Microsoft buries Sinofsky Era... then jumps on the coffin lid The path to redemption in 2014 lies not through baptism, but blogging. Former Merrill Lynch dotcom analyst Henry "what a POS*" Blodget agreed to a lifetime ban from the finance industry – but bounced back with a blog. And perhaps one-man wrecking crew Steve Sinofsky, former President of the Windows Division at Microsoft, can …
> but given RT was a new product, why make RT and winphone different in the first place?
Allegedly territorial turf-wars within Microsoft.The version I heard put the blame on the Windows Phone group, that they wanted to go their own way and not be bogged down with RT, but I'm pretty sure that's bunk. (Then again, these are the same drug addled people who thought forcing users to interface with their phone via the Zune media player was a good idea, so who knows.)
"""It's not been a surprise someone with a brain (Apple) came with an innovative touchpad one day. And with a magnet-attached connector for power, to avoid your running kids throw your precious laptop to the ground."""
They also invented round corners and do not forget they patented it all out so no one else could use it.
... and still no-one can bring themselves to add an ARM chip to a laptop with a little switch to flick the screen and keyboard/mouse between android and whatever is running on the x86 system.
Oi, Google, if you want people to use your cloud, allow them to migrate, don't force them to choose. Look how well that went for MS and W8. Android on a pcmcia card or whatever the kids are using these days.
Ah wait.. people don't want expandability any more, do they?
> Office Ribbon a greater sin than all the Win8 shenanigans
A sin yes, greater no. Ribbon is a misfeature, but not as bad as being forced to only have one window open, having crap pseudo-randomly pop up on screen because the pointer strayed, or having to hunt for settings only to realize that they no longer exist.
Don't employ multi-millionaire playboy Execs on golden win/win contracts.
Adopts Mugatu look, "He's so hot right now!"
MS had two in quick succession with Sinofsky and Mattrick. Both nearly killed important parts of the business but both left laughing all the way to the bank.
They had nothing to lose so where is the pressure to deliver the right product?
Give those important roles to people within the business who have a real passion for the product and have something to lose if they screw up.
The "we know best and we're going to force it on you" approach is not fundamentally bad, and even if you're wrong, can succeed if you really do force people to get over the changes so they can get on with things. Ribbon is a good example of that; some people hated the thing until they were forced to use it and then decided it was great, others hated it but had no choice but to learn it and then get on with doing some work... mission accomplished for MS (before someone says "OO was an option", it wasn't an option for the masses).
But if you're going to ram something down users' throats which is a big change, you can't at the same time make it confusing what the change IS, and that's the problem with W8. A clear vision, even one which wasn't very good, could have been pushed through and accepted after initial griping - regardless if it should work that way, it can - but a messy vision like W8/RT meant nobody even wanted to try.
It is bad when the bunch of tasteless copy-pasters over at Redmond do it ... when some Cupertino company does this with touch devices with rounded corners, a totally new design for a phone (that everybody copies since) and FAR LESS FEATURES, apparently, according to most punters, it is ok ...
LOL
... but you look so cool when you get it right!
The real issue was that W7 upgrades were still going on and W7 has a better UI. No desire for an upgrade can be ground down over time, no budget for an unwanted upgrade is fatal.
If W8 had come after XP, it would probably have done well despite itself.
I can learn new things, but if they are inferior, I want to be able to revert.
'modern' (if modern is the poorest end of the choice in 1990) interface is bloody awful. Things jumping to full screen is horrible.
Example. click on a music file.
Result - a black screen with a triangle in the middle. (fine on a touchscreen that can be held in one hand.)
The last time I remember behavior like that would be on a 386 running GEM in the early 90s, but in that case it was a step forward from running everything full screen.
All this metro stuff would be fine if it worked in a window on the desktop. (Even DOS apps could do that on a windows desktop back in the early 90s)
It would be such an easy design fix.
Microsoft deserve all the lost sales (more even) by being so stupid.
Requiring 3rd party apps to make a NEW system as usable as the old one, then blackmailing people into migration; not acceptable.
(I use the term blackmail, because fixing decades old bugs in newer versions, and not XP is little else.)
I don't think that's a very good example. If the customer says "a faster horse" you ask why, or what it will be used for. Marketing is partly about understanding that customers either are not very good at articulating what they want, or can only explain it in terms of familiar things. The trick is to find out what they are really looking for, implementing it and then telling them.
If someone was asked what they wanted from Windows and said "to work the same on a computer and a phone" (which I very much doubt) the next questions are why, and how. The solution is not to jump to the answer of "OK we'll do that by adding the phone interface to the desktop."
I think I'll skip Windows 9. Just like I skipped Windows 8, 7, Vista, XP, 200X, 9X, 3.X, etc.
Through all of this nonsense, all of the crap Microsoft has tried to force onto users (Metro will be remembered as the second coming of Active Desktop), all of the "we know best and you will buy what we shovel at you" attitude ... all those years my Linux has been rock solid.
Thanks but no thanks, Microsoft.
Active Desktop was useless crap but don't even compare it to Metro.
You could quickly disable it, and then it literally had no impact on the rest of the system. Even if you use one of the many applications which gives you a start menu and disables all the hot corners, in 8 and 8.1 you still get the stupid Metro apps opening files by default, and the ridiculously large network pane, not to mention many other annoyances.
Active Desktop at least allowed me to set a gif of bouncing breasts as a wallpaper. Hey, it was fun when you were a teenager.
Article seems to miss the point - Windows 8 was never going to rescue PC desktop sales. Win 7 is too mature - it's hard to imagine what features could have been added that would have made people feel they had to upgrade. Desktop sales have tanked, also because of market maturity, and to a lesser (but growing) extent because of tablets.
Sinofsky's focus was entirely on making Microsoft relevant to tablets, because he judged (quite rightly) that tablets were going to shape the future of computing. What he came up with (win 8 + RT) was dismally executed but the core thinking was unavoidable. The game is still wide open, and the balance is beginning to tilt back to Microsoft. Anyone who's tried to use iOS or Android tablets for serious work knows that they are poor substitutes for a laptop - even as a secondary device. The new wave of 8.1 tablets and hybrids are more plausible. I believe a properly windowed environment will remain important (and certainly more productive for all but the simplest linear tasks, but it all seems apparent that touch UIs on phones and tablets will increasingly condition how we expect to interact with computers.
I do agree that trying to drive people screaming into a touch UI on their existing desktops was crazy, and if Microsoft had listened to user feedback they could have avoided their worst mistakes. Then again, I think this is a clear case where you have to look beyond your existing customers, because you're trying to anticipate the future. Sinofsky apparently misjudged the balance between these two imperatives, and as others have pointed out, the emergence of three different APIs was ridiculous, but I think time is already proving that the fundamental strategy was the right one...
(I wrote something on this subject a few days ago at http://paulbrasington.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/247/)
I don't understand the 'Metro-whatever is SO difficult to use' complaints that go round. Rather, it seems that a lot of that moaning comes from tech professionals (I know a couple, even heavy Linux users), who really shouldn't be that confused by it. You've seen an iPad, right? It's like that.
And it's not like it's taken over your system or anything: it's just the Start menu. How long each day do you spend looking at the Start menu? A minute in total?
Even when I can't figure out how to do something in W8, a simple Google search finds the answer very easily. Techies just like being angry about change, or are too autistic to be able to cope with it (i.e. Sheldon). If they put half as much time into learning how to use the new OS as they do complaining about it on the internet, they'd have mastered the changes and got on with the whole purpose of the computer, which is using it to do stuff.
"""Techies just like being angry about change"""
One can drive a car with a joystick, handicapped people do, and there is an argument that the joystick makes manoeuvring quite precise, more so than the steering wheel.
However I dare you to drive a car with a joystick, I have no doubts you will manage to do it quite well once you get the hook of it, but you will be wondering... why? why? why the hell did they do that.
I agree with your point, but would modify it:
You can get a small appreciation of the TIFKAM problem that many experience by simply switching between a car with conventional physical key ignition and one with keyless ignition. Being used to using a key, I've yet to get into a car with keyless ignition and effect a swift drive off. Once the car is going (ie. in desktop mode) I have no real problems until I wish to stop the engine etc. and have to engage with the keyless interface.
>, a simple Google search finds the answer very easily.
I think this state of affairs actually speaks volumes.
Whilst I agree with you that often a Google search will return an answer faster than drilling through the MS Help, the questions are firstly: why am I having to do a Google search in the first place, particularly when the problem is typically of the sort "it worked this way in Windows 95/NT/2K/XP how do I do it in Win8", and secondly, why are so many people posting their findings ie. solutions to simple problems, if there wasn't some kudos and/or demand for these answers and/or style of help.
I suspect because lots of people complained about Win8, lots of people realised that they wren't the only one's having difficulties and hence when they found out something they posted it in a form that was more accessible to others.
Personally, having installed Classic Shell and ModernMix on all my Win8 machines, I've forgotten all about TIFKAM, but then that does still leave all the other daft stuff in Win8/Office2013...
It's difficult to use.
I do not have a touch screen on my laptop, or my desktop. I like hierarchical folder structures, especially for large collections that can be grouped thematically: Graphics, troubleshooting, IDEs, database 'stuff', and games. All of which I use on a fairly frequent basis, but scrolling thruo all of my games to get to SQL Developer... well, I might not make it. ("just a few minutes on SimCity...")
Also side-scrolling is widely held to be "Of the Devil"; and yet, that what the Start Screen uses for it's "menu".
It works on a tablet/touch screen, it fails on a non-touch device. so, yes, it is hard to use.
Either way, I have to scroll past SQL Developer to get to Civ, and think "I could be doing work, and getting paid for this time" , or I have to scroll past Civ to get to SQL Dev, and risk not making it.
Yes, I know this is admitting poor impulse control, verging on ADD, but I have developed a system to work with it. Win 8 tiles break that system.
> I don't understand the 'Metro-whatever is SO difficult to use' complaints that go round ..
I think forcing a tablet UI onto the desktop was a mistake. Touch on a vertical screen is not a good idea, as in your arms get tired very quickly. Using a keyboard/mouse with the Metro interface is also a hassle.
But the fact remains that you don't have to use the Modern/Touch bit if you don't want to.
If thats the case what is the issue? I don't like using Modern/Touch because like most people I have zero use for it. But that doesn't stop me using Windows 8/8.1 in desktop/normal mode just I like I do with Windows 7.
As I mentioned earlier I don't see Modern/Touch when I use Windows 8. Its 100% desktop. Simple.
I'm not saying that some people don't have valid issues, but a lot sound like they are punching themselves constantly in the nuts for no reason.
Which is both bemusing and amusing in equal measure.
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Rather than try and force a phone/tablet style interface onto the desktop what would have been better would have been to make them work well together. A few possibilities:
* Include a Windows phone emulator in desktop windows. Allow windows phone apps to also be run in a window on the desktop. Use this an updated version of the deprecated gadget platform. This would likely appeal to developers as well as users if an app can target both Windows phone and desktop Windows from a single executable. Allow phone apps on the desktop to be launched seamlessly from the same places as native programs (Start menu, pinned to taskbar, desktop shortcut, etc.)
* Allow phones/tablets to recognise when they are connected to a PC. Allow them to act as a second screen and/or graphical touchpad. Allow dragging apps/data between the monitor and phone screen.
There could still be a case for full Windows to boot up with a TIFKAM interface on something like the Surface Pro, but only if being used as a standalone device, not when plugged into an external monitor and keyboard. The Surface Pro would be somewhat unusual in that it would need to both be able to act as the PC when having a phone conneced to it, or as just another tablet when connected to a desktop PC.
This greater integration of the phone into the desktop environment would equally have merit for an OS X/IOS combination or a Linux/Android combination. Even better would be mix and match integration, but even getting it done at all would be nice.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.
I HATE all this " you should learn new things" smug comments.
NO!!!!! Why the hell should I have to? New is NOT a synonym for better.
I welcome change if it improves something. I DETEST change for change's sake.
Windows 8 did NOT improve anything. It made many things worse.
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