Office gets a shell optimized for its use
Date: June 1993
Q2/94
Chicago ships.
Shell has limited extensibility. (See below for details)
Chicago + 6 months
Office ships with optimized shell
Shell adds features for optimal support of Office requirements. (See below for details)
Office includes many features that exploit the new shell.
New shell not initially available with Windows itself.
The Office shell should be approximatly a superset of Chicago shell features (although some components, such as the Tray, may be replaced.)
..
Sometime after Office ships
Cairo ships with a shell that is a superset of the Office shell.
Excludes any components that we choose to keep only for Microsoft apps.
Extend to use special features of Cairo
When Cairo ships
Enhanced shell added to Chicago
An alternative would be to add the Office shel back into Chicago when Office ships. This should still give Microsoft Apps a significant development lead.
Pros
Office gets a shell optimized for its use
Office gets a big jump on competitors in cresting apps optimized for
the next shell
..
Cons
Risk of ISV retaliation
Negative impact on corporate image.
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Might require some extra work by Chicago to provide enhancements or hooks needed for eventual use by the Office shell. (we don't want to have to ship new versions of GDI and User in the Office time frame)
.. The emphasis would be on creating an Office shell that has considerably higher value added than the shell in Chicago, both by limiting what we provide for free in Chicago, and by adding features in the Office shell ..
..
We could pull off the "UI Paradigm Shift" to document centricity possibly two years sooner than if we did not follow this plan .. and make our competitors' products look old ..
Synopsis
Snippet
Schedule [June 1993]Q2/94
Chicago + 6 months
..
Sometime after Office ships
When Cairo ships
Pros
..
Cons
..
.. The emphasis would be on creating an Office shell that has considerably higher value added than the shell in Chicago, both by limiting what we provide for free in Chicago, and by adding features in the Office shell ..
..
We could pull off the "UI Paradigm Shift" to document centricity possibly two years sooner than if we did not follow this plan .. and make our competitors' products look old ..