Since the release of Vista, the engineering team has been quite careful about what to discuss about the ongoing effort (see the quite discussed about Translucency vs. Transparency Blog Post by Mary Jo Foley).

It is quite understandable that media, analysts, developers, IT pros, general public and… Microsoft employees not in the engineering team are genuinely curious and interested to learn what’s coming in the upcoming next version of Windows.

On the other hand though, given the harsh criticism that hit the team in the past for shipping products which did not meet customers expectations or their understanding of what was about to be released (not just in Microsoft but in the whole industry), it is quite understandable that there is a strong intent to ensure we don’t share details until they have reached “a certain level of concreteness”.

Yesterday we saw a first step in this sharing with Jon DeVaan and Steven Sinofsky opening a new blog called “Engineering Windows 7”.

In their welcome post, Jon and Steven set the stage for what they are planning to achieve: “With this blog we’re opening up a two-way discussion about how we are making Windows 7. Windows has all the challenges of every large scale software project—picking features, designing them, developing them, and delivering them with high quality. Windows has an added challenge of doing so for an extraordinarily diverse set of customers. As a team and as individuals on the team we continue to be humbled by this responsibility”.

So if you ask me, I would not expect this to be the place where announcements about new features and release schedule are made (although this may disappoint MJF who is very keen in learning a great deal more of course :) ).

What I believe this is going to be, is a sharing opportunity to discuss the complexity and challenges behind a large and complex project like the creation of the next version of Windows is.

Think about it, one billion people use Windows. It impacts many more aspects of our daily lives than many realise. It is crucial for the future success of Microsoft (and of course of the several thousand Microsoft employees). It generates huge debates and very strong argumentation between people. Deciding what gets in and what does not is such a great responsibility that I can only barely imagine what kind of pressure the team is under.

I have had my share of decision in creating software that impacted people in their daily jobs (not as many of course). Sometimes we made them very happy, sometimes we made them really mad. I can honestly say that it is extremely difficult to balance what one dreams to be, wants to do, has to do and can do.

For these reasons I am really looking forward to learn from the team about their work and am really happy to have this opportunity. If I can add my wish to the already long list of comments to the welcome post, I would really love to see not only posts by the top people but also learn what Engineering Windows 7 means to developers, testers and program managers.

(If you want to know what has been announced about Windows 7 to date, check this Steve’s interview by Ina Fried at CNet).