Okay, this is kind of old news, but I have to mention it anyway. Microsoft apparently had a program that let Vista owners buy a couple of additional copies at a discount as part of some family plan. But as of June 30 that discount has gone away. See here. Honestly, I don't get this. It wasn't a great deal to begin with. You had to have purchased Vista Ultimate, and that allowed you to buy 2 copies of the lesser (brain-dead) Vista Home Premium for $50 apiece. Now Microsoft has decided even that was too generous. What the fuck are they thinking? Little news flash, Bill: Most users are scared shitless of Vista. (Rightfully so.) And most users resent Microsoft already for its price-gouging. (Rightfully so.) What's the correct move in this situation? Hint: It doesn't involve finding a way to gouge people a little more on the OS that they already don't want.
Beastmaster Bill, you need to do some radical rethinking. Get rid of Detroit-spawn Ballmer and his constipated Ford Motor Co. worldview, first of all. (Because honestly, you guys sound more and more like that dopey fuckwit Bill Ford every friggin day, and it's scary.) Make one version of your OS. If you can't do that at least put one price on all the versions, and for God's sake make it a low price. If you really insist on cluttering up Windows and Office and IE with a zillion features and pull-downs and tiny buttons, okay, we can't stop you. But how about this. Take a dozen young kids in your engineering labs and start a skunk works team. Let them do a stripped-down lightweight OS and give it away free. Let people tinker with it, hack it, add to it, build on it. Create a stripped down version of your productivity apps too. Simple word processing, simple browser, simple mail. Again, make them open and let people hack them. Think of it as a hobby. Think of it as a way to buy some goodwill from people outside your walls.
Because you know what you've become? You've become the Grinch. You've become a tax collector. You're the guy people hide from when you ride into town. It's not good. You need to do something about that.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Microsoft: No longer family friendly
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27 comments:
If Bill Gates = the Grinch
Then Steve Jobs = WIlly Wonka
This is so simple and so true.
Preach on, brother. Namaste.
Only in our dreams. Closest thing to that in my mind is Windows 95 (which I love). Everything past it... it's horribile.
Did you not read your own post previous to this? Look at their stock price, how else are they going to maintain that momentum?
•Anonymous Bwahahahahatard
Bill Gates gots to make money you know (to catch up to Slim Carlos?)
And what would be the rationale for you explaining to the Beastmaster how he can still rescue the sinking ship? Is that some humanitarian thing?
Dude, you don't get their philosophy, it's all about developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers...
love
- developers developers developers
FSJ, you really shouldn't give any more of your sagely advices to the Beastmaster. Let them continue on their death spiral into irrelevance. And just when they're about to be totally flushed away, pick them up a bit so Apple can't be blamed for monopoly. Sun Tzu would approve.
Re: giving advice to Bill, here's the thing. We weren't always enemies you know. Once we were like Anakin and Obi-Wan. I still believe, perhaps foolishly, that I can rescue him from the dark side.
Wouldn't FSJ giving advice business advice to BG be like Sally Stuthers giving advice to paris hilton on dieting?
In other words, it's hilarious that a company with 5% of the market feels the need to advise the company with 95%.
When the Dark Star explodes, offer the Beastmaster his ultimate humiliation: a "VP of Special Projects" position at Apple.
Even though you and Bill are still pals, that doesn't mean you have to give him business advice. As a friend, you certainly should tell him when he got pasta sauce on his nose. But helping him run his business is, as they say in China, grande faux pas.
Let them do a stripped-down lightweight OS and give it away free. Let people tinker with it, hack it, add to it, build on it. Create a stripped down version of your productivity apps too. Simple word processing, simple browser, simple mail. Again, make them open and let people hack them.
Are you planning to take your own advice, Steve? Would be nice to have such things at the core of the Mac platform. (I assume you're not referring to Darwin, which is basically pointless except as documentation for third-party driver developers).
No, we're not going to take our own advice, because we're not in the position of having to win back anyone's good will. We've got plenty of that right now. Have you heard of this iPhone thing? And nobody views us as a big ogre the way they do Microsoft. At least not yet.
FSJ,
You changed this post and added a nice picture of Bill Ford. It was funny before, now it's hilarious.
Thank you.
I'm pretty sure the Beastmaster will come to the conclusion that he should mis-design an ugly phone to compete head-on with the iPhone. Some sort of Zune that rings.
"Because you know what you've become? You've become the Grinch. You've become a tax collector. You're the guy people hide from when you ride into town. It's not good. You need to do something about that."
You could say the same things to Dubya, but *he's* just holding his breath 'til 1/20/09...
Beastmaster's stuck, FSJ. He can't maintain his monopoly and profits if he eases off on the licensing screws and the bloat of "new, must-have features" that make our lives hellish. MS is a runaway train (wreck).
Besides, Bill and Steve stopped caring about the customer a long, long time ago. It's hard to respect people once you've enslaved them.
we're not in the position of having to win back anyone's good will.
zzzzzingggg!!!
He's tryng to say: "make them open and let people hack them", and then, steal all the stuff and seal the sistem again, like we actually did.
Cfr. http://docs.huihoo.com/darwin/opendarwin/news/shutdown.html
"In other words, it's hilarious that a company with 5% of the market feels the need to advise the company with 95%."
It is also quite hilarious that the company with 95% market share can only come up with a $10,000 coffee table to shake their fist at the iPhone from the company with 5% market share.
Wha?
"Let them do a stripped-down lightweight OS and give it away free. Let people tinker with it, hack it, add to it, build on it"
Freetards?
"Let them do a stripped-down lightweight OS ... Create a stripped down version of your productivity apps too. Simple word processing, simple browser, simple mail."
Not what most people want. I can recall a few years ago when Microsoft Works included the full version of Word but a cut-down spreadsheet. (Fair enough: who needs a full-blown Excel at home? Most people don't even know how to use the program anyway.) Instead of the other Office apps, useless to most people in a home setting, Works had an app that did photo manipulation and a kind of primitive desktop publishing. It also had a kind of multimedia encyclopaedia app. Yet I came across home users who were running illegally-copied versions of Office rather than Works which would have suited them better. (The OS wouldn't stand for both being installed.) They just knew Office was the more expensive "premium" product, so they wanted it.
Apple knows the value of simple interfaces and of not overloading programs, or products in general, with features. But then what Apple products do do they do so well and with such style and elegance that they shout "premium product".
People aren't looking for simplicity--even if they "should" be, it having a value in itself--they're looking for the most "premium" product at the price-point they can afford. Unfortunately, the industry and "reviewers" have taught them that premium means more features. Even Apple has to go along with this to some extent. Tiger was worth having for the improvements "under the hood" but it was sold to the public on the basis of features like "widgets".
Wait a second Steve, if you are like Obi-Wan and Bill is like Anakin:
a) is the RDF in reality a Jedi mind trick?
b) when did he kill you? Are you a Force Ghost?
c) who is the emperor? Ballmer? Although on a second look I have to admit he and Palpatine share some physical similarities. Gaahh!
Fakeso, check out Microsoft's new Pyramid Scam
PS. Look at the patent diagram and notice which device is pictured there.
luv
- fake apple fanboi
Are you guys really asking Steve why he's doing something? He doesn't know. That's the thing about intuitive geniuses--most of the time they have no idea why they're saying or doing what they're saying or doing.
hehehe.
that's all fun.
i still believe that apple has been biten too many times.
when are you finally going to admite you belong to microsoft?
it's sad to say it but we are all thinking that they are rivals...
people can be bought out...
it's all about money...
it's not about the customer...
it's all about the stock holders...
it's not about service and contribution...
it's all about numbers...
that's what apple and microsoft are all about...
for that reason will gonna fall soon enough...
something better is coming like: cheaper, more reliable and better computers, almost free internet, almost free phone service (i hope cellular)...
ooph...
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