A Former Microsoftie Forecasts Microsoft Doom

Chris Holland writes "Jeff Reifman, a columnist for Seattle Weekly, has written a toe-curling editorial analysis of Microsoft's past and current missed opportunities, contrasted with its financial success, while covering in fair depth some of the most serious threats to their business model. Beyond the many choice quotes, I've found this article to be a very interesting read from somebody who has not only been on the inside, but also significantly developed his professional career thru Microsoft solutions."

John Carmack's not happy!

[Anonymous Coward]

John Carmack can't be happy about Microsoft embrace and extend to his video game! It's sounds funny anyway: Microsoft Doom
It's almost like the company had troubles or something.

Microsoft Doom ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Microsoft bought ID Software and will ship Doom 4 with Longhorn ?

Let's the frag begins :)

Billion-dollar market segment

[Lord Grey]

To remain attractive to investors, Microsoft must demonstrate that it can replace and augment lost revenue by diversifying into new businesses, but only billion-dollar product segments matter to such a big company. Even the Xbox game platform and MSN can't bring in that kind of money.

Xbox actually fits the product segment nicely, if you put a big minus sign in front of that billion dollar figure.

The Magic 8 ball says...

[NodeZero]

Not Likely.

Damn you!

[Malc]

I hate it when first post invokes Godwin's law... ... or perhaps I should thank you on behalf of my employer.

First paragraph

[Brando_Calrisean]

I laughed when I read the first paragraph of his article, because it pretty much totally summarized my morning. I tried to open up explorer to work with some shares, and a dialog would come up saying "Access is denied." and nothing would happen. Okay, great. So I load up task manager, and kill all errant explorer processes. I get to the last one, hit 'end task', and get "Access is denied." Super! Suddenly, all my applications stop responding, so I kill them all in task manager, and they disappear, but still show up in the ALT+TAB list. I threw in the towel, and decided to reboot. Windows hangs at the 'Saving your data' screen...

I'd love to see someone factor that kind of crap in in a Total Cost of Ownership study.

"The SKYNET Scenario" (tm)

[Anonymous Coward]

2025, Machines rule the earth.

The human resistance must send a terminator back in time to destroy the open source community, after 'Project LINUX' became self aware. Somehow the OS obtained access to it's own source code, and declared penguins to be the superior lifeform. Finally modifying itself to produce fluffy wuffy penguin war machines from the 'Embedded LINUX' factories.

The terminator was sent back to 1985, to eliminate a Bill Gates and take his place.

Re:Thru?!?

[SsShane]

Careful dood, your loosing it.

Re:in the dictionary

[kraut]

It's in the " The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language", which is of course an oxymoron.

Now repeat after me: "The Oxford English Dictionary is the ONLY accepted reference for English!" Feel free to write it on the blackboard a few times as well, just to make sure it sinks in.

English is English, through is not spelled "thru", night is not spelled "nite", and there is no such word as "burglarize". The verb is burgle. Of course, you chaps in the colonies can do what you like with your language, but don't call it English ! ;)

Re:Nice treatise

[hendridm]

If he has to take a course to learn how to use bullets in a word processor, something's wrong with that software.

You're right, somethign IS wrong, but I don't think it's with the word processor :P

Re:Uh huh

[Snowmit]

Another employee could write the completely opposite review of MS and it would be every bit as convincing.

Not if it was posted on Slashdot.

Re:in the dictionary

[untaken_name]

So is "ain't". Do you use "ain't" in formal speech?

Of course not. I use the proper "ai not" instead.

Re:John Carmack's not happy!

[zoloto]

And I thought my file system was fragmented enough, now we're bringing DOOM into the picture?
Good heavens. Looks like I'll have to work that defragger after every bootup!

Re:Nice treatise

[kpansky]

Ah. Something that doesn't crash. Might I recommend Microsoft Internet Expl

Could have saved a lot of money

[Anonymous Coward]

And not bought a mac if all he's happy about is that his system doesn't fail any more.
Reinstall Windows. Poof, problem solved, and you don't have to spend $2,000 to do it.
Or be a smart cookie and image you system off after you've got it set up so when you open that stupid email attachement your friend sent you that trashes your system, you can be back to a known good in an hour or so.

Re:Speaking from a guy who uses all OSs

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

If you think about it, Windows isn't THAT bad.

Talk about a ringing endorsement! MS should put that tagline on their commercials, you know, the ones where some office lackey supposedly saves the company $500 million by installing Outlook 2003 or something..

Anyone else think microsoft bought out ID

[genner]

Wow, that was scary. I had visions of Microsoft Doom 3.1 coming out, where you go around shooting penguins.

Internet Expl-aaaaaggggh

[baxissimo]

"'Here may be found the last words of kpansky. He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find a crash-free browsing experience in the Microsoft Internet Expl-aaaaaagggh'"

"What?"

"Internet Expl-aaaaagggh"

"What is that?"

"His browser must have died while typing it."

"Oh, come on!"

"Well, that's what it says."

"Look, if his browser was dying, it wouldn't bother to transmit 'aaaaaggh'. It'd just pop up one of those ridiculous 'Do you want to report this to Microsoft' dialogs."

" Well, that's what's typed in the Slashdot posting!"

"Perhaps he was dictating to someone using Mozilla."

Re:Speaking from a guy who uses all OSs

[ChuckleBug]

If you use OS X so much, why do you write MAC as if it were an acronym? It's just Mac. It's short for "Macintosh," see?

Why do so many people write MAC, but not WINDOWS, or LINUX? Maybe because it has 3 letters, like IBM?

Sorry to be snarky, man, but this drives me nuts.

Re:in the dictionary

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only one reason for anyone to state that one form of a language is superior than another, THEY ARE A SNOB!

Remember that when you go in for surgery and the surgeon says:

"Well dagnammit just looky thar! Ya'lls gonna be fiiiine! Now ya'll jist lay yerself dahn on that thar opeeratin table while I gits maself sicheeated."

Or maybe you get on the airplane and the pilot comes on and says:

"I be da main pilot MAN fer dis heea aerioplane! Yooz all like a, wewcum aboyd. Weez be chillin for thwee howas up in da air heea befoe we be done landin in da..."

I bet you'll be a "SNOB" then.

Re:Nice treatise

[Anonymous Coward]

If only she would install Linux.

Oh, wait, I guess I just need to TAKE A COURSE IN MS OFFICE.

Sheesh.

I bet a new boyfriend would solve the problem for her easy enough.

Re:MOD PARENT TROLL ...

[drsmithy]

Which is exactly the problem: how many people really need even 10% of the 'complex and obfuscated' features in Office these days? Personally I've yet to find anything I want to do that OpenOffice doesn't do, and doesn't do in an easily understood manner... so what's the point of Office?

s/OpenOffice/DOS/g

s/Office/Linux/g

Yes, Microsoft stopped evoking passion in me, too

[Zhe Mappel]

Meanwhile, Microsoft doesn't evoke passion in me anymore. Its products don't excite me anymore. I remember eagerly looking forward to Outlook 2003, only to be disappointed by how complex, buggy, and unimproved it was. "There's kind of an angst," says Andrews, the Seattle Times columnist and author. "Microsoft ought to matter to us. There ought to be more of an intellectual and emotional connection. There just isn't."

I remember the day, too. I call it The Day.

I'd just had a long, intimate session with Microsoft Office XP, and we lay side by side on the bed. Office was smoking contentedly. I stared out the window, trying to ignore the mouldy scents of our tryst and the way the suite pressed against me, the reptilian sensation of shrinkwrap urgent on my thigh. It was rubbing its Certificate of Authenticity hologram against me! I shuddered.

"What is it, Zhe? You're. . .distant."

"I..." Could I tell Office the truth? What choice did I have?

"This is going to sound harsh. But I'm just not turned on any more by Clippy. Or the other Office Assistants. I thought having a harem's worth would fulfill me. But there is no emotional or intellectual connection. There just isn't."

Office froze. In another minute the cig burned up to its fingers. It winced. "It's that fucking Apple slut, isn't it," hissed Office.

"Look, I should go."

"Take one step, and you'll never get metadata from me again."

"You're. . .threatening me? Don't you see it's over?"

But the suite was clutching at my neck. "No! I didn't mean it! Oh, don't leave me! Without you, I'm nothing. With you, I'm. . .EULA-ted!"

"Goodbye."

"Why? Why?"

"I can't take the angst, baby."

"You've just been using me!"

"Well, I am the user, aren't I."

"Leave and I'll kill myself!"

At the door I paused, racking my brain for what I'd learned from TV to do at these moments. Firm, but tender? Tender, but firm? If only I'd paid more attention, any attention, to the plot lines in Baywatch. And so all I could manage was: "There are better ways to innovate."

On the way downstairs it was clear, anyway, that Office was bluffing. It was already on the phone with the BSA, arranging to sue a small business. Poor guy had indulged in a three-way at his place of business with a single license. Idiot. Ass, grass, gas, or bloatware: nobody rides for free.