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Are Windows 7 Testers Going Unheard?
nandemoari writes "Windows 7 beta testers are disputing whether or not Microsoft is taking notice of their feedback.
The dispute follows a blog post by Steven Sinofsky, the man in charge of engineering Windows 7. He notes that in one week in January Microsoft received data through Windows 7's automatic feedback system every 15 seconds.
According to Sinofsky, it's impossible to keep everyone happy. That's partly because there are only so many changes Microsoft can make to the system and still finish it, and partly because in many cases testers often have opposing views about a feature."
I think that's his way of saying "We can't make all the users happy so we're going to do our best to make sure none are happy."
I suspect there is a big difference between unheard and ignored!
"Kernel 2.8.1 beta testers are disputing whether or not the linux community is taking notice of their feedback. The dispute follows a blog post by Linus Torvalds, the man in charge of engineering Kernel 2.8.1. He notes that in one week in January the linux community received data through Kernel 2.8.1's automatic feedback system every 15 seconds. According to Linus, it's impossible to keep everyone happy. That's partly because there are only so many changes the linux community can make to the system and still finish it, and partly because in many cases testers often have opposing views about a feature."
Maybe. But I do think that customer feedback is crucial to Microsoft at this point. And I think they know that. They really can't afford for Windows 7 to get the same public backlash that Vista got.
My blog
Of course it was. It was "Mojave" open to the public. Been saying that all along. But I also have to agree with the pragmatic answer to the question about whether or not Windows7 testers are being ignored. I tend to believe that if the feedback opposes "the plan" whatever that may be, the feedback goes ignored and if the feedback is a compatibility issue, they will likely consider it and weigh it against opposing factors such as what compatibility breaks or complicates.
There is nothing inherently evil or bad about this approach in my opinion.
The thing you're missing is that they're not selling software. They're selling software as a service. They're trying to be more like Google.
Google has a massive farm of computers that they leverage. Microsoft wants one too.
The difference is, Google was stupid... they went out and bought the hardware. Microsoft is smarter. They're just going to seize control of yours. In the business world, they call that "externalizing costs".
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Microsoft hasn't done a great job of explaining to the millions of people who've tested Windows 7 that the beta stage is more about catching problems than significantly changing the way the system works.
My impression has always been that alpha testing is for determining whether or not to continue with an approach, and beta testing is for exercising the system to weed out sufficient bugs to continue with a final release. The beta testers complaining sound like they just went in with unreasonable expectations.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
And if you're an enterprise user with 1000's of computers and 1000's of users all needign to share data and collaborate? Well then there's Active Directory. God knows I'm not a Microsoft apologeist but I haven't seen anything that even comes close to the power and ease of use there is in Windows Server and Active Directory.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
Unix was sharing data and enabling users to collaborate when Redmond still thought DOS was hot and sexy.
The fact that you are brought up in a Windows environment doesn't mean there aren't other ways to accomplish things. Really.
Vista really doesn't suck. I say this as an OS X, Linux, and M-Windows user.
But if Microsoft wants to increase marketshare among the people using unlicensed installations of the OS, it's the Vista-style *licensing* of Win7 that must change.
The licensing model of Vista (and Win7) is like dongle, only worse: it's a dongle with an expiry date. It penalizes the customer. If I buy an authentication key, *I* should be the one to say on which computer I install it. I shouldn't have to call Redmond for permission if I change computers.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
75% of these were able to use drivers provided in box (that is no download necessary). The remaining devices were almost all served by downloading drivers from Windows Update and by direct links to the manufacturer's web site.
How many machines could not get their NIC to work out of the box? How much did this skew the data because the owners never bothered to sneakernet the drivers? If these hypothetical NICs didn't work, how much else on the systems didn't work and was not recorded in the data?
It's "way behind" in some aspects, but also way ahead in others. Ever had a device that didn't work in Windows? I have a scanner that just won't work with anything past XP. No drivers, never will be. Hardware is still awesome (2400x1200dpi flatbed, USB), but it just doesn't work with any recent Windows. It has worked with every single distro of Linux I've thrown at it, though.
And display drivers are getting better, especially lately. I can build Ubuntu packages with the latest ATI installer if I want the latest and greatest, or just use the restricted driver manager if I want the distro version.
Not to mention my Linux just keeps everything updated. I don't have 15 auto-updaters running all the time, I don't have each program checking for itself. Windows is way behind in update capabilities.
Linux is only behind if you define "ahead" as "what windows does". Guess what... Linux is not Windows. If you compare them, Windows will be better at what Windows does, and Linux will be better at what Linux does. The question is what do you want your computer to do? Locked in, proprietary software that you don't get much support for that if it doesn't work, you're just SOL, or open source software that's not as pretty, but can do a lot more if you spend some time working on it, and is completely free, doesn't get viruses, etc.? It's your choice. But don't think that "Linux" is a free Windows, or you can compare them directly in all aspects.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I have converted 3 people to *nix since October. All three came from the 'used Xp just fine, but what is this?' crowd, right after getting a new PC with Vista pre-installed. All three have commented on how easy their computers are to use now, and wished they had heard of this *nix thing years ago.
What exactly did these people find so hard about Vista? Seriously?
I mean if they could 'easily' handle switching Office programs, switching email programs, switching browsers, switching to any of linuxes file explorers, switching to Gnome or KDE windowing conventions, using amarok instead of itunes or windows media player, learning the new terminology, figuring out Kopete or Pidgin instead of MSN, got their wifi going, set up their own printers, figured out how to get their all in one scanner to ocr something, shared some files over the network with Samba...
but what... you expect me to beleive they were hopelessly befuddled by Vista's "Network and Sharing Center" or that that "Add/Remove Programs" is now "Programs and Features"... or that when they install something they have to click 'Allow'.
Give me a break.
The only rational explanation I can think of is one of expectations. They expected Vista to be identical so the slightest change is reported as 'confusing and hard' and they expected Linux to be incomprehensibly different so the slightest familiarity is 'surprisingly easy and welcome'.
But in 'absolute' terms anyone willing to take the effort to poke around in a Linux distro to figure things out will cope just fine in Vista with the same mindset.