Microsoft really never "Gets it!”

That’s the title of a reply to Ed Bott’s article about Windows 7. It was written on New Year’s Day, and it looks like it spoiled it for a lot of people (the New Year, that is).

The responding party was someone identified as ‘ tstone ‘. He stated, very succinctly (unlike Joe the plumber, this person has an IQ in the 3 digit range), the problem that many have with Windows 7. I bring it here because it was so far down in the collected comments that I feel many missed this…

As a consultant, I have interviewed business users of Windows XP which, for the most part, have not migrated to Vista. Almost everyone is completely repulsed by the Vista/Windows 7 desktop. As a matter of fact the vast majority change their XP desktops to look like Windows 2000. At least they can do that with XP.

What they really want is better security that isn’t just a bunch of bolted-on fixes. The ability to utilize 4GB or more of RAM and to leverage 64bit and multi-core processing. Windows 2000 and XP perform the functions necessary for daily work. They are stable, well understood, and most companies have a whole desktop management framework built around them. Vista and Windows 7 won’t do anything except to suck precious resources from the company till.

Here is what Vista/Windows 7 will do:
- Increase training costs
- Increase licensing costs
- Increase equipment costs
- Increase infrastructure management costs
- Lower productivity
- Break thousands of specialty applications that abound in every industry
- Prevent or delay real business IT improvements because there won’t be any money left to do them

The bottom line is this…fix the real problems, improve performance, take advantage of new technology, and fine tune the interface instead of re-inventing it. If Microsoft had done that, Vista would have been a huge hit and both Apple and Linux would have lost what little market share they had gained.

Sounds like what ‘tstone’ is asking for is a continuation of Windows XP 64 bit edition doesn’t it?

Well, only the twisted minds at Microsoft can explain why this can’t be. It boggles my mind when I hear anyone not affiliated with Microsoft try to explain why such things are not possible. This is especially true when the economy is down, and Microsoft should want to sell every possible copy of an operating system it can. (If people are willing to live with the limitations of Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Microsoft should give them the talk about how development has stopped, and then gladly deliver the required number of copies.) Obviously, not many would be this ridiculous with their requests, but this is the general idea. After all, one of the things Gates and Company should have learned, but again, obviously never did, is that you give the customer what they want (always).

The reasons given for this are the extra cost of support, and lack of drivers for new products. Again, following the idea that pleasing the customer is what makes you a larger, more profitable company, Microsoft simply gives some of their support staff the slightly larger job of supporting legacy operating systems, as well as the new stuff. After all, how many people, or companies, for that matter, actually get support? The cost is ridiculous, and the results are not usually that satisfactory.

To the question of driver support, let the market decide. Larger companies will not have much of a problem with it, and hardware companies, bucking the Microsoft trend, tend to want to sell every product possible, as long as the customer pays. H-P is one of the first companies I think of. Since the companies make many products that differ only in additional features, not really changing how established things are done, it would not be that difficult to write drivers for a newer printer, to support XP or Win 2000, by simply using the existing drivers, and pasting in the additional abilities – after all, the low level interface to the hardware has already been established, so all that is necessary is to splice that to the already established methods of communication in the operating system.

Do that and suddenly Microsoft doesn’t have to worry so much about the creep of many to Brand A(pple), or Brand L(inux), for that matter.

After all, any company that has already been in any way involved with Windows will easily figure out how to do things for each operating system (except for ATi, those idiots are essentially hopeless, and have been for close to 20 years).

Those companies that make the customer the focus of their efforts, and cater to their wants and needs will be justly rewarded, as any company that follows the first rule of sales always is.

Hubris, is the only reason I can think of,  for the arbiters of Microsoft to ignore this.

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The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.Aldous Huxley