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Is Bigger Better?


By Ted Bahr
March 1, 2000 —  (Page 1 of 3)
How many of you read the announcement by Bill Gates that he was stepping out of his CEO job at Microsoft and becoming Chief Software Architect and thought, as I did, "He must know."

In the software development industry, economy of scale is not as important as robustness of platform. At some point we all know that throwing another dozen programmers at a project will hurt, not help, the project. I think Bill Gates' return to his roots as software architect (and Bill, that means we're writing this newspaper for you) is a good sign for developers. In a sense, Bill could be reinventing Microsoft as the World's Biggest Start-Up. How well he will succeed is uncertain, but his track record, plus the inspiration of having the world's most famous programmer willing to roll up his sleeves and code with his people, has got to be incredibly motivational.

Here's another example of where bigger isn't necessarily better: choosing development tools and platforms. One of your most important jobs as a software development manager is to help your teams standardize on various tools and technologies. There is some initial advantage in having four Java debugging tools, three C++ compilers and a dozen code editors deployed throughout the development teams. Programmers can leverage their past experience, and you can build working knowledge of which tools are best for which tasks. That's fine for a while, but at some point you've got to standardize to cut down on training and maintenance costs, secure volume discounts, and be able to swap out programmers onto projects in crisis. But standardization does not mean that you must select the largest vendors by default. Bigger isn't, well, you get the point.

Look closely at the development tool landscape. What often appear to be large stable entities are frequently just tool factories stitched together, the founders long gone to top management boardrooms or new start-up companies. The products that were once handcrafted, polished and honed by deeply caring founders and their teams are now handed down from bureaucrat to bureaucrat-well-meaning perhaps-as the vision weakens in the transition and is hammered beyond recognition upon the anvil of greater quarterly profits.

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