Solid Block of Ise

I thought up a tricky question for myself. It’s a doozy, and there’s really no good answer to it.

But I asked myself, if I had to decide on the one thing I dislike the most about Microsoft, what would that be?

There’s a lot of things I dislike about Microsoft. Tons of it. If I made a “top ten list of things I think sucks about the beast in Redmond” it wouldn’t be a top-ten list. It’d be more like a top one-hundred list. And even then I’d not manage to fully divulge my distaste for the Borg Collective.

But deciding on just one thing, now that’s tricky. The winner. Numero uno. The big enchilada.

I might say that their products are crap. But that’s a bit like saying the sky is blue or water is wet. It’s kinda redundant. I could say that every time Bill Gates says something, his smug voice makes me want to puke all over him. But that’s more a personal opinion rather than something profoundly sucky. He just happens to have a really annoying voice.

I might point out their predatory, extend-and-embrace practices, their gobbling up of smaller, more inventive companies who we never hear from again. I could point out Microsofts constant dropping of the ball, and always being four or five years late for the party yet pouring money all over everything and suddenly making it seem like they were the hosts of the party to begin with.

Again though, that’s really just stating the obvious.

No, if I have to decide on the one thing that really irks me the most about the Borg Collective, it would be that they for some reason always manage to sell The Next Big Thing rather than some real product.

Last night I was having a hard time falling asleep, and as is customary with me then I start thinking. Roughly 98% of the thoughts sloshing around inside my head are essentially brainfarts, but every once in a while something insightful comes along and shines a light.

Last night I was thinking of that bloated monstrosity Microsoft calls “Vista”. Don’t ask me why I was thinking about it, I can’t give a good answer to that. But while I was lying there in my bed I realized that Microsoft will use their oldest, most trusted tactic to make money off of Vista, even though it was dead on arrival, and even though nothing seems to change this.

This tactic can be summed up in one sentence.

“The next version will fix everything that’s wrong with this one”

That, my friends, is Microsofts oldest and most reliable sales-method. For more than a decade and a half they’ve managed to use this method to sell shitty, proprietary software to a lot of people. They’ve essentially been using it at the very least since the late 80’s. Probably even from the very start of Microsoft.

And when you think of it, it’s actually quite brilliant. No other industry on the face of the planet can use this method.

“Oh, sorry about the explosion in your brand-new car, the one that killed your wife and both your kids. Don’t worry though, the next version will fix that!”

or

“Oops, your house burned down. Well, just have fun in that tent until we release Home 2.0 and then you can pay through your nose to buy the same dang thing all over again!”

If any car-dealer or homebuilder tried that they’d find themselves dangling from the nearest tree. But Microsoft can do it. Microsoft is indirectly acceptable for people losing everything from photos of their kids to data worth millions of dollars every day. Yet they somehow manage to sell the next version even though it’s still vaporware.

Compare Vista with what’s currently known as Windows 7. Windows 7 is the term being bandied about the playground as the next version of Windows. Microsoft makes some very generous claims that it will be out next year and it will be awesome! At least, that’s if you listen to the honeydew that Microsoft pours into your ears.

Vista has floundered in pretty much every area it’s been introduced to. Corporations have wrinkled their nose at it, since it requires a lot of work and a lot of investment in new computers, despite not actually doing anything that corporations need. In fact, Vista is a dead fish as far as most coporations are concerned. XP does most of what they need (i.e. run Office) and that doesn’t warrant an upgrade.

A lot of Joe Generic computer-users out there in the world is rejecting it as well. Even a lot of diehard Microsoft-fanboys are being rather vocal about their less than stellar experiences with Vista. It’s been reported that Vista is a failure compared to what Microsoft was projecting about a year and a half ago. Back then, Vista was the best thing since pre-sliced bread. Now, it’s lying there on the floor, gasping for air.

Which brings me to Windows 7. Of course, it will be named something else when/if it’s released, but for a codename it’s easily the unsexiest ever. Hell, even Vistas codename (Longhorn) was better.

Have you all noticed how Microsoft are revving up their sales-dachshunds and having them yap about Windows 7? I have. And I think Microsoft has opened their vault and brought out ye olde “The Next Version Will Be Awesome!”-sales pitch. Windows 7 is going to be everything that Vista wasn’t. It’s going to be leaner, meaner, modular and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla.

Whenever I see Microsoft using this technique I somehow wonder if I’m the only sane person in a world gone mad. Am I the only one who has this sneaking suspicion that everything Microsoft produces is intentionally broken, so that they can use this sales-pitch to stay in business? Of course, it’s in a corporations least interest to actually sell products that never wear out, and Microsoft is doing exactly this in the software industry. But it amazes me how everyone has been criticizing their products for seemingly eons, yet when Microsoft shakes The New And Improved Product in their face they can’t open their wallets fast enough.

Why?

Because the Next Version Will Be Perfect.

And so on, and so forth unto infinity. Everyone keeps Bill Gates bank-account well and inflated, while using products that are defective by design.

License

This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 Sweden License.