03-22-2002, 02:24 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Politics or bugs behind Microsoft exec massacre?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/24531.html
The author of this article must be a butcher in his day job, because the way he swings the meat cleaver around in this article makes me think he must practice a lot. I think the title of the article should have been "Andrew Orlowski job shadows for a day and steals some time at the keyboard".
The Register is the most blindly hateful anti-Microsoft web rag I've seen. Quite often I like reading their stuff because most of their writers have a wicked sense of humour, but I know some of what's going on inside the Mobile Devices group at Microsoft and Orlowski couldn't be more wrong. Someone is feeding him information - someone who THINKS they know what's going on, the result is a comical attempt at "reporting". Tsk tsk. Dumpster diving is so degrading isn't it?
I'll be the first to admit that the 2002 release has more than a few bugs, but if Orlowski things any software release is bug free, he should go back to chopping veal for a living.
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03-22-2002, 02:49 AM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 7
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Their logo is a buzzard for a reason. :?
"Look! A BUG! Shoot to kill, men! :twisted:"
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03-22-2002, 03:06 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 53
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This is the same rag that...
...reported that Derek was "replaced by new "mobility marketing" chief Nicole Papineau." Now Nicole is a nice person, and very capable, and she brought stickers to my user group meeting when Beth couldn't come...but she just started with Mobility about six weeks ago and she is an a-dasher (contract employee)...not chief of "mobility marketing," as the article says.
At The Register, I think they hate before they think.
Not very accurate reporting, I agree!
__________________
Jeff McKean
Marketing Manager
Mobile Devices Division
Microsoft
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03-22-2002, 03:33 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 26
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Well the Pocket PC 2002 release in October has proved extremely buggy and could be a candidate for the flakiest software to come out of Redmond since DOS 4.0,
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While I agree that the Register is an extreme biased publication I kind of have to agree with the statement above.... I am growing to hate PPC 2002 a littler more each day.
Frank
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03-22-2002, 04:08 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 168
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Wow. Had no idea there was that much WRONG with the PPC OS. MS had better get these fixed or they will simply NOT be taken seriously.
The big question for MS is:
1. Do you REALLY want PPC to be a success?
2. Do you REALLY want to do this platform right?
3. Do you REALLY want to compete against Palm?
If the answer is YES then do these things:
1. Get the Office suite up to par with AT LEAST what Palm has to offer. What's up with no tables, etc.?!
2. Get Outlook working MUCH BETTER. Look at Datebook 4 and make something happen. Better yet, buy or hire the company making Pocket Informant, fund it WELL and make things happen. PIM isn't something you can ignore.
3. Get the misc. bugs out -- TEST the product EXTENSIVLEY before releasing the OS. Bugs happen, so get on top of them as they arise QUICKLY. The life of PDAs are short and waiting 6 months before fixing minor problems really does not look like MS gives a crap about the customer.
3. Spend some $$ on promoting your product. Get MINIMAL product displays in the store -- perhaps a demo, hooked up to some GOOD computer speakers which shows all the features of the PPC? Audio is something PPC doesn't really emphasize simply sitting on the shelf next to a mute m515.
4. Get the poor shmucks at the PPC division the manpower/funds they need to do a good job. Either they are underfunded, under manned, or simply not good at their job. I think it's more likely the first two rather than the third.
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03-22-2002, 04:20 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 200
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Originally Posted by Take1
1. Get the Office suite up to par with AT LEAST what Palm has to offer. What's up with no tables, etc.?!
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Mentioned over and over again to Microsoft by the MVPs at the last MVP Summit (where we sat down with the dev teams). Better round-tripping was at the top of the list.
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Originally Posted by Take1
2. Get Outlook working MUCH BETTER. Look at Datebook 4 and make something happen. Better yet, buy or hire the company making Pocket Informant, fund it WELL and make things happen. PIM isn't something you can ignore.
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Why not leave the PIM applications relatively basic and easy to use, and allow power-users to use the power applications such as PocketInformant? Sure, Contacts, Tasks, and the like can be improved, but Datebk4 isn't part of the Palm OS.
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Originally Posted by Take1
3. Get the misc. bugs out -- TEST the product EXTENSIVLEY before releasing the OS. Bugs happen, so get on top of them as they arise QUICKLY. The life of PDAs are short and waiting 6 months before fixing minor problems really does not look like MS gives a crap about the customer.
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Mentioned to Microsoft.
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Originally Posted by Take1
3. Spend some $$ on promoting your product. Get MINIMAL product displays in the store -- perhaps a demo, hooked up to some GOOD computer speakers which shows all the features of the PPC? Audio is something PPC doesn't really emphasize simply sitting on the shelf next to a mute m515.
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Microsoft has spent a ton of money on promoting the Pocket PC. Did you miss the Mobile Experience Tour last summer? Microsoft went around the country offering seminars on enterprise mobile usage to corporations, holding FanFests for the current Pocket PC users, and demoing the Pocket PCs at CompUSA's. They stopped at something like 10-15 major cities, including LA, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, and New York. I drove down from Ontario, Canada to hit the one in Boston (10hr drive), and it was a blast!
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Originally Posted by Take1
4. Get the poor shmucks at the PPC division the manpower/funds they need to do a good job. Either they are underfunded, under manned, or simply not good at their job. I think it's more likely the first two rather than the third.
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They aren't underfunded, they aren't undermanned, and they do do a good job (generally - Connection Mangler excluded, although that was a conceptual nightmare more than a bad implementation). You can't just throw more money at a problem and hire more staff to make the problems go away: Software Engineering teaches you this. Each time you add someone, they have to come up to speed, which reduces the time of at least one other person to code and work on bugs and product planning. Adding staff is necessary, but if you add too much staff at one time you end up with a management nightmare where nothing ends up getting done.
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03-22-2002, 04:34 AM
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Sage
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 667
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I know their baiting anti-MS tone may be irritating to loyalists, and their conclusions are a bit over the top, but I don't see that their point was all that unreasonable. PPC 2002 is full of bugs and it is a much sloppier effort than was PPC 2000. Just look in your own archives (if they were recovered after the big crash) when someone asked whether they thought PPC 2002 was an improvement over PPC 2000. The results of that thread were decidedly luke-warm for PPC 2002, even though this is an enthusiasts site.
:x I, for one, am tired of the PPC team ignoring the needs of their customers by 1) removing existing valuable features between versions, 2) failing to fix well-known bugs and usability problems, and 3) introducing new bugs and creating new usability problems. Sure, nothing is ever bug-free. But each release should be an improvement and we've been going the other way.
So if this guy wants to 'swing the cleaver' a bit, then I say "good on ya, mate" (as they say down here). :wink: MS doesn't much listen to customers, but they do seem to respond somewhat to the perceptions of the press. Maybe it will help us to get genuine improvements in the next version.
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03-22-2002, 05:12 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 37
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Yes, The Emperor Has No Clothes
Quote:
While I agree that the Register is an extreme biased publication I kind of have to agree with the statement above.... I am growing to hate PPC 2002 a littler more each day.
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I agree 100%. I am a PPC power user, but the more I use mine, the more I realize it is just a toy. Worse, I realize that MS intends to keep it that way.
I'm eyeing the Sharp (Linux) Zaurus. A friend of mine just got his, and the second day he had it, he said he was going to install a server and get Java Servlets running on it. I told him I would be happy if I could get Javascript to run in PIE on my PPC.
-Will
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03-22-2002, 05:34 AM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 100
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I gotta go with the Register with this one - and my thoughts are very similar to Rob Alexander's... PPC2002 is half-baked (if that at all) - there are very few REAL improvements with core functionality. The things PPC2000 users complained MOST about were not really given much notice - it was almost as if MS needed a new OS to launch the 2002 platform, be damned with what people wanted to be done. Customers should never be sacrificed for a new product (MS's "too hell" attitude with their existing customer base with Processor streamlining, broken promises with MS Reader, Money, etc).
That said, I'll still hold my final decision on whether or not PPC is a valid decision for myself with .NET - if it is not much more than what PPC2002 was (a cosmetic change), I will move away from MS handhelds altogether (maybe even handhelds altogether, as I do not see anything promising on the market other than the Sharp SL-5000 series PDAs).
Aceze
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03-22-2002, 06:25 AM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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...if only you guys knew the truth. <sigh>
All things happen for a reason. The Pocket PC team is a hard working bunch of individuals, and I think they know they have a lot to accomplish in your eyes. 
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