Replies: 8 comments

If Gates were alone in his beliefs, this might be amusing. Strangely, we can have all this 'information technology,' of any or mulitple developers, and still not get the message.

Posted by (the other)JS @ 04/03/2002 06:48 AM EST

This is from 1995? One hopes that that such views have evolved in six years.

Point is made that the marketplace validates, or does not validate, their position. If customers want less buggy software....or more secure software...or more features...that's what Microsoft's tries to offer. In 1995, bug-free didn't seem to rank highly - at least in Microsoft's opinion of what the market wanted.

To the degree that Microsoft, or any other technology company, perceives that ease of use, security, or defect-free becomes a critical factor in market success, one would think that's where their efforts will be focused.

Posted by MCW @ 04/03/2002 10:29 AM EST

This is from 1995? One hopes that that such views have evolved in six years.

Point is made that the marketplace validates, or does not validate, their position. If customers want less buggy software....or more secure software...or more features...that's what Microsoft's tries to offer. In 1995, bug-free didn't seem to rank highly - at least in Microsoft's opinion of what the market wanted.

To the degree that Microsoft, or any other technology company, perceives that ease of use, security, or defect-free becomes a critical factor in market success, one would think that's where their efforts will be focused.

Posted by MCW @ 04/03/2002 10:29 AM EST

Hmmm, the people I know are unhappy that each new version of Windows and Office is bigger, slower and filled with more unneeded features. At our workplace we chose to stick with Office 97 because it does everything we need, is easier to use, and runs faster. (In that respect, Office 95 would serve us even better, if it had HTML export filters.) If we upgrade, we would also need to upgrade some of our otherwise completely satisfactory computers. (In fact, we might switch to Linux if we had the expertise in-house.)

In many respects I believe Microsoft is steering us in the direction it wants us to go, not the other way around. It has that power. Microsoft could produce universally bad software for the next five years and still rule the world.