A Microsoft holiday poem

Microsoft's Chris Anderson and Don Box have penned "'Twas the Year Before Longhorn," the classic Christmas poem adapted to focus on the next version of Windows, code-named Longhorn.

Microsoft platforms chief Jim Allchin stars as "St. Jim," who is referenced in the stanza below, along with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. (By way of translation, a PUM at Microsoft is a product unit manager, and WinFS is the delayed Longhorn file system.):

And then, with a reorg, there came such a hum,

The prancing and pawing of each newly coined PUM.

As I checked in my code, and was running my suites,

A new ship date, St. Jim, says we all now must meet.

He had scenarios, experiences, and use cases few,

For the home user, aye, but MBAs too;

A bundle of features he had thrown off the list,

Just the basics, my boy, lest our ship date get missed.

His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

And SteveB was pleased with our revenues less airy!

With heads down we code on our features now prime

To WinFS, yes, but perhaps not this time.