[LINK] How can Microsoft stop us hating them?

[grove at zeta.org.au]

On Thu, 13 Dec 2007, Stilgherrian wrote:

> Folks, I just posted the following on my personal website, seeking comments
> before I have dinner with a relevant, senior Microsoft chap tomorrow night.
>
> Any comments that aren't just slagging-off platform-wars childishness or
> boring technical rants much appreciated! ;)

They can start by not just buying up the competition and replacing 
them with an inferior lockin knock off.

Next, Microsoft can redo the wicked EULA that is so full of 
constraints it is practically unusable.

Third, they need to open the internals of their OS up to allow 
competitors access to the same layers that the MS developers have,
to fix compatibility, stability and security issues in the source
of the products.   And to allow the OSS movement to develop products
in the same way, without having to reverse engineer everything, a'la samba.

Next, they need to stop marketing themselves as something other 
than a software company.  It is only software after all, not 
a panacea for the troubles of life.

Then they could actually build one version of their OS, not 7 confusing,
conflicting and muddled offspring with features cut or added on 
depending on what you acquire.   Apple do this (they do have a server version), so do Sun.

Also, when a protocol developed by Microsoft is forced onto consumers 
and content providers, the protocol must be made freely available 
so that all OS platforms can use it interoperationally.  Share and share alike.

Publically condemn Steve Ballmer and throw chairs at him while he 
does a monkey dance (sorry).

Finally, MS needs to enhance and share, not embrace and extend.


rachel




> How can Microsoft stop us hating them?
> http://stilgherrian.com/internet/hating_microsoft/
>
> So what do you think of Microsoft, eh? No, really. I want to know.
>
> I have to admit I¹m not exactly a fan. I¹ll explain why momentarily. But
> Microsoft is changing, or at least wants to change, and I¹m finding it hard
> to shed old impressions.
>
> The Blue Monster cartoon
> http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003388.html is part of this
> changing Microsoft. Its creator, Hugh MacLeod http://www.gapingvoid.com/,
> intended it as a conversation-starter ‹ what he calls a "social object"
> http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004265.html. Steve Clayton
> from Microsoft UK says they use it to help Microsoft start talking about its
> own process of re-birth. http://youtube.com/watch?v=-kZZX8Pl5Lk
>
> I¹m cynical when software companies claim grand goals like ³changing the
> world².. That over-the-top rhetoric was central to the first dot-com bubble.
> Usually, the bigger the rhetoric the crappier the product. Still, I¹m
> willing to listen.
>
> Another sign of a changing Microsoft is my friend Nick Hodge
> http://www.nickhodge.com/ who sold me my first Mac back in 1985. Nick now
> works for the Blue Monster as an ³enthusiast evangelist², and represents how
> Microsoft is embracing blogging and a new culture of openness ‹ and actually
> having conversations with people instead of talking at them.
>
> But can Microsoft really change and, more importantly, convince us to
> believe them?
>
> Openness and transparency are important to me. As an old-school geek, I
> absorbed the principles of openness that built the early Internet. Bill
> Gates¹ infamous 1976 letter to computer hobbyists
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists  expressed a
> commercial attitude that was at odds with that openness.
>
> It irked me that Gates went on to become the richest man in the world by
> selling what I considered to be second-rate software using questionable
> business tactics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#Criticism
>
> I reckon the best, truly innovative software is created by
> awesomely-intelligent individuals or small, focussed teams like 37signals.
> Microsoft¹s industrial-scale development process, with armies of cubicle
> droids, seems incapable of producing anything other than bloated,
> overly-complicated and buggy software.
>
> Certainly my business clients running Windows generate far more support
> calls than those using Macs. Now that Apple has added what for me was the
> one missing feature, I intend returning to Apple¹s productivity software
> rather than using Microsoft Office for Mac.
>
> But, as I say, these are existing or old impressions. A young Microsoft
> employee told Hugh MacLeod that a lot of the culture shift inside Microsoft
> is generational.
>
>    http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/004337.html
>
>    The old guard is highly competitive, the new guard is more
>    collaborative. The old guard sees Open Source as a threat,
>    the new guard sees Open Source as an opportunity. He was
>    confident the new guard will prevail because, of course,
>    being young, they¹ll be around for much longer. He reckoned
>    it¹ll be at least another decade before the outside world
>    starts recognizing the change that¹s currently happening
>    internally.
>
> Now I¹m writing about this today for a reason.
>
> Nick Hodge has invited me and a few other geeks to dinner tomorrow with Joe
> Wilson, Worldwide Director of Microsoft¹s Academic and Enthusiast
> Evangelists (of which he is one). So, I know what I feel about Microsoft,
> and I¹m interested to hear what he¹s got to say ‹ over a nice wine or two at
> Macchiavelli.
>
> What do you think about Microsoft, and how would you like to see them
> change? Can you think they can do it?
>
>
>

-- 
Rachel Polanskis                 Kingswood, Greater Western Sydney, Australia
grove at zeta.org.au                http://www.zeta.org.au/~grove/grove.html
 		The price of greatness is responsibility.