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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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Let's take my three sisters. Each has a degree in biology. Each considers me their personal tech support when anything "breaks." It sucks.
I've gotten phone calls from them about the behavior of Windows XP on multiple occasions. Once they thought all their windows kept closing if they opened too many. As it turns out, they had the "grouping" feature enabled for windows of the same type on the toolbar.
*sigh*
Now Vista will have a new 3D effect to window grouping. Sweet Jesus, I am turning my cell phone off. I can imagine it now, "All my windows are turning sideways! Make it stop!"
Aside from "Ease of Use," I don't think any of the advertised features are going to meld well with any of my sisters. The new 'Aero' technology is no match for my sisters' Airhead logic.
I plan to make up some story for them about how Vista is the devil and if you install it, it will slowly begin to ruin your computer. Oh, and if you try to save your biology notes, it especially hates the medical sciences so it will delete them instantly. Not to mention that its new 'AI' abilities allow it to call you names if it perceives you to be an unqualified user. That should stop them from buying it.
The worst part is that Microsoft can smell this potential market in young people who don't know what they need: That's exactly the kind of publicity stunt that would cause all three of my sisters to run out and buy Vista. *shudders* He's an fucking fashion designer! What the fuck would he know about computer software?!?!
And what is with this part of the article: This article brought to you by Forbes Magazine's Daniel Lyons, owner of stock in AAPL.
Thanks, Dan, I was with you there until that last paragraph where your Apple sales pitch kicked in.
My work here is dung.
Vista not People Ready
But, but, but... "When you combine people and technology, you have a very powerful combination." Fashion designer (and part time Microsoft shill) Tommy Hilfiger said so! So it MUST be true! Vista is the future! Viva la Vista!
Seriously, though. A voice command from your cellphone to check email? What are these guys smoking?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
FTA: Microsoft execs also talked about "Impacting People," then they dragged out fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, who seemed very "impacted" as he sang praise for Microsoft programs ...
"When you combine people and technology, you have a very powerful combination." Think about that. Just let it sink in for a minute.
I for one welcome our new Vista powered overlords.
I hate to add fuel to the fire but these sound like indications of a flawed design & development environment...
Since when has an Opinion piece become a piece of tech news? Oh right this is Slashdot. As long as the opinion piece is Anti-MS then ya'll can just pat yourselves on the back and bash MS till there is no end in sight and feel good about yourselves.
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.
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
The new 'Aero' technology is no match for my sisters' Airhead logic.
I feel your pain.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
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.
Vista and MS Office 2007 are the two headline-grabbing cash cows of the business and Microsoft has nothing to show until next year. Folks can scent blood behind the scenes with rumours of massive rewrites, etc. Microsoft is a big business with lots of products, but these are the two everyone focuses on, in the pop press at least. And the press and Wall Street have the whole of the rest of this year to stick it to Microsoft, if they so choose, and get a little payback for all the uppity treatment they've received over the years. And with nothing in the locker except more press announcements that no one really believes, Microsoft will just have to stand there and take it on the chin.
:):)
2006 could turn out to be Microsoft's annus horribilis, since the chances must be very high they'll soon have to fess up and say Janaury 2007 is a bad time to launch Vista. And with every day that passes, more folks will get pissed off with the XP malware explosion. Couldn't have happened to nicer guys
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
> Instead, we got a demo that was about as compelling as a root canal followed by a 15-minute press conference with Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive who seems incapable of speaking at any level softer than a bellow.
>[...]
>I wonder if Ballmer ever feels like the guy in Groundhog Day, reliving the same press conference, over and over. I know I do.
Developers. Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers.
Gee, I wonder why it feels like Groundhog Day.
(I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met Natalie Portman. We ate hot grits and drank pina coladas from tikis made of petrified wood. At sunset we made love like sea otters. *That* was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over...)
As I understand things, many Software Assurance Plans, which were essentially forced on customers with the claim that Longhorn would be available, expire as of 12/31/06.
I wonder if there may be issues with claims salesmen made and this date slippage.
...people will just have to twist their ways until it fits. "To open the CD-Rom you just have to press ALT+E+P with you hands then Num Lock with your nose and it will eject"
SolarVPS - Quality Windows and Linux Virtual Servers
So Balmer says IBM doesn't innovate anymore?
/.
Hmmm... check out a couple posts down on
Something about nanotubes and stuff... hardly innovation.
You see, this is an example of where the article goes wrong. Daniel Lyons didn't realize they were talking about this kind of impaction.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
This is why I hate blogs. I see a story on slashdot, and click through to the article expecting to find news. You know, a simple reporting of some facts. Only after reading the article do I realize this isn't news, its just some asshole bitching about Microsoft, and I really don't give two shits what he has to say. The only real news I can gather from this article is that Microsoft held some press conference or tech demo of some sort, and this guy hated it.
Slanted, one sided, inaccurate and biased blog entries are not news. Please stop subjecting us to them.
Check out the cave on the east side of lake Hylia. Strange and wonderful things live in it.
"Windows Vista -- Get The Facts"
"Windows Vista -- A Powerful Combination Of Combined Powers"
"Windows Vista -- Sheep Ready"
"Windows Vista -- Because The Richest Bloke In The World Says So"
"Windows Vista -- Almost Ready"
"Windows Vista -- Or I Hit You With This Chair"
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I work for a large biotech company. Upper management uses Windows-based systems, as does manufacturing.
However, I work in research. Until recently the systems were about 50-50 Windows / Mac with the exceptions of bioinformatics (mostly Linux), and cheminformatics (mostly Irix). However, more recently, vendors have been phasing out the use of Windows for instrumentation control in favor of Linux. Nearly all the structural chemistry applications have moved to Linux, and most genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics software is now Linux-based (and, frequently, runs just fine on Macs too). Macs are still pretty popular, but the use of Windows in research is pretty much considered "legacy" at this point.
If you come from an academic environment in contemporary biology, you were probably weened on Mac OS, or Solaris (when I was in grad school). If it's more recent, it's most definitely OS/X or Linux. It's also clear that Linux is rapidly becoming the platform-of-choice for apps in biotech and pharamceutical research, but with a heavy emphasis on WEB-based technologies.
That's not to say that there aren't users that use nothing but Excel and Word, but that's not so common anymore in research (at least were I work and in my previous job). This poses a big problem for our IT department -- they aren't prepared to support Linux desktops and Mac OS/X, yet those are the platforms where most of our applications run.
Biolgists either don't do computers at all (particularly "old school" biologists), or, if they do, Windows is not what they have the most experience with...
Splendid discernment. Simply splendid.
Let's take my three sisters. Each has a degree in biology. Each considers me their personal tech support when anything "breaks." It sucks.
OK, you clearly have issues.
What you haven't realized is your hostility towards your sisters is a form of transferance. You are transferring your need to show your mother that you are a competent adult (and thus worthy of regard) onto your sisters, and projecting your own infantile dependency onto them. It is worth noting that while you must constantly demonstrate your expertise and competence in computers to them, they have no compulsion to retern the favor by offering you help in their area of expertise. Likely this difference is due to insecure paternal attachment on your part. Could this be unresolved castration anxiety? Certainly that would explain the difference between you and you sisters. In any case, the underlying assymetry in your relationship reinforces your infantile anxiety, which creates rage, part of which is displaced onto Microsoft, the balance of which is sublimated in the form of further demonstrations of technical competence. Naturally, such heroic (dare I say histrionic?) demonstrations of technical finesse that only exacerabate your problem.
What you need to do is to address the imbalance in your relationship to your sisters. A few concrete suggestions:
* Encourage them to install the beta of Vista. Then when they have problems, throw up your hands and confess you don't know anything about Microsoft operating systems.
* Develop a stock response to technical question and consistently use it for every problem no matter how trivial e.g., "Try reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling the operating system." This will encourage your sisters to be less dependent on you.
* Demand that your sisters provide you with equivalent services in their areas of expertise. For example, why did your last batch of homebrew beer come out sour? What can you do about the crabgrass on your lawn? When you are going out on a date after work, how can you avoid having body odor even if you've showered in the morning (claim you are allergic to deoderant)?
Follow this strategy, and you cannot help but develop a more adult, mutually satisfying relationship with your siblings.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Microsoft keep aiming too high. In the end, it's as simple as that.
The executives who are driving the show like to promote corporation-wide initiatives (.Net springs to mind) but they lack the clarity of vision and coherence of presentation to get their message across. This is, of course, assuming that they're clear themselves about what their initiative seeks to achieve, which I doubt in many cases. Once you're detached from clear goals and clear plans to achieve them, and you descend into corporate initiative, business imperative, growth driver, buzzword buzzword zzzzz territory, you'll sink right to the bottom in no time.
The next level down - the guys who are basically running the show for Windows, or Office, or the more minor products like Visual Studio - are constantly in a state of flux because they don't know where the corporation-wide initiatives are driving them. Worse yet, they don't know where they're driving each other, but it's surely somewhere: if you want a radical new UI in Vista, you've got to have the tools to write programs that use it in Visual Studio, and your next version of Office has to fit in with the style, for example.
Now, the guys working on the products keep coming up with revolutionary new features that require dramatic changes in a single version. These are always a risk, and if things don't work out, it's rare that you can half-implement the good bits and scrap the rest, so you get cancellation of the entire feature if bad stuff happens. Combine that with the constant changes in high level business plans and such, particularly pressure to get a release out in time for this or that shareholder meeting (that means you, VS2005 team) and you can see why often these things do suffer catastrophic failure.
So, if your next release is based on three Big Features(TM), as was the case with Vista originally, and these then start falling to the wayside under business pressures, what do you do? You can't cancel them all, or you've got no product and your reputation is mud, but if you can't get them ready in time either, then your release dates keep slipping and your reputation is a different colour of mud. Such is the price you pay when you decide to go for the big features and not across-the-board, incremental improvements, and that's the mistake they keep making.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
... of bashing Microsoft and promoting Apple.
He also isn't a big fan of Linux.
This guy is widely considered a hack.
I've been using Vista build 5308 for almost a month now as my primary "home" machine. At first I was a little taken back by some of the UI changes, but overall I really do like it. In fact, when I move back to XP it really hurts because of things I miss from Vista.
This guy's critcisms of Vista are so vague it's hard to even know what parts of Vista he is talking about.
"The new programs are phenomenally complex, with scores of buttons and pull-down menus and myriad connections among various applications."
Huh? Which new applications? In most case, Microsoft has decreased, not increased, the number of UI elements.
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?
"When you combine people and technology, you have a very powerful combination"
Yeah, its called the Borg.
RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!!!!
XBox 360 and Games are all MSFT has going for it now. But why don't people switch? The answer is obvious XP works well enough for most people, of course that doesn't help Vista either. To me the place where open source will make up the most ground is on the application side. Linux may not gain ground for a long time, but Mozilla, Thunderbird, and Open Office will, as can many other closed apps.
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
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.
I won't purchase Vista, nor will I purchase a PC if I am forced to take it with Vista on it.
/all/ of the software I either need to run is available for OSX and/or Linux.
I'll still use Windows XP and/or 2000 as a dual-boot, either on an Ubuntu AMD system (after converting my HP AMD laptop to Ubuntu), or on an Apple OSX dual boot with XP on it. This is only until
I've already moved the other PC's in the house - those used by my wife and son - to Ubuntu. Regardless of the OS - XP or Ubuntu - all PCs are running Open Office, Firefox, etc.
I mention Ubuntu for a reason - its the strongest Linux desktop OS that I've encountered thusfar, easy to install, and easy for non-techies (like my wife) to manage on their own (download/install other apps, configure ones already running, use peripheral devices, use already installed apps for communication/productivity, etc.).
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.
My mind is kind of boggling at any sort of practical demo that could illustrate that difference.
"Yes, and this stuff in my hand is semen, which I will now smear on to a slide - if you will come over and look into this microscope..."
(As an aside, I wonder who was the first guy to look at semen in a microscope? That dude must have been freaked the fuck out, big time!)
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
To be perfectly honest, next time my parents need to upgrade, which won't be for awhile, if things don't change it's going to be Apple products... tired of providing tech support for stupid things, while Apple's seem to just work, and just work right. Even simple stuff like sharing a printer seems to be nothing but a headache in Windows. Who knows, my dad need's Office for compatability with his clients, but maybe I should look at CrossOver or whatever the Wine port for Office is and have them run a locked down version of Linux.
So Vista won't be ready for another year. Or two. Or three. Novell Netware lost the race to a vaporware NT5, but it was Linux and then Active Directory that killed it. Microsoft has a habit of delivering late, and poorly. But they are bringing onnovation to the (mainstream) desktop. Yes, Unix is a better architecture. But Windows is so much more featureful than Gnome, KDE, or *especally* Mac OS X. Office is 10 years ahead of any of it's clones. Granted, the main reason Star Office is so far behind is because most of their energy is spent on compatibility. But they shouldn't worry too much about it. Like Word Perfect shouldn't have. Microsoft saw a collaboration suite where everyone else saw desktop publishing. Office 2003 is a credible competitor to the browser for application development. With a growing .NET library and the push to port decent scripting languages (like python & php5) to the CLR, it's a compelling platform. Infopath is the new Visual Basic form, only backed by SQL Server and XML instead of Access.
I'm not praising MS unconditionally. They still have weird, arcane ways of doing things. And lots and lots of bugs -- and security issues. But they're offering more in functionality than anyone else. Ajax isn't a competitor to OLE.
I'm simply noting that unless an *alternative* to MS Office integration is offered, alot of open source zealots (like myself) will be switching over. I'd love to see an open source web framework tied to Windows and Office automation, but I don't see it happening.
I wrote a list of Microsoft technologies I'd need to learn to be as productive as I am using open source. It was a long list and it was ugly, too, with words like "Exchange", "IIS", and "VBA" on it. I don't want to learn to use Active Directory (but at least it's not NT Domain Controllers), and it is a pretty good LDAP server, too. I don't want to learn VB, VB.net, and C#. (and maybe I won't have to, at least no more than necessary to translate api's to Python or Ruby.)
But Office and Exchange are unmatched in the open source world, and there's really not a reason they should be.
Daikavista.
My humor is probably your flamebait
Maybe you can help me with this, it gets really confusing now. My sisters are seated at computers. And when they touch them, they turn into toilets full of excrement--not working at all. But as I walk down the line, my mere touch turns them into golden Alienware desktops running at the speed of light. They get on their knees and start to worship me and again I'm laughing maniacly.
I know this sounds kind of gross and I have issues, but what does it all mean, doc?
Ah, yes. Excrement that turns into gold. This a dream motif commonly seen in the anal-expulsive personality type, which as we all know is characterized by high levels of conceit and ambition. This should, I believe, be watched closely. We should consider increasing the frequency of our sessions to twice a week (at the normal rate of course), for is not unusal for these tendencies to grow into an intractable and malignant narcissism.
For a fascinating example of a parallel case in which the same dream motif if found, see the case study of "Bill G." published in a recent Zeitschrift der Analyse von Träumen. The details of this case are an extreme example, it is true, nonetheless it is well that they should give us pause.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Dumb it down for me, doc, I'm a freaking Slashdot poster for Christ's sake!
My work here is dung.
I wonder who was the first guy to look at semen in a microscope?
Probably Anton van Leeuwenhoek.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
It all comes down to the fact that most people would rather stick with the inconvenience they know than risk starting over on something that might not be worth the effort.
In other words, whatever they're switching from has to get really bad, and whatever they're switching to has to offer a major improvement.
You could look at it in terms of neophobes and neophiles, or the devil you know vs. the devil you don't know, or just plain inertia.
Probably fairly high. I recall him and a number of other early microscopists being convinced that they could see a little tiny human embryo in the head, much like the early telescopists were convinced they could see canals on Mars.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
One of the first things they looked at was bodily fluids, with the early microscopes, but there are so many other wiggly, squiggly things to see, that are much larger and easier to see (sperm are *really* small cells compared to rotifers and bacteria with vibrating or rotary cilia/flagella) that by the time they got good enough to see the really small stuff they were probably initially wondering whether those were just more of what they'd already seen.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.