Mish Middelmann
‘To hell with having our cake and eating it,” Microsoft seems to be saying, “we want the whole damn bakery!” Two weeks ago, Reality Bytes said Microsoft products were declining in quality, while the company begins to undermine its own flagship of universal compatibility.
But neither Microsoft nor Bill Gates are stupid or short-sighted. Why lower the value supplied to customers? I believe the company is battling with a crisis of expectation among shareholders, customers and the world at large.
* In spite of warnings to the contrary, investors want Microsoft’s extraordinary growth and profits to go on for ever.
Software never used to be sold once-off. In the old mainframe days, you paid annual software licence fees to pay a development team to fix bugs and make upgrades without worrying about next month’s salary. Nowadays, we buy software off the shelf. To keep revenue flowing, companies like Microsoft need us to buy new versions every year. Changed file formats and reduced conversion options push us to upgrade.
* Benevolent dictatorship is quite attractive. A single standard software package for each job – almost everyone I know would love it. If only one could buy computers as one buys VCRs – mainly on price, and a hunch about the brand name. It’s as if consumers are asking Microsoft to rule the software world. We’d love it if everyone used Microsoft Office! An end to cross-training and file conversion hassles, and when you had a technical problem Microsoft couldn’t say: “Ah, but we’re not responsible for making it work with Novell,” (or Corel, or whatever).
* Gates and Microsoft are popular icons, especially in the United States. The symbolism of a geek who makes good is something people need to believe in to keep going in their own particular struggles. So we feed the dream of Microsoft’s unending growth.
I think Microsoft is a victim of its own success. It can’t pretend to be the little guy tilting at monolithic mainframe empires anymore, even though Gates’s latest address to the US Senate still pushes those emotional buttons. Its staff are bound to shift their focus from Gates’s original vision of “building great software” to defending their empire. Its global support operation is bound to begin tightening the screws, making it harder to get support, given the unprecedented number of users. And its financial rulers are bound to demand new releases, touted as upgrades, to keep tills ringing.
Will the bubble burst? Can ordinary consumers do anything to resist a new monolithic uniformity in the software world?
There are no credible alternatives visible, like countries where a strong ruler becomes a virtual dictator. It’s either war in the streets or go with the flow. Fighting the good fight, you could join Linux zealots, or buy a Mac from Apple while the company tries to self-destruct, but you will be swimming against a tide that is increasingly dominated by Microsoft. Going with the flow? Moderately comfortable, but declining quality from an overconfident supplier could give a bumpy ride.
My advice: stand up for standards. Buy the best product. If it happens to be Microsoft, stand up for your rights. Make a fuss if it won’t read WordPro files, or the footnotes go wrong. Keep the juggernaut dancing.
— Mish Middleman is a director of Praxis Computing. You can hear his computer show on Radio 702 and Cape Talk Radio every second Thursday at 7pm