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Microsoft's Battle For Software Mindshare
chemicaloli writes to mention a BBC article about Microsoft's battle to convince users they need to buy new software. The article explores the changes to the UI in Microsoft Office 2007. Along with the changes prompted by the adoption of the 'Ribbon', the article also looks at some of the software's new features. From the article: "'One of the biggest challenges... is to fight that perception that old versions of software are good enough,' said Microsoft's Chris Capossela. Office 2007 goes on sale to business on 30 November, the same date new operating system Vista is launched. 'Our business model of course allows you to keep using Office 2003 — the software doesn't really expire,' said Mr Capossela, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Business Division. Many large businesses will have Office 2007 delivered as part of existing IT contracts but small business and individual consumers will need persuading to make the change."
Therein lies Microsoft's problem -- each new iteration of their software all of a sudden must render their older generation software "not good enough", giving the lie to all earlier claims about previous generations of product. This is the classical Microsoft business model. Microsoft is about selling a product, not providing customer satisfaction.
This may be a bigger shift for Microsoft than the internet was, retooling the way they think about business as a service and value-added support company rather than a company trotting out latest and greatest generations of (already quite mature) software (sheeesh, how many more features can you conceive for today's word processors?). And, have you looked at the new interfaces for their "got to have" Office products? Maybe good, maybe not, but who in their right corporate business mind would foist yet another learning curve on their entire company for yet another interface?
Considering Microsoft has never really cared for the rest of the world (in my opinion), their entire corporate mentality must reverse field, not something I'm sure they're even capable of... consider the latest rantings by Ballmer about a peek under the Microsoft covers about why they really forged the Suse/Linux deal. More evidence Microsoft continues to be about controlling, not collaborating. Does Microsoft even have the personnel capable of shifting their mindset? Time will tell.
Microsoft's stranglehold on the economy may be loosening as technology, distribution of technology, and support for technology become more about the people. That (in my opinion) can be only a good thing for the world.
(an interesting aside... my editor spellchecker offered Blamer as an alternative spelling for Ballmer... snicker.)
I do some consulting/pc maintenance for a small company that still runs their machines on Win95 and uses Office95 for their work, and the combo still runs fine. The majority of their "business" apps are web based, and Firefox runs fine on it, and as far as anyone is concerned, as long as the document comes off the printer correctly, no one cares what program created it.
It's interesting to go there; it's like time has stood still since 1995 and you realize that "good enough" can go back pretty darn far.
I used to believe this too.
I believed that all you had to do was give people the chance to learn the basics of what they were doing with a PC, the basics of what is actually happening when they open a file or copy a file, or start a program, and some magic light would go on in their heads and they'd "get it."
Then I started working in desktop support.
This was back in 1990. There was no web and no email at work (except for a few executives who used Procomm to connect at 33.6 kbps to the corporate mail server). Most companies had adopted PCs for use, but many, like mine, were still integrating them into their daily business tasks. We were experimenting with this newfangled thing called "desktop publishing," and the accounting department was debating the relative merits of Excel for Windows 3.1 vs. Lotus 123 for DOS. Some holdouts insisted on using Quattro Pro.
I was young and idealistic. I thought that the only problem most people had was lack of familiarity with these new, powerful tools. I thought a little education would fix it.
Boy was I wrong.
I gave seminars, I took time to explain what was happening every time I fixed a problem for someone. I wrote simple memos with pictures -- "How to Format A Floppy Disk" was one of my masterworks, as was "There are two kinds of hard disks -- those that have failed and those that will fail. So make backups!". For five years, I tried, and I believed I could make a difference.
I gave up and switched jobs. But I learned something from the experience.
I learned that the problem is twofold: 1.) the vast majority of the population doesn't care how a computer works and 2.) the vast majority also lacks the mentality required to understand what's happening inside a computer. I'm not saying these are unintelligent people; I'm saying there's a certain mindset that you need to understand what's happening in your computer, and you either have it or you don't. Just like some people really get off on balancing a ledger, or closing a sale. I've worked with janitors who went from not knowing how to turn the machine on to writing Macromedia Director presentations in less than a year, and I've worked with lawyers who were baffled at the complexities of saving a file to a floppy (and who never seemed to quite get the hang of it).
Call me cynical, but my conclusion is that's the way it is, and that's the way it always will be, regardless of how much education people receive.