[mdlug] Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

[Aaron Kulkis]

Even Bill Gates hates Windows and Microsoft's inept system management.





<http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/141821.asp>

Interesting comments:

#143016
Posted by unregistered user at 6/24/08 2:46 p.m.

The fact that his rant was emailed in early 2003 and the
company has continued to make these same mistakes over and
over since then is a great indicator of the direction
Microsoft is headed: obsolescence. Yes, Microsoft keeps
raking in the billions, but not for much longer.

#143263
Posted by unregistered user at 6/25/08 2:55 a.m.

And still Windoze people claim Mac users are zealots
or fanboys.

Oh, it's now fashionable to sidestep the mac vs pc debate
by claiming you can do everything you normally do on
Ubuntu or another brand of linux. Yeah, right.

If the founder of the company can't even get a simple
program to work, it's pretty much proof that your
software sucks.

#143363
Posted by unregistered user at 6/25/08 7:46 a.m.

I agree that this was a great email to see. It was fair
and almost kind, considering the hassle Bill had to go
through.

When I worked at MS, the gripe shared by most was that
folks were rewarded for promoting the new... features,
services, whatever. The day-to-day housekeepers were
often not, so... small surprise that usability and
other "customer service" types of issues were often
deemed not important enough to waste time -- or
money -- on.

	[No wonder mechanisms which are originally
	implemented in a sub-standard way never
	improve.! --ARK]

Not everyone can or wants to be a rock star. MS still
needs to understand the value of doing an excellent
job of making it easy to access thier products --
better search, better DL experiences, don't let
developers write error messages, no matter how late
it is in the ship cycle, etc. And value the folks
who do a great job "maintaining," even while in the
midst of endless re-orgs and inexperienced managers.
These people care, and the folks who buy MS products,
appreciate their diligence.


#143421
Posted by unregistered user at 6/25/08 9:36 a.m.

A fascinating look into the mind of Bill Gates.
He's just like the rest of us, trying to install
something from online, and annoyed by having
to jump through hoops. I wonder when this was
received how it was dealt with. Bill knows the
monster he created is larger than himself. All
he can do is hang on and enjoy the ride.
Wheeeeee!!!


#143426
Posted by unregistered user at 6/25/08 9:41 a.m.

And people say that linux is "too complicated"
for the end user. Uncle Bill, what about
"apt-get install «place-software-name-here»"?
No.... that's just too complicated for the
end user...

#143427

Posted by Slarjnor at 6/25/08 9:43 a.m.

This is the problem:

 ....

This is the telemere of human organizations;
it is what causes organizational aging and
vulnerability to disruptive startups.
Microsoft has become IBM.

#143481

Posted by Craig R. at 6/25/08 11:41 a.m.

(1) the part of the e-mail that provided a
"priceless" moment for me, was the admission
on the part of a designer that "using the
download page to download something was
not something they anticipated"


#143552
Posted by unregistered user at 6/25/08 2:08 p.m.

You people are missing the point.

Gates should have been in on the design and
development of these products (website, components
needed, MovieMaker app) as they were being made.
He should not just assume all this stuff is out
there and leave all the implementation to the
staff.

Steve Jobs would have had meetings with all of
the heads of the departments concerned, and
reviewed it all himself with them, and then
checked it out himself AS IT WAS BEING DEVELOPED.
He would have caught all this stuff before it
got out of alpha.

This type of thing happens when there is no one
in charge. Or when the guy who is in charge
(Gates) has never seen this procedure throughout
its entire development cycle. It's unbelievable.

You can bet that when Jobs tells the guys that
he needs iTunes to activate an iPhone with AT&T,
he not only reviews the initial design but asks
a million questions, checks it out for himself,
and then tells them what works and what doesn't,
and what needs to change. Then he does the same
thing with the next revision and this goes on
over and over until he is satisfied with it.

Jobs would never just tell them to implement the
feature and then depend solely on them telling
him it was implemented.

#143596

Posted by unregistered user at 6/25/08 3:17 p.m.

These two comments are the problem:

"Actually, this e-mail is brilliant. I am happy
to see that he gets it."

and

Gates says "There's not a day that I don't send
a piece of e-mail ... like that piece of e-mail.
That's my job."

Both of them seem to imply that this type of
thing hasn't been a problem for the last decade
and a half. What does he mean "why do I have to
restart?!!" Has he been using Windows in the
past 10 years or has he been secretly using a
Mac or Linux? Those are the kinds of questions
non-Windows users ask. Most Windows users are
used to these annoyances as a part of running
a computer and don't even know that there are
operating systems that don't require a restart
just because you installed an application.