Slashdot Mirror
"Microsoft Killed My Pappy"
theodp writes "A conversation with an angry young developer prompts Microsoft Program Manager Scott Hanselman to blog about 'Microsoft Haters: The Next Generation.' 'The ones I find the most interesting,' says Hanselman, are the 'Microsoft killed my Pappy' people, angry with generational anger. My elders hated Microsoft so I hate them. Why? Because, you wronged me.' The U.S. and Japan managed to get over the whole World War II thing, Hanselman notes, so why can't people manage to get past the Microsoft antitrust thing, which was initiated in 1998 for actions in 1994? 'At some point you let go,' he suggests, 'and you start again with fresh eyes.' Despite the overall good-humored, why-can't-we-get-along tone of his post, Hanselman can't resist one dig that seems aimed at putting things into perspective for those who would still Slashdot like it's 1999: 'I wonder if I can swap out Chrome from Chrome OS or Mobile Safari in iOS.'"
People understand that corporations are amoral. The rational position towards a large, powerful corporation is distrust. That's the baseline from which a corporation has to work up from.
On top of that most people don't get a *choice* of Microsoft or something else; Microsoft is chosen *for them* by the corporate IT department or by the IT departments of people they have to work with. That's raises the bar for user experience, somethign MS is not particularly good at. It's like the food you get on a college meal plan. The fact you're forced to eat it means that if you're assigning it a letter grade you automatically deduct two letter grades: an A becomes a C and a B becomes a D.
Now consider Apple. There's a lot to dislike in their trying to position themselves as content gate keepers especially. But there are offsetting virtues: innovation, design, and build quality. On top of that most people who use Apple products choose to do so, which means they get a better evaluation.
Unfair? Maybe; but that's reality.
Now this is not to say that Microsoft has no virtues as a corporation, it's just that those virtues aren't experienced by *users*. Microsoft has consistently provided a mediocre user experience in its core products, and undermined the main value of their products to the user -- familiarity -- by pointless fiddling with user interfaces.
Microsoft's big sin was abusing its market position to achieve a monopoly with a mediocre product. To be forgiven of that sin, they've got to start producing products people love and look forward to, and don't feel let down by.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Okay, I'll burn what's left of my karma and point out the reason why we can't get along...because Microsoft HAS NOT CHANGED. They are still the price-gouging, competition stifling, astro-turfing, anti open standards, monopolizing enterprise that they have always been. What HAS changed is the rise of Mac OS X, iPad, Google Chrome, etc. that have created some real alternatives to Microsoft.