brainscat.com

Robert Scoble asked for a list of reasons why we think Microsoft’s “products or processes or services suck”. I do believe before I jump in, a quick overview of what technologies I use is in order, as a point of reference and as somewhat of a disclaimer.

Products I Use That Compete With or Are Microsoft Technology:

• WinXP Pro on a fast gaming machine.
• PowerBook G4
• PowerMac G5 (work)
• iPod (OS X w/ iTunes)
• Sony Clie PDA
• Sony Smartphone
• Modded Xbox
• Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP
• Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP for web-development.

It should be noted that the Xbox wasn’t modded until after the DVD drive failed and I opened it up to replace it with a drive bought off Ebay. I bought the Xbox solely on it’s out-of-the-box merits as a gaming system and the games available for it. Now, off to the races…

Microsoft is Great At…

• Development tools and technologies. The .Net platform, Visual Studio, MSDN, Channel 9, and evangelists, like Scoble, all serve as great resources on their technologies, and seem extremely technically sound a vast majority of the time.
• Game technology. DirectX is amazing, the Xbox was a great feat, IMHO. They exercised their influence to convince many many development teams to make games, resulting in many many good games.
• Making technologies acceptable in the industry. This pretty much a no-brainer, because in the desktop market their standards are immediately de facto. They’ve proven that when they move outside that market, they’re extremely competent as well.
• Marketing new technologies. This is purely based on my reaction to many grassroots efforts to get developers excited about new techs.

Microsoft Sucks At…

• Security. However, this seems to be improving and seems to be moving in the right direction (Managed C, SP2 ,Longhorn). Props.
• Understanding Fitt’s Law and applying it to their menu. (thanks PhotoMatt for showing us what it’s called).
• Pricing software. It is too expensive, plain and simple. I don’t own Office or Visual Studio for that reason.
• Listening to users about media-DRM. I can not think of one consumer that wants DRM. As you can see above, I have five devices above that can play audio, and I sincerely would like to keep copies on all five. I don’t and can’t easily do so because of Apple’s DRM. Palladium looks like it will allow content creators to make life even worse for me, and I just want to exercise my fair use right. One reason such DRM is horrible right now is because of the fact that no computer is reliable enough to allow me to feel safe while storing my only copy of a file. Assuming that problem is solved, there’s no device which is portable and versatile enough to effortlessly (read: wirelessly) access my media through multiple locations. Once this gets solved, maybe, just maybe my tune on DRM will change.
• Most importantly, Microsoft sucks at playing well with others. It seems that so many times Microsoft’s program features are designed solely to protect their hold on the OS and Office market. At the very least, many times compatibility seems an afterthought. It seems so much more sensible to me to embrace the idea that networks, companies, and even people are homogenous and they want their computer to thrive in such an environment. Neglectance of IE’s adherence to standards (and Office’s) as well as the incompatible supplements to web-standards added to IE make it one of the most “unfriendly” applications to the web. Don’t render wrong things correctly, render them according to spec. Developers and creators of content want their programs to be accessible to as many people as possible, please don’t hinder us.

It is my sincere hope that these complaints are taken to heart. I would love nothing more than seeing the world’s most important technology company be a gentle giant. I have complete faith in the technical ability of Microsoft, and am genuinely excited about many of the products they’re working on such as SenseCam, .Net, Mobile Edition, TabletPC . Please re-evaluate designing software to accommodate your business and instead think about accommodating your business to how it can best improve your software and let your features stand out among the crowd.

Update: It looks like PhotoMatt has some things he’d like to get off his chest about SP2.