7 ms·

This is great. It will never work. A brand has to reflect the culture of how a product is made, sold, experienced, etc... Microsoft is not about simplicity,

This is great. It will never work. A brand has to reflect the culture of how a product is made, sold, experienced, etc... Microsoft is not about simplicity, it's about feature creep. Microsoft sells software and licenses to big companies. Big companies don't want simple, they want value for their money - features! A better brand promise would be Microsoft - It Does Everything! Look at Windows 8. Is it going metro only? No, Metro is a feature on top of the existing mountain of features. Instead of one UI, it's now TWO UI's!!! Putting this kind of branding on Microsoft is like putting the geeky kid with oversized glasses and suspenders a new wardrobe. Sure, the kid will look cooler, but it won't stop him from playing Magic: The Gathering in their basement. Microsoft has built their company on saying "yes" to just about everything. The simplest Windows ever sounds like they are saying "no" to things and that's not what Microsoft does. I love the design, but it's not Microsoft

ShawnBird 14y ago
I think that the sci-fi thing fits better with some modern Linux distros. The freeness of Linux reminds me of sci-fi settings where humanity has moved beyond money, a lot of Linux enthusiasts have this kind of starry eyed idea of building the future and having complete control over your device is very empowering. You can really feel the super-computer attached to your keyboard.
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
That's an interesting perspective that I'd never considered before. If you're right, and you sound it, then Microsoft clearly has an internal struggle. Metro is all about simple. It's fast, it's fluid, it's simple, it's "alive with activity". But it's not complex, packed with features. This is the image Microsoft wants to present to consumers. On the other hand, Microsoft's Business division is all about things packed with features. Huge, bulky, expensive, extremely powerful but bloated products. Products licensed with 3 to 6 zeros on the price. Perhaps they need two brands. The consumer brand, and the business brand, because otherwise you have constant conflict.
- eric-hu 14y ago
  Haven't they been down this road before with the Windows NT line that they released alongside Windows 9x? I suppose the different versions of Vista and 7 speak to them re-exploring this business-consumer partitioning. I don't have the information to comment on how effective this split was for Microsoft.
  - archangel_one 14y ago
    They're not really re-exploring it, they had Home/Pro versions of XP as well. They've always drawn the line between the two, although it used to be a lot more pronounced since 9x and NT were totally different codebases whereas now they're just arbitrarily partitioning their market. I assume the 9x/NT split was decided not to be effective since they ended up moving to a single codebase.
- maytc 14y ago
  They already have multiple lines of windows which are all the same except the some features are turned off with a lower level serial key
- brudgers 14y ago
  Microsoft largely resolves this conflict in a way that works for consumers but not for tech pundits: they bring the same B2B customer service principles to their consumer product support channels (e.g. three years of Xbox repairs for the red-ring of death - on a 90 day warranty no less). Keep in mind that Metro is exactly what enterprise wants. Just listen to the good people at 37signals.
  - josso 14y ago
    Could you give us a link to what the good people at 37signals have to say?
    - brudgers 14y ago
      http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ http://gettingreal.37signals.com/
geori 14y ago
Could have easily made the same criticism of Apple in the mid 90s. Microsoft can definitely be saved. You just have to fire Ballmer and put a visionary in charge. There are still some really good people working at Microsoft. Unfortunately, the leadership and vision haven't been there. Nobody has been willing to take risks. They took a risk in killing the OEMs and building Surface in house. They now need to take a bigger one.
- bradwestness 14y ago
  Introducing an entirely new API with Windows 8 is incredibly risky.
- thematt 14y ago
  I used the think the same thing, but it's not clear to me that Microsoft "needs" saving. They're growing the enterprise side of their business quite fast and the problem just seems to be that investors expect them to be the next Apple, whereas Ballmer is turning them into the next IBM. They'll still make boatloads of money on the enterprise side and that'll be enough to keep them floating for decades to come, so I continue to wonder if there truly is a problem with their business strategy or if it's just misaligned expectations.
  - roc 14y ago
    If Ballmer was aiming for the next IBM, he'd have spun off Windows Phone as IBM sold off its PC business. They wouldn't be buying companies and pouring resources into it and pissing off the OEMs by pouring resources into Surface. And if they were just shooting for Enterprise++, keeping Windows Phone and Surface to keep enterprise device sales under their umbrella, they'd be spinning off the XBox and consumer media properties. But they're not spinning anything off. They're still expanding into new spaces. And they're fighting for consumer money harder than ever. I'd say the evidence suggests that, even though it could be wildly profitable if it went the IBM way, Ballmer still wants Microsoft to be all things to all people.
    - noblethrasher 14y ago
revelation 14y ago
I think you're mistaking feature creep with their crazy good backwards compatibility. They simply can't remove anything.
- zbowling 14y ago
  Exactly. Which leads to some of the most awful and crazy designs decisions. Look at the upgrade to 64 bit. In Windows 16 bit days you had the C:\Windows\System directory. In Windows 32 bit, you gained C:\Windows\System32 for your system libraries. In Windows 64 bit you would assume C:\Windows\System64 right? Nope. 64 bit dlls go in to System32 and 32bit dlls go into SysWOW64. WTF? Same goes with Program Files (32 bit) etc. They are pretty much screwed by legacy. The windows mobile, XBox, and WinRT guys must feel so much better than having to work on Windows core because they don't have to deal with supporting 17+ years of software still running on their platform.
  - abhinavsharma 14y ago
    Though I agree with your general point about Microsoft being hampered by legacy support (but for other reasons such as having 2 UI paradigms of Metro and Windows together), I don't think this is the best example. The everyday user really doesn't care what folder their software is installed to as long as its easily accessible from the desktop/programs.
    - ricardobeat 14y ago
      That is until they need to scavenge and mess around the file system because of a virus, failed uninstall, missing DLL or something. Then they really care.
      - bztzt 14y ago
        If that's the problem, what's the better approach to solving it: cleaning up the file system organization, or making it so that those things don't happen and make people mess around with the file system in the first place (e.g. by introducing a declarative isolated application model such as AppX in Windows 8)?
bradwestness 14y ago
I like the effect of the monochrome images inlaid in the "slate", though they could just do that with the new Windows 8 logo anyway. I don't think the slate shape does anything to fix his criticism that the new Windows logo looks "visually uncomfortable" when applied to devices however, his looks just as akimbo applied to the Surface, if not more so.
creativityland 14y ago
Couldn't have said it better myself. The whole concept of a brand also becomes harder to change the more well known it is. For Microsoft it is close to impossible at this point unless they branch out completely another business, and a good example would be xbox.
ThomPete 14y ago
This is a branding exercise not a GUI implementation. There has never been any connection between the actual products and MS branding. In fact for most brands those two are only connected via post rationalisation. Of course it can work.
jiggity 14y ago
If this design makes you uneasy and go "But that's not Microsoft!", slap your gut and tell it to listen because that's just the branding talking. Take a step back and recognize that EVERY emotion you feel about Microsoft is arbitrary. Branding is just the mental handle we use to talk about the automatic emotions we get. That is the tough part about branding: it happens unconsciously. It is that surge of instantaneous feeling that bypasses logic. Engineering brands is reprogramming everyone's gut reaction. Our "gut" reaction feels right by definition (a tautology) and everything else feels wrong. It is only with conscious thought can we fight it. We as web developers know the power of the "default". Imagine that! Being able to set everyone's default setting to a selection of your choosing is like a superpower. . Changing brand is always an ugly business. For example, think back in high school about the personal brand you exuded on campus. One day, you decided to start dressing in jeans and wearing a motorcyclist black leather jacket everyday. You get comments like "But that's not you! Why are you trying to be someone else? Stop being a phony." It feels impossible that you'll ever be accepted as a badass motorcycle jockey. The next day, you drive an actual motorcycle to campus. People see you driving a motorcycle. In the coming weeks, you offer rides to select people. Those people now start raving about your motorcycle and how "cool" you are. We revisit the same campus 3 years later and people can't imagine you not as a badass motorcycle guy. You might ask, "Did you know that I use to be a nerd?" They reply, "But that's impossible! There is NO way that's true." . Ask a teenager: "Did you know that Apple use to be a terrible company with mediocre computers, losing money and weeks from going out of business?" Answer: "What? But that's impossible! I don't believe you." . For Microsoft to make a big change, it should be that big, sudden announcement of that branding change. It will appear unfamiliar, it will appear strange, they might even appear phony. That's when the process begins. In the coming weeks, Microsoft publicizes new products that incorporate their new paradigm. Sleek, minimal, digital, modern. They even snag a few early adopters that try out the new products. You start getting friends that rave about the new products. It is during this process that you go from feeling that its impossible that Microsoft is cool, to feeling that it's inevitable that it's cool. That is the magic of branding: the ability to reprogram the gut to have one thing be absolutely right and have everything else feel wrong, unnatural or impossible.
- robomartin 14y ago
phil 14y ago
The fascinating thing about Microsoft today is they find themselves in such a strategically desperate position that they are beginning to change that attitude.
catenate 14y ago
So a better logo for Microsoft would be a Katamari Damacy ball?
pacomerh 14y ago
You are totally right with this, the big companies want to see more for their money. They don't understand minimal. I'm sure we'll get there some day, but right now the closest thing to minimal appreciation goes to the apple users, and the complement to that are the people who relate 'more & inexpensive' as better. I know that, when I show my dad some kind of minimal design he always goes, "where's the rest?, they're wasting so much space here."
GFischer 14y ago
Ouch. But as a former geeky kid with oversized glasses that still plays Magic: The Gathering sometimes, I can tell you that the new wardrobe does help :)

ShawnBird 14y ago

I think that the sci-fi thing fits better with some modern Linux distros. The freeness of Linux reminds me of sci-fi settings where humanity has moved beyond money, a lot of Linux enthusiasts have this kind of starry eyed idea of building the future and having complete control over your device is very empowering. You can really feel the super-computer attached to your keyboard.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

That's an interesting perspective that I'd never considered before. If you're right, and you sound it, then Microsoft clearly has an internal struggle. Metro is all about simple. It's fast, it's fluid, it's simple, it's "alive with activity". But it's not complex, packed with features. This is the image Microsoft wants to present to consumers. On the other hand, Microsoft's Business division is all about things packed with features. Huge, bulky, expensive, extremely powerful but bloated products. Products licensed with 3 to 6 zeros on the price. Perhaps they need two brands. The consumer brand, and the business brand, because otherwise you have constant conflict.

eric-hu 14y ago
Haven't they been down this road before with the Windows NT line that they released alongside Windows 9x? I suppose the different versions of Vista and 7 speak to them re-exploring this business-consumer partitioning. I don't have the information to comment on how effective this split was for Microsoft.
- archangel_one 14y ago
  They're not really re-exploring it, they had Home/Pro versions of XP as well. They've always drawn the line between the two, although it used to be a lot more pronounced since 9x and NT were totally different codebases whereas now they're just arbitrarily partitioning their market. I assume the 9x/NT split was decided not to be effective since they ended up moving to a single codebase.
maytc 14y ago
They already have multiple lines of windows which are all the same except the some features are turned off with a lower level serial key
brudgers 14y ago
Microsoft largely resolves this conflict in a way that works for consumers but not for tech pundits: they bring the same B2B customer service principles to their consumer product support channels (e.g. three years of Xbox repairs for the red-ring of death - on a 90 day warranty no less). Keep in mind that Metro is exactly what enterprise wants. Just listen to the good people at 37signals.
- josso 14y ago
  Could you give us a link to what the good people at 37signals have to say?
  - brudgers 14y ago
    http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ http://gettingreal.37signals.com/

geori 14y ago

Could have easily made the same criticism of Apple in the mid 90s. Microsoft can definitely be saved. You just have to fire Ballmer and put a visionary in charge. There are still some really good people working at Microsoft. Unfortunately, the leadership and vision haven't been there. Nobody has been willing to take risks. They took a risk in killing the OEMs and building Surface in house. They now need to take a bigger one.

bradwestness 14y ago
Introducing an entirely new API with Windows 8 is incredibly risky.
thematt 14y ago
I used the think the same thing, but it's not clear to me that Microsoft "needs" saving. They're growing the enterprise side of their business quite fast and the problem just seems to be that investors expect them to be the next Apple, whereas Ballmer is turning them into the next IBM. They'll still make boatloads of money on the enterprise side and that'll be enough to keep them floating for decades to come, so I continue to wonder if there truly is a problem with their business strategy or if it's just misaligned expectations.
- roc 14y ago
  If Ballmer was aiming for the next IBM, he'd have spun off Windows Phone as IBM sold off its PC business. They wouldn't be buying companies and pouring resources into it and pissing off the OEMs by pouring resources into Surface. And if they were just shooting for Enterprise++, keeping Windows Phone and Surface to keep enterprise device sales under their umbrella, they'd be spinning off the XBox and consumer media properties. But they're not spinning anything off. They're still expanding into new spaces. And they're fighting for consumer money harder than ever. I'd say the evidence suggests that, even though it could be wildly profitable if it went the IBM way, Ballmer still wants Microsoft to be all things to all people.
  - noblethrasher 14y ago

revelation 14y ago

I think you're mistaking feature creep with their crazy good backwards compatibility. They simply can't remove anything.

zbowling 14y ago
Exactly. Which leads to some of the most awful and crazy designs decisions. Look at the upgrade to 64 bit. In Windows 16 bit days you had the C:\Windows\System directory. In Windows 32 bit, you gained C:\Windows\System32 for your system libraries. In Windows 64 bit you would assume C:\Windows\System64 right? Nope. 64 bit dlls go in to System32 and 32bit dlls go into SysWOW64. WTF? Same goes with Program Files (32 bit) etc. They are pretty much screwed by legacy. The windows mobile, XBox, and WinRT guys must feel so much better than having to work on Windows core because they don't have to deal with supporting 17+ years of software still running on their platform.
- abhinavsharma 14y ago
  Though I agree with your general point about Microsoft being hampered by legacy support (but for other reasons such as having 2 UI paradigms of Metro and Windows together), I don't think this is the best example. The everyday user really doesn't care what folder their software is installed to as long as its easily accessible from the desktop/programs.
  - ricardobeat 14y ago
    That is until they need to scavenge and mess around the file system because of a virus, failed uninstall, missing DLL or something. Then they really care.
    - bztzt 14y ago
      If that's the problem, what's the better approach to solving it: cleaning up the file system organization, or making it so that those things don't happen and make people mess around with the file system in the first place (e.g. by introducing a declarative isolated application model such as AppX in Windows 8)?

bradwestness 14y ago

I like the effect of the monochrome images inlaid in the "slate", though they could just do that with the new Windows 8 logo anyway. I don't think the slate shape does anything to fix his criticism that the new Windows logo looks "visually uncomfortable" when applied to devices however, his looks just as akimbo applied to the Surface, if not more so.

creativityland 14y ago

Couldn't have said it better myself. The whole concept of a brand also becomes harder to change the more well known it is. For Microsoft it is close to impossible at this point unless they branch out completely another business, and a good example would be xbox.

ThomPete 14y ago

This is a branding exercise not a GUI implementation. There has never been any connection between the actual products and MS branding. In fact for most brands those two are only connected via post rationalisation. Of course it can work.

jiggity 14y ago

If this design makes you uneasy and go "But that's not Microsoft!", slap your gut and tell it to listen because that's just the branding talking. Take a step back and recognize that EVERY emotion you feel about Microsoft is arbitrary. Branding is just the mental handle we use to talk about the automatic emotions we get. That is the tough part about branding: it happens unconsciously. It is that surge of instantaneous feeling that bypasses logic. Engineering brands is reprogramming everyone's gut reaction. Our "gut" reaction feels right by definition (a tautology) and everything else feels wrong. It is only with conscious thought can we fight it. We as web developers know the power of the "default". Imagine that! Being able to set everyone's default setting to a selection of your choosing is like a superpower. . Changing brand is always an ugly business. For example, think back in high school about the personal brand you exuded on campus. One day, you decided to start dressing in jeans and wearing a motorcyclist black leather jacket everyday. You get comments like "But that's not you! Why are you trying to be someone else? Stop being a phony." It feels impossible that you'll ever be accepted as a badass motorcycle jockey. The next day, you drive an actual motorcycle to campus. People see you driving a motorcycle. In the coming weeks, you offer rides to select people. Those people now start raving about your motorcycle and how "cool" you are. We revisit the same campus 3 years later and people can't imagine you not as a badass motorcycle guy. You might ask, "Did you know that I use to be a nerd?" They reply, "But that's impossible! There is NO way that's true." . Ask a teenager: "Did you know that Apple use to be a terrible company with mediocre computers, losing money and weeks from going out of business?" Answer: "What? But that's impossible! I don't believe you." . For Microsoft to make a big change, it should be that big, sudden announcement of that branding change. It will appear unfamiliar, it will appear strange, they might even appear phony. That's when the process begins. In the coming weeks, Microsoft publicizes new products that incorporate their new paradigm. Sleek, minimal, digital, modern. They even snag a few early adopters that try out the new products. You start getting friends that rave about the new products. It is during this process that you go from feeling that its impossible that Microsoft is cool, to feeling that it's inevitable that it's cool. That is the magic of branding: the ability to reprogram the gut to have one thing be absolutely right and have everything else feel wrong, unnatural or impossible.

robomartin 14y ago

phil 14y ago

The fascinating thing about Microsoft today is they find themselves in such a strategically desperate position that they are beginning to change that attitude.

catenate 14y ago

So a better logo for Microsoft would be a Katamari Damacy ball?

pacomerh 14y ago

You are totally right with this, the big companies want to see more for their money. They don't understand minimal. I'm sure we'll get there some day, but right now the closest thing to minimal appreciation goes to the apple users, and the complement to that are the people who relate 'more & inexpensive' as better. I know that, when I show my dad some kind of minimal design he always goes, "where's the rest?, they're wasting so much space here."

GFischer 14y ago

Ouch. But as a former geeky kid with oversized glasses that still plays Magic: The Gathering sometimes, I can tell you that the new wardrobe does help :)