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Peeve Farm
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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Tuesday, May 14, 2002
18:40 - SO sorry to hear that.
http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2065783

(top) link
Mickey Kaus, writing in MSN's Slate, tosses in this little befouling-one's-nest nugget at the end of an otherwise unrelated article:

A few months ago I predicted that Microsoft's introduction of Windows XP would spark the nation's economic recovery because, unlike its predecessors, XP "won't crash." Having now purchased a Windows XP computer, I can say I was wrong, not about the recovery but about XP, at least as evidenced by my machine. It crashes all the time! It crashed, in fact, while I was writing this item. ... How's that?

Well, what did you expect? Microsoft to make good on a promise?

It could just be me, but it seems that the more loudly Microsoft touts some new product and how much global importance they ascribe to it, the more likely it is that it will be a colossal flop. The XBox is writhing in its death-throes. .NET is a laughingstock. Windows 2000 was supposed to be the answer to everybody's fevered Windows prayers, and yet it took almost a year to become fully accepted in the enterprise-- and now Windows XP, far from leaping off store shelves and sailing into the air suspended by wires from the heavens to the strains of Madonna music, has shown "lackluster" sales figures. Once again, the only significant sales are going to be on new computers that come with it; more pundits than ever before, especially the not-so-computer-savvy ones, are saying "My current computer does what I need it to do, and I know how to deal with its idiosyncracies. I'm not about to install some new OS that I'll have to learn how to deal with all over again."

And never mind the people who refuse to upgrade to XP because of all the "activation" stuff and anti-piracy "features" and network chattiness and embedded Microsoft ads, or the fact that IT departments all over the tech industry are refusing to allow XP into their enterprises. And then there's Office XP, which the industry has greeted with a deafening yawn.

While on the other hand, it's the unheralded workhorse products that not only consistently make money for Microsoft, but gain them unqualified praise. Their mice, for example, are top-notch. And the games they publish, which are almost all bought from third-party developers, are often extremely good-- and have fierce customer loyalty. (Just ask your friendly neighborhood Asheron's Call player.)

If you step back a few paces and look at Microsoft, you see a very large, very confused company. They're being sued every which way for monopolistic practices, and they're working to increase their monopoly wherever nobody's watching-- at the same time. They're widely vilified for just about everything they make, yet everybody still unhesitatingly buys their products. World governments consider them a plague on humanity, while Microsoft claims to be so indispensable to international financial health that any punitive action against them could mean recession and ruin.

Microsoft is a tree covered with fungus and rot; it has healthy branches, but an equal number of dead ones-- and you can hear the groans from deep within its trunk as it threatens to collapse under its own weight any day now. All that it will take is just the right kind of storm, at just the right time.

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© Brian Tiemann