3 ms·

There's one overriding factor that's preventing Microsoft from holding on to its reins. The company doesn't really understand simplicity. I remember a post her

by eksith 13y ago

There's one overriding factor that's preventing Microsoft from holding on to its reins. The company doesn't really understand simplicity. I remember a post here about someone who worked at MS and how everyone just sorta waft through their jobs without wondering what else is out there. No one worries about Linux or other platforms really. No one explores new ways to do things or even fixing things that aren't solving an immediate problem. The description is hard to believe and reads like a dystopian city, but it's a good indication of why MS is going the way of the dinosaur. In many ways it's the opposite problem Google has. They've gone above and beyond the simplifying and basically circled everything they offer around one account. So far, the closest thing MS has to offer is Live sign in, and even that is well after Chromebook in Windows 8. Microsoft has always been about making it easy to buy. Not necessarily to keep and maintain. With most services Google offer, I literally expend no effort with upkeep. It's simple and it just works... well the Gmail UI is arguably worse now, but that's another topic.

bad_user 13y ago
Microsoft Account / Live ID was previously known as Microsoft Passport and it started in 1998 I think. It has been a half-baked attempt, filled with criticism from all sides, as Microsoft wanted it to be a "Internet-wide unified-login system" and they had the muscle to force it. That's the biggest problem with Microsoft in my eyes, as they always tried to coerce the usage of their own standards. Personally seeing Microsoft failing feels like justice brought by the marketplace and I really hope Google won't follow this path, although I'm seeing signs that they will.
- michaelt 13y ago
  See, this is something I can't understand about Microsoft. Passport could have been 'Log In With Facebook' years earlier. The NEC Versa LitePad, running XP, came out years before the iPad. Windows CE ran on touchscreen smart phones (costing less than some current iphone models) and had native apps long before the iPhone came out. I wonder whether these things should be attributed to a lack of CEO vision/proper resourcing, or if they were simply 'ahead of their time', or something else.
  - freehunter 13y ago
    They were a product of technical limitations of the time they came out (slow processors, small resistive screens). The failing was that Microsoft didn't put the effort into improving the product at the same rate that these technical limitations were being resolved. What Apple and Google did was take the existing idea and put in a faster processor, couple that with software that takes advantage of that speed, and in Apple's case, make a leap of faith that people would enjoy typing on a screen rather than a keyboard. Apple and Google really did nothing different in that space, they just did things better. Or a least more modern. If Microsoft kept improving Windows Mobile to take advantage of new technology, we would be in a very different ballgame. Imagine if Windows Phone 7 came out in 2007.
netcan 13y ago
MS, Apple & Google have very different traits. MS' aren't just a disadvantage, they're also an advantage sometimes. One such trait is stick-to-itness. They release something. If it sucks and it's important, it will probably get better. They will live with mess. Office applications are a mess of features. Some are hard to find or hard to learn. But they don't avoid a feature altogether if its hard to implement in an elegant intuitive way. They get the feature out there and to some customers that feature is very useful, even if it is irritating & complicated. Apple just wouldn't implement it. This is super important in corporate IT. The IT manager want something done. MS software doesn't argue with them. It doesn't tell her that she shouldn't be doing this in the first place. It just lets her do it (after spending a few weeks reviewing licenses, versions and creating a 3 year roll out plan). That's why they do so well in the corporate market. They're not afraid of the schlep, the long sales cycle, 2 years of user complaints before a product is really good enough.

by eksith 13y ago

bad_user 13y ago

Microsoft Account / Live ID was previously known as Microsoft Passport and it started in 1998 I think. It has been a half-baked attempt, filled with criticism from all sides, as Microsoft wanted it to be a "Internet-wide unified-login system" and they had the muscle to force it. That's the biggest problem with Microsoft in my eyes, as they always tried to coerce the usage of their own standards. Personally seeing Microsoft failing feels like justice brought by the marketplace and I really hope Google won't follow this path, although I'm seeing signs that they will.

michaelt 13y ago
See, this is something I can't understand about Microsoft. Passport could have been 'Log In With Facebook' years earlier. The NEC Versa LitePad, running XP, came out years before the iPad. Windows CE ran on touchscreen smart phones (costing less than some current iphone models) and had native apps long before the iPhone came out. I wonder whether these things should be attributed to a lack of CEO vision/proper resourcing, or if they were simply 'ahead of their time', or something else.
- freehunter 13y ago
  They were a product of technical limitations of the time they came out (slow processors, small resistive screens). The failing was that Microsoft didn't put the effort into improving the product at the same rate that these technical limitations were being resolved. What Apple and Google did was take the existing idea and put in a faster processor, couple that with software that takes advantage of that speed, and in Apple's case, make a leap of faith that people would enjoy typing on a screen rather than a keyboard. Apple and Google really did nothing different in that space, they just did things better. Or a least more modern. If Microsoft kept improving Windows Mobile to take advantage of new technology, we would be in a very different ballgame. Imagine if Windows Phone 7 came out in 2007.

netcan 13y ago

MS, Apple & Google have very different traits. MS' aren't just a disadvantage, they're also an advantage sometimes. One such trait is stick-to-itness. They release something. If it sucks and it's important, it will probably get better. They will live with mess. Office applications are a mess of features. Some are hard to find or hard to learn. But they don't avoid a feature altogether if its hard to implement in an elegant intuitive way. They get the feature out there and to some customers that feature is very useful, even if it is irritating & complicated. Apple just wouldn't implement it. This is super important in corporate IT. The IT manager want something done. MS software doesn't argue with them. It doesn't tell her that she shouldn't be doing this in the first place. It just lets her do it (after spending a few weeks reviewing licenses, versions and creating a 3 year roll out plan). That's why they do so well in the corporate market. They're not afraid of the schlep, the long sales cycle, 2 years of user complaints before a product is really good enough.