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Microsoft's New Mantra - It Just Works
bonch writes "Fortune has a story about Microsoft's new philosophy--'It just works.' Jim Allchin details various planned Longhorn features to meet this goal, such as auto-defragmenting in the background, the ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously, and the new ad campaign Microsoft is running to get people excited about Windows. Mentions are also made of the competition from Linux, OS X Tiger, and Google."
Wow. Cannot Microsoft even come up with their own mantras rather than copy others? Come on now guys, this is pathetic, but I guess nothing is new under the sun. Seriously though, even now, I still own a bit of stock in Microsoft and I've been to the campus a number of times, so from the annual reports I get, along with friends who work there, I know Microsoft can/should be able to do better than this. (Or can they?)
There are absolutely some capable folks there, so what is the problem? Why must you (almost) always use Apple as a source for inspiration? There is a reason that I moved my investments in Microsoft stock to Apple stock three years ago, and you are doing nothing to make me want to reinvest in Microsoft. Is marketing that out of control up there? Jim, come on now, I've met you and you are one smart guy. Finding the above link to Apple took me all of two seconds in Google and this statement from the article: "Jim Allchin, Microsoft's group vice president for platforms, looked at my Apple PowerBook and smugly pointed out that the number of copies of Windows sold this year will be more than all the Macintosh computers used worldwide." really worries me. It shows an arrogance that is not going to serve you or Microsoft well.
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such as auto-defragmenting in the background
Windows XP auto-defragment as well (if enabled).
"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within." - Albert Einstein
Or, It Already Works For Someone Else So We'll Pinch It:
auto-defragmenting in the background HFS+
ability to have files in more than one folder simultaneously symlinks, Smart Folders
the new ad campaign Microsoft is running to get people excited about Windows Maybe that does indeed Just Work. No-one ever got fired for choosing a Microsoft (although there are places where that's beginning to change).
For those who don't read beyond the end of TFA... a great quote (with attribution): First, from TFA a quote from Allchin re the current state of affairs in XP vs. what Longhorn "will" deliver: Allchin: Microsoft's research shows that the average corporate employee spends about 20% of her time on the PC simply looking for items. Then, the comment from a reader: Rod Shuffler 04/22 10:55 An interesting article. Does that 20% non-productivity figure that Allchin quotes get factored into TCO arguments?
So they realized the just couldn't pull off the security thing, and have decided to move in another direction?
how about having a filesystem that doesn't suffer from fragmentation in the first place so you don't have to waste processor cycles defragging it!!!!!!!
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I think the OS *should* support hard linking though. If I really want to organise my files that way, so be it. Same way I'd rather windows defaulted to symbolic linking rather than shortcuts.
jh
Longhorn doesn't just show you an icon for a document, for example, but rather an itsy-bitsy picture of the first page.
Is it just me or does anyone else see a whole new can of worms (heh) open up here? So by default all files are processed by some code even if you just want to see what files are there? Great.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
For Apple.
They have done more to market for Apple in the last few weeks than they realize (or maybe they do realized).
Every comparison of features is with something already released under the current OS X, or is a feature that will be in the next release of OS X (slated soon?).
I guess I don't get what Microsoft's strategy is for this campaign. Is this the Microsoft "Me Too" campaign?
I would love to see the sales numbers for the next OS X release. We could see some increase in sales due to Microsoft owners realizing that there is another OS in the market that works at least as well, if not better, than XP.
Maybe Gates owns a bunch of Apple stock and is hedging his bets.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
In reality, as cute as it may be to point out the 'imitation' going on here, it might be better to look at the renewed (finally!) competition taking place. For years, Microsoft has been relatively reluctant to do any serious innovation in OS development, instead focusing on the issues that were generating the most complaints. Think about it, from Windows 95 through Windows XP, what major innovations have been introduced?
Now, however, that Mac OS has been making big strides and an ever increasing number of people have started to look at it as a viable alternative (even in my small-business workplace!), Microsoft has seemingly started to take the competition seriously. This is a Good Thing!
Competition always benefits the consumer, and prior to the last couple years, there *was no competition* in the desktop OS category.
I agree. It just depends on which community you find yourself in. Ubuntu has a very friendly community at http://ubuntuforums.org/
Exactly. The difference between Microsoft and Apple's interface philosophy (I think):
1. Apple makes it easy for the user to do complicated things.
2. Microsoft tries to automatically do complicated things for the user.
Approach #1 might be somewhat restrictive but gives the user some credit.
Approach #2 is rife with problems, notably ActiveX, email attachments that run themselves, autoscanning HDDs, and myriad other annoyances/outright hazards.
I'll take approach #1. It just works.
Does that mean that opening folders will take much longer than ever before since it will be busy creating icon previews for everything in the folder?
"Shortcuts" are in no way similar to symlinks. Shortcuts are a disgutingly ugly hack. Ever tried to look how shortcuts are implemented? Yep, they are _files_ themselves with a .lnk extension that you never see in Explorer. Ever tried handling a shortcut in a script?
I feel insulted by "microsoft has symlinks already, they are just called shortcuts".
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
When does Windows ever require this? I've personally ignored the instructions of some devices, even when they say install the driver first before plugging it in, and have had no problems installing the driver after I plugged the device in.
1. Catchy slogans ending in -ks strangely tend to already be in use by other people. And no, I'm not talking about Apple here. How about Autodesk?
2. Words ending in -ks can easily be altered on billboards. "It just sucks" is going to be just as easy as this one was...
Apparently Microsoft is suppressing its memory of these past events.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Ok, here it is, I found it:
i dg/
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9904/14/winhec.
Back in 1999, Microsoft and Intel were using the "It Just Works" slogan to promote something they called the "Easy PC" initiative. And of course, it was more appropriate then, as it is now, to simply say "It just broke. Again."
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That was actually said to an associate of mine by someone from Novel. Somewhere around NetWare 5 there was a way for a regular user who had supervisor access to a subsection of the directory structure to remove all access from the real Supervisor (read root) to those files. He reported it as a bug, they claimed it was a feature.
True, they're not *trying* to be original or innovative, but your last sentence missed the mark: it's very important that they use exactly the phrase "It Just Works".
This PR stunt has exactly one goal: to neutralize the phrase "It Just Works".
Right now, everybody who's used a Mac in the past 5 years is telling all their Windows friends and family "You should get a Mac; it just works". (Having a product that turns consumers into willing advertisers is every PR employee's wet dream. Most companies would kill for this.)
Once Microsoft starts advertising Windows as "It Just Works", all their Windows users will start to think that "IJW" is a completely meaningless phrase.
This isn't a new strategy for them.
- You don't hear Linux advocates saying Linux is "stable" these days, not because it isn't, but because Microsoft said that Windows NT 4 was also "stable". Once they had PR people saying this, the word "stable" was no longer a competitive advantage for Linux. As long as you've got Microsoft PR chanting "NT 4 is stable", calling Linux "stable" no longer works.
- Bill Gates once observed that the way to make software user-friendly was to make a rubber stamp and stamp each box with the words "USER FRIENDLY". Remember when Apple software was "user-friendly"? They can't say that any more, because even the worst piece-of-shit shareware Windows app that crashes every 2 seconds is advertised as "user-friendly" these days.
- Remember when they made up a fake "switcher"? They weren't trying to convince Apple users to switch to PCs (a nearly impossible task) -- they were trying to convince PC users that PCs weren't really worse than Macs. If any Mac user says "Look at all the people switching to Mac", the PC user can say "Hmm, true, but there are also people switching from Mac to PC...".
Just as Microsoft R&D often consists of looking at what Apple has done and trying to copy it, Microsoft PR consists of looking at how Apple PR is doing their jobs and looking for a way to neutralize it.
I don't know what Apple's next big marketing ploy is going to be, but I'm positive that Microsoft is going to copy it exactly, just to plug the leak. The only question left is: when will this dam break?
> It Just Works
No Microsoft operating system has ever been able to allow the user to reliably rename or delete a file.
Microsoft allows processes to hold an open file "hostage", preventing renaming or deleting. This is why many installers require a re-boot -- this is the only way they can delete certain files.
If Microsoft was serious about saying that "it just works", then they would make sure that I can always click on a file in the explorer and delete it or rename it.
Deleting and renaming files are among the very most basic, fundamental features that an operating system provides. Microsoft just can't seem to make it work, can they?
I am a Linux and Mac fan. I also think LongHorn is playing catch up to apple as far as UI goes."
You obviously don't have a mac.
I have one, and OSX/Aqua is no end of illogical ui frustrations. Apple completely abandoned most of their original macos UI design guidelines in favor of eye candy.
The MS demographic does NOT use linux and solaris. This is new for them, and it is an improvement. Nobody said it was innovative, but it most certainly is progress. I'm really sick of people harping on MS for actually improving their OS. Yeah, they're stealing a lot of ideas from all over the place, but not only does that make a LOT of business sense for their company (a lot less risk, and proven results), it improves the product for their customers and raises the standards for the OS with the biggest marketshare out there.
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