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Why "Vista" Nick White Left Microsoft
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week Nick White, Product Manager for Windows Vista and blogger at WindowsVistaBlog, announced that he was leaving Microsoft. Geek.com previously interviewed Nick about what SP1 for Vista was all about, so they sat down with him yesterday to get the details behind his departure, his proudest moments at Microsoft, a few regrettable moments, and more."
For those not into RTFA here is a summary: Proudest moment: Dodging the chair as I ran out the door Details Behind departure: DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS... need more be said?
And That is why Nick quit!
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
So he sounds like a reasonable guy, and from what he says he was allowed to be honest and make his own decisions.
Unfortunately it's one of the laws of PR that a dishonest PR person can claim to be honest just as easily as an honest one.
Ah well. I have faith in humanity! I believe him.
Mmmmm, the lovely taste of vomit. I never knew 'shaping opionion' by 'sharing information' was what 'bloggers do best'. That statement is even more ironic considering only a few paragraphs earlier he said:
I won't argue with whether Vista is good or bad, because what galls me about this interview is not the debate over Vista but the man's presumptions about his audience and the supposed purpose of marketing being to '[change] the prevailing âoewisdomâ around [the product], one user at a time[...]'. And one does this by 'to explain things in terms that didnâ(TM)t sound like spin but rather presented the facts without being leading, and in a manner that respected our readersâ(TM) intelligence.'
Because, 'I learned that companies ignore or attempt to manipulate public opinion around their products and services at their peril.' And we know Microsoft (or any other corporate "blogger" (I'm sorry, let's call him what he is: Shill) would never do such a thing - right? I mean, Lord help the company that tries to 'manipulate public opinion' with lies - whoops, I mean market-speak.
Asshole.
Marketing writer leaves Microsoft... and this becomes a /. story?
name recognition, name recognition,
rolodex, rolodex,
blah. why are there even MORE stories about this on slashdot. it was obviously hype to benefit nick, benefit his new employer, and then play down the MS leaving angle to make somewhat/all nice with his old employer. everybody wins. even slashdot. go go gadget newscycle.
everybody except me, im the idiot taking the time to click the link and write this little rant. and you're the idiots taking the time to mod me -1 troll and +5 underrated.
*headdesk*
Vista wins the coveted "Glass Turd" award.
Most disappointing moment:
Vista wins the coveted "Glass Turd" award.
Windows 7? Going 2 for 2.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Considering it's MS, my guess is, he knew too much.
How you interpret that now is up to you, I think both ways could be true.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I read the whole article and nothing was actually revealing probably because he failed to say anything negative whatsoever about his former company (and everyone has something negative to say about their employer), yet he offers no real reason why he left but it's supposedly an interview about his leaving Microsoft... Sorry for the run-on sentence.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
He had me at:
"PR had a voice in what content appeared on the blog but they were only one stakeholder among many."
It was the only statement he made that had any substance. And if you think for one minute there never has been, isn't, never will be a muzzle on this dude:
[geek] "What feature did you want to see in Vista that was dropped at the last minute and why?"
[nw]"I came onto the Windows team too late to have an informed opinion, and what I do know should probably remain non-public information. Sorry."
Pffffft.
-- Karma whore? You betcha. --
Marketing Droid speaks Marketing Noise, to people who really don't care.
:) )."
"Did you ever post something that Microsoft wished you hadnâ(TM)t?
The first post I put up was on the use of BitTorrents to distribute Beta 2, and I gave it a rather sensationalistic title. It got senior managementâ(TM)s attention, and from there we had a blank check to engage anyone we needed in order to get the story in time for it to be relevant to our readers. So while it was perhaps a risky route to go in the short-term, it was that story that ensured our blog was apportioned the resources necessary to get the job done right. In short, Iâ(TM)d do it again and in the same way (only Iâ(TM)d blame it all on my managers
If you read this, he never answer the freakin question, as asked! In fact, he said he'd do it again. I don't know if that was sarcasm, which doesn't work well in written form, or what.
Why can't people ever answer the question? Seriously. Crap crap crap. I just wasted 5 minutes
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The real reason why Nick White left is because too many people kept calling him "Vista" Nick White, and as soon as the ladies correlated that, like Vista, Nick White underperformed and was overhyped, they left him like a chubby kid at fat camp.
Despite my very unpleasant experience with Vista (before I went back to XP), I will still take a look at "Windows 7", and I'm sincerely hoping that Microsoft gets it right this time. Windows XP has been one of the more successful products I've used on a computer, and it's provided me with a platform for nearly a decade of productivity.
I think there's still a lot of life left in the concept of a Personal Computer Operating System. I use a PC to produce media, and that's not something I expect to be doing on a network appliance or cell phone any time soon. I'm going to be needing a standalone computer that runs my applications for a while still, and it would be great to have a few flexible and versatile professional, commercial operating systems to choose from, especially ones that will run the hardware of my choice and my favorite applications.
Corporations, even big ones (especially big ones) will have turnover at the top over time. This means they can change, for the better and for the worse. I've seen Apple go both ways in my adult life, for example, and I'm sure we all can point to corporations that have improved and those that have started sucking.
Vista was an unmitigated disaster for my productivity needs. XP is a great success, good enough that it has earned my trust enough to at least check out the next OS they put out.
It's very easy to hate Microsoft, but I can still hope they get it right next time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Someone who has held a position like that is unlikely to fight back and burn bridges by slagging off Microsoft. In fact you would think he still worked there given the positive spin his article provides.
There's no way he'd ruin his career by giving us any dirt on Microsoft and Vista, future employers wouldn't like that. He's probably signed an NDA anyway.
I can't believe the propaganda is so blatant!
I'm glad you brought that up.
Here is an example;
"Frankly, I think Windows Vista has gotten a bum rap, as I use it every day - even after having left MS - and I would have a hard time using anything else and still be as productive."
He gave the reason I gave up on Vista. I couldn't get anything done. In a meeting I tried to show a DVD. It started OK but stopped to ask if I wanted to upgrade my AV. The stupid computer asked me to upgrade now, even though we were doing a presentation and had no network connections at the time. I wounder if it would have crashed if I told it to upgrade.
We wrote documents and tried to send them to the laser instead of the default inkjet printer. Couldn't find any way to do it without changing the default printer. Later a Google search told me to use the big round logo. It's really a button. Who would of guessed?
The Ubuntu install went fine. I was able to log into my network, attach to printers, edit documents, burn CD's, edit photos, scan documents, etc. on the default setup. Vista was full of shareware requesting upgrades for everything. Almost nothing worked. It couldn't log into my servers, I couldn't select printers without a Google search, and movies stopped after playing for 15 minutes for a stupid dialog box.
With lots of training and system customization, I might be able to become productive on Vista, but the first attempts very poor.
The truth shall set you free!
This quote, at the end caught my attention:
Q: "Are you going to be blogging for BuzzCorps?"
A: "The new gig is not about me blogging, it's about helping bloggers do what they do best - shape opinion through the sharing of information"
So he's moved on to a far more luctrative career in training astroturfers. Great.
Jeremy
Hmm, let's think about this:
...
- The DVD playback software doesn't sound a Vista component itself, although it's hard to tell from your description.
- "stopped to ask if I wanted to upgrade my AV" - Anti-Virus? That sounds like a 3rd party component rather than a piece of Vista.
- The "big round logo" is a part of Office 2007, which is not part of Vista. It looks exactly the same on XP.
- The "Shareware requesting updates" are not part of Vista and were installed by your computer manufacturer.
Sounds like you got a crappy OEM machine and none of these are really Vista issues
Can someone point out the regrets? I couldn't find any. Neither could firefox.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
too bad you posted AC. Most of your points are correct.
My point is a new Visya machine out of the box from most retailers is not production worthy. It needed an Office Application. Office 2007 has it's own issues. Sorry I mentioned it. My Linux machine came with an office application installed and it worked, was intuitive and the minor bugs were easy to figure out. The biggest annoyance was the default printer paper setting of A4 instead of Letter. It did not require a Google search to fix.
The stopped to ask, I do blame on Vista. When updates are available in Ubuntu for a background task, it simply winks the toolbar item, not stop the foreground task like it did in Vista. This is a Vista fault. I've seen the same task done much better elsewhere.
The Shareware requesting updates being installed by the computer manufacture is a problem with Vista. They should not need the DeCrapifier right out of the box to fix a new machine.
The fix is here;
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/home
The truth shall set you free!
he makes his living by being a voice on the internet for companies. You don't go to an interview and bad mouth you're previous employers. It's the quickest way to end your career opportunities with the company interviewing you. Which is another reason why no one seeking or thinking about ever wanting to seek employment should blast their former employers in publicly accessible forms like postings on the internet. If you are one of the top three coders in the world, you can probably say or do anything and not have to worry. But if you are just another advertising agent, you'd better not make any enemies or make any public anouncements like "So and So is the worst company in the world". So, nothing unusual that a salesman doesn't have anything bad to say about a company he was a salesman for.
Doh!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
'm not so convinced you've even *used* Vista/Office 2007 (as is the case with so many who spew out the same garbage reasons why M$ is the suxorz). Nice rant/push of Ubuntu, though.
//192.168.19.106/lp1 covered 3 dialog pages with the names just enough diffrent so you needed a Google search to figure out how to enter the info. The naming conventions are much like Favorites vs Bookmarks. With a stand alone printserver with an IP address instead of a name, makes connecting a Vista machine a big task for a newbie to Vista. It took 2 hours to configure 2 printers, and another 4 hours to find why Vista couldn't log into a Simple Share NAS where everyting else including Windows 95, Mac, and Ubuntu. can do it easily. I have the username, Workgroup, password and had to make a registery change to fix it.
You got me there. It's my wife's new machine. She got it for school. She wanted to connecto to the home LAN. No prob, gave it what it needed to get on the web. Set it up to use our networked printers, and inkjet and laser. She wanted to transfers her stuff from her very old Win ME laptop. She transferred the files to the Simple Share NAS in her folder. She couldn't log in with the new Vista laptop to get her files...
My using Vista has only been a support nightmare. Ubuntu takes about 15 minutes to point to 2 HP printers on a LAN using CUPS. The Vista machine really tried to find the Windows IIS server. MS version of
After blowing the day just to get it up to the bare minimum functionality (printing, backup/restore, WWW) she was ready to use it for her classes. She asked for help setting up the projector for the video clip, so I set it up in the presenter mode so the Windows icons didn't show on the big screen (dual monitor), started the show, dimmed the lights and took a seat. A few minutes into the clip, it simply vanished off screen leaving an empty desktop background. Brought up the lights to troubleshoot and went back to the laptop and found the dialog box...
You are right. I don't use Vista. I've seen it let us down. We use my laptop for video clips now. I don't have to wait for the FBI warning. The movie just starts and doesn't die unexpectedly for some random nag screen.
Shhh.. With Acid Rip, clips can be simply saved on the hard drive and can become part of the slide show, but that's a DCMA violation.. Shhh... it works great, but not on Vista.
To get things done, I use something besides Vista.
The truth shall set you free!
I would point out that a few years ago Microsoft got a minor rap across the knuckles for refusing to allow OEMs to install non-Microsoft software.
Now vendors should get a rap on the knuckles for installing any software that isn't a full functioning product. You want to install a photo editor, fine, but it better not expire. Only subscription based services such as AV updates should require a payment to get the signature file updates. Nobody should have to sweep off all the declined offers. They should auto uninstall completely and restore the original file type associations on failure to accept the sales pitch.
A photo editor on my wife's machine broke the ability for the photocopier software to use the scanner. Attempting to photocopy something simply launched the expired trial editor. Uninstalling the editor left windows looking for the missing photo editor.. Umm how about letting the photocopier get the scan? The anti-consumer action should be banned. We use Ubuntu with the scanner now. Windows is broken by a trial software package.
The truth shall set you free!