3 ms·
On the surface, Microsoft seem to have tons of problems in management structure, product design, public relations, etc etc. However, at least in my view, all of
by RyanZAG 13y ago
On the surface, Microsoft seem to have tons of problems in management structure, product design, public relations, etc etc. However, at least in my view, all of this isn't really a big issue and companies can easily survive on this stuff. The key problem is a very simple one: Microsoft has forgotten why they even exist. The goal of a company is to sell products to customers by giving customers what they want.
Microsoft of 15-20 years back did they wonderfully - easier to use OS, better features in Office, fast adoption of new hardware standards, etc. Microsoft of today is actively trying to sell customers what they don't want. Metro. Kinect. Office Ribbon. Bing. ARM Surface. The list goes on to almost every product MS offers.
Microsoft needs to stop pushing products for the benefit of Microsoft. I'd recommend the following: put up a poll and let the general public decide on issues like Metro - and then follow those results, even if it means throwing Metro out of the desktop. Microsoft needs to listen to customers simply because other businesses are listening to Microsoft's customers, and those customers are leaving.
Business 101 - it still applies even when you're not a startup anymore.
- lotso 13y ago>Metro. Kinect. Office Ribbon. Bing. ARM Surface. The list goes on to almost every product MS I assume when you say Metro, you mean on Windows 8. Metro on WP and Xbox is really great, and I think 8.1 will fix a lot of problems with Metro on 8. Metro as a design language is, IMO, really good. Implementation on Windows, not so much. Kinect? The fastest selling consumer device in history? The numbers speak for themselves. Office Ribbon is a step forward in UI design for menu systems. Looking for a good resource on their thought process behind it, but you can see a partial explanation here. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.as... The ribbon backlash seems more against the fact that the UI changed than that the ribbon is bad UI design. Bing is a long term play and I think it's starting to pay off with FB, Apple, and Yahoo deals, not to mention the deep integratin of Bing services in Windows, Xbox, and Windows Phone. Arm Surface was a disaster. >Microsoft needs to stop pushing products for the benefit of Microsoft. I'd recommend the following: put up a poll and let the general public decide on issues like Metro - and then follow those results, even if it means throwing Metro out of the desktop. Microsoft needs to listen to customers simply because other businesses are listening to Microsoft's customers, and those customers are leaving. Design by committee is terrible. Design by the general population is even worse.
- daigoba66 13y agoWhile overall I agree that Microsoft is really missing the mark when it comes to creating products people want, I disagree on the premise. The goal of a company is to profit from products that sell. It doesn't necessarily mean they're building for what customers currently demand, but knowing what customers will demand. The canonical example is Apple. If you listen to tech reviewers, Apple never makes the product that people "want". Yet they continue to lead profits in almost every product category they market.
- RyanZAG 13y agoWhat? Some kind of cognitive dissonance here, maybe. People do not queue up around the block waiting for hours on launch day for something they do not want. People very much want exactly what Apple is making. They build exactly what people want. If you want an example of something that people do not want, would never queue up for, and should not have been made? Metro. In regards to the comment above on Metro fitting well on Xbox? Not a chance - Metro is terrible and confusing to use on Xbox, and the adverts make it even worse. If the xbox had launched with Metro as standard, it would have gotten very negative launch reviews.
- snom380 13y agoI think the point he was trying to make was that if Apple had issued a poll before launching the iPad, people would most likely said "it has to run my current OSX Apps and offer a way to switch back to OSX" because they would consider the iPad a computer. Re the loud complaints about lacking USB ports etc. when the iPad launched. What Microsoft needs is someone in upper management with a vision about what products they want to make and the persistence to make them happen. That's a bit difficult to accomplish when there is a management shuffle with some top executive deciding to spend more time with their family roughly every year.
- jlgaddis 13y agoI think he means that Apple users, for example, weren't demanding an iPhone. That's not why Apple built it. They didn't ask the customers what they wanted and the resulting product was the iPhone. Apple came up with the idea of the iPhone and built it. When the public saw it, we thought, "Holy shit! I've gotta have that!" The point is that the people didn't know that they wanted an iPhone until Apple showed it to them.
- davidgerard 13y ago>Microsoft has forgotten why they even exist. Microsoft is an office supply company. They got their niche by being cheaper and easier for the office worker. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world by selling EVERYONE a box of paperclips. This is not sexy growth times. It's a boring business. You know, like most businesses that just make a steady profit. Win32 will be around forever. It'll be like COBOL and Java. There's always buckets of money doing boring work no-one else wants to. It doesn't get you sexy startup cred with dancing VCs; it does get you a long-term living.
- rlu 13y agoWasn't Steve Jobs the one that always said customers don't know what they want?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]