7 Milestone 3 already?

[micro]

Maybe because other people think 13 is a bad number.. Could mean less customers.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Maybe because other people think 13 is a bad number.. Could mean less customers.

Remember, Microsoft does huge business all over the world. Some cultures take their superstitions very seriously.

[darkmanx21]

Quote - (SomeManOnTheInternet @ Oct 10 2008, 18:57)

^ Yeah, didn't they skip 13?

yes they did

I thought they made 13 for the Mac..hmmm...the irony. ;) Sorry for the mistake.

[Mr. Dee]

i find it hilarious that a company like MS clearly filled with intelligent people are superstitious over the number 13

So I guess you are calling the countries that believe in these superstitions unintelligent? We talking about countries in Asia with large populations and other countries in the East, major markets where Microsoft Office is sold.

I did get a hint from a Program Manager on the MacBU blog that its a likely possibility that 13 might be used for the next version of Office for Mac. So in a technical sense, there will be a 13th version of Microsoft Office. Then again, version 1 of MS Office started on the Mac.

[Mugwump00]

Remember, Microsoft does huge business all over the world. Some cultures take their superstitions very seriously.

I read in a magazine article (which I can't find online) that the Friday the 13th cult was an early 20th century thing invented by a club of moneyed New York elite who thought it would be a weeze to hold (somewhat provocatively) 13-man dinner events.

Their ways of bagering world stability have clearly eveloved since...

[roaddog]

Windows 7 I believe will be a much smaller, more private, intimate beta. I think what happened with Vista was it got too large and unwieldy with up 20 to 30 thousand beta testers. I am not discriminating against that, but I believe, too many cooks in the kitchen tend to spoil the pot. Of course Microsoft will accept new eyes to look at the code. But, I just don't see that free for all happening with 7 like it did with Vista.

Actually, that's exactly what they did the last time around too. There's a much smaller group of about 10k initial testers that get it to play with before the beta is released to a larger testing group of about 20k, as I understand it.

[Mr. Dee]

Actually, that's exactly what they did the last time around too. There's a much smaller group of about 10k initial testers that get it to play with before the beta is released to a larger testing group of about 20k, as I understand it.

It started initially with 10k, but grew overtime, please note, I am not including public testers, I am referring to the growth of private testers over the life of the beta. As far back as I can remember, Windows ME, 2000, XP, Office 2003 usually max out at 15K.

But Vista for the first time pushed that to 30k, double the amount usually associated with a Windows Beta:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsv.../21/458075.aspx

I don't have a problem with a lot of testers, but it makes it hard I believe to gauge feedback constructively and productively. If Microsoft believes this is the best approach for them, more power to them. I would prefer if it got siloed, with different countries submitting feedback to Program Managers in their regions with different Feature Focuses. I believe it would make the program more manageable, engaging/intimate.