More people have ascended bodily into heaven than shipped great software on time. — Jim McCarthy
On the other hand, the number of people on LinkedIn claiming to have a demonstrated ability to lead software projects to successful completion, on time and on budget, as well as the number of companies seeking to hire such people, is infinite.
Thus spoke The Programmer.
Much the same inefficiencies that give government an unsavory reputation also plays havoc with corporations such as General Motors (couldn’t and still hasn’t corrected a potentially deadly ignition) and Microsoft (infamous for road testing software on its customers).
In managerial parlance, the problem is economies of scale. To put it in the vernacular, eventually bureaucracies become too big to manage! As a result, efficiency is lost. Delays become inevitable. This drives costs up. Customers begin searching for alternative service providers.
To prevent this, governments and corporations either establish monopolies as the only service provider or seek to otherwise destroy competition. Having acquired his marketing skill from his early interaction with IBM, Bill Gates was notorious for eliminating competition.
Meanwhile, much like General Motors and Uncle Sam, Microsoft became to big to deliver a quality product on time as promised.