If Agile Were to Go Mainstream

by Michael Mah

If agile methods are to go mainstream, it might be when their popularity and legitimacy reach a tipping point. An example that this could be happening is a recent New York Times article called "Google Gets Ready to Rumble With Microsoft" (16 December 2007), which Cutter colleague Ken Orr wrote about in a Cutter Trends Advisor titled"Velocity Matters: Google, Microsoft, and Hyper-Agility, Part 1" (20 December 2007). The articles are about Google going after Microsoft's customer base using something called its "cloud" computing framework. But Ken's interpretation of the Google-Microsoft confrontation emphasizes the time-to-market advantages that Google's software development lifecycle has over Microsoft's. Google is apparently practicing a more agile, iterative-style approach (sometimes quarterly) to releasing software, while Microsoft is more tied to the big-bang, multiyear cycle for its products.