Joe Beda's EightyPercent.net: Defending the rich client

Joe Beda's EightyPercent.net: Defending the rich client "The real question is: What are we to do? Without arguing about the fine points, we are stuck with a choice. We can either continue adding doodad on top of doodad to Win32 (and maintain backward compat from an API and binary perspective) or we can try and make a fresh start with WinFX and set ourselves up for the future. Look at the timelines: Windows 1.0 with the start of Win16 came out in 1985. Windows 95, with the mainstream advent of Win32 came out in 1995. It is now 2004.
Now is the time for Microsoft to either watch the Windows rich client sail in to the sunset or to do its best to reinvigorate it. The only way to make this happen is to go "all-in" and think big. We want to empower developers by making a much richer, network connected and modern API for programming on windows. WinFX is all about taking what we've learned over the last 20 years and creating a solid platform for the next 20 years. We will provide the right API, backward compat for old applications and a great bridge between the two for developers. If we really want developers to write code that only runs on windows, we have to provide features and enticements that they can't get anywhere else. While I don't think that it is too late, I do think that we have our work cut out for us."

Longhorn team member response to Joel and Jon, via Scoble (BTW it was VisiCalc and not 1-2-3 at PDC 2003)