Geeks and some part of the tech world consider it cool to hate everything that comes out of the Microsoft campus. Let me share a few instances.
Microsoft develops Vista and the vocal crowd immediately dubs it a failed product although a majority of these people may have never used the software. Microsoft releases a new "I’m PC" ad campaign and that provides some more fodder to *nix nerds because the ad agency, who Microsoft hired to produce these ads, probably made them on a Mac. Microsoft adds instant messaging in Hotmail and blog headlines scream to suggest that Microsoft is doing this "ages after Google". These are the same people who get excited when Gmail adds a "delete" button though that thing has been present in Outlook since birth.
Anyway, it seems that the age-old trend to criticize everything "MSFT" is on the decline and that’s because there are some things that have gone right for Microsoft in the consumer technology space in recent times:
1. The Laptop Hunter Ads – Their previous campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates got slammed but the new Laptop Hunter ads are proving very effective especially among the 18-34 year olds.
Apple did a great job of putting Microsoft on the defensive. It made them look old, stodgy, complicated to use and unhip. But Microsoft has started to hit back, and younger folks are more cost-focused. Microsoft’s so-called value perception has risen steadily since the campaign began in March, while Apple’s has fallen – Adage
2. Windows Internet Explorer 8 – IE 8 may not be enough to stop the rise of Firefox but some of it’s unique features like Web Slices, Accelerators, InPrivate browsing and visual search suggestions have received positive attention.
Overall, Internet Explorer 8 is an impressive package, and while it lacks the raw speed of Chrome, the flashiness of Safari 4, and the extendibility of Firefox, it does offer reliability and some good features, which could be enough to win it some fans. It’s certainly the best version of IE in a long time – ITPro
3. Windows 7 - Technically, Windows 7 may have lot of things in common with Windows Vista but it’s better, faster and requires less resources.
In general, I have found Windows 7 a pleasure to use. There are a few drawbacks, but my preliminary verdict on Windows 7 is positive. Even in its preliminary form, Windows 7 looks very promising, and could well help expunge the bad reputation of Vista. – Walt Mossberg
For decades, Microsoft’s primary strategy has been to put out something mediocre, and then refine, refine, refine, no matter how long and no matter what it costs, until it succeeds. That’s what’s exciting about the prospect of Windows 7. It’s Windows Vista — with a whole heck of a lot of refinement. – David Pogue
4. Windows Live Mesh – This allows you to synchronize file and files across multiple devices include Windows PCs, Mac computers and mobile phones. It’s one of our favorite web applications and others agree as well.
Live Mesh is both exciting and useful. It erases years of doubt about Microsoft’s understanding of the computing industry and how it’s changing. It proves that the company is no longer interested in simply milking its past successes. Most important, for users, it provides a hopeful glimpse at a future in which heterogeneous devices and environments will no longer be islands of functionality that are hard or impossible to connect – Paul Thurrott
5. Zune HD – The only advantage of having a Zune MP3 player vis-a-vis an Apple iPod is that the former device lets you tune in to FM radio on the go. That perception is likely to change with the launch of Zune HD that features a Wi-Fi enabled touch-screen browser and support for HD radio.
The thing kind of rocks. In your hand the Zune HD has a nice, solid feel, with good heft to it and a surprisingly thin profile. The OLED screen looks absolutely stunning — even at severe viewing angles, colors were super bright, edges were crisp, and text looked beautiful. While the OS isn’t finished, we didn’t notice a single hiccup while jumping through menus or playing back HD video – Engadget
6. Bing – Just when 60% of Internet users were feeling satisfied with their existing search engines, Microsoft rolled out Bing to take on Google (check out some Bing Tricks). Early reviews suggest that Bing has enough potential though it may not be a "google killer" yet.
A search engine with solid relevancy plus some new features that might hook a few of them into staying – Danny Sullivan
Bing is a solid improvement over the previous search product, and it beats Google in important areas. It will help Microsoft gain share in the search business. It’s surprisingly competitive with Google – Rafe Needleman
7. Office Live Workspace - Enough has been written about the demise of "desktop software" at the hands of "web applications" but the immense popularity of solutions that bridge the online and offline world prove that people still prefer to have both choices.
Microsoft will add Office web applications to their Office Live Workspace service sometime later this year and that might give them an edge over Google Docs as existing Office users are more likely to prefer Office Live because integration between Office (on the desktop) and Office (in the cloud) would be much better.
8. Windows Live Skydrive - Other than Adobe (they have Acrobat.com), Microsoft is the only "Internet giant" that offers a free file hosting service on the web with plenty of storage.
AOL have closed their XDrive service, Yahoo! never offered any online storage closed Briefcase while rumors of Google GDrive have been circulating on the web for long but nothing concrete yet.
9. Xbox 360 & Project Natal
You have never seen anything like this before. Project Natal enables you to control and interact with Xbox 360 games through gestures, spoken commands, facial recognition and can even scan images of real objects or drawings made on paper.
Two months ago, Don shared with me the ‘Natal’ experience, and the gamer in me went out of my mind when I got to be really interactive with this. More dramatically, I felt like I was present for a historic moment, a moment as significant as the transformation from the square-shaped movie screen to CinemaScope and then to IMAX – Steven Spielberg
It may be time to stop hating Microsoft.
Related: Live Search Tricks That You May Not Know
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/software/microsoft-getting-things-right/8902/
Tags: Archives, google, microsoft, Most Popular, opinion, windows, Software
Reader Comments
Excellent post, Amit. Finally a refreshing change from the usual MS-bashing articles.
Good work
Written by Ankit on 05.30.09
wow! refreshing….
love msft!
Written by santosh on 05.30.09
Well, I do agree MS innovated a lot these days, but it still doesn’t make sense many times. The best example is the windows 7 starter edition where you can’t change the desktop background, play with media center edition etc., etc., Also, everybody is all hyped up about windows 7 but the point is why the hell did i pay for vista? Even in Windows 7, they couldn’t get the promised WinFS for superior file management. Even though I hate Apple too in many issues like DRM, limited choice somethings like the OS X leave me spell bound. A lot of innovation MS brought to their OS has been there in Apple since years.
Finally, I know that this blog is a little bit inclined towards Microsoft, but don’t just take the best comments from all the other sites. Engadget criticizes Win 7 for many many things, which you didnt mention.
Also, for all the people who say “Why so against MS?”, THEY CHARGE 380$ per License just to make minor improvements yet they dont fix major issues.
Written by Satya on 05.30.09
@Satya
>>best example is the windows 7 starter edition where you
>> can’t change the desktop background, play with media
>> center edition etc., etc
Why bashing Microsoft again? The version you are mentioning is called Starter edition. It’s the CHEAPTEST version. When you need more features, go ahead and buy another version.
Microsoft had LOTS of different versions.
You sound like a typical Linux user. “Damn, the OPERATING SYSTEM costs money.. WTF… I prefer paying 20 bucks for a media player that I use 3hrs a week than paying 100 bucks for a whole SYSTEM… ”
Think about it
Written by Chipsi on 05.30.09
Never known that MS has had those innovation! How much will we pay to update from Vista to Win7 then?
Written by gofree on 05.30.09
They are yet to mend their ways. Let me tell you about my irritation with IE8, it insisted on installing MSN toolbar and I had no way of say no while it was installing. Once installed, there is no way to disable it from the list of toolbars.
Laptop ads. I recently got a couple of new windows notebooks. you know what is the sad thing, the need to install anti-virus on it. And anti-virus companies now want money every year having moved to a subscription model. Why can’t Microsoft make a decent free anti-virus tool? The other bummer is the load of totally useless software notebook vendors pile on.
Office live – as far as I know it needs you have a license of MS office before you can use it. You cannot create a new document in the cloud. To me it looks more like, hey we know about cloud too and how to keep selling packaged software, it is not an attempt to create an honest future facing product. Why can’t one create forms like Google docs.
Written by preetam rai on 05.30.09
I don’t agree with Zune HD. How many will tune into those useless FM ? They are lagging Apple and Google by 5 years.
Written by Gaitri on 05.30.09
Sometime negative publicity works more than positive. The more *nix nerds will cry against Microsoft, more it will gain popularity.
Written by Ajay Kumar Jain on 05.31.09
theres no possibility ppl stop hating MS, it is meant to be for it :P
As far as ur article is concern, Zune is a flop product, and no body wants vista on their desktop (developers), Time will show that kumo/bing even competes google search or not.
IE8 still not able to pass ACID 3 test. N though MS has dodged advertising market by its new ads featuring its lower prize things, still MAC is faaar better when it comes to user satisfaction.Ultimately COOL beats the COPYCAT.
Written by chinmay on 05.31.09
All the above *I-HATE-MICROSOFT* are pretty promising but the truth is that Microsoft still has the largest market share! IE is the most used web-browser on the internet and most of the (OSX/Linux)guys use windows to play games.
Waiting for more *I-HATE* comments…
Written by Dnyanesh on 05.31.09
Wonderful post Amit. I really don’t care much for #1, but I agree on the other points.
@Satya: Starter is obviously meant to go down to basics as possible. It’s just for people that need to use the web or lightweight stuff. Obviously, it’s not for you and you can get another version. WinFS is already pretty much present in Windows Vista, just not it’s name or look. A lot of the things Apple has in their OS has been copied from Windows presentations in the past. This blog is hardly inclined towards MS. There’s a whole lot more Google articles than MS articles, so I don’t see your point.
Obviously you aren’t tuned in as much.
@gofree: Are you that inept? First of all, you should have directly downloaded from the IE8 site, and make sure that you uncheck MSN Toolbar or whatever that may come up on the install. 2nd, even if you did, there’s an X button on the left of EVERY toolbar so you can disable it. You can even uninstall the MSN Toolbar.
As for notebooks: There are many free antivirus software if you don’t feel like paying. Just look it up on the web. OneCare offers a free scanner if you’re so cheap. It’s also wise to have AV on OS X as well. Some computers don’t have junkware or you can pay to not include junkware, so good luck finding that. I’d rather pay less and uninstall junkware, than pay even more.
Office Live is just a simple way to share and store documents to collaborate with your friends with. It’s not meant as a web version of Office (which Microsoft will soon have by the time Office 2010 comes out).
@preetam rai: Zune isn’t just about radio. FM Radio is pretty awesome for a lot of people, who want to hear talk radio, or local news and traffic, and prize contests and whatnot. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean everyone doesn’t. I think MS is quite ahead in some areas, while Google and Apple lag behind in other areas.
@Ajay Kumar: Zune is a flop? By sales, maybe. But a lot of people that have used one, LOVE it. Vista works great if you know what you’re doing, and a lot of browsers haven’t passed the Acid3 test – does it even matter that much?
To all those people I’ve responded to: You need some growing up to do, and it might help if you actually research the nonsense you’re spewing.
Written by Quikboy on 05.31.09
As a 17 year MS veteran, who has been out of the fold for ~4 years now, I sincerely *want* to love MS’ products – but am seldom able to. Some examples:
Love: Xbox360 – clearly ahead of the game, by a wide margin. Has been since it was released, and is destined to stay there until: A) Nintendo figures out onlne – or – B) Sony figures out how to make useable dev’t tools.
Hate: Vista – bought a Fujistu Lifebook that was Vista certified. With all the bells & whistles turned on, it gets 1 hour of battery life – which isn’t the primary problem. The problem is that it overheats and powers itself down after 45 minutes. Vista is a horrendously bloated OS and the multi-SKU/multi-pricepoint approach shows that they don’t “get” their customer (make 2 skus – basic and PRO – talk to the Office team).
Love: MSN Messenger, though it’s quickly getting eclipsed by Facebook as practical tool for social interaction.
Hate: Office 2007 – some of the innovations are interesting, but my productivity is nowhere near where it used to be. Why force everyone to the new paradigm? Feels like the height of designer arrogance.
Love: IE 8 – won me back from FireFox!
Indifferent: ZuneHD – was considering a switch to Zune as a media player till the iPhone came along. Oh yeah, HATE – Windows Mobile, after using every version from original alpha bits back in the day, through early 2009.
Love: Hotmail – still use it for personal email, though only because I’m tied to the address (GMail is kicking it in the teeth on a daily basis).
Want to love: Windows7 – though climbing out of the crater of public perception from Vista will take *years*. Just build a good OS and tell us about it – don’t promise what it’ll eventually do, tell us what it actually does. Do that in a compelling way, and you’ll get us back (Leopard SUCKS, I should know, I have to use it every day).
Prepared to hate: Bing! Live Search wasn’t losing because of the name, it was losing based on a combination of features and getting the word in a compelling manner about the features it had that were unique and relevant to users. (BTW – what does the annoying Ned Ryerson, from Groundhog Day, say everytime he encounters Bill Murray? “Bing!” – and yes, it makes you want to punch him in the nose, just like you’ll want to do to the first person who offers to “Bing! up an answer for you”).
MS is a large org with completely different operating units – evaluate each product and/or service, on it’s own merits. Just like I love my iPhone, but HATE Leopard, love the MacBookAir, but HATE Apple’s productivity apps, and LOVE iLife).
Written by Jon Grande on 05.31.09
Okay, I predicted the comments before, but just to re-instate my opinions, Engadget and Gizmodo criticized the laptop hunter ads like anything. This blog post has no mention about it. I am more pointing towards this blog rather than the usual Apple Vs MS. Also Win 7,I still think its expensive for a started edition. I used almost every OS out there and trust most of them are the same with minor differences. Coming back to my actual argument, the Laptop Hunters Ad and the Zune ads were heavily criticized by many weblogs out there and I dont see the point of Amit stating that they were a huge success just by using one reference of Adage. On the other hand, yes MS did innovate a lot especially on the Zune and Windows Live Services. Coming to WinFS, a lot of initially planned features are stripped in the Vista File System. Also, some one noted that I sound like a typical linux user. Nope,lol I u8se both Windows and OS X.
Written by Satya on 05.31.09
Ok, someone here wrote that people should grow up and respond,lol! Sorry guys we aren’t grownup! But they should keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion and don’t try to monopolize the conversation by saying such dumb things.
Written by Satya on 05.31.09
I started using vista recently (this year Jan), and i found that whatever i read on the blog about vista (all that junk stuff) they are all wrong. Vista was awesome. It was fast, smooth and lovely.
Now I am using windows-7 which is great. All my application launches much faster than it was in XP or Vista. My Lappy boots faster, Wakeup time is stunningly low. Over all windows -7 is great Operating system.
IE-8 is also nice browser. But I use Chrome. Jus for few good reasons.
I loved Microsoft right from childhood, now I appreciate right software no mater its from Google or Microsoft.
Written by Markandey on 06.01.09
I agree with chinmay – It’s the market. McDonalds’ burgers are far not the best, but none of fastfood companies are even close to their success.
Written by Kirill Bolgarov on 06.01.09
Let’s not forget the elephants in the room guys:
- Win 7 is more of a vista service pack than a new version of windows and won’t be much better, for a hefty price tag
- linux is progressing fast, and it is going to be impossible to beat free once linux reaches critical mass
- the name “bing” sucks and it is an attempt to try and make something old sound new
- sites that do what “bing” will supposedly do have been around for years, see nextag.com for example
- Zune HD is coming out late this year, and will be comparable to the iPod Touch from more than a year ago… it may have a chance at relevancy if Apple doesn’t release anything new until then
Written by Joe on 06.01.09
I think all the Microsoft bashing is ludicrous, petty, and frankly unintelligent. Microsoft products have most assuredly CHANGED MY LIFE and empowered and enabled me to accomplish things that 10 years ago I never dreamed I’d accomplish. I love Windows 7 Beta, Office (Outlook, Sharepoint, Excel, PowerPoint), Office Communications Server (Communicator, Live Meeting, presence, IM), OneNote, and Groove. I can’t imagine our world today without what Microsoft has brought to it.
Written by LunaCafe on 06.01.09
All these MSFT bashing is just the good-old Owellian reaction: You are allowed to be successful to a point, after which everyone hates your success.
There is a consipiracy at the moment against MS by all these anti-MS front spreading lies and FUD about anything MS. They troll Web Forums, and has nothing intelligent to tell about Microsoft.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it is healthy for Microsoft to have 90% of desktop OS market, it is not goed for innovation, neither is it goed for Google to have 90% of the web search market. They have been acting lately as if they own the world. Take a look at Google’s privacy policy, you will be shocked you gave them so much power when you click that EULA “YES” button when you installed Google’s software.
Apple is a monopolist, Apple will wall you in, if Apple is in the position of MS today we will be worshiping Steve Jobs and his cohorts. There won’t be any third party manufacturers, most of you won’t have a job.
Stop hating MS just for the fun of it, every company has a dark-side. They all try to improve their products. It is childish of Apple to start that hate-mogering switcher ads in the first place. Apple will not be here today, if MS didn’t invest in them to bale them out when they were down deep in Sh*t. Biting the fingers that feeds you I call it.
MS is not perfect, neither is Google, neither is Apple, neither is Linux. There is enough for everyone to go around, use what you prefer, and stop blackmailing companies. Its very childish, indeed grow up people!
Written by McAkins on 06.02.09
A great article. I just feel compelled to mention that it is not really correct to say that “Yahoo! never offered any online storage.” I was storing documents on Yahoo! Briefcase years ago and was very happy with it at the time. Sorry to see it go. More appropriate to say that Yahoo! does not currently offer any online storage.
Written by Eric on 06.02.09
It’s amazing how irrational people are towards their hatred for MS! Man, I just can’t get over it. You hit the nail on the head with the delete button and GMail!! There are SO many things like that with both Apple and Google but some how they are still just the best? they just work? Really? cause I have replaced 2 ipods now.
Written by jspin77 on 06.04.09
Vista suffered from an image and marketing problem more than anything else. Ever since I installed it it’s boggled my mind how Linux and Mac user’s can talk smack about the UAC feature and not feel like complete hypocrites.
Honestly… their operating systems have been hounding for escalated privaledges when needed for years, and now that Microsoft is doing it its a bug, not a feature!
Written by Brian Reich on 06.04.09
Microsoft Rules…! Lots more on way from Microsoft stay tunned..Microsot creating webcast in regional languages! already webcasts out on ASP.NET in Marathi-Hindi-Tamil!
Written by Rohit Khirapate on 06.04.09
I agree with the article’s main point against anti-Microsoft Trolls, too many people will judge products without having tried them. It is balanced, though, by the Microsoft fanboys (quite a few in the previous comments) who take a Microsoft or nothing approach.
Its a big world out there with lots of possibilities kids, try something new once in a while.
Written by Brian Silberbauer on 06.04.09