Mom Blasts Ballmer Over Kid's Vista Experience

Lucas123 writes "While on stage at a Gartner's ITxpo conference today, Ballmer got an ear-full from the mother of a 13-year-old girl who said after installing Vista on her daughter's computer she decided only two days later to switch back to XP because Vista was so difficult. Ballmer defended Vista saying: 'Your daughter saw a lot of value'; to which the mother replied: 'She's 13.' Ballmer said that Vista is bigger than XP, and 'for some people that's an issue, and it's not going to get smaller in any significant way in SP1. But machines are constantly getting bigger, and [it's] probably important to remember that as well.' Says the mother: 'Good, I'll let you come in and install it for me.'"

+1 Funny

Can I mod the submission?

Re:+1 Funny

I think this article would have been funnier if it was as I first read it-- that STEVE'S Mom showed up and bitched him out.

Re:+1 Funny

That would be funny. I think it would go something like this...

Mrs. Ballmer: Stevie! Stevie! Your operating system SUCKS! I'm going to F***ing KILL YOU! (Throws chair)
Steve: Mooooom! I'm doing a THING right now! Can't this wait? I'm going to F***ing KILL YOU! (Throws chair)
Mrs. Ballmer: No! It's too big and it's bloated and it SUCKS! I'm going to F***ing KILL YOU! (Throws chair)
Steve: FINE! I'll send someone over to install it for you! I'm going to F***ing KILL YOU! (Throws chair)
Mrs. Ballmer: Fine, honey! Will you be coming over tonight? I'm making spaghetti! I'm going to F***ing KILL YOU! (Throws chair)
Steve: Ooh! I love your spaghetti! I'll be over around 7! I'm going to F***ing KILL YOU! (Throws chair)
Mrs. Ballmer: Wonderful! We'll see you there! I'm going to F***ing KILL YOU! (Throws chair)(Exits)

Re:+1 Funny

It is probably true.

But this is what you get from someone in a position like Ballmer's. Somewhere way down deep in the org chart someone was tasked with finding data that supports the assertion that Vista is the greatest OS ever. After looking through hundreds of charts and tables and graphs, and throwing them all out (issues per install....can't use that one) they probably discovered that the total number of issues, across all 50 or so copies they've sold so far, was lower if you weighted by the total lines of code in Vista.

That is what you get from the Ballmers of the world. One line of marketing. Never any raw data.

Re:+1 Funny

Somewhere way down deep in the org chart someone was tasked with finding data that supports the assertion that Vista is the greatest OS ever.

Vista actually is the greatest OS ever, if you choose the definition where greatest means largest. ;)

Re:+1 Funny

"..According to our website stats Windows Vista market now share is -- wait for it -- 11%" Wow, Netcraft is sure accurate. I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Still

You have us on pins and needles, what was the file format she couldn't use?

Re:Still

Since I dont have either, maybe I should switch her.
I have nothing to lose, apparently.

mysterious

A mysterious, yet somehow incompatible, format you don't bother mentioning, mysterious. Very mysterious.

Re:Still

You think that's bad? I installed Ubuntu, and not only did it fail to recognize my sound card, but it also stole my wallet, beat my wife, and impregnated my dog (and he's a boy!). Figuring that these were just the usual install problems, I decided to leave it running for a couple of days to see if things improved. Big mistake. During the night, Ubuntu planted marijuana all over my house and called the ATF. Luckily, it also blew up my car, the sound of which woke me up in time to escape. Now I'm living in a shack in Tierra del Fuego on the run from an international crime syndicate after Ubuntu stole my identity, ran away with my wife, and stole 300 kilos of Colombian nose candy from them.

I think I've had enough of Ubuntu. I'm going to try Gentoo next.

Re:Still

I had to look up ATF (I'm not from 'round there). BATF - Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. Interesting combination. I don't know where to start taking the piss.

Interestingly enough, if you install Gentoo it will not only blow up your car but actually build you a new one.

From raw materials.

Make sure you specify USE="steeringwheel trunk windshield". You'll have to wait a while though but it will be worth it. It will rebuild itself every week or so and occasionally change colour for no accountable reason.

After three years you will discover that USE="-clutch" would have been a good idea when it suddenly becomes a manual shift without warning. You should have paid attention to the build logs when emerging --deep --newuse world. Oh, and it goes like stink most of the time. Ok so sometimes you have to fix it yourself by renting a foundry and full workshop and talking to Formula 1 mechanics but hey, this is a ~x86 car.

Re:Still

I knew it was buggy, it was supposed to call the DEA!

~S

Re:Still

Careful. With gentoo you have to plant your own pot, beat your own wife, and steal your own wallet. I don't know if you can even do the dog thing with it.

Re:Still

During the night, Ubuntu planted marijuana all over my house and called the ATF. Luckily, it also blew up my car, the sound of which woke me up in time to escape.

At least Ubuntu did it the right way. Had it been Windows, it would have burned its lips on the exhaust pipe when it tried to blow up your car.

Re:Still

I installed Ubuntu on my wife's machine this last week, removing XP...

Wrong move indeed. First off, you shouldn't have removed XP until you knew Ubuntu did what she needed. Second, you should have started her off on Kubuntu, which will at least have a familiar interface.

As for your mysterious file format and your "forgetaboutit" OOo install, we'll need more info to refute/help you on those ones. I find that anyone who has used Office XP or earlier tends to enjoy using the latest OOo, unless they have a bunch of VB macros that don't work quite right, or some badly-created templates that don't display correctly.

Really, the only problem I've found so far for normal users is that Word documents don't always convert indices and other complex objects correctly, and need to be re-formatted once imported into ODF.

Re:Still

In my experience, if you want your wife to stop bugging you about computer problems, buy her a Mac.

Re:Still

In my experience, if you want your wife to stop bugging you about computer problems, buy her a Mac.

Well, my experience indicates that if you want your wife to stop bugging you, you should give her to Mac.

That is, if you know a guy named Mac, otherwise you may need to give her to Mike or John.

Re:Still

Can't argue with that one. The wife liked my iMac so much, she took it in the divorce.

There are two fatal blunders a man can make:
1. Never start a land war in Asia
2. Never try to divorce a divorce lawyer

Re:Still

Absolutely not true. You made the mistake of switching her applications, not her OS. Next time, ween her applications to Firefox, Tuhnderbird, and OOo before you switch her OS. I've done ten or so Fedora and Ubuntu installs on friends and families computers. If my 75 year old mother in law can use Ubuntu, with all the MS Office (mostly powerpoint) junk she gets from emails from her friends (Oooo! Another cute cats presentation!), then anybody who _wants_to_ can use it. Document compatibility is not a problem anymore. As for the super-brother's videos, have him send it in a standard format. If it's a specialty format that VLC or mPlayer cannot read, then it can probably only be read in some proprietary program that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars. Bet you pirated that, didn't you?

Re:Still

You must be new to this game. Here let me help you with some other good ones: Yes, she looks good in that outfit. Yes, you like what she made for dinner... You kind of like it burnt anyway. Yes, she is still as attractive as the day you met. No, you don't mind Hugh Grant movies. Yes, you like her family. Of course that restaurant is fine with you. Yes you have time to get those chores done this weekend. If you repeat those things enough, you may just get away with 3 computers, 4 remote controls, a basement full of electronics, and an occasional roll in the hay.

A lot of value...

...in learning something difficult?

Ballmer's comment seems really prick-like to me. It probably wasn't meant as such, but still.

Re:A lot of value...

The article is a bit terse, but Ballmer meant that her daughter saw a lot of value when she looked at her friend's install of Vista...enough value that she immediately went home and told her mom "I've got to have that!"

Re:A lot of value...

Whatever you say, Ballmer.

Re:A lot of value...

The "mother" was Yvonne Genovese [gartner.com], Research VP of Gartner Research. She was on stage with a discussion panel.

Re:A lot of value...

Sadly, the value she saw was equivalent to cakes, chocolates, and candy, and soon became sick of the sugar and just wanted same damn food.

Re:A lot of value...

Quite clearly, you've never tried using gadgets. Gadgets are the paradigm-shift (I hope I can still use that word) we've all been waiting for.

Why I myself am about to ditch OS X in favor of gadget... err Vista.

If you can't see the insurmountable value of gadgets, and that their existence warrants a 7 year development cycle, multiple delays and feature reduction not to mention complete industry IT overhaul and user re-training, then, you sir are not a visionary, and should promptly log out of this site, and clear your history.

Good riddance I say!

Re:A lot of value...

Heh. Yes.

To me, the funniest thing about Vista's gadget system is that (still, in 2007!) when your resulotion gets changed (by a game, for example -- happens to me far more than once a day ) the gadgets in the lower and right-most portions of your screen get pushed up/left, and have to be moved back manually. For the love of god, people, anchor the things to the nearest edges.

Re:A lot of value...

I guess we now know why Inspector Gadget's gadgets were always malfunctioning. They were running vista. Good thing Penny runs linux.

Re:A lot of value...

...in learning something difficult?

Ballmer's comment seems really prick-like to me. It probably wasn't meant as such, but still.

The kid wasn't having difficulty, the mother was.

From her comments, I doubt she even installed XP. It probably came preinstalled, and her complaint is with the complexity of installing any OS.

Ballmer's comment was spot-on - the daughter saw value in Vista's widgets - and the mother's response was fallacious and nonsensical ("She's 13" - so what, her opinion means nothing, while her ignorant, incapable mother's should be taken seriously? Children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.)

Re:A lot of value...

Ballmer? You are on /.? I didn't think you an Anonymous Coward though.

Re:A lot of value...

Actually, I know for a fact that Bill Gates reads /. He's a geek, what do you expect :) I met him when I was working at MS (he received a bunch of employees at his home) and asked him. He acknowledged he read it and found the cyborg icon funny. That was 4 years ago. I'm posting as A.C. because I'm still involved indirectly with MS, sorry folks!

Re:A lot of value...

Damn IT!! I want a reason to be anonymous too!

Re:A lot of value...

The kid wasn't having difficulty, the mother was.

From her comments, I doubt she even installed XP. It probably came preinstalled, and her complaint is with the complexity of installing any OS.

I didn't get that feeling from the article. This was at ITxpo, not Joe's Supermarket. I have to imagine that the majority of attendees are computer literate and work in the IT field.

Ballmer's comment was spot-on - the daughter saw value in Vista's widgets - and the mother's response was fallacious and nonsensical ("She's 13" - so what, her opinion means nothing, while her ignorant, incapable mother's should be taken seriously? Children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.)

A 13 year old sees the shiny and wants to have it for their own. While they have opinions, and they should be respected, that doesn't necessarily mean they are right.

From TFA, it sounds like mom installed the OS and then spent two days fighting with inadequate drivers and other problems. She specifically states that "It's safe, it works, all the hardware is fine, and everything is great" when she refers to XP. The fact that she indicates hardware in there makes me think there were hardware issues with Vista.

I'm sure the daughter's friend had a good install of Vista, though it was likely due to purchasing a new computer, not upgrading an old one. Seems Vista sucks on anything not brand new. Contrast that with my Linux box here, running on an old Pentium 4 with an outdated video card. Runs blazingly fast, even with Beryl installed and running. I guarantee I couldn't turn on the flashy effects in Vista if I could get it to install on this same machine.

Re:A lot of value...

Ballmer's comment seems really prick-like to me. It probably wasn't meant as such, but still.

From the article: Ballmer was good-natured about the critique as he defended the operating system.

Re:A lot of value...

See, I don't get this. Its not more difficult; the start menu is largely the same. The Documents folder is layed out differently, which Pictures and Movies and such becoming peers to documents... but its not really that different. Is it UAC that everyone is saying is so different they can't figure out how to use the computer? Aside from clicking a dialog when i try to do an administrative task, nothing substancial changed from how I used Windows.

Unfortunately I couldn't really find anything specific that caused the switch back. Was it the kid's choice? The mother's?

funeral's saturday

The mom's body was later found floating in a river. The cause of death: chair-related injuries.

Re:funeral's saturday

No, MS has a strick policy against killing non-hookers.

Am I reading that right?

Ballmer said that Vista is bigger than XP, and 'for some people that's an issue, and it's not going to get smaller in any significant way in SP1. But machines are constantly getting bigger, and [it's] probably important to remember that as well.'

Does that sound like they're proud to be bloat and have no plans to reduce because machines are getting bigger?

Re:Am I reading that right?

Does that sound like they're proud to be bloat and have no plans to reduce because machines are getting bigger?

No, but it makes sense in a twisted way for MS. What are they averaging, 5 years between major releases? When you have that long between releases you have to balance the featureset you want to include against the fact that it's going to be a long time before the next OS release. As a result, it makes sense that you design it such that the full 'experience' will just barely run on a decent new machine at release.

This does illustrate the utility of more frequent releases.

Re:Am I reading that right?

Actually, as the legend says, this was one of the turning points for MS, back the at the time when Lotus 1-2-3 reigned.

Back there, while Lotus was cramming everything to fit in 640k of memory, MS was making Excel w/o concerns for machines, and they got to ship earlier.

Than, by the time 1-2-3 shipped, modern machines were cheap enough, so people went with Excel instead

It really makes sense, in a way.

http://joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/09/18.html [joelonsoftware.com]

Re:Am I reading that right?

Oh absolutely. When machines get more powerful and can perform the same function for a tenth of the cost, they won't sell you the same machine at the reduced price running the same software. They'll sell you a more powerful machine at the same price, and upgrade your software's bloat to make you require the horsepower.

Funny how I can pretty much do everything I do with my new lenovo T61 windows (formally vista, now XP) laptop, on my six (?) year old 1.2 GHz Sempron running gentoo.

Value = Gadgets

So the "value" that the woman's 13 year-old daughter saw were Vista's gadgets:

My daughter comes in one day and says, 'Hey Mom, my friend has Vista, and it has these neat little things called gadgets -- I need those.'

I'm glad the end-user is seeing so much value in Vista.

Value = Subjective

Selling an OS is, in this respect, not a lot different from selling a car.

Some buy their cars for the greatest reliability. Some for performance or efficiency. Some people buy their car to have the newest and flashiest on the block. Some for safety. Some because they know the brand or it's what their friends have.

And some people just fall in love with the color or, wow, big cupholders or heated seats, and they're sold.

Obligatory Neil Stephenson:

This reminds me of Stephenson's In The Beginning There Was The Command Line [cryptonomicon.com], which is a little dated now but still pretty funny. He describes the various OSes as different car dealerships, and Windows as an unreliable station wagon that for some reason 90% of the potential customers buy.

"With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free."

And:

"The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this:

Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"

Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"

Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"

Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."

Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"

Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"

Bullhorn: "But..."

Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?""

re: The "tank" analogy, continued.....

I'm willing to go with that whole analogy, but I'd add that Mac OS X is akin to a corporation most people generally admire taking in a large share of these free tanks, taking some of the parts off that are unnecessary (or potentially even harmful) to the typical end-user/consumer (say, pulling off a machine gun turret), giving the tank a smooth, comfortable ride, a great sound system inside, and an attractive, sleek exterior - and then selling these "value added tanks", backed with their full support (free training in their stores and so forth).

Meanwhile, the GNU crowd has mixed feelings on all of this. Some think it's great and bought one of these "OS X tanks" themselves, while others still can't grasp why people would want anything other than exactly what they offer for free.

Re:Obligatory Neil Stephenson:

Yeah, except you have to drive the tank with a command line instead of a steering wheel/gas pedal/brake. :)

Re:Value = Gadgets

I feel it's somewhat hypocritical of the mother to use the fact that her daugher was 13 as a defence - if she really placed little value in her daughter's opinion, she shouldn't have bought it solely on that opinion in the first place.

Re:Value = Gadgets

Precisely. She's not willing to be held accountable for the fact that, in the end, she made the operating system purchase and was not pleased with it. So she's blaming Steve because her precious daughter 'doesn't know any better' ... even though she was apparently the sole motivation for the purchase. It's sad how little personal accountability people have these days.

Re:Value = Gadgets

Obviously you've never had kids. "Mom, my best friend has Vista, and it's so kewl. Can you install it!"

"Fine dear."

Three days later...

"Mom, I can't figure out how to use this. Where's my music? How do I get my pictures off my digital camera? How come the printer won't work? Why does it keep asking me these stupid questions?"

After three days of that, I'd be pretty hot under the collar too.

He basically told her, "You're wrong."

If Microsoft were anything other than one of the most dominant monopolies the world has ever seen, this would be a hideous and grave error.

As it is, people just shrug their shoulders and say, "Who is John Galt?"

Re:He basically told her, "You're wrong."

If Microsoft were anything other than one of the most dominant monopolies the world has ever seen, this would be a hideous and grave error.

As it is, people just shrug their shoulders and say, "Who is John Galt?"

They're probably wondering who let this troublemaking person in here. Don't we screen attendees for product loyalty?

I love how people like Ballmer throw around the word 'value' The product is actually a hook, designed to get you tied into Microsoft's other products and services - Office, MSN, media content through their partners, etc. If it was about an operating system it would fit on one CD, require a few megabytes of memory and be secure. Windows is not an operating system, it's an environment bundled with an operating system.

Re:Should it be any different?

Look at this from someone else's perspective for a bit. These are decent products that microsoft is offering, and integrating them and preinstalling as much as possible is good for the consumer, provided they can afford it. After all, how many people find it worthwhile to use Linux From Scratch? Sure, it's a great learning experience, but most computer users don't want a learning experience, they want a fully functional computer.

The intent seems admirable if it were altruistic, but Microsoft have shown their predatory stripes. They very nearly undid the major anti-virus industry by initially refusing to include that large business sector in to see their code. Microsoft would certainly like to hold all the cards, but that very attempt could have doomed them as businesses would want to know why Norton, McAfee, etc are not there to protect them because Microsoft believed (the very company which left so many security holes in Win95, Active X and Win XP) they could do a better job of protecting the buyer.

Microsoft bundles average quality products and gives their own line of products the inside track, which have hurt competitors for years. You might check your system performance monitor to see how much memory is being used when you first boot up and like to know why 380+ MB of memory are in use before you launch your first app. Microsoft have preloaded a tonne of library code in case you might run Explorer or Office apps. That you don't have Office doesn't seem to derail the boot process from including them to occupy your memory anyway. All this to make Microsoft's apps appear to load faster. Try loading a competitor's apps and see how many seconds you have to wait for them to open up.

The ulitimate in useability is to keep the damn system lean and let the user decide how much crap they want when they build/install and OS. You should always be able to go back to the distro and add more, but you don't really get a choice with Windows, do you?

Systems get bigger because they have to - to be able to run Windows.

Translated for the Lay

"Let's start with the end user. Your daughter saw a lot of value," said Ballmer.

Translation: We spent a lot of money packing it with bloat.

"Users appreciate the value that we put into Vista," he said. But, as with earlier operating system releases, "there is always a tension between the value that end users see -- and frankly, that software developers see -- and the value that we can deliver to IT."

Translation: No matter how many versions we have, it's still one size fits all. The tension is generated because our developers don't lead normal lives and see things the way ordinary people do, which makes the end product obfuscated and confusing

"the most secure release of Windows you can humanly make," said Ballmer. "We have had better security, we have had fewer vulnerabilities, fewer issues with Windows Vista in its first six months than any OS that preceded it.

Translation: We're banking on bloat, the more there is the longer it takes the crackers to find the exploits, but sure as the Sun rises, they will find them because more code has more holes.

"I think there is a lot of value in Vista," he said.

Translation: Stock value. If we didn't come out with a new version of Windows everyone had to buy every few years our stock value would drop. We have to keep addicts supplied.

"When we initially shipped, fewer device drivers were ready for Vista than I would have liked, but we constantly worked with the device vendors to get new drivers available and implemented through our Windows update service," he said.

Translation: We rushed it to market. If we had waited until it was really ready we would have seen our stock drop. The premature release was purely driven by profit motives rather than care for our customers.

"We are in, from ... a corporate and enterprise side, an early adoption cycle," said Ballmer.

Translation: Revenue generating cycle - Bleeding edge, counting the casualties.

Re:Translated for the Lay

"Let's start with the end user. Your daughter saw a lot of value," said Ballmer.

Translation: We spent a lot of money packing it with bloat.

Translation: "Our Marketting Department spent 5 years changing the specs for the Engineering Department based on focus groups stuffed with hydrocephalic chimpanzees. We gotta get our money back before our stockholders show up with pitchforks & torches and lynch us."

"Users appreciate the value that we put into Vista," he said. But, as with earlier operating system releases, "there is always a tension between the value that end users see -- and frankly, that software developers see -- and the value that we can deliver to IT."

Translation: No matter how many versions we have, it's still one size fits all. The tension is generated because our developers don't lead normal lives and see things the way ordinary people do, which makes the end product obfuscated and confusing

Translation: "Our chimpanze focus groups are fickle as hell and constantly change their minds from minute to minute. This leads to developement team frustration, so we were forced to sedate them. That didn't work so well, so now we're trying lobotomies..."

"When we initially shipped, fewer device drivers were ready for Vista than I would have liked, but we constantly worked with the device vendors to get new drivers available and implemented through our Windows update service," he said.

Translation: We rushed it to market. If we had waited until it was really ready we would have seen our stock drop. The premature release was purely driven by profit motives rather than care for our customers.

Translation: "Our developers couldn't keep up with our changing specs. Don't blame us, blame the chimpanzes."

Oh really...

'Good, I'll let you come in and install it for me.'

Uh, Vista is easier to install than XP.

Re:Oh really...

I don't think the woman was saying that Vista itself was harder to install. Like many others she's complaining that there were many issues after the install like with drivers, stability, etc. Since MS changed many things in Vista this was not unexpected especially for a 1st generation product. She figures that maybe something she did caused it, and Ballmer is trying to put the best face forward. I think he and Gates both know what a fiasco Vista has been and that the installation process is a small role in how unfinished many feel that Vista is. Gates and Co are trying to get everyone to install it so that MS can make money.

Sooo?

>> Your daughter saw a lot of value.
> She's 13.

Am I the only one missing the point here?

Re:Sooo?

It seems pretty simple to me. The mother, who cares about performance and utility, wasn't impressed. The tweenage daughter, who cares about gadgets and superficial appearances liked it.

Re:Sooo?

You obviously never been or had a 13 year old. They think all sorts of things have "a lot of value" based upon "peers opinion". In fact, Junior High is filled with various peer groups that base all sorts of things on the perceived value assigned to things by the peer group. As one grows up, many realize that 13 year olds don't really know jack about the world yet.

So, the retort from the mother is basically ... "she's 13 years old, she doesn't know jack, what else would you expect." Her retort nullifies the previous comment as only a mother of a 13 year old could, and it is quite amusing, IMHO.

Love/Hate Relationship?

So, in short, the 13 yr old had no problem with it, but the mother couldn't understand it, so it's a bad OS? Yeah, that's GREAT logic.

Also, "she's 13" is not a valid retort for why it shouldn't matter that she found value in it. She obviously knew how to use it more than the mother did.

Ballmer was in an impossible situation here. He could make her look the complete fool and catch hell for picking on that woman, or let her 'win' and catch hell for letting a woman beat up his operating system. He chose the right route, for once.

For the record, Vista was the wrong route.

Re:Love/Hate Relationship?

Also, "she's 13" is not a valid retort for why it shouldn't matter that she found value in it

Actually it is the PERFECT retort, because it shows just how out-of-touch Microsoft is. Teenagers don't care about value, because they have no concept of what value is.

Okaayyyy.

As an adult, please define value for the rest of us.

Saying a teenager doesn't understand value, just shows that you don't understand value. Value is absolutely relative to the individual, and it varies wildly based on fashion, personal experience, age, sex, race, everything.

When you say that someone of a different demographic from yourself "doesn't understand value", what you're really saying is that you don't understand them, and that, therefore, you think the things they value are meaningless.

There are a lot of people who will profit from those people and their "meaningless" values, while you sit smugly telling them they're stupid for valuing those things anyway. Microsoft has become a monopoly doing this crap. It's heart and soul why Office beats the crap out of Open Office. OSS people need to take the needs of non-geeks seriously.

Re:Love/Hate Relationship?

Also, "she's 13" is not a valid retort for why it shouldn't matter that she found value in it. She obviously knew how to use it more than the mother did.

Quite wrong. 13 year olds see a lot of value in Zwinkies, expensive ring-tones, and fake plastic jewelry. So when it comes to deciding value, "she's 13" is a perfectly good answer. (Next time you have a grand to spend on a home project, ask your 13 year old to be in charge.)

Secondly, nowhere there does it say that she knew how to "use" it. What does she know how to use? She saw some eye-candy and wanted it for herself.

I agree that Vista is the wrong route, and that Ballmer was in a tight spot. Nevertheless, he took 7 years to create that tight spot, and he just reaped a bit of what he sowed.

Re:Love/Hate Relationship?

So, in short, the 13 yr old had no problem with it, but the mother couldn't understand it, so it's a bad OS? Yeah, that's GREAT logic. Also, "she's 13" is not a valid retort for why it shouldn't matter that she found value in it. She obviously knew how to use it more than the mother did.

I'm sorry, wait, what? The 13 year old daughter liked the widgets. Mom explicitly said that's why the daughter wanted it. Maybe we can assume Mom thought shelling out >$100 would at the minimum be neutral (hopefully improving) every feature she came to love about XP. Instead, the experience degraded. The 13 year old daughter, who has probably never worked a day in her life, nor is she likely to for another 2-3 years, is unable to grasp the value of the money it cost to get the OS upgrade, so is unable to judge the value of the product. Just because she knows how to use the widgets better than Mom doesn't mean she can weigh the value of the money it took to buy the upgrade against the other things that money could have been used for.

I side with Mom. The girl is 13. Her opinion matters, but her opinion is not the only thing that matters.

Yikes!

I can't say I'm looking forward to Mom's arrival in #gentoo...

Or, better yet

Or, better yet, she can use an operating system that doesn't practically require new hardware for every new release, but operating system of which I speak can take advantage of new hardware when it's available, and that'll be sooner because she won't have to spend $400 on just the operating system.

I hate to be the one defending Microsoft, but...

...in my experience Vista is easier to transition to than most operating systems I've upgraded. Most hardware still works. Every program I've tried so far has worked. Can you say the same thing for 98 to XP? No. OS 9 to OS X? No. Linux to newer Linux? Well, yes. :)

Take a machine that runs 98 tolerably well and upgrade it to XP. Pain. Take a machine that runs XP tolerably well and upgrade it to Vista. Pain. Nothing is new here. You upgrade your OS and you'll probably need to upgrade your hardware too. And purchasers that doesn't realize this only have themselves to blame. Did I just agree with Steve Ballmer? Damn it, get me a razor blade...

Re:I hate to be the one defending Microsoft, but..

I love how every piece of software works with Vista except Microsoft's own programs...

I am a college student and needed to install MS Visual Studio for a project. Our CSE lab is partnered with MS through MSDN. We have access to most MS software. So I went online and noticed that Visual Studios 2003 Pro was on the website. (2005 is not available) Checked out the cd from the lab and went home to install it on Vista. After having trouble getting it to work I went searching for a fix.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa948854.aspx [microsoft.com]

Q: What products are supported?
A: We are supporting Visual Basic 6.0, Visual FoxPro 9.0 and Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 with the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista.

So Visual Basic 6, created in 1998, is supported but software from 2003 isn't??

Re:I hate to be the one defending Microsoft, but..

Actually, OS 9 to OS X had something called Classic in OS X, so that you could run all your OS 9 programs without a rewrite.

Oh yeah let's bash MS !!

Vista is NOT harder to use than XP. It's virtually the same, especially from the point of view of a non-power user. UAC might be a huge nuisance, but parents or whoever can just turn it off. I wouldn't give a 13-year-old admin privileges to a machine in the first place; you're just asking for trojans otherwise.

Ballmer was probably thinking "either you or your daugher or both are just stupid" but knew he couldn't say it so he was trying to be passive and just said some BS to try and get the lady off his case.

Why I am a (Mac/Linux/Fill-in-the-Blank) user

Ballmer's response is a nice little nutshell of everything wrong with Microsoft and why I'm a home Mac user (replace Mac with Linux if you must, but the point is the same). Ballmer talks of "value", as if HOME USERS give a shit. Microsoft is in so deep to corporate ass kissing, they forget that there are millions of home users who use computers for things OTHER than work and "value" means something completely different to a home user. If I have to give into Mr. Ballmer's Econo-spin I'd have to tell him that "value" to me means I sit down at my computer and use it with as little fuss and interruption from the OS as possible. In this scenario, every flavor of Windows ever has very little value. My time and convenience have more "value" to me than any corporate bottom-line will ever have. In fact, I'd rather NOT be able to do something than be stuck in the perpetual co-dependent cycle that Microsoft has created.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm a home Mac user.

Scary

That's it. I've never seen the public react this way to a Windows release before. Not Linux geeks, but the average Windows users.
Yea, yea, every new release faces nostalgia of the previous release blah blah. It's way worse here.
Average people call Vista shit. Businesses run away from it.

The Vista brand is ruined. Now even if they fix Vista, the brand will never recover.

I hope Microsoft learns something from this. First impression lasts forever. Don't release software unfinished.

Meh

XP was not finished when it came out and now it is the flagship operating system. This happens everytime, there are problems cause some old POS hardware doesn't have a driver for Vista yet (or at all) and there are bugs here and there in the OS. Time will change it, whether the anti-MS crowd likes it or not, and MS will stay rich another day.

why does /. still have a subject line?!

Don't you all see! Vista was a wise move by Microsoft. IT has been long been agreed upon that one major contributor to windows' insecurity is its popularity. If Microsoft comes out with an OS that nobody wants, they won't be popular anymore, and suddenly they'll have a secure OS!!!

DUH!

OS Wars

Only on Slashdot do we discuss what is the most appropriate OS for a 13 year old girl. :)

For the linux on the desktop folks..

Something interesting to take away from this. The 13 year old (the future of technology) wanted the gadgets - or rather - the useful yet entertaining and social aspects of Vista - rather than the technology underneath. Technology that serves a personal purpose, rather than technology that simply serves a purpose.

As we've all learned for ourselves now back when we started CS/IT/ENG/whatever, we constantly evolve using what we started with as a base. I can trace my usage of linux/unix now back to first using NextStations and IRIX boxes back in school.

What is Linux/Ubuntu/younameit doing to capitalize on the 13 year old market? What does Linux offer a teenager, or better yet, why would a teenage want to use Linux? Social interaction, gadgets/widgets, entertainment, etc may seem like a waste of purpose and time to us hardcore nerds, but these are very important to non-tech types. Once the 13 year old is interested, then the whole 'get em early' evolution begins.

A great example is the XO laptop. The XO has considered the social target audience of the product like few other hardware and software developers previously (except maybe Apple). As such, every review of the laptop so far by a schoolage child (the target) loves it. For Linux to succeed on the desktop for the masses, developers needs to consider what the desktop for the masses actually is - not what developers think the desktop to be where the masses adapt.

Where's the Beef?

What I'm struck by in this article is a lack of the specific detail in her complaints. Was it too hard to install? Did it crash? Were the drivers lacking? Was there something baffling about the new interface to her? TFA makes it sound like she spent money, installed it, then said "Bah, XP was fine" before uninstalling it again. It's rather obvious that she installed it for skin-deep reasons driven by her daughter's preferences, but surely the reasons she uninstalled it were more considered.

This would've been a lot more interesting if she'd challenged him about the actual problems she encountered...Perhaps she did, and it just wasn't captured? Ah well.

getting bigger

But machines are constantly getting bigger

Much like Ballmer himself.

Re:buy more chairs, Uncle Steve's coming over!

User is complaining. Allow or Deny?

*click*

Uh oh

Did Vista adopt CUPS?

Re:Question for the geeks here...

That does have an impact on security, but mostly because the features it's now necessary to be backwards compatible with were never designed to be secure or stable in the first place in the old home versions of Windows. For example a lot of Linux features are designed to work in the same manner as old UNIX equivalents, but there seem to be less gaping holes in its security despite providing its own support for legacy code and in some cases extremely old hardware platforms.

This kind of cruft certainly doesn't make an OS any easier to secure, but in the interests of creating a reasonably stable platform for developers, you can't just re-write the entire feature set every few years and expect software to be ported. It seems to me that if well enough thought through it's very possible to make a secure OS while remaining mostly backwards compatible (e.g. by emulating old and insecure features on newer hardware).

Re:Question for the geeks here...

I'm of the opinion that much of the Vista-specific bloat comes from the DRM layer. Under the DRM paradigm, every driver doesn't just have to worry about doing their normal work -- it also has to worry about doing some, apparently innocuous, thing that pisses off some other random driver (or, eve, program) in the system. It also has to worry about whether it is required to get 'pissed off' by what some other random element is doing.
That constant looking-over-the-shoulder (both your own and others') has got to result in a lot of the lost performancethat is being seen in Vista.