atw: Re: Anyone tried Microsoft anti-spyware?
- From: "Steve Hudson" <adslyy5g@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 09:32:16 +1100
> Why don't we recognise that Microsoft does listen to customers' plaints as
it is from these that its products have grown in breadth of coverage and
competence - because of that responsiveness.
Because they don't.
Example 1: VBA to be removed from Office 2003. They beta versions sent to
the fortune 500 companies were set up like this. The companies refused to
buy in and threatened to withdraw their purchases of the technology upgrade
agreement. MS was FORCED into keeping VBA, they did not make this decision
themselves DESPITE being told over and over again by their customers that
they needed it.
Example 2: List Numbering in Word. MS still believes it is just as important
for farmer Joe to write a simple letter as it is for multi-national
corporates to produce complex manuals. There has been very little effort to
rectify this despite it being universally acknowledged as Word's greatest
failing.
Example 3: Word Perfect. Just as complex a program as MS Word, but it works
and is stable.
Example 4: Browser technology. MS all but completely ignored the standards
developed by the W3C and produced their proprietary solutions. Now we have
websites that will only work properly with some browsers and not others.
Many websites include massive amounts of code to detect the browser in use
and change the content accordingly. Why? MS - no-one else.
Example 5: The DOJ case. QED. Were they taken to court for listening to
their customers? No, for strongarming the industry into accepting MS
beliefs.
> The Microsoft organisation uses a project model that was first developed
in General Motors when Alfred P Sloan was in charge; there, no part of a
vehicle was produced in-house unless it met stringent competition from
similar, competent, outside producers.
Which MS immediately modified into "Grab your competitors product, Rip-off &
Duplicate (R&D)". Please consult your history of MS product development
again, specifically looking at the office products. Then we have the whole
GUI rip from Xerox & Apple. WYSIWYG was incorporated through market pressure
- not because MS was listening to their customers. MS couldn't do it - so
they bought a standard engine.
> The fact that it continues to support product originally marketed seven
years ago is remarkable
You are obviously from another dimension as well. They support office 2000+.
That is not 7 years. And really, office 2k support is dying quickly. They
support the last three released versions. When Word 2006 comes out, there
will be no support for 2k. Supporting three versions is NO remarkable
achievement at all. Eg, Republicorp supports down to Word 2 for their legacy
products.
> The fact that later products can work with the earlier products is also
quite remarkable
It would be if this were true. Eg Visio 2003, Word 2003 etc.
> only Jaguar among the motor vehicle manufacturers reused engine and power
train components for more than three generations of vehicles.
LOL, Holdens mate. If your Holden breaks down, everyone knows you can jump
over the rusty barbed-wire fence to the rusting model from 30 years ago and
scavenge the part you need. Additionally, if physical manufacturing and
software development were identical processes, one would expect them to be
governed by the same production standards. They aren't: please consult the
Australian Standards Library for more information.
> What I'm suggesting is that we set our technical and economic expectations
to 'real', instead of 'perfect'.
We are. We are suggesting - shock horror - that MS actaully TEST and FIX
their damn products before release. Joe Public begs for it, the fortune
500's beg for it, the MVPs are constantly demanding it and so on. Did MS
listen? Well sorta - right up to the point where marketing said "If we don't
ship now, we break our technology agreement" and lo - office 2002 & 3 ship
with bugs intact.
> Co-operate with the manufacturer, and provide constructive criticism -
instead of this cheap carping.
Oh we have. I could send you dozens of pages of technical specifications and
solutions I personally have provided MS corp. Admittedly some of them will
apparently be incorpated into Word 2006, but the point is that many of us
have done exactly this - TO SEE NO RESULT! Additionally, if this suggested
mentality of yours was adopted by the media - Current Affair, 60 minutes,
Choice magazine etc would all fall by the wayside. Instead, they are
extremely successful publications.
I suggest the opposute is true: Rage! Rage against the machine! Beat thy
breast bloody and howl to the world for justice. Shakespear's characters did
it - and we still do it today.
Now, let's have a look at some of the comparisons with the car industry you
missed because they shoot massive holes in your specious argument:
* New car warranty
I bought VB4 because the package boldy proclaimed "Now works with Serial
Communications" and I was doing clever B2B integration well before B2B was
coined. I wrote a simple routine to talk to the serial port, wait for answer
and return the reply. I called this routine twice - the whole computer
crashed. I rang MS support. I had to pay $150 dollars for three help calls.
We paid, sent in our problem, and the solution back from MS was "VB4 does
not work with serial communications". We asked for a refund, it didn't
happen.
Try this same trick with a new car and the Dept of Fair Trading will be all
over them for you.
* Power windows
If you don't want the optional accessories, don't buy them. Try buying
Windows without Explorer, Outlook Express and so on. Try buying Word without
autocorrect, autoformat, revision tracking and versioning.
* Recalls
The car industry has the odd recall, sure - but nothing compares with MS's
almost weekly release of patches fixes and updates well after product
release. If you car had to go back to the dealer or you were sent stuff to
install on your car - you would stop buying from that manufacturer.
Additionally, some users don't live near the dealer (they don't have an
internet connection) and thusthey are stuck with the clunky original.
* Mileage
Year by year the emissions, fuel requirements and so on drop and drop. Year
by year, MS products require increasingly more powerful systems that they
occupy more and more system resources from. Why? Oh, so we can get clippy's
and a continuous polling application that takes no notice of a currently nil
input source. It also means that MS never has to revist their code base to
optimise performance: Buy a bigger puter!
As usual, I find the factual content of your post minimal.
Steve
Research: The means to avoid making a bigger fool of yourself than
neccesary.
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Clarke
I know some of you are programmers and actually understand what's involved
in producing code of such complexity as Microsoft has done. And such people
will understand the concepts of 'reuse' and 'economics'.
I wonder whether some of us are entertaining expectations that we don't hold
for far more expensive products.
Up till about 5 years ago, we all expected new motor vehicles to have bugs
that would be ironed out during warranty - we did not expect perfection.
When I lived in the UK, we expected motor vehicles to have bugs for the
whole of the warranty period and beyond - but rust got the vehicle before it
became a millstone around the manufacturer's neck. Then along came Volvo
offering almost a lifetime of rust warranty - that got right up the Brits'
noses.
Unfortunately, Volvos didn't get a toe-hold in France because of the cost of
fuel
- there, the tin-plate on tin-plate that passed for French engineering won
on the grounds of fuel economy.
I wonder how the Airbus will last compared with the engineering of Boeing.
Once again, short-term economics [fuel costs] seems to have ruled - Airbus
has no record of engineering performance, of which I am aware. Please
disabuse me!
I digress.
Now, back to programs. Why don't we recognise that Microsoft does listen to
customers' plaints as it is from these that its products have grown in
breadth of coverage and competence - because of that responsiveness. The
Microsoft organisation uses a project model that was first developed in
General Motors when Alfred P Sloan was in charge; there, no part of a
vehicle was produced in-house unless it met stringent competition from
similar, competent, outside producers . What Microsoft does is to fund those
competitors internally. The fact that it continues to support product
originally marketed seven years ago is remarkable in today's economic
rationalistic climate. The fact that later products can work with the
earlier products is also quite remarkable - only Jaguar among the motor
vehicle manufacturers reused engine and power train components for more than
three generations of vehicles. I believe that Kalashnikov did a similar
thing with their AK-series of personnel suppressors.
What I'm suggesting is that we set our technical and economic expectations
to 'real', instead of 'perfect'. Co-operate with the manufacturer, and
provide constructive criticism - instead of this cheap carping. Then, we'ld
all benefit. If you want a more highly engineered product, buy yourself a
Rolls-Royce instead of trying to fit 17 people into a Morris Mini Minor.
Brian.
BJA said:
Personally I find it ironic that Microsoft (MS) now want to profit by
patching up the holes in their own software.
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