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Well “Kent”
Without getting into a you said I said tug of war, I
will say that my point was missed – Apple did innovate
and so did MSFT with Windows. The APIs and design it
took to implement them on the PC was innovative.
Apple was innovative because they had to take Xerox’s
raw ideas and implement them in a consumer friendly,
retail PC that was completely revolutionary. MSFT
innvoated with Windows because they had to take the
Max and implemnt on the PC – no small feat for the
hadware back then. the point is Apple and MSFT did
the exact same thing – they took an existing idea,
added to it, implemented it (innovated) and mass
markted it. Apple took a bigger risk than MSFT in my
opinion with the Mac because Gates had the luxury of
juding the initial response to the Mac. Gates even
had plans to license the Mac from Apple.
My family had a Mac in the house in 1983 (3 months
before they were ever released!) we also had PC’s for
games and an Apple. My sisters and I loved to play
the games on the Apple and PC and so did our friends
in the neightborhood.
The evidence I spoke of you seemed to have missed too.
Most of what we see in MSFT software today came from
MSFT first. As the consumate coder you say you are,
you should know that. Toolbars, accelerator keys,
context sensitive menus, Help buttons on the dialogs,
scroll wheels, and I think even 2 button mouses
(Apples was 1 button) those are all MSFT innovations
that probably came out of usability studies. Microsoft
does innvoate but you have to be willing and able to
see it. The split keyboards are also an idea MSFT
popularized if not outright invented. I could go on
and on.
It’s so easy for other so called professionals to sit
around use a little of the code base and then critize.
Critics shuold learn to turn that critical eye on
themselves first. I haven’t used the .NET classe
extensively but my husband has. He likes it. He says
what used to take him hours in C++/MFC takes him just
an hour or so in C#. He says that has translated into
less code, less time to write and less debugging. No
messy memory management or pointers or anything like
that to fool with. And just because you don’t like
it, just because you have found some initial bugs in
release 1, doesn’t mean it’s not innovative. It is
innvoateive. Very innovate and they’re taking another
big risk. Something that big is never perfect the
first rev anyway. As the consumate coder you should
know that and thus IMO you shuoldn’t be less critical
– 90% of it works, 10% of it probably has some bugs –
give it time. The part that you feel justidies your
critism on MSFT is the 10%.
That’s the way it is with MSFT haters. They nit pick
the products to death -- the 10% that has flaws -- to
beat their agenda across and overlook all the positive
things.
And the Newton? Ask Jobs and he’ll tell you that was
one of the biggest baths Apple ever took and probably
why around that time, Apple needed to be rescued by
MSFT. He’ll tell you the handwriting recognition
never really worked as billed and the battery didn’t
last making it not so portable. And most importantly
he’ll tell you Apple was losing money on that
technology. So what if it was innovative. They took
a bath!
So you see “Kent”, therein lies the problem. Do you
let your idealism intefere with the neccessity making
money in business? Or do you run your company to make
$$$. Apple has always prided itself on “innovation”
but they’ve paid the pirce. MSFT has taken a more
cautious less innovative approach and it seems they’re
winning. There’s more evidence for you.
MSFT does not write mediocre software. On the
contrary, they set the industry standard. I know
because I’ve been using MSFT software since 1985 when
my Dad brought home Excel and Word. I’ve also had the
opportunity to compare and contrast the software on
the Mac against Windows software and Windows software
isn’t as good Mac software IMO but it’s pretty darn
close most of the limitations coming from the
hardware. And the software from MSFT just keeps
getting better with each new release.
And as for your hatered of MSFT because because “Gates
wants to
control (and presumably charge me for) every packet of
data that comes into” I have to chuckle because
putting this in the context of other more
poltical-oriented messages you posted to this board.
That’s what the conservative party stands for –
corporate domination which supposedly translates into
jobs and so on.
You know all I can say is get over it. Gates is in
busines to make money. Any business is in business to
make money. Any busines would love a monopoly. Most
businesses have to rely on their friends in government
to help them (ie Murdoch and Energy) while others do
it on their own – Gates. Most CEOs would kill to have
Gate’s wealth and business accumen so get over it.
That’s the way a good busines is run. And if you were
in his shoes you would want the same. Life isn’t
fair. But I’m sure that all the virulent
conservatives can appreciate that. I don’t think it’s
a coincidence that many of the outspoken critics of
Gates are conservative. From Rupert Mrudoch who has
publically called Gates “dangerous because he has too
much money!” (what a joke!) to the conservatives at
AOL to SUNW who fall somewhere in between. As it
turns out his political are center-liberal juding from
the poltiical donations before MSFT got big. Father
Bush started the witch hunt against MSFT in 1990.
Conicidence? Don’t think so.
The fact is, MSFT writes some of the best, most
innovative, most successful, and hardest-to-write
software out there. They do things that no other
company would be willing to gamble on and they usually
are successful and they make money doing it time and
time again.
So lighten up and just buy some MSFT stock and enjoy
their software. In several years you’ll be glad you
did and you can thank Bill.
Jen.
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