3 ms·

Microsoft Customers Always Win

31 points by shawndumas 13y ago

dserban 13y ago
Why do journalists at The Verge keep using the terms "the software giant"? Isn't that company "the devices and services giant" now (by their own admission)?
yardie 13y ago
There goes the Metro on everything train of thought. When Balmer said it I really thought they were going to figure it out. Apple kept OS X and iOS GUIs separate. I really tried to like Metro on the desktop but 256x256 tiles just didn't make any sense. I don't think the iOS GUI is much better but I also don't spend hours looking at it. The desktop GUI is just a transfer point to what I need to do. I close Vis Studio to open Word, I close Word to open Excel, and etc.
aluhut 13y ago
In my opinion Metro was bad. I couldn't see anything useful in this UI. It was an unbelivable waste of time every time I had to use it. I understand that for MS it would have been great to have one OS for multiple devices but it did not work out for the PC users. Thats why it was not really an innvoation but a huge design test that has shown us: this is not the way they should go.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lingben 13y ago
> Microsoft’s customers don’t like change. That is a ridiculous statement. Users don't like change when that change is for change's sake or when the change is for the worse. Users do LOVE change when it makes the UX/UI better and they are more productive. Shoving metro down people's gullets when metro is atrocious and is obvious to anyone who has even a rudimentary familiarity with UX is what causes the - well justified - backlash.
waps 13y ago
It's really too bad. Microsoft is the (main) company that got everyone out from under centralized control, and now they're being shoved aside, hey that centralized control is back. People also seem to have completely forgotten that what microsoft is doing with lock-in, when compared with mainframes they're like San Francisco's liberals versus the taliban. Not that I want to put credit for destroying mainframes entirely with microsoft, but they're certainly the biggest single contributor, together with IBM. Imho IBM only did it because microsoft tricked them into doing so. It was massively against IBM's interests. How the pendulum swings. And the old complaints are back : "this application is not written for me", "they removed my app from the mainframe !", "I caused a problem for the admin and now I'm locked out of my entire life", "suddenly I'm inundated with ads in applications I paid for" (granted usually university ads or at least from the company you work for in the mainframe days, not so much now), "this app suddenly switched to pay-as-you-go and I have to spend $x00000 to do what I used to do for $100", ... We don't seem to be learning. I just wonder. Will it be microsoft that breaks the mainframe (again), or will it be some other company ?
billyjobob 13y ago
I don't think it's fair to characterise Microsoft as innovators held back by their conservative customers. After all they did succeed in forcing the ribbon interface on everyone. Windows 8 failed not because it was too different but because it was too rubbish.
magicalist 13y ago
Ugh. Just because a UI is innovative does not make it necessarily a good thing. That should be obvious! When I first installed Windows 8, the first thing I had to do was disable the Metro versions of each and every staple app so they launched in desktop mode when run. Before upgrading to 8.1, the first thing I had to do every time I started up my machine was switch back to the desktop. I did this not because I'm low end and abhor all change, I did this because my machine doesn't have touch, just a mouse and keyboard, and because it's completely ludicrous to take up my entire (rather large) monitor to show things like a single progress bar when I could have that to the side to monitor while doing something else in a OS that supported windowed apps. Microsoft hasn't done a good enough job fusing their UI metaphors yet. It was incredibly ambitious to even attempt to do so, as interactions are so diverse. Regardless of ambition, though, in practice it's really a drag to force a half-baked attempt on everyone when desktop users are just going to have to go around adjusting things to be fully usable on the large class of machines that don't have touch support. I'll note also that, in spite of UI innovation in iOS and OS X, I don't have to depend on Siri to launch an app or only use Launchpad on the desktop. Apple doesn't do this because they know these interfaces aren't so good that they could forever replace what users have today. If LaunchPad became the only way to launch apps in OS X and by default all the built-in apps ran fullscreen iPad style, you can bet your life there would be just as much grumbling and moaning from those famed Apple customers as you're seeing today in Windows-land.
Encosia 13y ago
Seems a bit hyperbolic to claim that Windows 8 is "one of the biggest disasters in Microsoft's history" even though Windows 8 usage seems to have already surpassed all versions of OS X combined: http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-201307-201312-bar http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-201307-2013... Similarly, trying to make a point out of HP selling Windows 7 machines is disingenuous since they still sell overwhelmingly more machines with Windows 8.
pbreit 13y ago
Windows 8 doesn't strike me as a very Apple-like move. Mac OS changes have been utterly iterative and the Mac OS / iOS separation is utterly purposeful.
Zarel 13y ago
I disagree; I think the biggest problem with Windows 8 has always been its poor usability: specifically, its discoverability. It was really bad back in the times of the developer preview. You booted into the lockscreen, and all you saw was a clock and a picture. No "continue" button, no clue of any sort for how you were supposed to get past it - back then you could only get past it by clicking it and dragging it up, which a lot of people could not figure out. This sort of design, the idea of "remove affordances to make things look less cluttered, even though it makes it harder to learn to use" is all over Windows 8. Say you double-click an image file. By default, this opens the image in the Metro app. Which means now you have the image full-screen, with nothing else on the screen. What do you do? There are no buttons on-screen to hint at all for how to go back. Esc doesn't leave the app. The biggest reason a tablet-optimized OS is so unusable on desktop is that tablets have a big obvious "Home" button. On mouse+keyboard, the Windows Logo Key is the analogous button, but that's not clear to most users. If you ask a user what button they'd expect to use to leave an app, they'd say Esc (which doesn't leave Metro apps). The way Windows 8 is now, it completely eliminates one of the biggest advantages of a GUIs: the ability to use a computer without reading a manual or being taught in some way. http://xkcd.com/627/ http://xkcd.com/627/ GUIs were an amazing invention because they made possible the workflow of: "If you want to do X, look for a button with 'X' written on it, or look through menus for 'X', or look for buttons with labels related to 'X'." OS X works like this, Windows earlier than 7 works like this, even most Linux distros are set up to work like this by default. But Windows 8, you just get a bunch of nothing. Critical functionality is hidden away and can only be used by obscure mouse gestures and keyboard shortcuts. I've seen someone described it as "user-hostile" - he opened the Charms bar by accident from moving the mouse, finally being able to shut down, but could not figure out how to get it back. Usability has slowly gotten better between the first Windows 8 developer preview and Windows 8.1, but it's still incomplete, and a Windows 8.1 Update 1 is yet another a step in the right direction.
thaumaturgy 13y ago
The worldwide combined enterprise IT budget is somewhere around $700 billion. A huge number of those businesses don't want to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, let alone Windows 8. (A lot of them still haven't.) The cost for an enterprise-class business to upgrade all of their machines from XP to 7 is enormous (http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1427413 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1427413). And this has nothing, nothing to do with the quality of Windows 8. So why does everybody keep blaming this on Metro? There is a $700 billion market for whom the decision-makers largely see I.T. as nothing more than an operating expense. Microsoft has multiple markets. Why they keep trying to mash their different markets together and serve them the same products, pissing off everyone in the process, is beyond me. For the rest of us, that means there's a $700 billion (per year! That's bigger than Facebook) opportunity to provide enterprises with I.T. infrastructure at a lower long-term TCO than Microsoft.

31 points by shawndumas 13y ago

Why do journalists at The Verge keep using the terms "the software giant"? Isn't that company "the devices and services giant" now (by their own admission)?

yardie 13y ago

There goes the Metro on everything train of thought. When Balmer said it I really thought they were going to figure it out. Apple kept OS X and iOS GUIs separate. I really tried to like Metro on the desktop but 256x256 tiles just didn't make any sense. I don't think the iOS GUI is much better but I also don't spend hours looking at it. The desktop GUI is just a transfer point to what I need to do. I close Vis Studio to open Word, I close Word to open Excel, and etc.

aluhut 13y ago

In my opinion Metro was bad. I couldn't see anything useful in this UI. It was an unbelivable waste of time every time I had to use it. I understand that for MS it would have been great to have one OS for multiple devices but it did not work out for the PC users. Thats why it was not really an innvoation but a huge design test that has shown us: this is not the way they should go.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

lingben 13y ago

> Microsoft’s customers don’t like change. That is a ridiculous statement. Users don't like change when that change is for change's sake or when the change is for the worse. Users do LOVE change when it makes the UX/UI better and they are more productive. Shoving metro down people's gullets when metro is atrocious and is obvious to anyone who has even a rudimentary familiarity with UX is what causes the - well justified - backlash.

waps 13y ago

It's really too bad. Microsoft is the (main) company that got everyone out from under centralized control, and now they're being shoved aside, hey that centralized control is back. People also seem to have completely forgotten that what microsoft is doing with lock-in, when compared with mainframes they're like San Francisco's liberals versus the taliban. Not that I want to put credit for destroying mainframes entirely with microsoft, but they're certainly the biggest single contributor, together with IBM. Imho IBM only did it because microsoft tricked them into doing so. It was massively against IBM's interests. How the pendulum swings. And the old complaints are back : "this application is not written for me", "they removed my app from the mainframe !", "I caused a problem for the admin and now I'm locked out of my entire life", "suddenly I'm inundated with ads in applications I paid for" (granted usually university ads or at least from the company you work for in the mainframe days, not so much now), "this app suddenly switched to pay-as-you-go and I have to spend $x00000 to do what I used to do for $100", ... We don't seem to be learning. I just wonder. Will it be microsoft that breaks the mainframe (again), or will it be some other company ?

billyjobob 13y ago

I don't think it's fair to characterise Microsoft as innovators held back by their conservative customers. After all they did succeed in forcing the ribbon interface on everyone. Windows 8 failed not because it was too different but because it was too rubbish.

magicalist 13y ago

Ugh. Just because a UI is innovative does not make it necessarily a good thing. That should be obvious! When I first installed Windows 8, the first thing I had to do was disable the Metro versions of each and every staple app so they launched in desktop mode when run. Before upgrading to 8.1, the first thing I had to do every time I started up my machine was switch back to the desktop. I did this not because I'm low end and abhor all change, I did this because my machine doesn't have touch, just a mouse and keyboard, and because it's completely ludicrous to take up my entire (rather large) monitor to show things like a single progress bar when I could have that to the side to monitor while doing something else in a OS that supported windowed apps. Microsoft hasn't done a good enough job fusing their UI metaphors yet. It was incredibly ambitious to even attempt to do so, as interactions are so diverse. Regardless of ambition, though, in practice it's really a drag to force a half-baked attempt on everyone when desktop users are just going to have to go around adjusting things to be fully usable on the large class of machines that don't have touch support. I'll note also that, in spite of UI innovation in iOS and OS X, I don't have to depend on Siri to launch an app or only use Launchpad on the desktop. Apple doesn't do this because they know these interfaces aren't so good that they could forever replace what users have today. If LaunchPad became the only way to launch apps in OS X and by default all the built-in apps ran fullscreen iPad style, you can bet your life there would be just as much grumbling and moaning from those famed Apple customers as you're seeing today in Windows-land.

Encosia 13y ago

Seems a bit hyperbolic to claim that Windows 8 is "one of the biggest disasters in Microsoft's history" even though Windows 8 usage seems to have already surpassed all versions of OS X combined: http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-201307-201312-bar http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-ww-monthly-201307-2013... Similarly, trying to make a point out of HP selling Windows 7 machines is disingenuous since they still sell overwhelmingly more machines with Windows 8.

pbreit 13y ago

Windows 8 doesn't strike me as a very Apple-like move. Mac OS changes have been utterly iterative and the Mac OS / iOS separation is utterly purposeful.

Zarel 13y ago

I disagree; I think the biggest problem with Windows 8 has always been its poor usability: specifically, its discoverability. It was really bad back in the times of the developer preview. You booted into the lockscreen, and all you saw was a clock and a picture. No "continue" button, no clue of any sort for how you were supposed to get past it - back then you could only get past it by clicking it and dragging it up, which a lot of people could not figure out. This sort of design, the idea of "remove affordances to make things look less cluttered, even though it makes it harder to learn to use" is all over Windows 8. Say you double-click an image file. By default, this opens the image in the Metro app. Which means now you have the image full-screen, with nothing else on the screen. What do you do? There are no buttons on-screen to hint at all for how to go back. Esc doesn't leave the app. The biggest reason a tablet-optimized OS is so unusable on desktop is that tablets have a big obvious "Home" button. On mouse+keyboard, the Windows Logo Key is the analogous button, but that's not clear to most users. If you ask a user what button they'd expect to use to leave an app, they'd say Esc (which doesn't leave Metro apps). The way Windows 8 is now, it completely eliminates one of the biggest advantages of a GUIs: the ability to use a computer without reading a manual or being taught in some way. http://xkcd.com/627/ http://xkcd.com/627/ GUIs were an amazing invention because they made possible the workflow of: "If you want to do X, look for a button with 'X' written on it, or look through menus for 'X', or look for buttons with labels related to 'X'." OS X works like this, Windows earlier than 7 works like this, even most Linux distros are set up to work like this by default. But Windows 8, you just get a bunch of nothing. Critical functionality is hidden away and can only be used by obscure mouse gestures and keyboard shortcuts. I've seen someone described it as "user-hostile" - he opened the Charms bar by accident from moving the mouse, finally being able to shut down, but could not figure out how to get it back. Usability has slowly gotten better between the first Windows 8 developer preview and Windows 8.1, but it's still incomplete, and a Windows 8.1 Update 1 is yet another a step in the right direction.

thaumaturgy 13y ago

The worldwide combined enterprise IT budget is somewhere around $700 billion. A huge number of those businesses don't want to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, let alone Windows 8. (A lot of them still haven't.) The cost for an enterprise-class business to upgrade all of their machines from XP to 7 is enormous (http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1427413 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1427413). And this has nothing, nothing to do with the quality of Windows 8. So why does everybody keep blaming this on Metro? There is a $700 billion market for whom the decision-makers largely see I.T. as nothing more than an operating expense. Microsoft has multiple markets. Why they keep trying to mash their different markets together and serve them the same products, pissing off everyone in the process, is beyond me. For the rest of us, that means there's a $700 billion (per year! That's bigger than Facebook) opportunity to provide enterprises with I.T. infrastructure at a lower long-term TCO than Microsoft.