Venture Beat has just posted the third part of a three part interview with Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's multibillion-dollar Entertainment & Devices Group. Part one covered the Zune music business, part two the Xbox 360, and part three mobile phones, including Android.
Bach comes across as businesslike but pretty dull, and there's not much new in there. Dean Takahashi -- who used to be the San Jose Mercury News's chip industry reporter, in the heart of Silicon Valley, and has written two books about the Xbox's development -- doesn't push Bach on the Red Ring of Death issue, which is a pity. Bach's answer:
We were confident the product was ready. We did a lot of testing. The problem that shows up with the three red lights on the console is a complex interaction with some very complex parts. It's easy for me to go back and say, if I knew what would transpire over the next two years, would I go back and do something different, I think that's an obvious answer. But the fact is, based on the data we had at the time and all the hard work we put into it, there was no way to see what actually happened. As you know, it didn't start to show up in the data from our customers for almost a year. This wasn't like we had a yield problem and three weeks later people were having problems with their consoles. It's one of those things that nobody is proud of. On the other hand, we are in a complex technology space. You learn from it. You do the right things to make sure it doesn't happen again. The best thing you can do is tell your customers you want them to keep enjoying the product and here is what we will do on replacing it for free.
But the transcripts are based on an interview Bach gave to "a small group of reporters in San Francisco," so he may not have had chance to push this one harder.
