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The War Of The Word
atari_kid writes "For who didn't know Microsoft has a internal blogging service, which is becoming popular with their employees. And even some of their high level managers have their own blog like Chris Pratley, a group program manager (GPM) for Word2002 (OfficeXP) project. Mr. Pratley just blogged on his 'personal philosophical' conversion from a Mac geek to a Microsoft devotee & his interesting perspective on the 'Word Processor' wars of the mid-90's and why Microsoft won."
The best Microsoft employee blog is the Old New Thing. I don't think you'd get far arguing your anti-Microsoft points with Raymond.
We forgive you. We don't have type 11 errors anymore. You can come back to the Mac any time you want. *opens arms* You sound like you need a hug.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
He admired Apple for its elegance and derided MS for its substandard products; he was rejected by Apple, but offered a job at MS.
Ouch.
It should be said that later, he comes to terms with MS not necessarily on the grounds that they make good product, but that they are a good business. Funny, that.
Glog!
"...functionality as embedding multimedia or animations into your documents."
So, do you have to print those out as flipbooks or what?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
One key point left out of the blog regarding WP's success: WP offered unlimited, toll-free technical support at the outset. It was very comforting to know that you could call someone who actually understood the program to answer a question. WP built up a lot of goodwill on that basis.
That ain't liver; that's beef kidney!
"In the period 1992-1994, Word wiped the floor with WordPerfect in reviews, winning just about all of them. "
Excuse my tinfoil hat, but wasn't that about the time that Windows finally stopped sucking utterly, and became a tool that everyone, including PHBs, could use? Isn't this the era of PC Magazine, and John Dvorak, and everyone's grandmother getting a PC?
Word was never technically superior, it merely appealed to a broader (and simpler) audience. There is a difference. Word won because it got reviews from trade rags. Word won due to a cultural shift - where document presentation became more important than its content, where a document's formatting is more important than its timely production. Word is the Guardent of word processors.
In answer to the folks who claim WP was a lousy product, I have two words: Reveal Codes.
I only jumped to Word97 from PC Word 5, then only because it was a 32bit app. By then, WP was dead and buried. I made the jump to Word2000 at work, then to OOo, which I use under the radar to publish all of my documents, typically via PDF.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
1. Microsoft bloggers are very enthusiatic about Microsoft.
2. If you get turned down for a job at Apple you might not like the computers so much any more.
3. Asian versions of software are complicated.
4. Microsoft puts out crappy products at first and then listens to customers to improve them.
5. Other companies make mistakes and Microsoft almost always takes advantage of the situation.
6. Having a huge monopoly in operating systems and file formats gives Bill Gates a huge erection. I swear you can see it during meetings.
(Okay I made up that last one.)
The Word planning team discovered that the WordPerfect sales force was going around to customers and showing Word opening a complex WordPerfect file (printer.tst) to show how bad the conversion was, and therefore how pointless it would be to try to switch to Word. So the Word team organized a special dev team that focused entirely on WordPerfect document import, "reverse-engineering" the WordPerfect file format (documentation for which was jealously guarded, as was the norm back then).
And of course Microsoft now uses open file formats, which mean that OpenOffice can seamlessly open Word files. Microsoft would certainly never try to keep people using its products by suggesting that other products would be unable to open its files. It's features and price that sell product today, boys and girls!
I've met Chris a number of times... he's a real stand-up guy with a good head on his shoulders. If Microsoft had more like him they would probably be very successful... no, wait...
I rather like Microsoft's newfound interest in what they call "transparancy." I think that the blogging trend inside MS is a good thing-- it is surprising how little the company curtails the content on their employee's blogs.
--- JRJ
jrjBlog
Details like great design were not critical to most customers, so that didn't really make it into the products, except where it mattered to the customer. It's hard to fault this logic really - it is pure efficiency from a business perspective
I'm sorry, but try as I may, you completely lost me after that comment.
Short sighted design gives M$ a bad name among developers - and by people who use computers more than the "average consumer", like say: at work.
Microsoft: Bottom line - push product - get money.
There's nothing "pure" what-so-ever about this statement. You may as well be writing about how you learned to appreciate McDonalds.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
...making outrageous claims about Microsoft and its behavior, motives, etc in every public forum they find
That would also be an apt description of the Msft marketing dept.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
If you write a GUI OS and don't give developers from competing companies any info about the OS you get to market first, and win.
Anyone remember Sprint by Borland? Of course you don't.
It's also the reason Access took over and not Paradox.
oh... It had more than a little to do with why no one uses Quattro by Borland also.
Borland's first line of Windows versions of their software had to be developed with VERY little knowledge of the Windows API.
It's funny that he doesn't mention any of the lawsuit wars that went on between MS and Borland when Windows first came out.
They sued Borland over having drop-down menus in their products... and won.
What made Windows 3.1 successful was really two things, neither of which really involved the gee-whiz-bang GUI interface:
1: Since printer drivers were now part of the standard operating system, once a printer driver existed for Win3x, it worked for every program in Win3x. This was a huge improvement over getting the proper printer driver for your particular program.
2: At Win3.1, True Type scalable fonts were integrated into the operating system, which meant they now worked with every Win3.1 compatable program. Hard for many people to remember -- or even imagine -- days before scalable fonts were common everywhere as they are now.
The was also better memory management for extended memory.
But those two items alone are really the big deal of Win3.0/3.1 -- and they are a big deal.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
WordPerfect lost it as much as Word gained it.
WordPerfect Corporation vs Microsoft Corporation
1) WP - promote senior assembly programmers as the new Windows programmers, MS - hire new graduates and put them to work under former assembly programmers.
2) WP - lights out at 5pm, MS - burn the midnight oil.
3) WP - bet the farm on OS/2, MS - bet the farm on Windows while paying lip service to OS/2.
4) WP - try to compete with traditional strengths, MS - Work with IBM to create a CUA, then change the CUA once everyone else adopts it.
5) WP - hated MS so much that they used Borland OWL, MS - made the compiler, made the dlls and APIs, didn't tell anyone about it if they could have an advantage for awhile.
6) WP - had incompetent management promoted from within including rampant nepotism, MS - hired management from outside, promoted from within when it identified talent.
The list goes on and on...
Key points are:
- Look for major shifts in disruptive technology and be prepared to ride the wave ahead of the opponent
- GUI in this case, WP missed it and couldn't play catchup quick enough
- Don't forsake backward compatibility
- Apple did it with IIe to Mac, WordStar did it in this article. It gives people the opportunity to re-evaluate a leveled playing field when they are already pissed at you.
- If you have to play catchup, don't alienate your users with a crappy, halfbaked compromise
- Backward compatibility doesn't mean backward thinking
- Research and play on the design grievances against the current front runner
- Word was designed against WP defects
- Develop features and function against the mud slinging of the front runner
- takes the sting out of the foundation of the front runner argument
- Cross compatibility
- =backward compatibility - if the road that the fake detour sign points to looks better than the real road, it will be believed.
These are some excellent insights that GPL software designers should keep in mind. Both from the stance of priority in design and what to expect from the competition.