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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

One has to wonder how the reaction would differ if the headline said "Pivot (from Google)"

At least, Google's thing would work when I clicked the link. For this one I have to install some latest Microsoft browser-disruption technology.

I even had Silverlight installed (version 2.0), but I needed to upgrade to 3.0, by downloading Silverlight.exe, going through a traditional installer, restarting the browser only to find out that it's only a boring marketing video with talking heads.

I expected that I could at least try out some demo online.

Do you have a Flash player installed? If so, what's the difference between Adobe's browser-disruption technology and Microsoft's?

I'd agree that content requiring either is almost universally annoying, but at some point you have to compromise if you want to investigate something that may be worthwhile/interesting/worth ridiculing.

It's not just Silverlight - I installed that, then tried to access the demo URLs and was told I needed to install Pivot as well. Which isn't available for the Mac.

http://content.getpivot.com/Collections/dogbreeds/dogbreeds....

Why would expect it to be available for the ma?. The headline clearly said its from Microsoft.

are you aware that word, excel, powerpoint, and yes, even silverlight are all available for the mac?

Although you are right, they are, they almost certainly weren't when they first came out.

Excel, the first GUI-based Word and Powerpoint were out for the Mac first in mid-to-late 1980's. Windows wasn't ready for them. Multiplan and the original Word were DOS apps.

I know it's irrelevant to this Post, just a historical note. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PowerPoint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word

yep. it's hard to believe now, but microsoft was one of the early champions of the mac. i don't know if it's still true, but at one time, microsoft's macbu employed more mac programmers than apple itself.

Oh wow, thanks. I had no idea.

I had it, but you reminded me to uninstall it (thanks!). I only used it rarely (Google Analytics charts and non-YouTube flash videos), and most of the time it was blocked by ClickToFlash.

There's no difference except that Mac OS X already comes with Flash.

Yeah, right, that Twitter Go example that you did -- you didn't have to download and install Google Go or read its documentation to get started. So much for "google's thing would work when I click the link"...

Talk about biased.

First off, thanks for remembering that I wrote that tiny Go thing -- I didn't expect it :)

So much for "google's thing would work when I click the link"

The difference is that Go didn't supposed to work in browser -- it's a compiler, desktop software, so I downloaded it. It didn't install any plugins for my browser. I don't like browser plugins.

His twitter go example wasn't supposed to run in the browser.

My point is that for stuff coming from G or A people here are ready to walk an extra mile. If stuff is coming from M -- that's it, end of journey right on the headline.

you're aware that most of us didn't get that bias by accident, right? microsoft has a long, LONG history of being not a good company to rely on or work with. therefore, anything coming from them has to be especially compelling before people here are going to get excited about it.

I'd say Microsoft's history is quite the opposite. The oft cited example is that Visicalc, from the 80's still works! I'd say that's a pretty reliable platform. How many apple products from the 80's run on Leopard?

And on the other side, lots of google products are already defunct and they aren't even half M's age.

You define "reliable" as "can run Visicalc". I am not sure this is a good one.

For me, reliable is "works every time the way I expect it to work". According to this, Windows is pretty reliable. The trick is in my expectations.

how about asking the guys at stac electronics how reliable they think windows is! that's the kind of thing i'm talking about.

Oh, please. It's not A that have completely unpredictable app store approval process, or not G that may release a free version of your beloved startup anytime they feel the urge to get more eyeballs for their properties. It's definitely more reliable than M, yeah.

It's the end of journey when you see that you have to disrupt the stability of one of your primary tools (browser) (and then learn that it doesn't work on your OS).

And yes, I hate Silverlight.

Have you tried it to make a conclusion that it will disrupt something? No, you just "hate" it. That's plain old bias.

PS. It's actually funny to see that kind of bias coming from the person who's getting (or at least WAS getting) most of their income from M's platform. ;)

Have you tried it to make a conclusion that it will disrupt something? No, you just "hate" it. That's plain old bias.

Yes, I had it installed for some time. I don't remember the exact problems I had with it, but there were problems.

As for bias, I think I have the normal level of it wrt Microsoft. Everyone have it. (Oh, and you should note that I competed with MS. Add this to your bias-detector.)

Anyway, why we're discussing me and my bias? Re-read my original post. Any objections? State them, and please exclude me from the picture, and stop trolling.

We're discussing bias because it's always the case whenever someone's new stuff is being discussed on HN: it's very interesting to see how people's opinion changes by mere knowledge of where that new stuff is coming from.

I had a similar thought. Once I saw that it required Silverlight there was no point in learning more.

Thank you for sharing your well-researched insightful opinion that clearly reflects many decades of experience in the industry. It's exactly for comments like this I come to Hacker News every day, I feel like I learn new things all the time.

(Sorry for the rant)

Taking issue with the requirements is a perfectly legitimate technical complaint and you see lots of people complain when some new web application is flash-only.

There's some hyper-sensitivity going on here today.

Hyper-reactions are always telling. My bet is that these people feel somewhat threatened. The fact some Microsoft users and enthusiasts feel that way here is, itself, very interesting.

Microsoft doesn't give two shits about emerging web standards or cross-platform compatibility. it's like they have their fingers in their collective ears going "LA LA LA I can't hear you"

Or "Pivot (from Apple)" then everyone would start freaking out.

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