What is this thing called "tag"? I thought it was something Technorati invented because people couldn't think well enough to organize their thoughts around 3 categories: sex, food, and toys...
So when MS doesn't add new features they are slammed for not innovating enough, and when they do add new features they are slammed for contributing to bloat that you don't want. People bitched about IE6 not having tabs, etc. Firefox came out and MS finally realized it had to update IE so it added a lot of features people were asking for and the most-heard comment on Slashdot after IE7b2 was released was "it's ugly". Face it: Microsoft just can't win.
That's not it. MSFT is already bloated. It's just that there are other problems with it as well (features, release time, etc). Ugliness can be cured; bad coding can't. It's nice that MSFT decided to keep up with the Joneses, but with it's current track record for releases, Vista will be outdated by its competition by the end of this year (yes, i know it's not being released until early next year). For people who like new and shiny things, that's not fast eough. In addition to that, though, MSFT has a track record of being buggy (maybe a factor comorbid with its bloatedness). It's not like when MSFT pushes a "final" release that it won't crash under normal operations. Even when I had XP Pro with Office 2003 Pro running and completely up-to-date, Word crashed on me--regardless of what else i was running (e.g. nothing else, not even an antivirus). I don't see that with the (whatever is the latest release of) OpenOffice 2 running on Debian "unstable."
Not every product is a winner. MS historically doesn't release every single product as a beta and quietly stop promoting the ones that suck. Instead they release final versions and some fall on their face. No company has a perfect record.
Yet they keep updating and releasing new versions of the failed ventures. Sure, they're not perfect, but they do tend to make their own program as opposed to let someone else make one. When is MSFT Antivirus coming out? MSFT Spyware Remover?
The problem is not that criticism isn't warranted, it's that MS can't win no matter what. If they release a weak or buggy product they get slammed, but if they take too long to release they get slammed. If they don't add new features they get slammed, but if they add new features it's called bloat. If an MS product gets bad reviews the reviewers are being honest, but if they get good reviews the reviewers are obviously being paid. For years MS got slammed for security issues, and they beefed up SP2 and suddenly there were waves of "but it broke my application" complaints. The list goes on.
I think the problem with MSFT is that with the time they "invest" into making a new program, these "final" releases should be less buggy and more secure. How many people work 40 hours a week on Firefox? How many are on the IE dev team working 40 hours a week on IE? (I don't have the numbers, but I think it'd be interesting to see)
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW, Nazi Germany did a pretty good job of a multi-front war.
What is this thing called "tag"? I thought it was something Technorati invented because people couldn't think well enough to organize their thoughts around 3 categories: sex, food, and toys...