[LINK] How can Microsoft stop us hating them?

[Rick Welykochy]

Stilgherrian wrote:

> But can Microsoft really change and, more importantly, convince us to
> believe them?
[SNIP]
> What do you think about Microsoft, and how would you like to see them
> change? Can you think they can do it?

It's not as if Microsoft has been blindly unaware of what it has
been doing over the past twenty five years.

Every decision they've taken has been consciously made by their board,
by their techies and by their marketing dept. Many of their technical
decisions have been incompetent, lacking insight and knowledge usually
gained even in the first few years of computer study. Most of their
marketing strategies have been despicable and brilliant at the same time
... there are many gullible sheep out there.

Unlike quality software projects that strive to provide the best practical
solution to a problem, Microsoft seems to go out of its way to lock in,
baffle and blind their users. Rather than strive for the quality that is
so desperately needed in computing, they have abused their market
position and provided substandard solutions.

Until they admit to themselves and their customers what a cock up they've
made in so many of their product areas, any acts of contrition are going
to appear hollow and self-serving.

I for one will take some very hard convincing that anything the company
does to improve its image and acceptance is little more than an cynical
exercise in new ways to grab market share. They are after all in business
to make money.

Then again, I really don't care. I've eschewed their products since I
discovered many years ago how inferior they are to more reliable, stable
and technically correct solutions. If anything, Microsoft now stand in
the way of getting a decent IT job done properly.

We can all rattle on about how insecure this Microsoft thingy is or how
unproductive their solution to that is, but we Linkers know these things by
now. It is the look of astonishment and total lack of understanding on
the part of the greater ill-informed marketplace out there, both in
consumer and corporate land, when they are told of these things that
still never ceases to amaze me. And it is obvious that Microsoft leverages
that ignorance to take advantage of a very naive user base.

How would I like to see them change? Go out of business and stop ruining
the image of computing. That's how.

cheers
rickw



-- 
_________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been better.
      -- George W Bush