tears, and sweat required to produce a breakthrough operating system that would not only work on all available personal computers but also allow customers to retain familiar applications programs. Throughout his accessible text, Zachary tries to keep readers in the loop. He provides illuminating reminders of how operating systems (which control a processor's basic functions) differ from applications software (the visible programs that retrieve information, maintain databases, prepare documents for printing, and otherwise satisfy human needs). While NT, which reached the marketplace last summer, has yet to achieve critical sales mass, the author leaves little doubt that the $150 million project yielded its creator a host of payoffs: by advancing the state of the networking art, defining the shape of software to come, and giving Microsoft (which last month settled potentially troublesome antitrust charges) an inside track on the interactive information highway. The bulk of the narrative is devoted to anecdotal reportage on how a consequential enterprise managed to harness its varied, volatile, very human resources (many of whom had become independently wealthy by cashing in options on the company's common stock) and meet the self-imposed schedule for NT's introduction. Covered as well are the time and technical tradeoffs made in the course of an undertaking whose final features included more compromises than indisputably correct answers. Nor does the author ignore the human costs of economic and scientific success in his reckoning of the NT balance sheet. An engrossing and instructive case history of programming under fire on the front lines of software technology. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Steven Levy author of "Hackers, Artificial Life," and "Insanely Great" G. Pascal Zachary managed to get total access to the formerly unseen programming catacombs of Microsoft and has made the most of it with this riveting look inside one of the world's most fascinating corporations. Great reading for hackers and computer virgins alike.

The brainchild of David Cutler, a legendary programmer recruited by Bill Gates in 1988, NT took five years, $150 million, and the attention of more than 200 testers, writers, and technicians to complete. This is its story.