Comment by antonpug | Hacker News Reader

Comment by antonpug | Hacker News Reader

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I am probably the least biased person when it comes to technology - I love Apple's hardware and software, I hate Apple maps and iTunes, but I love Google Maps and I hate Google Search. I like Bing as my search engine - Bing is nice, I'll give Microsoft that.

Most other products, historically are crap. Microsoft always half-asses things and comes up with products that are irrelevant to the end user. Windows 8? I'd say it's a failure of epic proportions. Microsoft doesn't seem to care about the user experience - I always get a feeling that someone at Microsoft was thinking "Oh, we are getting stale, so we need to do something new - let's come up with this entirely new UI, but we're not really going to put any thought into how it is designed, and we are definitely not going to pay attention to detail".

In OS terms, Windows was always ages behind OS X and Linux IMO - but at least Windows 7 was "perfected", or as close to "perfected" as Microsoft can get. Ever since I switched to OS X, I have not used Windows willingly, and that's 3 years.

Sorry, I'm a little confused as to how you think Microsoft has historically made products that are "irrelevant to the end user", when Microsoft powers the majority of computing activity worldwide and has for more 20 years.

What it feels like you may instead be trying to say is "I don't like Windows 8 and think Linux/OS X are better", which is certainly a valid opinion statement. I wouldn't, however, labor under the misunderstanding that Microsoft doesn't care about users - hyperbole aside, do you actually think that of a company of about 100K people doesn't care about other people?

If you've ever worked on a big tech product, you know that agonizing amounts of attention are spent worrying about even the smallest details. Ultimately, that might mean that we don't always make the best possible decision, but I think it would be tough to say that Microsoft "half-assed" much.

It makes sense that you don't like the product; not everyone does. But it seems foolish to equate your dislike with a) it being objectively bad, b) it being half-assed, c) it being irrelevant (particularly when it plays a huge role in the world), or d) that the people creating it don't care about it or you. Indeed, d) is particularly important - isn't it grand that you live in a tech world where someone like me, who works at Microsoft, cares about your thoughts and feelings, even though you don't use Windows?

Microsoft (and many other companies) don't just care about the people who use our products...we also care about the people who don't.

The market share of Microsoft in the desktop computing business in no way represents any kind of quality. Nor does it in any way mean that your users like your product. If I look around me in any office, I see people constantly fighting their computers as a result of the worst user experience on the planet.

The main reason for Microsoft's market share is a historical one: They partnered with IBM in the 80s, then PCs (IBM compatibles) became the de facto standard.

Add to this the abuse to the progression of the Web that is Internet Explorer. As many of the HN readers are web developers, well, do the math.

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