I agree that buying Yahoo probably wouldn't work out as Microsoft hopes. The interesting thing to me is that their mistake here derives from their "evil" nature.
Microsoft looks at Google and thinks: "These guys are a threat, so we have to get into their business. Google's business is advertising, so we have to get better at that." But the source of Google's power is not what they deliver to advertisers; it's what they deliver to users. Advertising is just how they monetize it. But because treating users well is so alien to Microsoft, they can't grasp something like that.
True. When we launched our email service, the only users we had complaints from about emails not being delivered, were hotmail users. As it turns out, Microsoft's SMTP servers were simply dropping all messages from our servers, without giving us an error code - they would respond with "Message is accepted for delivery" and silently discard it.
As it turns out, we had to custom-register our SMTP server with hotmail administrators. It took us about 20 emails back-and-fro and about two weeks, but they finally started accepting our messages.
Not only this violates SMTP standard, it also demonstrates their "f'ck you all, Internet" attitude: they are saving on spam filtering at expense of everybody else: their users, our users, etc.
Likewise, I think Microsoft's perception that they need to get into Search and Advertising via Yahoo! just goes to show they have swallowed the Google Kool-aid (the desktop is dead and all growth is on the net). Google should consider that a victory right there.
I think Microsoft should try to change the game rather than beat Google on it's home turf. Surely if it focused on technical excellence for once and stopped following everyone else around, it could probably leverage it's desktop dominance into something. Of course, Microsoft has never been apt to do that.
I don't see the big deal with Microsoft trying to stretch like this when it can't even get its operating system or office suite right. Has anyone seen Office 07? I feel like I'm drowning every time I use it. Default font is arial 10pt instead of Times New Roman 12. What happened? And Vista...lets not even go there.
What happened to Windows being good at what it does? It feels like its overextending on every front. Windows = Next GE?
Did you just complain about the default font size in a word processing app? Really, you can dig deeper than that next time you want to criticize Microsoft.
No but its just one of the pesky things that shouldn't be. Most people are typing things on word that are formal or formal-like. Meaning, they want TNR font, pt 12, and perhaps 1 inch margins double spaced. Of course, Microsoft wouldn't know that because rather than listening to users they're trying to buy yahoo to expand their horizons.
I'm not really trying to criticize microsoft, I just felt that I should point out that Microsoft seems to be overreaching in terms of the things its trying to do and pushing "ahead" when many aren't really ready or willing to deal with the changes they make. Are they listening to their customers anymore or are they simply assuming that people will use their stuff because thats all they know to use?
Seems to me its the latter, and that they're going ahead to be a jack-of-all-trades instead of doing what they do well.
You misunderstand Microsoft. They listen to their customers probably more than any other software company I know. Unfortunately, they have way more customers than any other software company I know. Hence the feature creep. They'll pretty much add anything people ask for (especially if people = big companies paying $75/Office seat). The definition of "what they do well" is Office, and in particular the fact that it's a jack of all trades, and a master of most.
As for the default font, I believe it's actually Calibri, which is a great sans serif font. Personal preference will dictate whether it's appropriate for your uses, but that's why it's a dropdown menu and not a hardcoded value. If I had to guess why they left Times New Roman, I would guess because based on their collected statistics more people use sans serif fonts, or maybe just that it's more readable. Also, TNR is pretty ugly.
Yeah you're right...that makes sense. But how would they collect statistics on whether people use sans serif fonts more? Because at a glance, it seems serif is used more. Students, teachers, professors and professional people who use office need formality, thus serif seems to be the obvious answer...
At any rate, yeah I guess it makes sense to me now. I still maintain that I feel like I'm drowning in the new interface for office though. Thanks for the insight.
Quite frankly I have a distaste for advertising in general. Google has taken that dislike and made advertising as unobtrusive as possible, if I feel clicking a link then great. Whatever happened to paying for something you like, these business models seem to always resonate with me. I think the article is spot on, let google play with advertising move on from the ad game, its over, maybe .... maybe facebook has chance to provide advertisers with something different in terms of ads and thats HUGE maybe
Microsoft looks at Google and thinks: "These guys are a threat, so we have to get into their business. Google's business is advertising, so we have to get better at that." But the source of Google's power is not what they deliver to advertisers; it's what they deliver to users. Advertising is just how they monetize it. But because treating users well is so alien to Microsoft, they can't grasp something like that.