Windows Shutdown

I know most people won't find this interesting but over at JoelOnSoftware.com there's a few interesting posts about the shutdown menu option in Windows Vista.

Joel's Rant - Choices = Headaches (or why are there eight options on the shutdown menu?)
Microsoft Engineer Response - The Windows Shutdown Crapfest (it took 24 people to design this feature?)
Apple Answer - The Design of the Mac OS X Shutdown

There are two topics here.  First designing and writing software is hard.  For complex software like an operating system so many people are involved that it gets cumbersome.  I'm not really surprised by the description of the Microsoft design process.  I interviewed with Microsoft and that experience gave me a taste of the bureaucracy. 

I think this feeds into the second topic that providing options and lots of choices in software can confuse the user.  Everyone wants to make things simple but they have different ideas of what is necessary.  With the Microsoft approach so many  people are putting in their two cents that its not going to create something stripped down or simple.  Apple seems to have had the vision to take good ideas but filter out those that complicate or take away from the design. That's also the impression that I get from the iPod.