In this article "How Microsoft Builds Software" the author has tried to draw our attention towards the style of designing software by Microsoft. Microsoft is regarded as one of the pioneers in the development of various software applications like WinNT, Microsoft Office etc. The author is trying to show how Microsoft drifted from the general notion of writing software or designing applications and how they reaped success through their effort and making a niche for themselves in the software industry.
             Microsoft's key practices in product development may initially look like they are following the methods used by hackers in the early stages of the software programming to design application, this may be true in some way as Microsoft uses the same concept of small teams in designing applications and making changes as and when necessary thereby improving these products by incrementally evolving their features. This small teams interact with each other almost on daily basis with common development languages, common coding styles, standardized development tools, bringing in customers "off the street" to try prototypes in their lab, delivering the software on the due date that are "good enough" and improving the product thorough further development and releasing more versions of the product. The approach used by Microsoft called Synch-and-Stabilize, without this approach it would have never been able to capture the software industry and continue to do so in the future.
             In this rapidly changing world of software & hardware technology it is difficult to design any application and hope to be used for long period of time is not feasible. The software has to be designed according to the time and upgrade or enhance periodically & testing simultaneously towards completing a product. The Microsoft more or less follows the "Spiral Model" of software engineering in designing applications; it has same t...