11 ms·

Is this in reference to something that should be linked for those not alive or in the know at the time?

• kqgnkqgn 3mo ago
  I'm not sure if it was entirely true, but there are stories that after Microsoft bought Hotmail in the mid-90's, they quickly attempted to move them from FreeBSD (?) to Windows NT. But it failed miserably, and they went back to the original stack for another ~decade.
  • jeffrallen 3mo ago
    Yes. This happened.
  • enigmo 3mo ago
    the FreeBSD migration didn’t take that long - iirc this was the frontend migration to an IIS ISAPI. the Solaris bits (storage and routing tables) took far longer - and again iirc the frontend had been rewritten in C# before all the Sun hardware had been decommissioned.
    • kqgnkqgn 3mo ago
      Ah sounds like you actually might have been there. I'm sure you must have some interesting stories from that time
      • enigmo 3mo ago
        not in the Hotmail dev team but about as close as you could get otherwise. I even reported to their general manager for a minute or two. fun times for sure.
• pmontra 3mo ago
  Maybe this from 2012 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/aug/01/microsoft-outlook-hotmail-lost-cool https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/aug/01/microsoft...