DISQUS

Nick Hodge · 1 year ago

I am out, geek and proud.

And like Microsoft and am therefore totally web 2.0 uncool.

And yes, I work for Microsoft. So that makes this comment uncool, too.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

Na Nick - yer one of the cool guys :) and a riot to read on Twitter as you rile up the masses LOL

Elise B. · 1 year ago

You forgot to add "Will al$o $uck cock for Micro$oft freebie$."

Google have been hellspawn for a shorter time, but they've learnt some of their best tricks from ex-Apple employees and Redmond refugees. Wise up.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

oooooo .. that was a really intelligent reply ... did you have to practice that one or did it just come naturally (I'm betting on naturally)

Elise B. · 1 year ago

Maybe you missed the origins of the dollar sign insertion into the Micro$oft name. Maybe your research skills didn't go as far as looking up the case of Betty Warburton and Chris Buford. I would say use Google to check up on it, but ChillingEffects.org (and thank God for them) did an excellent job, so you'd probably be wasting your time...

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

it doesn't matter what the origins are here what is the point that every little anti-MS twit has used it as a "symbol" of how cool they are. Origins and current uses are two different things.

Elise B. · 1 year ago

It matters if you want to understand the reasons for some of the stronger anti-Micro$oft sentiment in the world at large. "Cool" has as much to do with that company's practices as Google's concerns for privacy have to do with reality, or Apple's desire to shift substandard products has to do with its image as a company that doesn't get its hands dirty in Far Eastern sweatshops. If you're going to write about something and toss it into the world, do the research. It'll make you that much more credible, and sound less like a teenager with his panties in a bunch.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

I have been using Microsoft product since the early days of DOS. I have watched the company as it has done some incredibly stupid things (IE4, Bob, WinMe etc etc etc) I know full well why there is a strong anti-MS faction and those that credibly express their opinions about the company I have respect for but I'll tell you want the majority of them don't need to use silly play on words (or letters) in order to get their point of view made. My research comes from having been involved with the computer industry for going on 20 years as a A+ tech, developing and now writing. So please give me some modicum of intelligence to be able to tell; or find out, the difference between putzes that like to look cooler than they really are and the people who know what the hell they are talking about - which you obviously do once you settle down and treat people with respect instead of veiled sarcasm.

Nick Hodge · 1 year ago

http://blogs.msdn.com/nickhodge/archive/2008/06...

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

:) thanks

adamjackson · 1 year ago

I love Windows Vista.

Svetlana Gladkova · 1 year ago

Steven, I really have nothing to say here but "thank you", I am really glad that you share my thoughts and were not afraid of writing this and facing the comments you were supposed to get for it.

Complexlee · 1 year ago

You say that microsoft might be turning the battleship, but I didn't see anything in your article to uphold this belief! Typed from me very cool iPhone, lucky I never needed cut and paste LOL

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

maybe you missed the fact while you were stroking your iPhone that this is an opinion piece .. can you comprehend what opinion means?

BTW would you like a towel to clean up with after you are finished with your iPhone stroking? Wouldn't want you to stop looking so cool.

cat · 1 year ago

Not sure from which basement you just crawled out, but here's the heads up for you. Ms has a very big fan crowd. The only thing is that these guys don't care about all the idiotic babbling about how 'cool' or 'uncool' is to use one company or other's products. I cannot say that I am an MS fan, but people like you have a lot to learn from the MS communities. And that is: respect other people opinions and keep the 'coolness or uncoolness' to yourself.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

Excuse me .. basement .. crawl out of .. I don't need your heads up I know there is a very large fan/userbase of Microsoft products. And where did I say that Microsoft cared about cool .. it is more than obvious that they don't I'm not that much of a frikken idiot.

And get off of your high horse 'cat' I have been involved in the MS communities as both a developer of VB4/5/6 and .NET .. I have also been involved in their old NNTP newsgroups.

As for respecting other peoples opinions .. well as long as they don;t try and treat me like an idiot I have no problem trying to have intelligent conversations with them. Now if you want to have an adult conversation about this I have no problem but until you pull your self-righteous attitude out of you ass I doubt that will be possible..

L. · 1 year ago

Ha ha it's not everyone that will admit to being a VB "developer". I did rather think you were protesting too much above about your "developer" background above. Makes more sense now thanks.

tmc · 1 year ago

We all born as ms users but some are growing up discovering that there is life beyond win. The first love isn't always the sweetest. Thanks for vista. I never used it, but realised that if I want something working I have to search elsewhere. I kept some memento from my previous life: two ms mouses. Just because are good and to prove that I'm not ms hater :)

When we talk about ms development must remember of some memorable thieving. As I know even the windows as GUI was a stealing. I was laughing when the main feature of explorer7 was tabbed browsing as a big invention. Or see patents licensing FUD http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/soa/The-FUD-war...

I don't think i'll turn back, beacause software is as love: no reason to pay while sweetest things are free. Even win preinstalled notebook is waste of money - my family will not buy such one. Not hating ms, just getting something better suited for my needs and expectations.

Making money is not a shame. Making money as ms did do and is doing is criminal and $.Ballmer is a marketing nazi. An example http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-let...
ms against the world: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2...

I don't even know what is the weakest ms thing: the products' quality or the company's image. M$ (sic) isn't evil, is a big bullshit. Use word or excel, maybe xp or vista, but generally is true: isn't cool to be a ms fan.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

Regarding the UI - whether it be Windows / OS X / Linux - they are a result of the original idea being ripped off of Xerox PARC and their work with user interfaces. So in that regard no-one has clean hands. As for tabbed browser several browsers (built on the IE Trident engine) had tabs long before even Firefox. Maxthon comes to mind as one of them. Even Opera through the use of an MDI user interface technically had tabbed browsing before anyone else.

MS is no different than any other corporation through our human history ... or perhaps you have forgotten the huge breakup of AT&T under the anti-trust laws. And reading an open letter from a Linux organization that is equally guilty of spreading FUD doesn't help the conversation at all.

tmc · 1 year ago

If you don't want to understand how was corrupted the nigerian govern I can't help.
Take another example (I'm not proud that either egging and corruption happened in my country): http://gizmodo.com/391736/steve-ballmer-egged-i...

version a.) Ballmer was in Budapest to announce Microsoft's leading role and investment a technology skills training program in Hungary, in partnership with the government and other companies.

version b.) Microsoft has midterm contracts with the state in Hungary for "way cheaper than from the store" Campus-licences. This costs billions (in HUF, 160HUF=1USD) for the state and makes students stuck in the Microsoft-world, not knowing Linux etc.

Through our human history no one corporation reched the boiling point: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?r...

Limiting the hardware capabilities of ultra low-cost PCs: http://www.computerworlduk.com/technology/hardw...

Irregularities on OOXML vote across all Europe: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200803...

Sorry, but my opinion is that ms is different from any other big software corporation because instead of developing harder giving better product is using brute force to keep it's marketplace and profit.

Let's turn back to the article author Steve Hodson's statement: "I have a great respect for Microsoft because in the end this is a company that has had an immense impact on our computing lives and to me that is cool."
With all my respect for you, I still think in our days ms has an immense negative impact and that isn't cool to be a ms fan..

tmc · 1 year ago

Only to be clear, if I don't like ms behaviour I can change win for something else and living in peace. But when ms takes part of my taxes, or more part of my mother's taxes who don't care about computing, while is obstructioning my son to learn at school the basics of text editing with cheaper tools I don't find cool to be a fan of ms. When ms is obstructioning interchangeability of tools when I get or send documents (texts, spreadshits or presentations) is very hard to stay in quiet as a non-ms user, because ms has impact directly on my life.

JulesLt · 1 year ago

The world would have survived fine without Microsoft - before Windows dominated there were plenty of competing systems - Atari ST & Commodore Amiga spring to mind as a systems that were a lot cheaper than Apple, and far in advance of Windows. Before MS-DOS you had the CPM system as a standard, non-proprietary, operating system for business software.

Equally, money spent on R&D doesn't equal innovation. By MS own admission a lot of the money in Windows development is spent on ensuring backward compatibility, because that's hugely important to it's customers (in contrast, the only way you'lll run Apple software older than about 5-6 years is under emulation).
The measured difference between the most and least productive programming languages is also about sixfold.

The question is whether MS needs to be cool. IBM are not cool and have never been cool, but know how to work with businesses to make money, whereas cool is, by definition, transient - you're only ever cool until someone else is.

What it does need to do is stop worrying about image and spin and start worrying about products.

PS - as for the Xerox PARC comments someone mentioned - do some research and you'll find Xerox got shares in Apple, so they did benefit from their lab work. In turn, it wasn't the first mouse driven system, only the first windowing system.

Jonathan Badeen · 1 year ago

I am an Apple fanboy (big-time by my opinion and even in the view of my Mac-using/loving coworkers) but I have to admit the Windows 7 stuff looks great. If I had to pick one thing that Apple should copy from MS on Vista, my answer would be nil (yes I do Cocoa programming too). However Windows 7 looks like it has copied things from Mac and then improved upon them. I say this in all honesty and with the opinion that this copying and competition is good. Neither Windows nor Mac would be where they currently are if it hadn't been for the stealing of ideas between the two companies. I don't foresee myself switching back to PC for Windows 7 (I've only "been a Mac" for a little over two years - long time Windows user) but I'm hoping some of the features in Windows 7 get copied into Snow Leopard or its next of kin.

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

a good and fair comment - thanks Jonathan :)

Craig Radnovich · 1 year ago

"this is a company that is constantly innovating across a wide spectrum of software fields"

Could you please provide one example of Microsoft innovation to support this claim?

StevenHodson · 1 year ago

Surface, Photosyth, DeepZoom, Worldwide Telescope (http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/Home.aspx) and then there is the Microsoft Research site http://research.microsoft.com/ .. This is a company that spends currently $7 billion on research and development and it isn't just to come up with fluffy toilet paper

Justin Mayer · 1 year ago

Okay, now try again with an actual shipping product that I can go out and buy today.

Justin Mayer · 1 year ago

The simple fact of the matter is that Microsoft -- and nobody else -- is the reason why the company is not well-liked. Ballmer and his crew have only themselves to blame. Not that we needed any more evidence of this, but this article is about as representative as it gets:

http://weblog.infoworld.com/robertxcringely/arc...

Icodeforthelord · 1 year ago

"Microsoft is all about delivering software that works for anyone that wants to use it"

That's a good one.

iMSick · 1 year ago

I am the most uncool there then, becuase i like you have been there in the ups and the downs. And some stuff sucked and some stuff was half baked. I will tell you that MS has more than turned things around. The last round of tools, widgets and such are stellar, smooth and functional. I might add easy on the eyes too. I think chrome is a dud, not that exciting. I guess if your some social fruit cake that needs to visit and update 25 sites an hour to feel like they belong somewhere then I guess chromes hot feature would be the sh$t.

Micro$oft is marching right on past the twits.