So I'm curious about this one. The Cult of Mac has a blog post claiming that "the lead architect of Microsoft’s Windows 95," a man named Satoshi Nakajima, is now developing software for the iPhone.
The thing is, I've never heard of Satoshi Nakajima.
What I'm wondering is, was Nakajimi really the lead architect of Windows 95? He's described in three different ways in this blog post:
- Microsoft's Windows 95 architect
- the lead architect of Microsoft’s Windows 95
- the software architect of Windows 95 and 98
So which is it? My guess is, it's none of them, not really. My guess is that Nakajimi is just one of thousands of developers who worked on Windows 95. Maybe higher up than your average developer, maybe not. I can't find many other relevant references to him online because the Web is so busy republishing this (dubious?) Cult of Mac story, so all the Nakajimi references are just re-quotes from that one post. His name doesn't appear in any of the many tell-all books about Microsoft I own, but I did find him mentioned in a recent Wall Street Journal article, so I assume that's where the Cult of Mac heard about him. Here's how the WSJ describes him:
Mr. Nakajima, a former longtime Microsoft software engineer ...
Time for ten seconds of research.
I tried to contact the blog post author, someone named Lonnie Lazar. But there's no mention of him on the site's About Us page at all.
I tried to contact Mr. Nakajima on his new company's "Web site" (really a lame blog), but there's no contact info there either. (It literally says "Under construction" on the Contact Us page.)
However, Wikipedia does mention the following:
Satoshi Nakajima ... after thirteen and half years of his work at Microsoft where he had been a software architect for Windows 95/98 and Internet Explorer 3.0/4.0. [Emphasis mine.—Paul]
Ah.
So ... Was this guy really the architect/lead architect of Windows 95? Or is he really just one of thousands of ex-Microsoft software developers out there (i.e. "a software architect")?
I think it's the latter.
I think some guy who's not even referenced on the Cult of Mac blog has trumped up this guy's credentials to make this story seem more fascinating.
And I think the entire blogosphere just fell for it.
But hey, I could be wrong. I'm OK with it either way, really.
But why have I never heard of this guy?