MS Dissatisfaction High, Users Consider Switching

chriscooper1470 writes "Almost two-thirds of respondents to a recent InternetWeek Reader Question said they are dissatisfied with Microsoft software, and 41 percent of respondents are at least thinking about switching away from Microsoft software. Only 28 percent of users responding to the poll described themselves as satisfied Microsoft customers. There are some great comments at the bottom of the article discussing why people voted the way they did. My favorite quote: 'At the end of the day, I still wish we had a viable alternative. There isn't one -- yet. We'll keep looking.' - Sure."

/. Dissastisfaction High, Users Consider Switching

[Anonymous Coward]

Will someone please address Slashdot's recent server troubles? I have to reload multiple times to get a working page. These errors aren't normal, and at the very least, you owe an explanation to the paying subscribers.

Will this finally make microsoft shape up?

[captain igor]

If I was microsoft, I'd be paying real close attention and trying to fix the things that my customers were saying were wrong. When you have almost half of your customer base thinking about switching away from your product, that tells you that something's wrong.

Loaded

[meta-monkey]

Look, I'm a Mac and Linux user myself, but come on. did you read the question they asked?

"Microsoft users are getting fed up. They're battered by worms, viruses, security patches and increasing enterprise licensing costs. Aggravation has users talking about switching from Microsoft software to something else. We're trying to figure out how much of that talk is just talk, and how much is serious action. Do you seriously plan to dump Microsoft software?"

You might as well ask, "Wal-Mart customers are fed up, since Wal-Mart employees kick puppies and laugh at old people. Are you planning to stop shopping at Wal-Mart?"

Also, it's an Internet poll...not scientific by any stretch. Seriously, I think a lot of people are fed up with MS, but linking to this story is just ridiculous.

Re:Will this finally make microsoft shape up?

[The Analog Kid]

They won't though, people are too lazy, or are scared of change. Microsoft dominates the desktop marketshare. With that being said since they are a monopoly, there is no point to innovate because you have nobody to compete with. While people should be totally pissed that they keep getting hit with virus after virus, and should be boycotting, it doesn't make a difference to Microsoft. There has been only one sucessful boycott in the U.S. as a country, the tuna boycott.

Re:Lack of alternatives

[grahamtriggs]

"Macs are expensive"

Depends on what you are looking for... G5 towers aren't particularly expensive compared to quality, high-spec desktop PCs... iBooks and PowerBooks aren't particularly expensive compared to 'good' x86 laptops...

Certainly, depending on what you are compared to compromise on, you can get cheaper x86 boxes. And, unfortunately, there are no mid-spec, limited upgradable headless Mac desktops (ie. think iMac-esque, without monitor).

As a PC owner, I built my own and was forever tinkering... so it's just as cheap - if not more so - to buy a Mac and use it for two / three years without tinkering.

Re:/. Dissastisfaction High, Users Consider Switch

[jvagner]

I have the same problem, but I think it's a Mozilla thing. IE never seems to have this problem, but it's reproduceable on Windows and Linux using any Mozilla version after 1.4.

I've lately switched to Konquerer, so it hasn't bothered me as much, but at home I only use Mozilla on XP.

It's really frustrating, and it's been about a month.

It seems to be cookie-related. If you can browse without saving your username into a cookie, it won't happen. The minute you login to post though, it's over.

I find it ironic that /. makes me load up IE to post this note.

Re:Lack of alternatives

[Anonymous Coward]

I have found that some of the most rabid linux zealots don't even use Linux most of the time. I for one am a huge linux advocate, but at the moment, I still use Apple and Windows 95% of the time (not counting Solaris since I work for Sun, but that's on work time).

Windows is the only OS that you can run most 'finished' software on. It's the only OS that you can play every game on without sacrificing game performance. It even plays more video formats and more easily than *Apple* (try playing an MP3 audio encoded xvid on Apple).

I hate to say it, but at the moment, Windows is the only candidate for people that want to do the above things. It isn't that it's more of a pain to do in linux. It's that mostly, you can't do those things - period. And the 1% of games that are ported to linux does not justify an alternate claim.

Not to mention, it's nice to spend an hour configuring a new Windows system with all your drivers and hardware instead of spending weeks or months getting sound cards, video cards, mice, DHCP and other simple things working in your average linux desktop situation.

In short, linux is excellent as a server, but if you use it as a desktop solution, you're crippling yourself. Don't believe me? Try dealing with the rest of the world as a linux user and see the shortfalls.

Re:The *best* quote

[Kibo]

In a way it's actually a pretty insightful observation, even if the person making it isn't terribly insightful.

People aren't pissed of at microsoft. They're pissed off at the unintuitive complexity of software solutions. While, in most instances, there are probably a lot of good reasons for the complexity, there still is something to be said for asking the question. The failures in addressing that particular issue or even in explaining failings to the layman, are a pretty serious knock on computer science in general.

Re:Loaded

[Metaldsa]

I thought the same way. An internet poll asking people if they are dissatisfied with the performance of their PC? What a shock :)

I think we all know that if we got everyone to switch over to linux it would be the same thing. Millions of idiots downloading spyware and trojans from kazaa and then complaining everything is going so slow or their computer doesn't boot. I recently went to a friend's house to get her PC back up and running and it was filled with viruses and spyware (from kazaa and email). Let's not forget typical bloatware with any pre-loaded PC.

Until we have an idiot proof society expect the masses to always claim new tech isn't reliable. But to me their opinion means nothing.

Re:Lack of alternatives

[NineNine]

That's my point. You're an aberration. I need a machine that's going to run my cash register, Quickbooks, a web browser, and play some music. That's it. The cheapest desktop I see on Apple's site is $2K. Instead, I bought a $400 machine, and slapped a RAID thingy in one of 'em. Apple doesn't have anything to help me at all. It's not a viable alternative for me.

Re:Will this finally make microsoft shape up?

[fizban]

Polls like this are important as well, because new trends are formed by small groups of people. Once they start making changes, awareness will grow and then the lemmings will follow, my friend, the lemmings will follow...