Go back to riding donkeys
Microsoft is suddenly ”listening to their customers” but in the end, according to eWeek, Microsoft is really saying ”let’s go back to riding donkeys”. Before Firefox came along, the plan was not to release anything new in terms of IE until Long-(wait)-horn comes out in 2037. But now, with FF gaining popularity at a rapid place, Microsoft suddenly cares.
I think that a companies treatment of software when they have little or no competition is a good reflection of the company as a whole; their philosophies and the kind of service you can expect from them. And, despite my bias towards Microsoft-related issues, I think it’s safe to say that Microsoft is all about the money. Which, as a good publicly traded corporation, they should be. But they shouldn’t be all about the money while at the same time, because of their monopoly, ignoring their customers. And I don’t mean governments and other large corporation customers. I mean you, and me, and our friends.
I used to use Windows NT 4 religiously. I thought it sucked that you needed to split your services (mail, web, relational DB) across multiple servers, but I thought that it was a decent platform. I even used IE because Netscape was such a memory hog and uber slow (due to many reasons beyond their control, I know). But they never made much in the way of improvements. So when Linux came of age with the 2.x kernels in the latter part of the 1990’s, I started making the switch. And I’m sure other people will continue to do the same; and would likely do in greater numbers if they weren’t forced to purchase Windows XP with every new PC they buy.
Tue, 15 Feb 2005 18:07 Posted in Software
