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Microsoft's Forgotten Mistakes
seattlenerd writes "In light of all of the hype about how much cash Microsoft is sitting on, it's good to be reminded that they do fail. A lot. This piece in Seattle Weekly points out some of the many failures -- from ActiMates Barney to Microsoft at Work to pending disasters in smartphones and interactive TV (despite recent PR-worthy announcements). But like most litter, the failures are swept under the rug in the hopes people don't remember that many 'new' Microsoft ideas are recycled from its own history." Of course, like any big company, Microsoft is not a monolith.
MS Bob was a bad idea not only programmatically, but also conceptually. A 'virtual office'? It defeated the idea of computing as an office aide, and more of an office replacement.
Truly an example of why coding to the lowest common denominator of users can be a bad idea.
It is really interting to read about Microsoft Flops.. Although I had been using Linux as a main OS for 6 years, I have to say that there are a number of failiars that the Open Source (Free software, what ever) community faced in the past years as well.. what counts is how did they get over it, and pass it. Microsoft (Although I generally disagree with thier policies) had been successful in letting things go behind them, and move forward, while I still hear people in the OSS talk about Coral Linux and other failed OSS based projects.. Move on
The nerve of Microsoft to want people to not think about their failures and only focus on success'. After all, so many other companies have been perfect in all their products. And who wants innovation anyway (yeah, I know, M$ doesn't really "innovate" anyway). Better to stay tried and true and realize that it's better to limp along with mediocrity than to go out on a limb and fail.
/.'ers need to go out and get a life and gain some perspective.
Actually, I think the topic is intersting, as in genuinly interesting to see the things that they've tried and failed at. Those things they tried and failed and tried and failed and eventually succeeded (with Windows being the most obvious example). And obviously some attempts were quite humerous, but to turn this into a "gee see how much M$ really sucks" is just lame and shows how much some
Regardless of how much money MS may lose on the hardware, the XBox is an unqualified success in the videogame market. Last I checked, it was still outselling Nintendo's GameCube.
Watching Microsoft explore new technology markets is like watching King Kong battling airplanes atop the Empire State Building. To win, the airplanes need to be lucky with every shot. King Kong only needs to be lucky once.
Microsoft made a huge deal on Hail Storm when they announced it a couple of years ago. Then they very quietly declared it "dead" this Spring.
Here is a recent interesting guerrillanews article.
"Let me let you in on a little secret about Bill and Melinda Gates so-called ?Foundation.? Gate?s demi-trillionaire status is based on a nasty little monopoly-protecting trade treaty called ?TRIPS? ? the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights rules of the World Trade Organization. TRIPS gives Gates a hammerlock on computer operating systems worldwide, legally granting him a monopoly that the Robber Barons of yore could only dream of. But TRIPS, the rule which helps Gates rule, also bars African governments from buying AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis medicine at cheap market prices. "
One tidbit of Microsoft trivia which seems to be left out everytime there's a discussion about Microsoft Bob. Who was the product manager? Melinda French. Where is she now and what's she doing? She's Mrs. Gates.
Sure Maggie can read that spreadsheet... assuming she has the same or newer version of Excel... and that she has all the (virus friendly) macros turned on... and that she has the Toolpack Addins installed.
I used to do support for a large number of purely office users (business office managers, secretaries, etc). I was always fielding questions as to why they couldn't open one person's document or why another person couldn't open theirs. This was at a large public university, so funds weren't just growing on trees; therefore we couldn't just upgrade everytime MS did. Also, with every upgrade there are some tool/method/appearance changes; this means that Maggie has to relearn how to do her special tasks (not all of them, but some).
It just felt to me that with every Office upgrade, MS tried to do something dramatically different (as opposed to just fixing bugs or giving speed increases). And when you have a large number of users set in their ways (working nicely and efficiently), changing them on a regular basis is not a good idea.
IANAL, but I play one on
This was one of the great sloppy lines of logic on which the trial was built. You might have noticed that Internet Explorer versions 1, 2, and basically 3 were failures, even though they too were bundled with Windows. THis was because they sucked. Microsoft products succeed when they do what customers want.
It's nice to know I'm not the only one with embarrassing stuff sitting in the Google Groups archive...
REDMOND, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 1995 MAR 31 (NB) -- Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) Chairman Bill gates has named this "Microsoft Bob Day." Bob is the nerdy looking guy with the black plastic-frame glasses who, according to Microsoft "gives new meaning" to the computer term "user friendly"
Today is Microsoft Bob Day because it is the first day the user interface software of that name will be available in retail outlets. Microsoft hopes every IBM-compatible user in the country will welcome Microsoft Bob into their home and/or office. Bob features animated personal guides that navigate users through Bob's eight applications.
Microsoft may see Bob as a "simpler" user interface, but retailers see it as a sales tool, with several mass market retailers featuring Bob promotions. Sears stores are offering consumers the opportunity to meet Bob via exclusive "technology makeovers." Through April 30, 1995, the national chain is offering a personal consultation to help assess your level of computer knowledge and experience. The consultation is designed to show that with Microsoft Bob's help just about anyone can be a "techno-whiz."
CompUSA is so enamored with Microsoft Bob it will offer two days -- April 29 and 30 -- of Bob demos and promotions in all its retail outlets. "Bob allows us to talk to an even broader mix of customers," said Larry Mondry, CompUSA executive vice president of merchandising.
The underlying philosophy of Microsoft Bob may be "simplicity of use," but it won't run on a simple PC. As a minimum you need Windows 3.1 or higher, a 486 or higher microprocessor, eight megabytes (MB) of memory, 30MB of available hard disk space, a Super VGA 256-color monitor, and a mouse of comparable pointing device. That eliminates many of the PCs in homes and small offices that have 4MB of memory, unless the owner is willing to upgrade. If you want Bob to send your electronic-mail or pay your bills online you will also need a modem. Microsoft also calls a sound card and speakers "recommended options."
Microsoft is banking heavily on Bob's ease of use. As a result there is no manual with the software. Each user can choose one of the animated helpers Bob provides, which include a dog, a cat, "Scuz" the teenager, a parrot, and a "friendly dragon."
Microsoft Bob's opening screen is a red front door with a brass door knocker and your personal animated helper to suggest, through pointing and text messages, where you should go. Interestingly, while the guy with the friendly smile and the heavy glasses is the namesake of the program, he doesn't actually appear in the software.
The eight functions Bob brings to your home or office are a letter writer, calendar, checkbook/financial management program, household manager for managing household information, address book, e-mail, a quiz game called GeoSafari, and a financial guide that provides financial information and tips. The various programs are integrated so you can write a letter and pull in the appropriate address from the address book, then send the letter electronically via e-mail.
Bob may be a gamble for Microsoft. The company hopes users will accept the cartoonish look-and-feel of the program intended to make computing easier, but it remains to be seen if experienced computer users will be attracted to the program.
When Bill Gates introduced Microsoft Bob in January at the Consumer Electronics Show he pointed out that Bob is for both new users and users who have a computer but don't make use of it because it requires too much in the way of learning skills and pouring through manuals. "Using Bob, people will learn faster and easier and even learn more about application features they would not otherwise become familiar with," said Gates.
Bob uses a relatively new user interface technique, called a
Add to that:
mice
keyboards
joysticks
wide range of games, incl FlightSim
MSMoney
Windows CE
ActiveX
FrontPage
Encarta
Exchange
MSProject
Not all wildly sucessful, but not doing too bad.
There are others.
But the main thing they have is mindshare. Ask anyone outside of a few select communities (/. for one), and who makes software? Microsoft. And maybe IBM.
"How about the crap that MS pulled by placing the minimize/maximize right next to the close button (whereas in previous UIs the close button had been on the left so that it would be nearly impossible to exit an app accidentally while trying to minimize)?"
;)
You mean like KDE does?
The problem I have with this argument is that there is no good place to put the close button. Put it in the upper left, and when somebody goes to file/open they could miss and close the app. Put it in the lower left and they could hit it when going for the scrollbar, same for lower right. Then there's the whole matter of where people resize from.
Actually, Apple did have a solution to this problem, but it's not as great as some people have made it out to be. If you open an app like IE, the titlebar is maximized to the top and your browser window is a child of that titlebar. If you switch to another app, then the titlebar is replaced with the bar of the new app. Result? Closing an app always means going to the upper left in the exact same spot.
Your problem is solved here, but a new one emerges: Closing the wrong app. You no longer have positional reference to specify which app you are closing. You could end up closing Photoshop while you really intended to kill IE. How would ya know without reading what the bar says?
To make a long story short, the problem you are describing has no easy solution. Nobody's solved it without creating a new nasty problem. You just have to rely on accuracy of the mouse pointer. And you know what? One has to be accurate with the mouse anyway. The same argument for clicking the wrong window box could be made for clicking on the wrong file to copy or clicking on the wrong menu choice. At some point, the input has to be accurate for the computer to work at all.
So no, I don't feel that MS has 'pulled any crap'. I don't feel that they've made a better solution than anybody else either.
"Derp de derp."
I hope a few people at Microsoft will glance at this, but more than likely they won't, or will and can't change a thing.
I completely dislike windows. I don't consider it worthy of much more than solitare, however, I like Microsoft applications, they are well put together, have great functionality and work well. Wine wouldn't be where it's at now if this wan't true. MicroSoft's strength is solid applications.
If Microsoft were to ditch their operating system completely on the desktop and spec a GNU/Linux or FreeBSD OS to be assembled by system integrators it would be a leap forward, no one cares about the operating system, it's the applications. The OS only comes into play when it repeatedly crashes, when explorer crashes, when odd programs cause the whole OS to freak out, or buggy drivers lead you to the BSOD.
XP is buggy as hell, I can push an XP system in the wrong way and get it to crash quickly, in some cases faster than Win2K.
Microsoft should port their apps to some sort of VM instruction set and make a VM for each operating system out there. We all know windows would run it faster, I really don't care, I need reliablity. Give me both and Redmond will get my cash, and my client's cash as well.
Until then OpenOffice gets better every release, X gets better every release and Gnome and KDE are both headed in the right direction, there may soon be no need for MicroSoft at all if this continues.
Their downfall will be Billy G's arrogance.
"They've done a really brilliant job in leveraging their strengths in the desktop operating system and applications and tying it to the server," says Davis.
Um, isn't that exactly why they were under investigation in the EU?