For the last 3 weeks, I've been using Longhorn and IE7 on my desktop at work, and it's been KILLING me not being able to talk (or blog) about any of it.
But now, you too can see Longhorn and IE7, because Robert Scoble just posted a new video with a couple really sweet demos over at Channel 9.
Yay. One thing less to bite my tongue on. (Sidenote: This morning I went to a sweeeet demo of Xbox 360. My jaw, and the jaws of about 1500 of my coworkers, were on the floor. All I can say is that it's certainly going to be a fun holiday season this year. I took a picture of the only thing I was allowed to.)
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3 comments:
Interesting.
When Firefox or Google create a clean, simple, intuitive interface, they draw praise. When Microsoft does it, they get criticized for lack of innovation. ;-)
If Microsoft goes off and decides to put the search box in a different location than the user is now used to, or creates their own unfamiliar RSS logo, they draw criticism. If they use the same layouts and logos that users are accustomed to, they draw criticism too.
Seems to me Microsoft finds itself between a rock and a hard place.
Hopefully, the "under the hood" innovation (like the application independent syndication store shown in the demo, along with the gazillions of other additions) will be recognized when IE7 and Longhorn ship.
I'll be honest, my first reaction to playing with the early builds of both products were similar to your reaction to the IE7 screenshots. But after spending 4 months playing with components like Avalon, I quickly realized that innovation in these products isn't about adding 200 widgets and new UIs, it's about providing truly unmatched platform capabilities.
So, we'll see what happens. I'm certainly eager to read some of the first reviews when they hit the streets, but I also have a feeling that it's going to take a lot longer before individuals, developers, and businesses realize the full potential of these products. It's a lot easier to harp on a simplified UI than to gain understanding and harness the power of a new security architecture and other, less visible but certainly innovative improvements.
I also think we'll see some different responses from different market segments. The average geeky, powerbook carrying, power user doesn't care about how manageable the operating system is for a large enterprise organization - and there's a whole bunch of innovation in such areas that you won't capture in a screenshot and that you're never gonna read about on the cover article of Wired.
Spoken like a true Apple employee. ;-)
Mike, I believe Microsoft's products express the glory and power of innovation -- as do Apple's, as do Google's, and as do products of the open source community.
I believe that the satisfaction of their customers easily speaks to the quality and utility of their products -- as much, or more so, than the wow factor of a screenshot or the words in this blog post.
I don't believe that Microsoft only innovates to 'mitigate the threat' from company X, Y, or Z, or protect an existing revenue stream. Microsoft Research is always working on, and openly publishing on, amazing new innovations, which often get brought into existing or future products. Where are Apple Research, or Google Research? I think Microsoft's made amazing innovations in so many areas ranging from Media Center to IPTV to Xbox Live to mobile devices and the list really does go on and on. And these are only a few of the areas that might happen to interest us tech-savvy consumers.
I don't think it's fair to claim that there's anything wrong with Microsoft entering existing markets. Google did not create the first engines, or their market(s). Apple did not create the first digital music player, or create their market either. It's okay for a company to enter an existing market, and out-innovate the competition. In fact, I'd argue it's a good thing -- whether it's Microsoft doing the out-innovating or Microsoft being out-innovated.
Microsoft likes to play the victim.
Microsoft does whatever it is they want to do, and the moment anyone criticizes what they do, they say something like "Well our customers haven't asked for that feature, so we're not putting it in" as far as standards support goes. Well, I remember asking for a stable Operating System that didn't get slower after every revision but I got that. I remember hoping to get a good firewall without any bias towards spyware, and didn't get that. The list can go on and on. Microsoft will do what they want to do, and whenever anyone say anything, "Well thats not what our customers asked for". Well, since when have they done anything their customers asked for. I don't remember asking for a new way to encrypt video from my video card to my display, or Palladium, or for a yellow talking dog in the search window, or moronic sentence based links for functions because Microsoft can't figure out an intuitive way to let someone create a folder, or rename something, but those things came anyway. The only reason why IE7 is in beta now, is because Firefox did so well in it's first week.
But hey, you are right. Microsoft does innovate. I just hope that when they do finally decide that they want to support something they didn't make, it doesn't come in the form of the sidebar, or a task pane, with a yellow dog leaving yellow spots on the carpet.
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