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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."
Interestingly enough, Gates could have really improved his image during his tenure at Microsoft if he let emails like that "leak" out prior to stepping down. Instead, he gives keynotes about Microsoft and its "innovation."
First, I am not sure that email is really by Gates -- from reading his writing or listening to him in the past, it really does not sound like his style. Also, "I reboot my computer ... why should I have to reboot my computer?" 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. However, maybe I'm giving too much credit here.
Secondly, *if you can't do anything about this crap, then stop releasing it on time and FIX THE ISSUES* instead of releasing it to the world for millions of users to suffer under your monopoly. If your software sucks, fix the problems instead of using oppressive business practices to make *everybody* suffer.
Next, people complain about Linux usability? apt-get install mplayer k3b, etc? It is not harder, just different. In fact, having all of the software most people need in one place makes Linux easier for most people in many ways, specifically the way that possible-Bill rants about here.
Whenever I have listen to Gates talk or talked to him (many, many years ago now, in the late 90's) he seems more than aware of problems with his product, and I always get this vibe "I'm doing it because I can and it is really, really, really good for business and nobody is stopping me." If any of you were following the USDOJ against Microsoft way back before the Bush-era forgiveness, Microsoft was going to be split into three companies. When Bill was on the stand, he basically went "I don't remember" to every possibly incriminating statement, but was clearly aware of the bad ethics of what he was doing -- again, reading between the lines I always got the vibe of the triumphant geek saying "I'm not going to stop until you guys get your act together and make me stop."
He's not a stupid guy that way, and anybody that respects billionaires must ask themselves if they would do the same things with a company to maintain market share... Personally, I like to think I wouldn't, but that's why I am not a CEO.
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
That's such a loaded and flamebait-ridden summary it's not even funny. Linux has plenty of usability issues, just like Windows - the quirks are just in different places.
Still, assuming the email is real of course, it's always nice to see the boss appreciate the problems from the regular user's perspective.
q: How do you make a billion dollars?
a: no matter who complains about how crappy the new version of your product is, force its purchase onto your captive audience anyhow. Yay!
stuff |
Wow! I thought this was a joke until I read this part
When Seattle Pi recently asked Gates about the email, he replied, "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail"Sockets are the standard networking API, also useful for stopping your eyes from falling onto your cheeks" zeromq.org
That is NOT Gate's writing style and there are several mistakes as well that point to someone other than gates wrote the letter.
"I go to microsoft.com they have a download center" HUH? Cince when does the Head executive of the company refer to the company as "they" instead of "we"? I have never seen it even down to the grunt level.
This "secret memo" is bunk. it is in no way Bill Gates' writing.
Except this was entered as evidence in the DoJ trial. It's real and on the books.At the end of the piece, it says,
When Seattle Pi recently asked Gates about the email, he replied, "There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mailMaybe the competent MS employees have long ago committed harakiri in shame, and whoever's left Just Don't Care...
I didn't think it sounded much like him, either, but googling the subject turned up this (google cache version), which seems to make it more plausible ..
The originial article: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp
Here are the responses from within Microsoft: http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/library/2003Jangatesmoviemaker.pdf
The email is real. It's in the court documents from the Comes vs Microsoft case. You can find it in PX07199.pdf from http://edge-op.org/iowa/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/7000/
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
BTW, folks, how about replace on slashdot that Bill's mug with Ballmer's physiognomy? :)
This billg guy is a known troll that bashes Windows at every opportunity. Remember him showing off Windows 95 and publicly making it bluescreen in front of an audience?
Don't you feel silly now after that pointless rant that it turns out to be real and part of the released court documents from the Comes vs Microsoft case?
First, I am not sure that email is really by Gates -- from reading his writing or listening to him in the past, it really does not sound like his style. Also, "I reboot my computer ... why should I have to reboot my computer?" 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. However, maybe I'm giving too much credit here.
What he is probably alluding to is the fact that every other operating system under the sun (Linux, Sun, SPARC, Mac OSX, BSD) can replace 95% of the OS without rebooting. Only windows requires you to reboot to do something stupid like replace a DLL. I can overwrite any .SO in my OS without rebooting - this is something the UNix world figured out a long time ago (deref the file pointer, write the new file. People using the old pointer can continue to do so, newly started apps use the new pointer. Once install of software is complete, restart software impacted).
The only thing that should require a reboot is replacing the kernel itself or a low-level IO driver.
The file he links to is rather older than that blog article, featuring on this website discussing the case Comes vs. Microsoft. It was one of several thousand files submitted as evidence by the plaintiffs, specifically in this batch (file PX07199). This was a case back in 2007. Seeing as the version from 2007 has an evidence stamp, and the blog version doesn't, I suspect they're both copies of some original pdf found on the internet and therefore the veracity is still unclear.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
For God's sake...if I want to setup a printer, it should be the system's job to install ALL software needed to get it working. What is so difficult in that?
...Windows usability issues, and in many cases our experiences have driven many us over to Linux, or kept us there...Let me remind the author of that line that we Linux users have still not made a dent on the desktop market. I can say, we are economically insignificant. This is despite perceived flaws in Windows. And by the way, Bill Gates was not frustrated over Windows in particular...he appears to have been frustrated by confusing names and un-necessary questions on the Windows website.
What we have here is the boss complaining about the design of their own product. How is this news?
Is it only news because the slashdot kiddies find any reason to laugh at MS? Or is is news because no other company CEO ever complains about any products their company produces?
I have a dirty secret to admit. I have received an email from the big boss in the past complaining about features implemented by a product we produce. I feel dirty, obviously I'm in the minority. If I submit it to Slashdot, do you think it will make the front page?
Here's a PDF of the original, together with the replies, as submitted to the trial.
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/library/2003Jangatesmoviemaker.pdf
Here, Knock yourself out
The specific exhibit (7199) is found near here
And if you doubt me (after all, who is this xtracto guy), the page is linked from groklaw. Maybe they are more thrustworthy than myself?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
This is a rant about micrsoft.*com* - the website (and related update sites etc). It isn't about Microsoft itself, or its applications and operating systems. It's about the usability of the microsoft.com website and download services - which are probably largely outsourced to a few kids in India. It has nothing to do with "how bad Vista is" or lessons learned from XP.
Except for that whole Windows Update forcing you to reboot your computer bit, the download locking up his computer, the problems of garbage turning up in the Add/Remove Programs utility but not Moviemaker, the rant about Add/Remove being the only decent thing left with XP.So no, other than about half of the email, it has nothing to do with XP.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Or anything else that you can wedge between those two parts and still have it make some kind of sense.
This could go in Mad Magazine - they do a feature like this regularly. Here are some more choices (pick one from each)
There's not a day that I don't send a piece of e-mail
[after I've smoked 5 joints | praising Satan | from my Mac Book | blasting the idiots who work for me | bidding on a small island nation | trying to destroy slashdot ]
but
[only an idiot would think I wrote something | I've never been stoned enough to write anything | the PI reporter must have been really blasted to make up dreck | only my evil twin writes | Steve Jobs was in my office and sent out a bunch of stuff]
like that piece of e-mail.
My guess would be that your perspective is somehow twisted by a superior knowledge and/or appreciation for Windows.
For example:
except once, and I had used a beta driver, so you can't really blame Windows for that Actually, yes, you really could blame Windows that using this driver resulted in a crash. A more graceful solution doesn't really take all that much imagination.Likewise, you may not have ever had occasion to experience some of the particularly common nasties:
You may have never lost a motherboard - otherwise you would have experienced the painful fight-the-bluescreen vs reinstall decision.
You may not have used IE 4 (or 5, or 6) as suggested by Windows - otherwise the pop-ups and spyware would have created a mess you would have had to clean up by now.
You may not have automatic updates turned on - otherwise you would have been forced to do an undesired reboot at least once by now.
You may have disabled UAC, or never used Vista at all - otherwise you would have been prompted as many as four times to approve the same action.
You may not ever Alt+Tab in Vista - otherwise you would have seen 'Explorer is not responding' at least once by now...
The list goes on and on and on...
Chances are, either your skills are high enough that none of the above is painful, or you just plain don't mind it - taking the good with the bad.
Others are in a totally different boat, my friend, I assure you.
then this is the one of the best lines ever!
Real. Life. Dilbert.
...that the guy was pissed off, and trying to point out usability issues the average Joe would have. I'm sure he knows how to get his operating system and websites (well maybe not websites, MS sites are largely a mess in my experience) to do what he wants, but the vast majority of Windows users aren't experts and would get fed up very quickly at running the gamut of crap in the Windows Update process (and rightly so) or trying to trick an MS website into turning up the information they want (my approach is to use Google instead of the MS site search tool). In fact I would say his email, while perhaps poorly written (as most pissed-off emails are), is quite insightful in that sense. He picked out the things that would piss of Granny Web Surfer instead of suffering through it because he understood the complex things going on in the background. When WinUpdate basically forced him to restart, he didn't think "Well I guess this is reasonable, the new DLLs have to load on startup and the new applications are dependent on them," as most of us would, he thought "Who wants to restart in the middle of the update process!? This is a load of crap!"
Thinking like a common user makes user-friendly programs.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
A cute phrase and an oft-repeated anecdote, but according to people at Lotus, it's completely false.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein