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Forbes Says Vista Not People Ready
Diomedes01 writes "Daniel Lyons has an opinion piece up on Forbes.com about a recent press conference held by Microsoft, and the results are anything but flattering."
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People reject OpenOffice and reject even Mac, because they don't know any different. They have been "programmed" to use Microsoft Windows, therefore, until they are told different, they will continue to use Microsoft Windows.
We can sit around all we want and say stuff like "when people get tired of (malware|viruses|spyware|whateverelse)" they will switch to (Linux|Mac).
It's just not true. People will switch when they are told to. Nothing else. Until Companies FORCE people to switch, there will be no switching.
I hate to add fuel to the fire but these sound like indications of a flawed design & development environment...
He's a troll, and an inconsistent one at that.
The final paragraph of the linked articleReally explains alot. I presumed this guy (with his anti IBM, Novell & Linux stance) was an MS shill. Turns out he's just another Apple fanboy.
My pics.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Dan Lyons saying something bad about a Microsoft product is about like FoxNews (you know, "Fair and Balanced") saying something good about a liberal politician. Next thing you know, Dan will be saying good things about Linux and FoxNews will endorse Hillary for President.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I can hate Microsoft as much as the next guy. But seriously, I think I must be one of the few on here who's actually had it with all the M$FT bashing in spite of hatred of Microsoft. Why? Because it seems that Open Office and Macs get a free pass on here, while there is a serious bias towards Microsoft being negatively reviewed. Meanwhile any inferiority in Mac OS X and Apple monopolistic tactics are openly defended by an army of fanboys. A lot of Windows users simply DO NOT LIKE the Mac. And rather than figure out why, the Mac elitists claim the fault must lie with the user.
"Find Open Office hard to use? You must be a moron."
I've had it with the love fest with anything that is not M$FT. Can we stop putting "I hate M$FT" opinion pieces on here. And also let's have REVIEWS, and not unbalanced free passes for Mac OS X and Open Office. IE7 does have some cool features like Quick tabs, and the leaner interface etc.
Before the IE7 hate dogs talk about security, let's not forget Mac OS X does have issues too, they have had remotely exploitable security holes they had to fix. Except none of the fanboys were even aware.
Windows hasn't had a wormable network exploit since SP2 (thanks to the firewall).
I have used the Vista betas, they're fine. If someone is going to go on a hate M$FT bash fest, that's fine.. but I don't care about it. I want scientific analysis.
He doesn't need discounts on sewing machines. The companies that he contracts with to produce a half a mil of his latest fashion obscenity needs the discount on sewing machines. Tommy needs discounts on computers and software because his company neeeds to integrate with and coordinate with all of those other companies in their supply chain. Tommy needs to be able to send the numbers to his accountants firms. Tommy needs computers to work with his ad agency so he can convince even more sheeple to buy his stuff. I'm betting that, just like every other "idea" company in the U.S., Tommy has multiple hundreds of thousands tied up in hardware and licenses for software.
puts on my laptop. I'm a sheep. Aren't we all?
Right now it's XP and Office 2003.
As long as I can hook it up to a projector and bore the crap out of a room full of people with 83 Powerpoint slides, The Bossman is happy.
I don't see big corporations being first in line for a shiny new OS that practically triples the minimum hardware requirement.
At Home I'll use whatever Valve software tells me to use so I can Play Half-Life 3. Sheep, remember?
Sure, he's a fashion designer, but his business has the same IT needs as every other business. They do sales and marketing, buy from suppliers, sell to distributors and retailers, hire and pay employees and provide them with benefits, coordinate and pay for travel, and so on. In the modern business climate, he still needs computers for all of that, even if the activity underlying it all involves ultimately swaning about with charchoal sketches and fabric swatches.
It seems MS missed the basics of press relations. When you call the press out to a dog and pony show, we (yes, I am one) generally try to give a fair representation of what happened. Events and press conferences are generally one sided, IE good for the people putting on the act. So are trade shows, you get to see the shiny happy things, and there is no time or forum to dig in and see all the warts.
This leads to almost universally good news on all the applicable outlets. If the show is interesting, all the better, we will sit there and smile, taking notes and pictures.
Now, if you bore us to tears with stupid, irrelevant and wrong info, we will sit there for 60-90 minutes and think up ways to make your life pain, usually in the form of an article. We sit there, turn to the guy next to us and crack jokes about everything and anything, relevant or not. Nothing tends to be sacred.
Yep, the MS people botched this one bad, and the Lyons piece is a good example of this. They promised the moon, gave nothing, and did it in a way that from the sound of it was thoroughly unpleasant to watch.
And they are wondering why they got hammered. Duh. If you are going to take up our time, don't waste it. If you do, you almost guarantee your product will be panned.
As a corolary to this, fill the press section with syncophantic or bribed tame press, then do what you want. This is a time honored tradition that works well, but if you do it too often with sucky presentation, it will bite you, your costs will go up. Look at... well, that would be telling.
-Charlie
P.S. Take this article with a big grain of salt. Anyone still defending SCO is pretty suspect in my book, but that is just one reporter's opinion.
But, of course they can! They're a monopoly, and there's nothing that Steve Jobs, the Open Source community or anybody else can do about it (well, the US Justice Dept. tried before Bush stopped 'em).
Unfortunately, Microsoft's customers (i.e. most of the world) are willing to wait a really long time before they give up on the Redmond giant. It's that damned critical mass that they've built up over the years: everything's geared to supporting Windows before anything else, from hardware manufacturers to ISVs to ISPs to media companies, etc. Even Google doesn't support anything but Windows for Google Earth! (okay, there's a Mac beta for it now too, but you get my drift).
Therefore, I figure that Microsoft's monopoly position can only be threatened if one of their next new operating systems turns out to be a total failure. If Microsoft aren't able to dump it and replace it soon enough with something better, only then will significant numbers of their customers begin to loose faith in them and move on to alternative operating systems.
Let's hope Vista turns out to be that dog.
Let me tell you big secret: Most people don't want to switch. They hate to have to learn a new system, new UI and new buttons. It's bad enough as it is. Think about 60 years old, who is struggling with office, e-mail and web, and calling his/her free tech-support(children) whenver he/she accidentally minimize window. Those people stay with XP as long as MS provide minimal support, that is fixing exploits. And may be even longer. So many people are actually happy of Vista delay, as long as it means longer support for XP. It would be even betted if Vista cancelled at all.
You DO NOT TALK about Forbes. Second rule, well you can guess.
Forbes is responsible for more wrong-headed ideas about technology in the executive suites than any other publication. Pay them no heed. Ignore them. They do not have a clue.
They may even be right this time, but that wouldn't make up for the multitude of times they've made technologists lives worse.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
Ethical/professional journalism?!? Ha ha ha. i should mod you "funny".
Cheers.
(It's all live too, no bitmaps here.)
:|
So is Exposé, if that was your implication.
iqu