Forbes Says Vista Not People Ready

Diomedes01 writes "Daniel Lyons has an opinion piece up on Forbes.com about a recent press conference held by Microsoft, and the results are anything but flattering."

My Clinically Inept Siblings

[eldavojohn]

Surprise surprise, people are predicting that Microsoft's Vista may not be 'people ready.'

Let's take my three sisters. Each has a degree in biology. Each considers me their personal tech support when anything "breaks." It sucks.

I've gotten phone calls from them about the behavior of Windows XP on multiple occasions. Once they thought all their windows kept closing if they opened too many. As it turns out, they had the "grouping" feature enabled for windows of the same type on the toolbar.

*sigh*

Now Vista will have a new 3D effect [microsoft.com] to window grouping. Sweet Jesus, I am turning my cell phone off. I can imagine it now, "All my windows are turning sideways! Make it stop!"

Aside from "Ease of Use," I don't think any of the advertised features [microsoft.com] are going to meld well with any of my sisters. The new 'Aero' technology is no match for my sisters' Airhead logic.

I plan to make up some story for them about how Vista is the devil and if you install it, it will slowly begin to ruin your computer. Oh, and if you try to save your biology notes, it especially hates the medical sciences so it will delete them instantly. Not to mention that its new 'AI' abilities allow it to call you names if it perceives you to be an unqualified user. That should stop them from buying it.
The worst part is that Microsoft can smell this potential market in young people who don't know what they need:

Microsoft execs also talked about "Impacting People," then they dragged out fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger, who seemed very "impacted" as he sang praise for Microsoft programs. Actually, he was reading meaningless statements from a TelePrompTer. Here is one of his quotes, verbatim: "When you combine people and technology, you have a very powerful combination."

That's exactly the kind of publicity stunt that would cause all three of my sisters to run out and buy Vista. *shudders* He's an fucking fashion designer! What the fuck would he know about computer software?!?!

And what is with this part of the article:

Why not at least switch to an Apple Computer (nasdaq: AAPL) Mac? Apple's new operating system is stable, reliable and easy to use. The applications are simple, gorgeous and work well together. And they're here. Today. Steve Jobs must be waking up a happy man this morning.

This article brought to you by Forbes Magazine's Daniel Lyons, owner of stock in AAPL.

Thanks, Dan, I was with you there until that last paragraph where your Apple sales pitch kicked in.

wow.

[mike518]

wow. what is going in the minds of MS execs heads? dont they realize they are quickly losing ground, prestige and time to open source and apple?

just wow.

i mean how long does it take to quickly put together some new code for the same functions, a brand spanking new GUI and lots of "cool" new "features"? ... no seriously im asking, i figure microsoft has some experience with this question. /honest frustation

Re:My Clinically Inept Siblings

[include($dysmas)]

even if he is an AAPL shareholder or whatever, it is a a pleasant change to read an anti-MS article that is ;

a) Well written, punctuation & all
b) Focussed, on something!.

remember the OSX vs Ubuntu vs XP thing from a few days ago? this kind of article is diametrically opposite that one (in terms of readability) on the piss pot that is tour wonderful internet.

/boredom & apologies for spelling

Re:Rejection

[Moby Cock]

I think articles like this one may also help. It is scathing. Seldom have I seen such a brutal assault on Microsoft in a mainstream publication. If a similar rebuke was aired on CNN or 60 minutes ran a piece that tore apart the hype for Vista I think there would be an effect.

I think you are right that most folks use Microsoft because they simply have no idea that it is bad software. To them its just the way things are and they get on with whatever they are doing. The Linux FUD is going to be around for a long time still and more articles like this one are needed.

Software Assurance and Date Slippage

[E-Sabbath]

As I understand things, many Software Assurance Plans, which were essentially forced on customers with the claim that Longhorn would be available, expire as of 12/31/06.

I wonder if there may be issues with claims salesmen made and this date slippage.

Re:Rejection

[timster]

Actually, I think the GP does indeed live in the real world, just not the same one as you.

Ballmer gave what I thought was an interesting answer when Forbes asked whether people will actually be able to use the complex new applications. He said that most people won't, but that some people (like yourself) will be able to do things with them that increase everyone's productivity.

I can see the theory he's using, but I'm afraid where Microsoft has always failed is in addressing the majority of users who need too much of their attention for other things to learn the intricacies of Microsoft applications. I worry that Microsoft has turned office computing into a difficult video game, where some people will get very high scores but some people just want to write memos.

The serious problem with this is that a difficult application creates a lot of frustration. Microsoft seems to ignore this emotional angle, and creates applications that are very capable but which most people are honestly afraid of. This ends up reducing their productivity and eliminating their willingness to explore the rich functionality.

If we want the masses to do interesting, complex things with their documents, we need to carefully consider this emotional aspect. Not that OpenOffice does, of course, but Microsoft's new versions won't be popular if they don't make software that people actually like to use.

Re:My Clinically Inept Siblings

[buro9]

I am actually doing very much the same... abandoning support for MS crapware to all family members and friends.

The reason will be simple: I don't use Vista, and I have no idea how to solve whatever problem you're experiencing.

You see, I'm moving to Ubuntu or Mepis (I still have a whole year or two to make my mind up! Maybe something new will come along) once Windows XP looks like it's drawing close to it's death.

I look at Ubuntu bi-monthly now, and I like what I see. Is it yet at the point where I want to make it my primary system? Nope... I'm day to day Windows still. But each time I look, more of those nagging doubts have evaporated, more of those features and usability tweaks I want have appeared.

By the time I have to face the question of what my next operating system will be, it will no longer be a single answer (whatever the next M$ system is), it will be a choice between a Linux (Ubuntu or Mepis are most likely), and Vista. And given the way that those answers are evolving (hey, Linux need do nothing so long as DRM crapware infests Vista!)... it looks like Linux is going to win hands down.

And in switching... I get to abandon all technical support to anyone on Windows, and let them know that if they want to use Linux, I'll happily help them with whatever problems they have, as I will be in a place to be able to help them.

Biologists Don't Do Windows...

[FellowConspirator]

I work for a large biotech company. Upper management uses Windows-based systems, as does manufacturing.

However, I work in research. Until recently the systems were about 50-50 Windows / Mac with the exceptions of bioinformatics (mostly Linux), and cheminformatics (mostly Irix). However, more recently, vendors have been phasing out the use of Windows for instrumentation control in favor of Linux. Nearly all the structural chemistry applications have moved to Linux, and most genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics software is now Linux-based (and, frequently, runs just fine on Macs too). Macs are still pretty popular, but the use of Windows in research is pretty much considered "legacy" at this point.

If you come from an academic environment in contemporary biology, you were probably weened on Mac OS, or Solaris (when I was in grad school). If it's more recent, it's most definitely OS/X or Linux. It's also clear that Linux is rapidly becoming the platform-of-choice for apps in biotech and pharamceutical research, but with a heavy emphasis on WEB-based technologies.

That's not to say that there aren't users that use nothing but Excel and Word, but that's not so common anymore in research (at least were I work and in my previous job). This poses a big problem for our IT department -- they aren't prepared to support Linux desktops and Mac OS/X, yet those are the platforms where most of our applications run.

Biolgists either don't do computers at all (particularly "old school" biologists), or, if they do, Windows is not what they have the most experience with...

Aiming too high

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Microsoft keep aiming too high. In the end, it's as simple as that.

The executives who are driving the show like to promote corporation-wide initiatives (.Net springs to mind) but they lack the clarity of vision and coherence of presentation to get their message across. This is, of course, assuming that they're clear themselves about what their initiative seeks to achieve, which I doubt in many cases. Once you're detached from clear goals and clear plans to achieve them, and you descend into corporate initiative, business imperative, growth driver, buzzword buzzword zzzzz territory, you'll sink right to the bottom in no time.

The next level down - the guys who are basically running the show for Windows, or Office, or the more minor products like Visual Studio - are constantly in a state of flux because they don't know where the corporation-wide initiatives are driving them. Worse yet, they don't know where they're driving each other, but it's surely somewhere: if you want a radical new UI in Vista, you've got to have the tools to write programs that use it in Visual Studio, and your next version of Office has to fit in with the style, for example.

Now, the guys working on the products keep coming up with revolutionary new features that require dramatic changes in a single version. These are always a risk, and if things don't work out, it's rare that you can half-implement the good bits and scrap the rest, so you get cancellation of the entire feature if bad stuff happens. Combine that with the constant changes in high level business plans and such, particularly pressure to get a release out in time for this or that shareholder meeting (that means you, VS2005 team) and you can see why often these things do suffer catastrophic failure.

So, if your next release is based on three Big Features(TM), as was the case with Vista originally, and these then start falling to the wayside under business pressures, what do you do? You can't cancel them all, or you've got no product and your reputation is mud, but if you can't get them ready in time either, then your release dates keep slipping and your reputation is a different colour of mud. Such is the price you pay when you decide to go for the big features and not across-the-board, incremental improvements, and that's the mistake they keep making.

Daniel Lyons Has a History...

[ThinkFr33ly]

... of bashing Microsoft and promoting Apple [forbes.com].

He also isn't a big fan of Linux [forbes.com].

This guy is widely considered a hack.

I've been using Vista build 5308 for almost a month now as my primary "home" machine. At first I was a little taken back by some of the UI changes, but overall I really do like it. In fact, when I move back to XP it really hurts because of things I miss from Vista.

This guy's critcisms of Vista are so vague it's hard to even know what parts of Vista he is talking about.

"The new programs are phenomenally complex, with scores of buttons and pull-down menus and myriad connections among various applications."

Huh? Which new applications? In most case, Microsoft has decreased, not increased, the number of UI elements.

X-360

[glenrm]

XBox 360 and Games are all MSFT has going for it now. But why don't people switch? The answer is obvious XP works well enough for most people, of course that doesn't help Vista either. To me the place where open source will make up the most ground is on the application side. Linux may not gain ground for a long time, but Mozilla, Thunderbird, and Open Office will, as can many other closed apps.

Re:Rejection

[tomstdenis]

??? Saves time? LaTeX source is just a text file. You could invent your own tags like

@SQL QUERY@

Then write a perl script that parses the text and replaces the text between @@ with the result.

I do a related trick for my text book where I have @line_number,text@ markups that sync up line numbers in the text with lines in source code. E.g. I can say "The while loop on line @74,while@ performs..." and then it looks around line 74 for the word "while" and replaces the @@ with the actual number.

This way if I add a comment or whitespace my line numbers still make sense. To make a PDF I type

make docs ... really hard.

My point is you don't need to spend two grand on a suite of tools where teTeX and a small perl script accomplishes the same thing. You could edit the LaTeX source with any text editor and view the pdf, ps or dvi output with your fav reader.

If you're not a programmer hire some intern for a week to script it up for you.

You look at that and probably say "oh great now I have to invent my own tools!" I say why not? Why is being clever such a bad thing? It means I can use professional tools [hint: LaTeX does typesetting not just whatever Word feels like] and accomplish my goals in an efficient manner. Instead of being totally dependent on MSFT to come in and solve my problems [with the added bonus of vendor lockin, security holes your parents would be ashamed of and a price tag that is absurd].

Tom

Re:Software Assurance and Date Slippage

[hcob$]

Hrrrm, breach of contract litigation? The lawyers must be salivating hoping those contracts expire soon! Microsoft now seems to be like the fat guy someone "accidentially" cuts and then suggests that big boi gets into the shark infested waters.

Re:trying not to troll

[aralin]

Up until a year ago it took some three months to actually produce a working build of Windows Vista. Now they managed to pull a miracle and get it down to about a week or so. I work on a similar scale software and we produce working builds every day or two on multiple codelines. If we ever get to third day without a working build on main codeline, the developers scream like mad. If we would get to a week, the development would halt for the sheer number of conflicts from thousands of developers pounding it day and night. If we hit three months, the product would become totally unbuildable and the company would implode in a big puff of smoke, or maybe godzilla would eat us all, I just cannot even imagine that possibility.

The fact that Microsoft operates under conditions like that is indeed a herculean effort, but such a huge amount of resources is wasted in the process and such amount of overhead generated, that there is no wonder for Vista to be delayed 3 years and its feature list slashed in half and its stability and security (whatever amount there ever been) is going down the drain. I can only imagine that Office is in the same boat.

This is not merely flawed development environment, this is a sign of total disaster in making.

Re:Biologists Don't Do Windows...

[xiao_haozi]

I am in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology research and I have to agree with FC's observation. From my experience at 4 different universities, I would have to guestimate that about 80+ percent of the labs were Apple labs (OS 9 for some instrumentation and OS X for general use machines). The remaining 20 percent I would have to say was a large fraction of Unix or Linux machines (sometimes clusters for crystallization experiments and modelling). I'm sure this is not the case in all of academia, but is probably somewhat close. What is also interesting is seeing all the analysis applications are mostly oss that are posix based. This makes things very nice as it doesn't chunk of change of our dwindling research budgets and allows for modification of the software to meet specific needs and experimental changes. One thing though I have come across is the prevelance of Excel to analyze data and keep track of results/graphing etc. -pardon the spelling and grammar mistakes...

Re:My Clinically Inept Siblings

[MBGMorden]

Don't know where you're from, but it's not considered "right" to charge siblings for something like that in most parts. If you can help a sibling with nothing invested but your time, then you do so. Eventually, they'll do the same.

My brother and sister are also computer inept, and I end up spending ungodly ammounts removing spyware and such from their systems (most of the time if it's a hardware failure I'll even buy the parts they need without asking from compensation). I wouldn't dream of charging them. In the same light however, I recently had a lot of water damage in my home, and my brother (being a construction worker) came by and helping patch it up without asking for anything in return.

Now for non-immediate family members, I have issued a cease and desist on asking for computer help. I don't care if you'll pay me; I've got a job already and don't need any extra work.

Apple

[Reapman]

To be perfectly honest, next time my parents need to upgrade, which won't be for awhile, if things don't change it's going to be Apple products... tired of providing tech support for stupid things, while Apple's seem to just work, and just work right. Even simple stuff like sharing a printer seems to be nothing but a headache in Windows. Who knows, my dad need's Office for compatability with his clients, but maybe I should look at CrossOver or whatever the Wine port for Office is and have them run a locked down version of Linux.

Re:Software Assurance and Date Slippage

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I've just learned that Vista Corporate is not gettin delayed -- and the place I work for will be rolling it out in our call centers, unfortunately. Even the people doing the installations don't want it because the new hardware requirements are ridiculous, but we're forced to upgrade or go unsupported because of Software Assurance. The odd thing is that everyone worries much about support -- yet in call centers totalling over 7000 employees, plus another few thousand in other areas of the Company, I am not aware of ONE case in which we've had to actually use this support.

That's okay

[aevans]

So Vista won't be ready for another year. Or two. Or three. Novell Netware lost the race to a vaporware NT5, but it was Linux and then Active Directory that killed it. Microsoft has a habit of delivering late, and poorly. But they are bringing onnovation to the (mainstream) desktop. Yes, Unix is a better architecture. But Windows is so much more featureful than Gnome, KDE, or *especally* Mac OS X. Office is 10 years ahead of any of it's clones. Granted, the main reason Star Office is so far behind is because most of their energy is spent on compatibility. But they shouldn't worry too much about it. Like Word Perfect shouldn't have. Microsoft saw a collaboration suite where everyone else saw desktop publishing. Office 2003 is a credible competitor to the browser for application development. With a growing .NET library and the push to port decent scripting languages (like python & php5) to the CLR, it's a compelling platform. Infopath is the new Visual Basic form, only backed by SQL Server and XML instead of Access. I'm not praising MS unconditionally. They still have weird, arcane ways of doing things. And lots and lots of bugs -- and security issues. But they're offering more in functionality than anyone else. Ajax isn't a competitor to OLE. I'm simply noting that unless an *alternative* to MS Office integration is offered, alot of open source zealots (like myself) will be switching over. I'd love to see an open source web framework tied to Windows and Office automation, but I don't see it happening. I wrote a list of Microsoft technologies I'd need to learn to be as productive as I am using open source. It was a long list and it was ugly, too, with words like "Exchange", "IIS", and "VBA" on it. I don't want to learn to use Active Directory (but at least it's not NT Domain Controllers), and it is a pretty good LDAP server, too. I don't want to learn VB, VB.net, and C#. (and maybe I won't have to, at least no more than necessary to translate api's to Python or Ruby.) But Office and Exchange are unmatched in the open source world, and there's really not a reason they should be.

Re:My Clinically Inept Siblings

[ender-]

Sometimes, I seriously consider setting up some kind of VNC.

What's stopping you? I set up VNC on my parent's computer, and set them up with a dynamic dns so that I wouldn't even have to have them tell me their IP address. Works like a charm, and I can just get on a fix it in minutes instead of spending hours trying to walk them through it.

Although sometimes I just tell them "Christ mom, you've had this computer for 5 years. You've been using it to send emails for that entire time. Why haven't you learned to attach a file to an email yet. I KNOW you've sent out attachments before."

Argh! But the next time they buy a computer I'm telling them that if they get a Windows computer I will not provide any support for them. I will provide limited support if they get a Mac or Linux system. I'm sick of spending 2-3 hours cleaning up spyware, viruses and destabilizing utilities every time I visit them.

Inertia

[Kelson]

It all comes down to the fact that most people would rather stick with the inconvenience they know than risk starting over on something that might not be worth the effort.

In other words, whatever they're switching from has to get really bad, and whatever they're switching to has to offer a major improvement.

You could look at it in terms of neophobes and neophiles, or the devil you know vs. the devil you don't know, or just plain inertia.

Re:Outsource them here!

[smellsofbikes]

Probably fairly high. I recall him and a number of other early microscopists being convinced that they could see a little tiny human embryo in the head, much like the early telescopists were convinced they could see canals on Mars.

Wrong

[fm6]

Microsoft can't afford to screw up like this. There are free alternatives to everything Microsoft sells, like the Linux operating system and the Open Office application suite. Rivals like Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ), Red Hat (nasdaq: RHAT - news - people ), Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW - news - people ) and, yes, IBM are pushing those programs big time.

Except for the first sentence, that makes no sense. These "free alternatives" have been trying to capture the market for years now, with almost no luck. Microsoft's competition isn't Sun or Red Hat or Novell or IBM. It's their own "obsolete" software. If Vista is as bad as it seems to be, than people will simply refrain from upgrading, or insist on using XP on their new hardware. Which will certainly hurt Microsft, but not do anything to cure the appalling monoculture in the end-user software market.

Re:Software Assurance and Date Slippage

[E-Sabbath]

That was the implication I was considering in my original comment. I wasn't sure if other people would view it that way, but it seems possible, which means we could have a forked code-base until SP1 or 2 of Vista. This could be kind of bad from a support and code perspective.

Re:Software Assurance and Date Slippage

[Anonymous Coward]

> Might that imply that the 2007 ship date was envisioned long ago ? Is that too sneaky even for Microsoft, am I reading too much into this ?

Not exactly. What happened was that microsoft saw the writting on the wall: they were going to have several years with slower paying upgrades, because, well, 2k was good enough, and business took the habit of skipping 1 release cycles (ie: the ones that went NT4 at the end of his life cycle were going to XP). At this point, there was little reasons for people to upgrade.

And there was little innovative software on the horizon, and little reasons for people to upgrade.

There are exactly 2 things that microsoft cannot afford: uncertainety on revenue on Windows, and uncertainety on Office. (the stock would fell. If the stock fell, hell occurs, because it will increase their operating costs [microsoft salaries are lower than the norm because employees get stock options]. If operating costs raise, stock will fall harder). They have to protect their two revenue streams at all cost.

So they decided to change the contracts, and to, basically, lease software. This way, the revenue stream is guaranteed. Furthermore, if a company goes software assurance, the microsoft budget is pretty much fixed years after years, effectively paying a microsoft tax. The company will also have incentive to use microsoft-only technology, enforcing the network effect, and eroding presence of competing software.

So they went to CIO, and said:

- [ms] Go Software Assurance, it is cheaper
- [cfo] We don't care, we don't plan to upgrade
- [ms] You will have to upgrade to Longhorn at some point
- [cfo] We'll see at this time
- [ms] Longhorn Licensing will be very expensive
- [cfo] ...
- [ms] Unless you Go Software Assurance, because it includes Longhorn
- [cfo] Why should I beleive you ?
- [ms] Because it will be written in the contract

So, Software assurance expiring in 2006 have Longhorn in the contract. What is worse for Microsoft is that Generally Accepted Account Practices impose that you CANNOT recognize revenue on software UNLESS you have shipped it to the paying customer (in general on a physical media).

So microsoft is doubly obligated to ship Longhorn for Software Assurance this year:

First, they will have trouble recognizing the SA revenue (maybe they can buy some law modifications ?)
Second, their SA customers will sue them (and give them the finger)

So, stay tuned for even more features getting removed from Vista in the next few months. Mirosoft took money for value that was not created yet. This value have been reflected in the stock price, which is now inflated. If they don't deliver, the emperor will be naked.

Re:My Clinically Inept Siblings

[atrocious cowpat]

Seriously: get them Cheap-O-Macs... iBooks, MacMinis. Maybe a 100% watertight Consumer-Easy-Linux-Install would be even harder to break, but that would require you to do quite some work. My suggestion: Set them up with Mac-Boxen... watch them set the bloody things up themselves (*), lean back and wait for what malfeasance might (will? someday?) come - and deal with it when it comes, not beforehand ('cause it's already there, waiting for preying on your relatives data).

a.c.


(*) Yes, you will have to watch/guide them during install/setup -- even Apples install-/config-process isn't perfect (who'da thunk!?) --- but (and this is strictly anecdotal evidence from watching 4 total switchers (Win to Mac) and two half-switchers (MacOS9 to MacOSX)): You'll likely be surprised how fast they pick up the basics. And how many things they'll have accomplished on their own 'till your next visit. And how few things they'll have b0rked.

P.S.: I know... I sound like an insufferable Apple-Fanboi (even though I work about half/half MacOS and Win (NT/2000 an XP) (Video-Editing)) ... however there is a reason to this: I've always liked the Mac OS -- even in it's dark days -- and had a lot of problems with that "newfangled" Mac OS X myself. But watching my 65-year old mother (who always had problems with computers, first Win 3.1, then Mac OS 8/9) take to Mac OS X (and the iApps (iPhoto etc.)) like a duck to water... that was something of an eye-opener.

Re:My Clinically Inept Siblings

[Pharmboy]

you will have lots of fun giving tech support for your family when they all switch to some kind of linux :p

Holy crap I wish my mom WOULD switch to Linux! Lots of fun? Yes, I ssh in, see what the problem is, fix it. All during a three minute commercial break. Try that with Windows.

It is MUCH easier to fix someone's problem than it is to walk them through and help them fix it themselves over the phone. WAY EASIER AND FASTER.

Desktop frozen? SSH in, kill -9 , "Ok mom, type startx and press enter". I already have a script that "knocks" on my dns server and they autoupdate so I just use the FQDN to log into any of my computers by NAME. Piece of cake, even for a non-guru like me.

Assuming you are a Windows power user kinda person, if you knew as much about Linux as you did Windows, you would prefer fixing Linux because it is easier, faster and better documented. And yes, it really is needed much less often.