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Bill Gates Chews Out Microsoft
s31523 writes "All of us have one time or another been completely frustrated by certain Windows usability issues, and in many cases our experiences have driven us over to Linux, or kept us there. For anyone that has ever been frustrated, you will be happy to know you aren't the only one. After reading this leaked Microsoft memo from Bill Gates back in 2003, you will surely have more insight into why Vista is a complete disaster due to Microsoft not learning anything from their experiences from XP."
Agreed. The only way this could have been Bill is if he was drunk and actively trying to sound like a patronizing jackass to his team.
Totally agree. Absolute fake.
Yes, Jobs just makes you download his crap browser when you just need an update to Quicktime or iTunes!
And no, I'm no Microsoft fanboi either.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I find it hard to realize that he wouldn't know the technical difficulties in replacing a dll while the system is running, and possible ways around this, and the current state of affairs.
I find it hard to believe that Gates would think that Linux programmers could do something that his well paid staff can't! I don't think I've ever rebooted Linux unless I was replacing the kernel by trying a different distro or updating an existing one. And even then there's only ONE reboot; you put the CD in the drive, reboot, and the distro installs.
If I was Gates, heads would have been rolling years ago. But I agree with you, I think the email is bogus. The line at the bottom:
I wouldn't be "scared" and I can't believe Gates would be, either.
many, many years ago now, in the late 90's
The late '90s was only a decade ago, young fellow! Many, many years ago my electric bill came on Hollerith cards.
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.
I've been vindicated for all those times I've been modded "flamebait" when I insist that people at Microsoft must be incredibly stupid. How can you NOT anticipate that people just might want to download something from a download page?
Go ahead, Microsoft employees, mod me down again. I'm sure with all the people at Microsoft there are lots of very intelligent folks, but when Pointy Haired Boss is in charge and Catbert is head of HR, it doesn't matter how smart Dilbert is, the product is going to look like it was designed by Uncyclopedia authors who are high on something.
The email reads like something I might have written. Had Microsoft not had a defacto monopoly they would likely have gone out of business years ago.
I'd like to know what idiot came up with some of the Microsoft "innovations" like menus that don't show all the menu items? Don't they try their poorly designed crap out on real people?
"Skews me" while I read the rest of the user rants and shill excuses.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
That's such a loaded and flamebait-ridden summary it's not even funny.
It's only flamebait if you are a Microsoft employee. Sorry, dude, but the summary is accurate. Yes, I did in fact RTFA.
If you want a "loaded and flamebait-ridden summary" here's what it would have looked like:
Yes, I metamoderate. If you get mod points and mod something like the real summary "flamebait" or "troll" you may not get mod points again. My made-up summary, OTOH, would be quite different (and many here would write such a comment and be surprised when they are modded down).HAND.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The menu approach has been broken since Apple came up with the Finder. It's not uncommon to see a Start menu in Windows XP that fills up the entire screen when deployed, because people can't be bothered to organize it. I always move things under generic folders I keep, like "Tools", "Games" and "Applications", but I'm the exception and hardly the rule. Microsoft understands this, which is why they came up with the MRU list in the XP start menu, which works fairly well. As for the "I don't know what Corel does and I'm confused" argument, assuming I didn't just finish installing Corel DRAW to begin with, at least the XP start menu highlights new entries and tells you something was installed.
The Vista start menu is another attempt to make the (still broken) menu approach work, which sort of works because all you have to do is type a few characters of the thing you're looking for and it will find it. It's a power user's dream but I'm not sure if it's at all beneficial for normal ones. I think that whole paradigm is starting to reach the end of the line. Maybe Windows 7 will have something new, who knows. And I'm sure KDE and GNOME will copy it immediately as well.
Also, can you elaborate on the "mindless changes and permutations" thing? It seems to me that other than the MRU list in XP and the quick find functionality in Vista, the Windows start menu has hardly changed at all since 1995.
I'm sorry, I don't understand this or what it has to do with the subject. Can you elaborate?
There is default location per user. Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you actually used Windows?
What Bill Gates described was a problem with finding something in the Microsoft.com download area, and something to do with the Add/Remove programs. Did you read the email at all?
* I'm sure you don't mind me calling it "GAH/Linsux", or something silly like that. Right? After all, you do the "M$ Windoze" thing very naturally. I'd normally avoid that kind of infantile approach to trying to call attention to myself, but I'll humour you.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
You do know that once upon a time they did just that? There was a saying that "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run".
No, they did not, and I challenge you to find a single shred of credible evidence to support this myth.
The very idea of an OS vendor deliberately breaking the one application 90% of their customers want to run is simply laughable.
Back when Lotus 1-2-3 was MS' biggest software competitor, every new version of DOS would have some "feature" that would cause Lotus 1-2-3 to "break".
Multiplan was never a big competitor for 1-2-3. Again, the idea that Microsoft would deliberately break it is just stupid.
However, since you seem so convinced that "every new version of DOS [would break 1-2-3]", you shouldn't have any trouble whatsoever coming up with some documentation of which versions of DOS broke which versions of 1-2-3.