Microsoft Boss Nash

Complains that Vista is Crap

Ballmer says “Rightho”

Everyone’s leaving

Death-throes of a Massive Beast

Microsoft Does Suck

PC Companies

Help you downgrade from Vista

They too think it’s crap

Windows Vista, Yes

I started This Action!! I

Resist Urge to Kill

Microsoft Vista:

“Modem Not Recognised”

Assassinate Bill

Microsoft Vista

Doesn’t work with anything

Steve Jobs is Laughing

It suddenly occurs to me that Microsoft products suffer from systematic “Trying-to-be-too-many-things-to-too-many-people”. What this means is that their products, while they can do all sorts of amazing things, are either too complicated for the average Jo to understand but at the same time, set-up with the Lowest-Common-Denominator in mind, thus annoying the hell out of the more advanced user. MS Word Paperclip anyone? How about that sodding dog for searching?

In short, the designers don’t know their own audience, and so the software isn’t any good for anyone specifically. The features are vast, but you can’t get at most of them without a brick-thick book next to you, titled something along the lines of Windows functionality for people who don’t necessarily know everything about it but need to do a single simple thing. Setting up your email? A home network? Turn off those damn bubble messages that popup whenever windows has found something and wants to tell you about, like some 4 year old?*

Apple on the other hand, has designed their software with simple useability in mind. Yes, the systems restrict you to doing things in a particular way, but once you know that way, you’re fine.

Take the iPod. Yes, that old chestnut. Install iTunes, plug the iPod in and you’re off. Anycomputer (Mac or Windows [not sure about Linux to be honest]), any time.

Now take the Creative Zen that I was trying to get to work 2 years ago, brand-new, out of the box. I do hope they’ve improved their software and hardware because frankly, a system requirement that I had to search high-and-low for on the net because it wasn’t on the box is fundamentally bent-in-the-head. Turned out, the hardware required an obscure XP service pack to be installed, a version of Windows Media Player 10 and dose of good luck (and I’m not joking about that last bit) before it would even think about working with Windows and copying music. And if you had a mac, well, forget it, because it wouldn’t work.

That is why Apple carved-up the personal player market. The Zen has more features, an FM radio, good internal functionality, but if you can’t load music onto it, then it’s an expensive doorstop.

Similarly, the PC versus Mac thing. All right, PC has got the lions-share of the home and business computer market, but given the sick, sick joke that is Vista, computer manufacturers offering windows XP as an operating system and Microsoft’s forcible retirement of XP (presumably because they just can’t admit what a brick Vista actually is and there’s far too much money at stake share-wise if they do, not to mention the scalps of many on the payroll) and you’ve got what could very well be The End Of The Line.

——————-

*Ah, you might say, what about the Interweb? To which I reply, what about it? I’ve got a PC at home which can’t see the bleeding network which is connected to said web, and you’re telling me to refer to the internet to tell me how to connect to the internet?