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Microsoft: Because Bugs are Cool
h_orion writes "According to Mr. Gates, Microsoft recieves 'Less than one percent' call volume in relation to bugs. He also blames the users lack of knowledge as a cause of some of these bugs. He goes on to say that the feeling of frustration that people hold towards bugs is a sociological issue, rather than technical saying that people complain about software bugs 'Because it's cool.' Read more in this interview." Boy, where do you even begin...
Although the MS Knowledge base is good a resolving lots of questions/bugs I wish it were more like Bugzilla....
A: You don't.
Don't bargain with an abuser, don't negotiate with a thief, don't spit in the wind.
Don't try reasoning with Bill Gates. He's not interested.
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Face it, whining about minor bugs is now become an art form. Sometimes the software deserves it, sometimes not.
Its actually hard to believe this interview is real. Actually is there any proof that it is? Gates sounded very unprofessional and not like himself in the interview, almost like he was attacking the FOCUS interviewer. Anyone else care to comment on this?
October 23,1995? This is a really old interview. It is nice and old. /. History for Nerds. Stuff that mattered. Hmm. At this point, it is difficult to even verify if this interview is even real...
-Sean
I think that this is just a logical step in the MS ass-covering train, nothing really crazy. They already blame users for security lapses in their products with that silly "if you don't patch it's not our fault" idea, ignoring the fact that sometimes the patches hurt worse than most of the bugs you're patching against....
:/
Still, I think they have a semivalid point here that I'm sure not everything that they get as a bug report is their fault. I'm sure there are a lot of people using 3rd party apps that get errors that they think are OS-related and bug MS about them. I'm also sure that a lot of people that DO run into MS bugs don't bother to report them, given their track record.
Still, even if they do get a bunch of non-issues as bugs, to take such a condenscending tone with their userbase and suggest that they're complaining about what they believe is a valid problem is abhorrent. Then again, no amount of bad publicity like this will hurt them at all. So, I think, people should find lots of VALID bugs and submit them (even though they know the bugs won't be fixed). And someone do double for me, I don't think they'd react kindly to me sending them bug reports from my linux box.
Doesn't Microsoft only receive a small number of bug-related calls because they charge for telephone support?
Where did this article come from?
Can anyone vouch for the veracity of the comments in it?
Did the interview really take place?
Did the interview take place at a time and in an environment that would have an effect on today?
If you just want to blindly start swinging because it's Bill Gates, then fine, do your swinging. But if you want to join the world of grownups, maybe it would be useful to think critically.
I have been pwned because my
How did this even get posted? It's obviously complete satire. Click here to see all of the websites that link to this...they're all TECH HUMOR. If humor was the intended goal, it'd be responsible to make note of that in the summary. Please correct this in the dupe.
Yeah, who really cares about what Bill Gates said or did 7.5 years ago. I mean, George W. Bush was arrested for drunk driving in his 30s and now he's the President of the only superpower on earth! Let ancient history be forgotten...
Actually, I don't doubt the idea that it might be sociological, at least in part. It happens quite a bit. It runs parallel to the concept of first impressions.
Any psychologist will tell you that first impressions when meeting someone (or something) can be vastly important in determining ones attitudes towards them in the future. Microsoft is introduced to so many people as being an evil monopoly that makes bad software that many people accept this as fact.
It is true that Windows does contain many inexcusable bugs, especially when compared against Posix based operating systems. This fact too contributes to the first impression phenomenon. If a users first experience with the software is a bug and there are rants and complaints against the company for producing a poor product, it is inevitable that that user will perpetuate the idea that the software is poorly constructed.
This is certainly no excuse for a poor performance record but it does explain the almost excessive torrents of bad publicity the software gets.
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
And it seems to be about Win95 which is totally different to Win 3.11 so I can understand why Bill says most of the calls are about people not knowing how to use it properly. That wouldnt hold true today though.
Most of the users I've been training for years and years, on Macs or D'OS or Win3.x-2K, blame their own timidity and perceived inferiority for the problems they encounter.
Sometimes they're right! Who told them that they could check email while printing and performing an interminable Access query without crashing! Sheesh!
Was I an idiot in 1996 for trusting that win95 could run as a simple file server without needing to reboot every 44 days whether it crashed or not?
Users don't have the language, time, or context to report bugs. They just curse mr goats and get on with rebooting. Only geeks really care enough.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Date + Style of the interview point to it being old and/or fake. Take your pick and either way it is a nice piece of history and little more.
Yah, you should tell us teh date. But you didnt. Nice post.
Joseph?
I simply had to see this artical before replying. The headline seems too anti microsoft to be real. Then I read the artical. Wow, it sure puts things in perspective.
... it's really amazing: We do it because we think that's what customers want. That's why we do what we do.
... 90 percent of the time I get the answer "Oh, well, yeah, that's not too bad, wait to the next version and it'll be fixed". That's how the system works.
...
FOCUS Magazine Interview with Bill Gates:
Microsoft Code Has No Bugs (that Microsoft cares about)
In this interview, Big Bill gets distracted and reveals his contempt for you, his loyal customer.
Note: this page is also available in Italiano, Español, and Japanese.
In an interview for German weekly magazine FOCUS (nr.43, October 23,1995, pages 206-212), Microsoft`s Mr. Bill Gates has made some statements about software quality of MS products. [See executive summary, below.] After lengthy inquiries about how PCs should and could be used (including some angry comments on some questions which Mr. Gates evidently did not like), the interviewer comes to storage requirements of MS products; it ends with the following dispute:
FOCUS:
Every new release of a software which has less bugs than the older one is also more complex and has more features...
Gates:
No, only if that is what'll sell!
FOCUS:
But...
Gates:
Only if that is what'll sell! We've never done a piece of software unless we thought it would sell. That's why everything we do in software
FOCUS:
But on the other hand - you would say: Okay, folks, if you don't like these new features, stay with the old version, and keep the bugs?
Gates:
No! We have lots and lots of competitors. The new version - it's not there to fix bugs. That's not the reason we come up with a new version.
FOCUS:
But there are bugs an any version which people would really like to have fixed.
Gates:
No! There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed.
FOCUS:
Oh, my God. I always get mad at my computer if MS Word swallows the page numbers of a document which I printed a couple of times with page numbers. If I complain to anybody they say "Well, upgrade from version 5.11 to 6.0".
Gates:
No! If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug. Maybe you're not using it properly. Have you ever considered that?
FOCUS:
Yeah, I did...
Gates:
It turns out Luddites don't know how to use software properly, so you should look into that. -- The reason we come up with new versions is not to fix bugs. It's absolutely not. It's the stupidest reason to buy a new version I ever heard. When we do a new version we put in lots of new things that people are asking for. And so, in no sense, is stability a reason to move to a new version. It's never a reason.
FOCUS:
How come I keep being told by computer vendors "Well, we know about this bug, wait till the next version is there, it'll be fixed"? I hear this all the time. How come? If you're telling me there are no significant bugs in software and there is no reason to do a new version?
Gates:
No. I'm saying: We don't do a new version to fix bugs. We don't. Not enough people would buy it. You can take a hundred people using Microsoft Word. Call them up and say "Would you buy a new version because of bugs?" You won't get a single person to say they'd buy a new version because of bugs. We'd never be able to sell a release on that basis.
FOCUS:
Probably you have other contacts to your software developers. But if Mister Anybody, like me, calls up a store or a support line and says, "Hey listen, there's a bug"
Gates:
Guess how much we spend on phone calls every year.
FOCUS:
Hm, a couple of million dollars?
Gates:
500 million dollars a year. We take every one of these phone calls and classify them. That's the input we use to do the next version. So it's like the worlds biggest feedback loop. People call in - we decide what to do on it. Do you want to know what percentage of those phonecalls relates to bugs in the software? Less than one percent.
FOCUS:
So people call in to say "Hey listen, I would love to have this and that feature"?
Gates:
Actually, that's about five percent. Most of them call to get advice on how to do a certain thing with the software. That's the primary thing. We could have you sit and listen to these phone calls. There are millions and millions of them. It really isn't statistically significant. Sit in and listen to Win 95 calls, sit in and listen to Word calls, and wait, just wait for weeks and weeks for someone to call in and say "Oh, I found a bug in this thing".
FOCUS:
So where does this common feeling of frustration come from that unites all the PC users? Everybody experiences it every day that these things simply don't work like they should.
Gates:
Because it's cool. It's like, "Yeah, been there done that - oh, yeah, I know that bug." - I can understand that phenomenon sociologically, not technically.
Executive Summary:
So...
Bug reports are statistically, therefore actually, unimportant;
If you want a bug fixed, you are (by definition) in the minority;
Microsoft doesn't care about bugs because bug fixes are not a significant source of revenue;
If you think you found a bug, it really only means you're incompetent;
Anyway, people only complain about bugs to show how cool they are, not because bugs cause any real problems.
Straight from the horse's mouth.
More information....
(Not all software is as unreliable as Microsoft's. For example, PCs running Linux often run for many months without need to reboot for any reason.)
Text for this page is extracted from the RISKS archive:
This is the raw interview transcript (from which the magazine article was transcribed in German) kindly provided by the interviewer, Dr. Jürgen Scriba. The introductory text at the top is from Klaus Brunnstein, as found in . (A big Thank You to Drs. Scriba, Brunnstein, Neumann, and Marshall for making this material available, to Michele Beltrame for the Italian translation, to Iñaky Peréz Gonzáles for the castellano translation, and SHINYAMA Yusuke for the Japanese translation.)
If you maintain a web page, you are encouraged to make a link to this one.
Send email: ncm-nospam@cantrip.org Copyright ©1996 by Nathan Myers. All Rights Reserved. URL:
BTW... Scientology and Scientology.
Secondly, I'll bet from looking purely at support calls, he's correct. How many people are you aware of that are willing to spend money to be told "yep, that's a bug"? When Word just disappears altogether, how many people think "hmm - I'll call MS and tell them about it" and instead just throw up their hands in dismay, mutter ... something, reboot, and try again? Not that this is anything against your post - yeah, MS software is known to be buggy. But I'll bet that the metrics Bill was talking about were correct - and completely misleading.
However, what Bill was really trying to do was argue that when Microsoft releases a new version of one of their products (Word was the example given), they are not releasing a for-pay patch. They are releasing software that contains more and better features! At least, that's his argument. The whole point of his argument was not that MS software does not contain bugs - is what that new releases aren't just expensive patches.
Whether you agree or not...
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
It's also bogus, satire.
& oe =UTF-8&q=link:ieVDGMb7XnEC:www.cantrip.org/nobugs. html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
someone else mentioned this, I'm just re-posting it.
Indeed.
Never mind that this article is from 1995 -- the Slashdot summary is incorrect. Bill isn't saying that Microsoft never fixes bugs. He says, "We don't do a new version to fix bugs. ... We'd never be able to sell a release on that basis." [Emphasis added.] This doesn't mean that Microsoft never fixes bugs, or that Bill doesn't think bugfixes are important. He's saying that a product can't be sold on bugfixes alone.
And he's probably right. Consider Apple's release of Mac OS X 10.2. They charged people who already had 10.1. Those people complained pretty loudly about being charged for a "point-one" upgrade, and that was bugfixes and a feature release. Guess how much Apple's "point-oh-one" updates cost? Nothing.
If you try to charge people for upgrades that only contain bugfixes, you will either be ignored or yelled at.
irb(main):001:0>
It's all good and fun to bash Billy, but some of the things in this interview do sound rather farcical.
It's like every single line, "There are {no bugs|users} causing problems." "It must sell."
I mean, he sounds so ridiculous, like a cartoon villain.
Sigs are like bumper stickers.
Look at the date; this is an eight year old article that, for some reason, was posted to the front page of Slashdot...
Anyway, a couple points:
- I think there was some mis-communication. Gates is right -- nobody buys a new version to fix bugs. You might download an updated point release (or service pack or whatever) to fix bugs. But you don't often go from Office 97 to 2000 over some minor irritations.
- I actually believe the bug report percentage in relation to their phone call volume. When's the last time you called a software company to report a bug? When is the last time you discovered a truly unique bug in a major piece of software that you were sure wasn't known about?
And as someone else mentioned, most of their calls are along the lines of "how do I turn my computer on?" or "I upgraded MSN and it broke my inner-net"
So, basically, it's a poor article from 8 years ago. Slow news day...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
If konqueror crashes then I get a nice backtrace and I know exactly where to send the bug report. I care about it and feel like my input counts. It's part of a larger effort to make something good. So I submit the bug report with all relevant information.
Now when I used MS products if something crashed or didn't work I'd think "someone else has reported it", or "it's not worth the effort", or "I have no idea how to reproduce the error". No-one want to make a phonecall just to report a bug, but for a new feature they will. A bug is something everyone experiences, so not much point reporting. But a new feature or a change in the way things are done, that's something possibly only "I" want, so then it's worth suggesting.
It should be considered that the number of bug reports is related to culture - that there's simply not enough motivation to report them.
I got in an argument over this very article last fall.
.NET and MS's security initiatives of late show gates' commitment (they are both basically his idea) to the innovation and improvement of a faulty product and platform. Once Gates got out of the corporate hotseat and turned to a more philanthropic role, changes began to emerege. Most notably, much larger thinking such as .NET, the security initiative, and most recently the tablet pc version of XP. It looks to be a very sophisticated distributed application that integrates almost every major product under the microsoft name. most say this is a bad thing - but that wasn't the point of the argument.
Basically, the article gives a glimpse of a bill gates of 8 years ago. It reflects very well the bill gates CEO, decision maker and sole "stakeholder" of Windows as a software package and Microsoft as way of life. It was his belief in the infalibility of his product, the "superiority" of it (from his perspective) that drove the sort of dialog found in the interview. Oddly enough Linus and Gates have a lot in common in that respect. Linus is highly opinionated when it comes to his "product" - though not to put words in the mans mouth i'm sure that he believes his branch of linux/*nix/bsd family is the best (as he should).
The single most telling aspect of windows/gates' perspective with regard to the end users from 95 - Millenium was the message that came up after the computer crashed: "The computer was not properly shut down..." of course it wasn't, it crashed. The tone of the message was that the user was at fault when it was really the product. Generally speaking such condescend dialogs with users are generally hard to be found in windows products these days.
bill gates has turned from the man presented in the interview - to something different. A man that now realizes his software ISN'T perfect.
the facts simply point to a gates that has changed, significantly both in his role at MS and his disposition personally. the MS of the mid 90's isn't totally gone, and neither is the old gates. he's just moved on to bigger and better things. Defending his product from attack and preserving the investors stock value are no longer his primary concern (maybe personally, but not as an officer of the company). Instead, he's been able to focus on how to build something that's as good as it can be - give it a few more years, these things take time.
This, I think, is the key:
"We don't do a new version to fix bugs. We don't. Not enough people would buy it. You can take a hundred people using Microsoft Word. Call them up and say 'Would you buy a new version because of bugs?' You won't get a single person to say they'd buy a new version because of bugs."
No matter how much we SAY we hate software bugs, we still go out and buy software that we know probably contains them. And we are not really that willing to pay for bug fixes. Not because they "should be free" - we already paid for the software, so there is no reason for the vendor to put effort into releasing fixes (unless we're on a support contract or something). If we software consumers really want to make a point that bugs will not be tolerated, then we have to STOP paying for buggy software. And if we still hand over the cash, with full knowledge of potential bugs, then by the economic principle of revealed preference, the vendor is right - it's not worth it to fix bugs.
I look forward to being moderated down once again.
Simply, Bill Gates' comments are probably close to the truth. He is not a stupid man. You may hate him for being rich. You may despise his tactics. But to dismiss his analysis of his own company and industry?
Even if you feel his domination of the industry is unjust, his views cannot be dismissed as inaccurate. Or swept aside just because they "sound arrogant". So he's direct and straightforward. It's not a crime. It worked for him.
I don't object to debating the man's ideas. I don't object to disagreeing with everything he says! But the editor who posted this article added "Boy, where do you even begin...", which implies to me an attitude not of one who hopes to learn that he may one day rule (or at least compete), but, more likely, one who despises authority of all kinds.
"Boy, where do you even begin..." is a rallying cry for the lazy and unimaginative, not the industrious and analytical.
Many postings in this thread have been thoughtful, but I wish in the future, the editorial staff could be more thoughtful themselves, and avoid such cliche commentary.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -A. Turing
Here goes the Karma...
Doesn't anybody here ever use any Borland software? You'd start thinking Microsoft had a top notch QA department. Try just about anything from Borland, but I'd say Paradox (that goes back a few years now) was the very worst. Then there's C++ builder. Pick your version. We're talking about a level and inconsistency here that would make you beg for a daily BSOD. In fact they have a bug that has been on the known bug list for 3 or 4 YEARS now, and they claim they CAN'T fix it. Ha! That's just the one I know about.
But do we ever hear a word about it around here? No.
How about the horror stories about Apple's previous OS constantly locking and crashing? Do we hear about those? No.
But we sure do hear about the BSOD, even though Win2K is plenty solid enough for your average desktop computer user, myself included. The version known for frequent BSOD'S (and boy was it bad) is three years in the past folks!
But at least it's entertaining to watch people sit around and mindlessy bash MS. Bill's right I guess. Bitching about bugs really is cool.
I really like to rake B.G. over the coals and such, just look at my sig, but that just doesn't sound like Bill Gates to me. Bill Gates is much smoother, in this interview he sounded all most spitefull. If that was B.G. I wonder what kind of abuse he endured to get himself to the point where he came accrost so testy. B.G. has been interviewed enough so that he'd know how to say those things but make them sound nice.
B.G and Microsoft et. al. maybe the evil coporate Satan incarnate, but you'd never know it from talking to them. My hookey meter is off the scale on this one. ( Sheesh I'm defending Bill Gates, who da thunk)
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug.
Once (years ago), I tried, with a showstopper problem with Excel. I rang them up, and after 30 minutes on hold decided "what's the point?" Maybe only 1% of their calls are about bugs because this is how they treat people who report them.
Certainly if I were making business policy I don't see why I'd encourage my technical staff to spend their time waiting on MS's hekp if that's the sort of respect that MS show to customers.
This is true, it's completely legit.
...
...
I found the article at
http://focus.msn.de/F/INHALT/inhalt.htm
in the archive.
You have to pay for it. but it's there.
23.10.1995 Focus 043 206 FORT:Forschung und Technik
"Das ist Kapitalismus"; Software-König Bill Gates über die
PC-Gesellschaft, über Langeweile in der Schule und unfähige Computerbenutzer; FOCUS: Herr Gates, Sie
As well there is another interview at
06.11.1995 Focus 045 360 REDA:Redaktion LESE:Leserbriefe
Zu den Akten gelegt; (43/95) Bill Gates im Interview; Fast alle
PC-Benutzer haben die Produkte von Microsoft auf ihren Maschinen, und diese laufen offensichtlich
Completely legit (if you want to pay to read the article in German.) I didn't pay, but the article is there. I would be interested if anyone did decide to pay to see the article.
~ kjrose
Microsoft doesn't charge for support calls on new bugs or bugs whose fixes aren't publicly available.
You call in, give them your credit card number, it gets charged, and if it turns out that your issue was caused by a bug, and that's the only issue you're calling about, you get your money refunded.
How do I know? Because I spent 5 years working in Product Support Services at Microsoft and personally refunded people's money on the occaisions that their problem was caused by a bug that wasn't documented and fixed in a publicly available manner.
What I mean is if you call and the latest service pack fixes the problem, you aren't getting a refund because you should have been running the latest service pack.
By the same token, if there's a bug, and knowlege base article, and a hotfix that you can download publicly, you don't get a refund.
If the KB article says "call PSS" and that's all you called for, then you DO in fact get a refund. (I've issued 'em.)
At the same time, the support people are empowered to make the call if they feel a particular issue warrants a refund that doesn't fit the above guidelines.
The reason your credit card gets charged first is because there's a strong tendancy to add extra problems to the call: "You mean you'll refund my money for this Outlook Web Access hotfix? Great! Hey my server stopped receiving SMTP mail, help me fix that!" (OWA has no relation to SMTP)
Thanks
This is the poorest interview I've ever read. Why did /. even agree to post it? It looks like it was held by a grade 8 student. It seems the interviewer went into the interview with qualms, and no matter what Bill said he was going to spew them.
I'm not a big supporter of MS, but if the interviewer had of visited http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.a sp and/or http://office.microsoft.com/ he would have likely found the free bug fixes he desired.
MS releases bug fixes at the above URLs (it's automated, similar concept to apt-get), and also has patches/updates/bug fixes on their site for free.
Bill Gates was saying they only release new versions of software as to add new features. The interviewer couldn't seem to get out of his head silly preconceived ideas (which in my opinion are wrong).
Adrian
slashdot@mormon.mine.nu