Thursday, March 16, 2006

Mini-Microsoft: Interesting Incoming Comments

"In the meantime, some homework: why is Vista better than XP?

If your non-techie friend or financial advisor or Mom asked you that question, what are you going say?

I only ask because recently I was watching a video of a speaker at Microsoft. During the Q&A, he asked that question of a lady Microsoftie in the audience. Not only could you tell her brain was momentarily frozen (uhhhhhh), you could feel that the entire crowd hit a panicked brain freeze. The lady then came up with an almost apologetic answer saying the Vista is more stable, safer, and faster than XP."

Well, is there any reason to leave out the simplest, and I think, most honest answer: Windows Vista is not significantly better than XP, and the new Office isn't significantly better than the old one.

In both the operating system and office automation areas, Microsoft products have achieved commodity status along with most of the hardware they run on.

If you got an announcement every few years from General Electric that you simply MUST buy their new toaster, you'd think someone at the corporate headquarters had a screw loose. Still a lot of toasters are sold every year for one reason or another, my most recent was white instead of chrome, matched my other appliances, and was only $15.

I'm sick and tired of being expected to go out and pay over $1000 every few years for a new PC, even when my plan might be to format the hard drive and install Linux. Months ago Balmer said the world needs a $100 PC, yet today Gates is being quoted as saying the MIT effort to produce such a device for developing countries is stupid. So which is it? The head office there needs to get its story straight for a change. The fact is that the world is heading for cheaper and cheaper PCs whether Microsoft approves of the idea or not. Current prices are being propped up by bundling more and more extras, monitors, printers, cameras, TWO DVD drives, DVD and CD burners that will print labels on the disks, and so on, but the base machine is floating around a couple hundred already for the average user (excluding gamers) and the price of Microsoft software is beginning to stick out like a sore thumb by comparison.

Microsoft isn't alone in this of course. I can hardly tell the difference in the last three versions of OS X I've used, and in fact I'd like nothing better than to be able to turn off some of the new "features" and just settle for the pretense that the new version are maybe a bit more secure, or 3% faster. But I know the truth is that every few years, Apple has budgeted to receive an infusion of cash from simply announcing the availability of the new toaster, er, OS.

Users are hopping off this treadmill at an alarming (to you vendors) rate. The stock analysts know the score, and I even suspect Bill and Steve know the score. Who can still be in the dark about it except someone squeezing their eyes closed?

In the "ideal" world (for Microsoft and Apple stockholders) we would be on the verge of some revolutionary technology, such as voice recognition, or a system that could easily pass the touring test, etc. Gates has been predicting this for so long it's tiresome, and of course we all know these things will happen eventually. But for now, the networking technology we have is "good enough", the interfaces like USB are "good enough", and how many people really need more than 1600x1200 resolution on a 17 inch screen? Hard drives keep getting bigger, but so does the nagging feeling that you should have an external 250Gig to back that internal one up. More and more people (like me) are using multiple computers with multiple operating systems and wondering why we can't just keep everything online, backed up by someone else, and we don't necessarily want to pay $20 a month for the privilege (even though it may well be worth that).

Microsoft's two cash cows are rapidly staring to look like dinosaurs, and the company's sudden increased focus on things like MS Live, new portable devices, and the XBox is beginning to look a bit like desperation. The sad news for Microsoft is that the replacements for the cash cows all look like a lot of work for a lot smaller payback. You're like the rich kid who has spent through his inheritance and now has to look for a job. The world looks on as you mutter to yourself "what's a resume?"

Microsoft is big enough, bright enough, and still rich enough, I think, to work (oh there is that word again) its way out of this inevitable end-game that monopolies go through. A large measure of re-invention is necessary, and not just around the edges. I read your blog because you seem to be one of the few MSers who, at least publicly "gets it". So I don't know whether your question on Vista and Office is serious or not. It will be interesting to see what people come up with though. As for the reinvention that I think the company needs, I've posted about that before, and my convictions get stronger with every "new" product announcement, and every new quarterly report. The window (pardon the pun) of opportunity is closing though and like so many companies, I wonder if you won't start changing after it is too late.

For the record, I dropped out of the computer industry, partially over frustration at having to support Windows users. OS X and Linux are more than meeting my personal needs, and ultimately I'll probably stop using OS X too, because I don't like the Apple treadmill any more than I liked Microsoft's. I moved far from the big city so that my friends who call me for free support will have to at least pay for long distance charges, and more and more I feign ignorance when asked about registry keys (the worst design decision in computer history). So there is little chance that I'll feel compelled to buy any new MS OSs or applications. Not , at least, until we have that talking computer that notices when I'm waking up and starts the percolator and lays my clothes out for me. But I think that will be a while yet, and sadly, I fear the vendor will have a foreign sounding name. Will Microsoft still be around?

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