so many people worked to make microsoft windows

PainterGuy

hi everyone,

me remember that me once read on wikipedia article - think it was on "microsoft windows" - which told the number of people which worked to build a certain version of windows. the number was so big that me was really amazed at the number. as you know wikipedia keep on changing every sec so this information is not there. me not sure if remember exact title of article. any idea. do you have any information. your help is reall appreciated.

cheers

Bill Simpson

This http://www.thocp.net/companies/micro...ft_company.htm and the second page linked to it at the bottom do not break it out by product division and it appears that nobody has updated it since the end of 2004.

This http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/inside_ms.mspx does not break it out by product division, but the overlapping years between this and the previous source do match and it does give recent headcount.

Windows introduction dates from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows

And the result is

1975 3
1976 7
1977 9
1978 13
1979 28
1980 40
1981 128
1982 220
1983 476
1984 608
1985 910 Windows 1 introduced
1986 1442
1987 1816 Windows 2 introduced
1988 2793
1989 4037
1990 5635 Windows 3 introduced
1991 8226
1992 11542
1993 14430 Windows 3.1 and Windows NT 3.1 introduced
1994 15257 Windows NT 3.5 introduced
1995 17801 Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51 introduced
1996 20561 Windows NT 4.0 introduced
1997 22232
1998 27055 Windows 98 introduced
1999 31575
2000 39170 Windows 2000 and Windows ME introduced
2001 48030 Windows XP introduced
2002 50621
2003 54468 Windows Server 2003 introduced
2004 57086
2005 61000
2006 71172
2007 78565 Windows Vista introduced
2008 91259 Windows Server 2008 introduced
2009 92736 Windows 7 introduced
2010 88596

I am guessing these headcounts to not reflect what I expect is an army of outside independent contractors providing code for each Windows release in at least the last decade.

PainterGuy

many thanks Bill Simpson. i do not have much information to tell whether information is correct or wrong. i hope it is correct. thanks for this information. please will you tell what you mean in the highlight section.

cheers

Mark44

He is saying that his figures might not include people who are working for Microsoft but aren't actually Microsoft employees. This would including people who are vendors providing a service to Microsoft or people who are employees of non-MS agencies.

Huttate

About half of them if Vista is any guide.