The article assumes that Microsoft's goal is to empower and delight the user. This isn't really the case; their goal is to reduce support costs for corporate IT departments.
Many of Microsoft's strategies and tactics that seem nonsensical seem more sensible once you realize that corporate IT managers, rather than end users, are their customers.
I think that's a bit of a facile assumption. Sure, Enterprise is huge for Microsoft. But so is the consumer space. The vast majority of new computers sold are still Windows boxen, and at $250 a pop home users are still a massive market for Microsoft. Sure, many or their choices since the NT integration with XP have been driven by Enterprise needs, but not at the expense of home users.
I'm far more ready to believe that they simply messed up than that they are willing to make huge usability and design sacrifices just to appease IT managers.
Also, remember that we are probably the least important people to Microsoft. I'd say less than half of us run Windows on our personal machines. Our design sensibilities don't matter to them; they're designing for our mothers and technophobic friends. In a word (3), the facebook crowd. We use keyboard shortcuts, they consider having to right-click to be a burden and a skill that needs to be learned. We compare the relative benefits of various anti-malware tools, they renew their subscription of Norton that came with their computer three years ago. We lament the general craptitude of cmd.exe, they would be scared if they ever saw it. We talk about the inferiority of snap-to-grid fonts versus anti-aliasing, and they wouldn't know what kerning was if it bit them in the ass.
Windows is not designed for the tech and design crowd, so while we might think of the ribbon as a design travesty, the people it's designed for are the ones who have three toolbars strewn across the top of ie6.
Let's just say that my analysis is not uninformed. There are countless examples of how Microsoft puts IT managers' needs first -- if this were not the case, IE6 would have been stricken from the face of the earth five years ago.
You're also quite mistaken to think that Microsoft (who, you'll recall, is still run by Steve "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS" Ballmer), doesn't care about what nerds think. It's no accident that they have a whole division to sell tools and technologies to developers that's separate from their cash cow operating system and productivity divisions.
>You're also quite mistaken to think that Microsoft ... doesn't care about what nerds think.
We aren't the target market for Windows. Yes, Microsoft wants to get more developers on .NET making Windows apps, and to the extent that it needs them to use Windows they'll make it at least usable for that purpose, but they aren't about to make Windows harder to use for your grandma just to court us. We prefer keyboard shortcuts (which they have) to messy buttons all over the place, but if buttons make the product more usable for their core market then that's what they'll do.
Comments
The article assumes that Microsoft's goal is to empower and delight the user. This isn't really the case; their goal is to reduce support costs for corporate IT departments. Many of Microsoft's strategies and tactics that seem nonsensical seem more sensible once you realize that corporate IT managers, rather than end users, are their customers.
I think that's a bit of a facile assumption. Sure, Enterprise is huge for Microsoft. But so is the consumer space. The vast majority of new computers sold are still Windows boxen, and at $250 a pop home users are still a massive market for Microsoft. Sure, many or their choices since the NT integration with XP have been driven by Enterprise needs, but not at the expense of home users.
I'm far more ready to believe that they simply messed up than that they are willing to make huge usability and design sacrifices just to appease IT managers.
Also, remember that we are probably the least important people to Microsoft. I'd say less than half of us run Windows on our personal machines. Our design sensibilities don't matter to them; they're designing for our mothers and technophobic friends. In a word (3), the facebook crowd. We use keyboard shortcuts, they consider having to right-click to be a burden and a skill that needs to be learned. We compare the relative benefits of various anti-malware tools, they renew their subscription of Norton that came with their computer three years ago. We lament the general craptitude of cmd.exe, they would be scared if they ever saw it. We talk about the inferiority of snap-to-grid fonts versus anti-aliasing, and they wouldn't know what kerning was if it bit them in the ass.
Windows is not designed for the tech and design crowd, so while we might think of the ribbon as a design travesty, the people it's designed for are the ones who have three toolbars strewn across the top of ie6.
> $250 a pop
Home users typically buy OEM windows, which is quite a bit cheaper: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/09/newegg-reveals... suggests ~$150.
(This is irrelevant, until you get into revenue discussions.)
Let's just say that my analysis is not uninformed. There are countless examples of how Microsoft puts IT managers' needs first -- if this were not the case, IE6 would have been stricken from the face of the earth five years ago.
You're also quite mistaken to think that Microsoft (who, you'll recall, is still run by Steve "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS" Ballmer), doesn't care about what nerds think. It's no accident that they have a whole division to sell tools and technologies to developers that's separate from their cash cow operating system and productivity divisions.
>You're also quite mistaken to think that Microsoft ... doesn't care about what nerds think.
We aren't the target market for Windows. Yes, Microsoft wants to get more developers on .NET making Windows apps, and to the extent that it needs them to use Windows they'll make it at least usable for that purpose, but they aren't about to make Windows harder to use for your grandma just to court us. We prefer keyboard shortcuts (which they have) to messy buttons all over the place, but if buttons make the product more usable for their core market then that's what they'll do.
Right, and corporate IT managers want interfaces like Metro which cannot be turned off and require touch to be used effectively.