Duke- I'm not sure if this is what he was referring to or not, but this is the only one that I've seen recently, and it's from Business Week. It was regarding the delay of SQL Server 2000 for deep XML. A recent article from an older event:
While they raced against the clock, conflicts emerged between the old Microsoft and the new. The company was only a few months from shipping a test version of SQL Server 2000, its database software. A small group of developers approached Paul Flessner, the senior vice-president who runs the business, and asked him to delay the product release a few months so they could deeply weave in technology, known as XML, a programming language that creates tighter links between products, prices, and other information on the Web.
Since then, XML has become a crucial ingredient of .Net. But back then, Flessner knew the delay to SQL--a $1 billion-a-year product--would be hugely expensive. He stewed. A few days later, when he visited customers in the Midwest, they were asking about XML. He gathered up his courage, and on May 1, he met with Gates and other top execs to ask for a delay. ''There was a lot of teeth-gnashing,'' Flessner recalls. They worried about lost revenue. Flessner persuaded the bosses that SQL would have to wait. It was shipped this past September--nine months late, but with XML.
businessweek.com
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