okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well …

Everyone wants to talk about how Bill Gates didn’t invent anything and even bring into question whether or not he even made computing any better. There are some clear reasons why, regardless of what you think about Microsoft, you have to respect their hustle.

They made computing more accessible to everyone.

Listen I was that nerd that was as interested in programming in Basic, then C++ like everyone else.  Microsoft dumbed it down, way down; trying to reverse engineer programming through Visual Basic which was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with C++.  Granted most of us should have paid more attention to C++ because we could navigate Linux a lot better now and wouldn’t be crying in fourms about how we can’t get this or that to work. But Unix, and the programming languages that run on that OS and constitute it’s equivalent to Windows Registry, was never intended for the layman.

With Visual Basic and the associated Windows components people could create and develop programs a lot easier than they could with other languages.  Sure it was bloated, inflated code, and you didn’t really have to get your hands dirty if you didn’t want to, but it got you in that front door.  I hated programming on old computers where Basic was in the motherboard on ROM and didn’t really care to learn CP/M either.  Of course I haven’t programmed in years, but I can see where Windows may have been someone’s first exposure to software development.

The other part about the accessibility factor; Windows thoroughly knocked off their computers in the productivity genre of software.  Simply put Word Perfect, Lotus 1 2 3 and Netscape Navigator were interesting products, but there was no integration.  Looking back on it that was a very good thing but the way that Microsoft idiot proofed productivity apps revolutionized computing for many.  There are still doctors offices and small businesses using what can be described at best as a rudimentary solution to their IT needs through Excel and Access, as weak as those Apps are.  In the nineties knowing either software gauranteed you a job making at least $15 an hour, though those days have since passed us.

It (Windows) encouraged PC gaming, which was in it’s dark ages at the time.

Before game developers took to Windows they had to write for individual machines through independent platforms.  Sure geeks would still fire up the Amiga 2000 to play a game with rudimentary 16 bit graphics and your grandmother knew how to work a Commodore 64 but there was little gaurantee if you had an obscure system, like a Timex Sinclair, that you could find a game.  These days people are writing their own games at home and putting them out there for sport.  You do see some of that going on in the Linux community but I think that Windows was the first real platform to open up computing and remove it from the “well the Commodore 64 is a great gaming machine but not really good for productivity” type of mentality.

They idiot proofed website development and server administration.

Any idiot could use Front Page when it popular to create a website and then serve it from a cheap PC running the precursor to IIS.  In fact when it came to actually running a server many swore by their server OS, despite the fact that there was always a better answer to be found in Novell.  NT 4.0 was the final nail in the coffin, though they were smart enough to realign themselves in Novell as that company moved towards Linux.  People hate Novell for their business agreements with Microsoft though, but until either finds a way to really monetize open source it is what it is. 

They built a rabid fanbase that helps to continue their legacy and attempts to provide an alternate viewpoint on anti-Microsoft discourse.

Yeah  I don’t necessarily agree with it either.  But when you take someone who has invested decades of their hard earned time and money into Windows, and then tell them they know absolutely nothing because they can administer Windows Server but cannot navigate around Linux I can see where they take it personal.  Back in the day you obtained that certification, you were making a good $20 an hour and things have looked up since then.  Now someone comes in the gate with a free OS, you do not have to be certified to find a job running it and virtually every “consumer” variety of Linux can just as easily be ran as a server.  There is no real differentiation; which is the way that it always should have been. 

Microsoft has some obvious flaws though.  First off they spend entirely too much time and money researching ways to get into the newest variants of computing they almost miss the boat.  They were lucky with Netscape; that company tried desperately to tie everything into what was becoming a bloated browser that didn’t always render pages correctly, if it did at all.  A lot of newbies started optimizing their websites for Internet Explorer, though it was a horrendous product until version 5.0.  To make matters worse Firefox stole what little thunder Netscape would have trying to return to the market, taking most of their installed base and aligning themselves up with Google.

Microsoft is trying to get into cloud computing, technically too late, but early enough as laymen still do not really realize the portability and accessibility to data that it offers.  They are getting into virtualization too late, though if they dumb it down enough end users may want to use it instead of just techies.  They missed the boat on the iPhone, though they already had surface computing.  Furthermore, Zune is a closed enough platform with respect to DRM that no one is adopting it (you would think they had of learned their lesson with Plays for Sure) and the Xbox is still a shell of a gaming system, not because of the technology but because of the mediocre line up of titles of which Playstation is still eating it’s lunch.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer are businessmen, no more, no less.  Bill may have been slow to adapt the latest ideas, but he always enough cash in the bank that he could afford to take his time figuring out how best to do so.  You can’t say that about a lot of the smaller startups that Microsoft and Apple have acquired over the years. 

They screwed up on Vista.  On paper there were some truly revolutionary ideas but in action it leaves a lot to be desired.  Earlier I mentioned using a USB drive to extend your memory virtually.  That works until you have a few different software packages running on your computer.  I ran and installed Expressions, their Web app.  It’s like 400 MB, far larger than other development tools yet surprisingly only has what you need, unlike Office. 

Microsoft has to stop over promising and under delivering.  Had they not been as ambitious as they were with Vista and simply focused on one of a few issues, like security and making the Aero interface less memory consuming, it could have been a hit.  I could go back to XP, but that sucked as well and it’s eight years old.  It is okay for consumers to digress but if you’re into technology you are supposed to move on.  You learn how to make it work; you are supposed to know a little bit more than the person you are trying to assist over the phone. 

The primary advantage Microsoft has in the marketplace is the same that they have always enjoyed.  Your average person doesn’t want to know that much about computing, isn’t a geek or hobbyist and is content with something that “just works”, regardless of what it costs.  That isn’t just computing, that goes across the board; Americans wear plain clothing, why do you think denim and khakis are omnipresent, there are other choices but they require you to think.  We want dumbed down automobiles, which is what kept Ford and GM strong for decades, and is why cheap Japanese cars are so popular.  We want dumbed down television programming, Internet video, music, pop culture.

It doesn’t dawn on the average person, that they could learn about computing by trying out something other than Windows, and perhaps make a try of it actually working in the field instead of abusing their systems to play solitaire and browse the ‘net.  Again, in a culture where you can earn enough money knowing how to navigate around Access or Excel not to have to stress about the bills you get complacent, and you are relying on the latest iteration of Windows to take you forward.

That’s a huge part of the argument people really have against Vista, if you really look at it.  Computers are always running bloated software that hogs up resources, that is the nature of the beast.  We just figured that MIcrosoft would create yet another idiot proof operating system; in some ways they did, but in others they sort of screwed themselves because the stuff that it was supposed to idiot proof the most, consumed the most memory and caused the most heartache. 

You can’t tell someone that only knows Windows or Macintosh to suck it up and buy more memory, or to turn off Aero, or any other number of tweaks to make Vista run smoothly.  Techs will do that while the software is still in beta, but end users will simply move on.  These days everyone is moving to Mac looking for the ease of use they thought they would have with Windows.  They’re okay with that at first until they realize that outside of what is already included, they may be hard pressed to find third party apps.  If they want to go under the hood they can’t do as easily as they could with Windows.  Linux on the other hand, opens up the entire OS for fun and games but can be overwhelming.  You can break almost anything and everything if you’re naive, particularly if you want to divert from the beaten path and try to install something that isn’t really supported or hasn’t been thoroughly tested first.

Microsoft will have to move beyond their legacy, which was toy apps for people with heavy word processing needs and offer some real solutions for consumers that want to do more than just create macros.  That was fine 20 years ago when that was all that people really wanted to do, but now your 5 year old is doing that and wants to move on.  Microsoft took a lot of people oh so far, and then sort of left them there to fend for themselves.  The vitriolic response to Vista is a testament to that type of abberation and neglect, particularly the way they punish people through their liscensing agreements.

Now the country has devolved to giving away XP in order to combat Linux, for like $30 or less.  They did the same in China years ago having realized that they can do little to battle piracy there.  It’s time to move on, hopefully Microsoft will before everyone else does …