Frustration at Redmond

Perhaps no industry has better exploited people’s craving for nuance free programming than pro wrestling. Wrestling is a place where the bad guys are always the purest of evil, the good guys are tanned and oiled and all thought can be left at the door as soon as the TV is turned on. The desire for painting with broad strokes doesn’t end at the ring apron, people love to extend the black and white of soap operas to the majority of life. In the technology world Microsoft would be the champion heel: purposely evil, retaining the championship belt only by continuous and blatant cheating. Google would be the crowd pleasing young baby face chasing the evil champion to deliver a plateful of just desserts. Finally Apple would be the throwback choice, the old wrestler that everyone hopes has one more championship run left. Where the similarity between pro wrestling and the tech world ends is with the participants view of themselves. The good guys in wrestling love to be good guys, the bad guys love to be bad guys but in the technology realm Microsoft hates their heel role.

Unfortunately for our friends in Redmond the likelihood of their perceived role changing in the technology world is slim. The first thing that makes a Microsoft redo near impossible is their staggering slice of the market. With over 95% of the computers running Windows people naturally see Microsoft with their only viable computing option. Once that connection is made consumers feel a decided loss of control over the situation and frustration and resentment quickly build up to untenable levels. Those with significant age will remember the days before the AT&T breakup, times when the American Telegraph and Telephone company was referred to ominously as “the phone company.” Everyone hated “the phone company” because you either had to put up with their sub par service, phone rentals and the like or run a string between a few tin cans. In short there will always be a certain level of customer hostility towards any company that completely dominates a market seen as a necessity instead of a luxury.

One nice example of Microsoft being evil no matter what they do is the recent announcement of seven versions of Vista. The different versions actually make some sense and offer consumers a little more choice than they had with Windows XP. Or, rather, they might when more details or known. For example, if Vista Business Edition comes without the ability to run WMP and solitaire a lot of businesses will think that is pretty spiffy improvement (Personal aside: it was once my task to remove all the copies of solitaire from every PC in the plant). Sure those businesses will be acting petty but, and the truth is hard some times, certain employers believe that their employees exist only to slack. If the home editions make ripping movies easy, make managing your diverse digital entertainment content simple that will be a positive boon to home users. Sure one OS is plenty for Apple but with a customer base as large as Microsoft’s it probably makes sense to have more than one operating system. But rather than taking a “wait and deride” attitude until more details were known the first reaction of most people (myself included) was: There goes Microsoft releasing a whole bunch of crap again with the sole purpose of confusing the bejeesus out of consumers.

It would, of course, be the veritable zenith of foolishness to completely exonerate Microsoft from all blame for their poor public image. Take this quote by Steve Ballmer (cleaned up for AppleMatter’s more sensitive readers):

F***ing Eric Schmidt is a f***ing p***y. I’m going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f***ing kill Google.

Here it remains unclear if this outburst was in homage to Khrushchev or if Mr. Ballmer wasn’t creative enough to threaten to rip Mr. Schimdt’s eyes out of his head and then do something unspeakable to the eye sockets. In any event the eruption is a small peep into the mindset of Microsoft’s top brass and that brief look seems to indicate a company more bent on destroying the competition than producing great products. In defense of Mr. Ballmer it must be noted that a quote like the following just wouldn’t have been as forceful:

Darnnit, those Google fellas, aw shucks. Well we’ll just have to give the customers a more compelling solution and win their business with superior products. I’m so confident I am going to short Google stock.

Without either quote there remains a plethora of other examples of Microsoft’s anti competitive behavior.  Thus a good portion of the distrust the public has for Microsoft is deserved.

Now it has already been noted that, in comparison to Microsoft, Google urinates sunshine and Apple expels the purest ambrosia when they evacuate their collective nose. But these impressions are just as slanted as the perception of Microsoft. If Apple ruled the OS universe people wouldn’t think so highly of the Cupertino based designer if for no other reason that Apple has a sincere desire to control the computing experience as much as possible. Which is fine for those going into the Mac world with eyes wide open but for those who desire a little more flexibility in the user experience (you know, you pick the box) it would be a sore burden indeed. If you could only use Google (only G-mail, only Google search, only Google maps etc.) you might also find that a little limiting. In truth a large part of why everybody seems to love Google and Apple is directly related to how much the loathe Microsoft.

The real question in all of this is not just how vile Microsoft is, rather the question is: does it really matter? The answer is, of course, no. It is all well and good for the tech minded to follow and highlight Microsoft’s slimier moves while extolling the virtues of just about any competitor that happens along but, in the end, it makes very little difference. The (possibly sad) truth is that most people just don’t care about computers or technology in any meaningful way. For these folks Microsoft will always be the OS and Explorer will always be the internet. As far as the majority of people are concerned Microsoft could split the corporation into two divisions, physically invade Apple with one division and burn down Google’s headquarters with the other and be instantly forgiven if they only build in a little free virus protection into Vista.