A couple of days ago, my esteemed colleague Damon found some humor in the snafus during Bill Gates’ speech at the CES.
Microsoft products not working is just accepted as the way it is. Imagine Coke demonstrating a new can, but being unable to open it; Ford a new car that stalls after starting. You can’t.
Then today, I came across, this post on Microsoft Watch
Microsoft’s anti-virus/anti-spyware strategy is taking shape. Sources say Redmond’s prepping a fee-based bundle, which could go beta soon.
Something doesn’t make sense here – if Ford sells cars where tires explode, it is front page news, and lawsuits ensue. Microsoft sells a system which has holes and problems, and it tries to build another money gouging service on top of that. As they say, get them hooked first…
The fundamental difference is that software isn’t really a product. It is a service. This is reflected in the way that it is maintained, updated, etc. And in the enterprise space there is a strong shift towards moving the purchasing of software away from capital expense and towards software maintainance (or so called pay as you go) models.
We can no more expect software to be perfect than to expect perfect service from any other human activity. When was the last time you had PERFECT waiter/waitress service. Or perfect service from an airline. Or perfect service at your car dealer (if you want to continue the analogies with cars — we could go there — but Microsoft would come out shining compared to the sinister activites of some auto manufacturers)….
-Victor
I think that Microsoft if it had a choice would probably be more than happy to provide their anti spyware and the rumored antivirus program that they are supposed to be working on for free. However, if they were to give them away I can think of at least five companies that would immediately file antitrust lawsuits against them for software bundling and unfair competition. In which case, your post would have probably contained the phrase “convicted monopolist…” rather than “money grubbing…”
So in my mind they can’t really win anymore.