Our love/hate relationship with Microsoft: What happens now?
Our love/hate relationship with Microsoft: What happens now?
Over the years, Microsoft has been vilified for more reasons than you can shake a memory stick at. But the world is bigger than Microsoft; and if we're going to take the time and effort to hate something, it makes more sense for it to be something deserving of hate -- like government corruption, unsanctioned access by certain countries to nuclear missiles, and diseases that evolve faster than our ability to comprehend them. Tossing bile at a mere software company would be too easy if it weren't so pointless.
As Microsoft releases Windows 7 unto a world that has been well-trained to be suspicious of such events, now is a pretty good time to reconsider why so many people have for so long held a special degree of contempt for the company. It's also an ideal time to question why this has been the case in the first place, and figure out what our attitudes should be from this point forward.
Over the years, Microsoft has been vilified for more reasons than you can shake a memory stick at. But the world is bigger than Microsoft; and if we're going to take the time and effort to hate something, it makes more sense for it to be something deserving of hate -- like government corruption, unsanctioned access by certain countries to nuclear missiles, and diseases that evolve faster than our ability to comprehend them. Tossing bile at a mere software company would be too easy if it weren't so pointless.
As Microsoft releases Windows 7 unto a world that has been well-trained to be suspicious of such events, now is a pretty good time to reconsider why so many people have for so long held a special degree of contempt for the company. It's also an ideal time to question why this has been the case in the first place, and figure out what our attitudes should be from this point forward.
Most recently, Vista's been the lazy person's target for vilification and vitriol. When it was released, it was big and buggy, and although Microsoft eventually fixed most of the countless niggling problems with its flagship OS product, it couldn't repair the damage to the Vista brand.
Vista is only the latest in a long line of Microsoft missteps. Whether it's on account of the Xbox red circle of death, XP's sieve-like (in-) security, Windows ME's general crumminess, or Bob's absolute disconnection from reality, Microsoft has had to survive a number of high-profile failures.
But the company that's never failed hasn't been invented yet. (Sorry, Google.) Failure is what teaches great companies -- and people -- to achieve greater success the next time out. And in Microsoft's case, its successes far outweigh its failures. For better or worse, Microsoft's influence on a wide range of markets has forged consistency and purpose in those markets, when no one else was willing or able to step up to the plate and take the lead. To wit:
* Desktop operating systems. While some folks have valid reasons for disliking Windows, there's got to be at least some good baked into it to explain the basic fact that 90% of the computing world runs it. Since Windows 3.0 first transitioned Microsoft's GUI-based OS from curious plaything to serious competitor, the franchise has been the centerpiece of an ever-growing ecosystem of developers, vendors and users, all of whom have built careers and businesses around this now-ubiquitous OS. Mass adoption in various markets often seems to be accompanied by a certain degree of contempt: We all may despise Toyotas for being boring, soulless transportation appliances, but we buy them by the boatload because they get the job done.
* Applications. I still get e-mails from frustrated WordPerfect for DOS users who claim writing just hasn't been the same since Microsoft's Word vanquished WordPerfect's offering -- and, rather starkly, WordPerfect Corporation itself. Whatever. I still have nightmares when I remember trying to move data between Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. Microsoft's Office paradigm redefined how we got work done, and its market dominance made it easy for me to share my work with virtually anyone else who mattered.
* Development. The catch-as-you-can state of programming languages before Windows-based machines took over forced developers to either invest significant time in learning multiple languages, or risk backing the wrong horse by choosing the wrong one to learn. Products like Visual Basic opened up development paths to more users and broadened the landscape for consumers and businesses alike. Suddenly, programming wasn't so arcane.
* Networking. While Novell rightly gets credit for defining and popularizing the modern Local Area Network, Microsoft's Windows NT Server assumed the mantle and drove the concept into the heart of corporate IT. It certainly wasn't always pretty, especially if you were responsible for patching and securing it, but it was a good enough, familiar enough product family for most organizations.
A kinder, gentler Microsoft
As it brings Windows 7 to market, Microsoft is showing signs of greying around the temples. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the evolution of its CEO, Steve Ballmer. Long known for being an exuberant -- sometimes overly so -- Microsoft booster, Mr. Ballmer's antics, from throwing chairs to cheerleading during keynotes, are near-legendary. But somewhat uncharacteristically, his behavior during the Windows 7 launch has been nothing short of reserved and reflective.
Through Ballmer, we see a Microsoft that isn't so much monolithically monopolistic as it is customer-centered and, dare I say it, soft around the middle. Could this be a kinder, gentler Microsoft? Perhaps. The company makes it clear that consumer feedback to Vista's failings guided its Windows 7 development effort. And as new software delivery paradigms threaten its OS and productivity software dominance as never before, its efforts to build businesses in previously non-core sectors (Windows Azure Platform, anyone?) provide glimpses into a company that has come to terms with being merely mortal.
What's left to hate?
So this clearly isn't your father's Microsoft. But is that a good or a bad thing? Is a post-antitrust, post-king-of-the-world, post-desktop company that doesn't rampage through its markets as much as it carefully steps through them necessarily a good thing for the broader tech market?
Perhaps so. The tech landscape already has an heir apparent in Google, which now finds itself in the similarly unenviable position of lightning rod for those who seem to always need a lightning rod. By virtue of its size and perception as a monopolistic player, Google now falls under the same harsh criticism that had defined Microsoft for the better part of a generation.
Which leaves Microsoft to define a new path for itself, unencumbered by the weight of the constant attention typically afforded a singular leviathan of a given industry. It also leaves those of us who habitually cast an evil eye on this or any company, to wonder whether doing so serves any real purpose at all. Anyone who flogged Microsoft for the sins of its most recent Windows products, lost any significant reason this week to go on doing so. Sometimes, it just pays to be nice.
---------------------
I must say, Windows 7 is by far the best OS yet, I've been running for about 3-6-months and have not found anything to complain about.
:source: Source: Love/Hate:view: Homepage: Windows 7
Re: Our love/hate relationship with Microsoft: What happens now?
Microsoft will never be a true innovator. Windows was copied from the Mac, which was copied from Xerox-Parc research. Hell, even MS-DOS was not a Microsoft creation. But since MS owns the lion share of the market, what can you do but accept what they offer unless you're geeky enough to go Linux or rich enough to buy Macs. True Windows 7 is their best release but I see it nothing more than a long overdue Vista fix. Just my 2 cents....
Re: Our love/hate relationship with Microsoft: What happens now?
I had sp1 right away when I started using vista. No problems at all. I did upgrade to 7 because of the good sales they had going. I don't like or dislike microsoft. I use windows because thats what most of the hardware and software is made for. Having a bunch of different operating systems makes things more complicated for programmers and consumers alike. Apple seems just as evil and money hungry but the good thing is that I can completely avoid them without missing much.
Re: Our love/hate relationship with Microsoft: What happens now?
I started myself with Windows 95, after playing with dos for a few months. To this day, I miss being able to Ctrl+Alt+Del my way out of a mess, and auto resstart the OS. I didn't stick with 95 for long, 98SE was already out and when the price dropped I bought in. I had four PC's at the time, most of them recycled junk, but still fun to play around with. My one Win98SE disk could load up on all of them without having to call anyone or verify it was mine with just the serial it came with.
I had a brief stint with Win2000, more to just have the disk than anything else incase I decided to make a server for myself, tried ME from another persons disk on an old recycled PC just to see what the brew-ha-ha was all about.
With Windows XP, alot changed though, and much of it for the worse. XP was certainly more powerful if not buggy and security prone, but gone were the days of auto restart with Ctrl+Alt+Del and installing on more than one PC in the home.
It wasn't difficult to move from Win98 to XP, even though there were great differences in is System capabilities, most things still remained the same, like Control Panels Add/Remove Programs. Not so in Vista/Win7, they started renaming things and changing the GUI in a way that required relearning much I had aquired over the years from the ground up, and that continues with Win7, which I hate for its "change for change sake" type redesigning.
If people wanted a giant taskbar and stuff like that, there are third party apps out there, I don't need a long useless bar at the bottom of my screen. But mostly I hate not being able to open a folder with my name on it because I do not have permission (Its my Folder for Gods sake) and I have to work around it with a special function to take ownership. The problem is, I end up taking ownership of every folder to mimic XP anyway. So what a waste of time and programming for nothing. I throw their security out the window to get my tweakability back.
Until MS allows three to four instances of my purchased OS without having to call and verify a fifty character code ( I still format and reinstall every few years), and reinstitutes the extremely useful tools like Ctrl+Alt+Del restart, a Sytem Restore that doesn't fail most of the time and the second non-destructive repair option that XP had, I will still vilify MS for changing its OS in a way that makes it less user friendly for the sake of THEIR security not mine. XP was so easy to integrate and adapt as time went by but because of its iso type design but now thats gone, another user friendly OS down the drain.
I tried the Win7 trial for a good two months and it took me that long to tweak it to be more familiar like XP to me. But, I still hated it. Most people were commenting on how great it was, but they must be the type like my boss that operate from the desktop icons and couldn't find a picture in Windows Explorer if this life depended on it. UAC aside, if you want a user friendly OS and the ability to easily tweak it to your likeing by adding and remove folders to orginize the way you like things, you'll just have to stick with XP for now cause Win7 Sucks at User Friendly (even for an Administator which seems to have lost its power).
They will never learn, and just like Nero did once the Corporate Shills took over, they will slowly bloat and ruin it over the years until everyone switches to Linux or Apple, as they are already doing in groves
Re: Our love/hate relationship with Microsoft: What happens now?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Darth Sushi
Microsoft will never be a true innovator. Windows was copied from the Mac, which was copied from Xerox-Parc research. Hell, even MS-DOS was not a Microsoft creation. But since MS owns the lion share of the market, what can you do but accept what they offer unless you're geeky enough to go Linux or rich enough to buy Macs. True Windows 7 is their best release but I see it nothing more than a long overdue Vista fix. Just my 2 cents....
Everyone knows the history of DOS, they stole it from IBM, well they bought for a stupid low price.
