Microsoft's 13 Worst Missteps Of All Time

jpm100 said:
...forced you to buy IE when you bought Windows...
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Who bought IE? I never had to. It always came free to me. Unless you mean buying into the idea of IE? I'm also not sure what you mean by "forced"....Who was "forced"?
 
prndll said:
Who bought IE? I never had to. It always came free to me. Unless you mean buying into the idea of IE? I'm also not sure what you mean by "forced"....Who was "forced"?
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Yeah because those IE developers show up to work for free.
:rolleyes:

A portion of the OS cost goes towards funding MS IE development and deployment.
 
Journalists need to stop with these lazy articles. Name and shame if ever you see a "Worst of...!" article.

I guess Woody was a bit rushed so basically cut and pasted this together from the previous 535 versions of this article that have appeared over the past 10 years or so.

Christ tech journalism has nosedived/got lazy over the past couple of years.


Oh and my Mk1 Zune (black thanks for asking) is still going strong. Great hardware, shame it was only ever a development exercise.
 
I would add Microsoft Flight to that list.
Microsoft killed off Flight Simulator, one of its most famous and long lasting franchise,

Then "Flight" was released, meant to be a more accesible version that would appeal to a broader audience. It didn't appeal to anyone and was discontinued 7 months after release.

Hard core "flight simmers" found the game shallow and unrealistic, while mainstream gamers found it boring because of the lack of weapons and combat.
 
jpm100 said:
Yeah because those IE developers show up to work for free.
:rolleyes:

A portion of the OS cost goes towards funding MS IE development and deployment.
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I wonder if Microsoft would have lowered the price of a Windows install disk or a new Windows computer if it came with Chrome as the default browser.....I doubt it. MS doesn't make money on IE, but they do need an IE user base. IE itself is a giveaway. But, it's not exactly a coincidence that it is (at it's core) an extension of Windows Explorer. This is the reason it could never really be completely removed...resulting in the government stepping in for monopoly investigation. So, if this is what you mean by "forced", I can go with that.
 
prndll said:
I wonder if Microsoft would have lowered the price of a Windows install disk or a new Windows computer if it came with Chrome as the default browser.....I doubt it. MS doesn't make money on IE, but they do need an IE user base. IE itself is a giveaway. But, it's not exactly a coincidence that it is (at it's core) an extension of Windows Explorer. This is the reason it could never really be completely removed...resulting in the government stepping in for monopoly investigation. So, if this is what you mean by "forced", I can go with that.
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Its not free. It costs money to produce. It encroaches on profits. And like all businesses, including Microsoft, if profits suffer and you have little competition, you try to charge more to partially compensate. There is no 'free' stuff from Microsoft. You're paying for it through Windows usually since most of their other spin off ventures are the fail financially.
 
jpm100 said:
Its not free. It costs money to produce. It encroaches on profits. And like all businesses, including Microsoft, if profits suffer and you have little competition, you try to charge more to partially compensate. There is no 'free' stuff from Microsoft. You're paying for it through Windows usually since most of their other spin off ventures are the fail financially.
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I guess that's why I got so many AOL cd's in the mail that had IE5, IE5.5, and IE6 on them....wether I used Windows or not, even if I didn't have any computer in the house. I never bought those disks. They just came. I was never charged anything to use it. Even if it were used on a computer that was given to me. Infact, I don't know a single person that has ever been charged money for any browser, much less IE. I don't deny that it gets figured into the price tag for Windows. But that's the price for Windows....NOT IE.

Unless you want to count all the stuff that people has lost as a result of using IE?
 
It's actually too bad the anti monopoly folks would have prevented them from buying Netscape ... I think that would have helped their browser capabilities immensely ... just like I wish Intel could have bought NextGen ... but these anti-Trust folks do like to weaken the big American corporations :(
 
I think the article was pretty accurate and yes I think they should have included the games for windows debacle.
 
I loved my zune hd. Even looked the zune software (which worked flawlessly in Windows 7 btw). Making playlists was dead simple just drag the songs to the playlist at the bottom, done.

Unfortunately I did it for an iPod I hate but it works with my car stereo so much better.
 
And ms makes millions on ie wtf are you guys going on about? Bing integration = cash in their pocket. More people using ie = more using Bing = more money...
 
I agree wholeheartedly about the branding problems.

For the Zune....I don't know. I still use mine, but why did they need to make a separate Zune software instead of making it work directly from Windows Media Player? Two identical media libraries? Dumb.
 
kbrickley said:
if MS had merged with Intel (when Intel was experiencing problems in the 80's) or Apple (when they had their problems in the 90's) or one of their hardware partners (Dell, HP, etc) then they might be unstoppable today /QUOTE]
What? Microsoft had to keep Apple alive so they'd have competition. Merging with any of those would've raised way more anti-trust red flags than they already got nailed with.
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Jaerb4 said:
What? Microsoft had to keep Apple alive so they'd have competition. Merging with any of those would've raised way more anti-trust red flags than they already got nailed with.
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I agree that is why they didn't do it ... what I am saying is we shouldn't have anti-trust laws that prevented it ... they only hurt businesses like MS ... it isn't illegal for a company like Samsung to have a big footprint across the entire technology chain ... we should allow the big American companies to make everything also ;)
 
+1 for Zune. I don't think that was a misstep, just poorly implemented.

I would have to say that Internet Explorer was a misstep from the beginning though ;).
 
Where's every security decision between 1981 and ~2008? An most of them since then?
 
I didn't look at the list, but let me see how close I come:

1. Windows ME
2. Windows Vista.
3. Windows 8 Metro forced on non-touch desktops.
4. Microsoft Networking Hardware Products.
5. Bob. Of course :)
6. The discontinuation of SideWinder Controllers (at the time they were the #1 selling game controllers on the market, and they discontinued them).
7. Zune.
8. All phone's prior to the current one's.
9. The original Tablet's.
10. Marketing.
 
jpm100 said:
So they moved quickly and forced you to buy IE when you bought Windows...
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3/10 and LOL @ buying IE.

I'm sure development costs are rolled into the purchase price of something somewhere, but but really, no one made money selling a web browser. It's one of the most fought over pieces of software that's the focal point of irrational nerd ire that nobody should actually care about because nobody is paying for a license to use it. (Unless you're talking about Google's Chrome which is pretty much spyware, but we won't go there until the next Chrome thread. :p)
 
After reading the list, more than half of those can be chalked up to bad timing / marketing. There were a number of decent products that simply were poorly marketed or brought out at the wrong time. They were too far ahead of the game in many areas like tablets and phones. They compounded that problem by then not investing enough to change their platforms thinking that people just weren't interested.

I mean if you look at how Apple succeeded it is pretty simple. Find good ideas and products out on the market, see what people don't like about it, improve it, and make it shiny and polished. Then release it, say you 'invented it' and that it is 'magical' and everyone 'needs' it. Release in barely adequate numbers to created more demand for the product, then profit.

To be honest the only real big 'missteps' of Microsoft are Bob and ME. I think everything else was a victim of bad timing/marketing. Vista was not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Zune was actually an excellent product, far better than the iPod. Windows 8 and the cloud applications is still too soon to tell how they will work out. Windows Live is neither here or there because it has worked great in some aspects and not so great in others. The problem with Windows Live as the article also mentions is branding. Trying to put everything under one name and use it for several different applications that are independent of each other is confusing. But the Live Games and Live functions of the Xbox are not bad. What they need to do is just start with one Live application and then add functionalities of other applications into it gradually instead of just changing the names of existing applications and then trying to force them to work together.
 
TechLarry said:
I didn't look at the list, but let me see how close I come:

1. Windows ME
2. Windows Vista.
3. Windows 8 Metro forced on non-touch desktops.
4. Microsoft Networking Hardware Products.
5. Bob. Of course :)
6. The discontinuation of SideWinder Controllers (at the time they were the #1 selling game controllers on the market, and they discontinued them).
7. Zune.
8. All phone's prior to the current one's.
9. The original Tablet's.
10. Marketing.
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All phones prior to the current ones? Once upon a time before such a thing as the iPhone winmo was it. I would say all phones since the launch of the iPhone.

Marketing should be #1 considering its the reason most of their things fail.
 
Disposed said:
All phones prior to the current ones? Once upon a time before such a thing as the iPhone winmo was it. I would say all phones since the launch of the iPhone.

Marketing should be #1 considering its the reason most of their things fail.
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Pretty close, I will admit the Windows Phone 8 is really nice.
 
Disposed said:
All phones prior to the current ones? Once upon a time before such a thing as the iPhone winmo was it. I would say all phones since the launch of the iPhone.

Marketing should be #1 considering its the reason most of their things fail.
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I used Winmo extensively for some time across 3 different devices and it seemed there was never enough RAM and processing power back then. Now its a different story, there is more processing power and RAM than any mobile OS can actually use.
 
Where is Games for Windows Live on that list? It's by far the worst thing they've put out.
 
Yea I always thought Windows ME was the worst overall. 2nd for me is the XP theme, just looks soooo fisher-price-toy-ish.

Marketing as #1 doesn't make sense to me. Some products they market well and some they don't. You may as well say the #1 misstep is being a company at all.
 
Something else to add WRT the name confusion:

If you have Office 365 Enterprise with Sharepoint licenses, you will be getting something called "SkyDrive Pro", which can be accessed with your Federated (if you have it) or Office 365 login. Only problem is it is SkyDrive in name only. It's actually Sharepoint file sharing from your existing Sharepoint site. You can't use a generic Skydrive login to access it.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
I think the biggest thing they missed is Games for Windows Live. What a fuckin turd that is.
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Yeah it doesn't even work. I try and login to that steaming pile of cack, it won't let me login and then it links me to a webpage that no longer exists.
 
Windows Mistake Edition
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That still makes me chuckle.

officially called "Me" for no discernible reason
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Actually it was short for "Millenium Edition".

Also glad that the stupid talking paperclip made the list. Oh how I miss the days of disabling that every time I installed Office.
 
With all respect to all of you guys! Who cares what "we" think. It's what Microsoft Thinks that is what is important. We are like all against the wall. Will ms change windows 8, YES or NO?
 
NoOther said:
To be honest the only real big 'missteps' of Microsoft are Bob and ME. I think everything else was a victim of bad timing/marketing. Vista was not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. Zune was actually an excellent product, far better than the iPod. Windows 8 and the cloud applications is still too soon to tell how they will work out. Windows Live is neither here or there because it has worked great in some aspects and not so great in others. The problem with Windows Live as the article also mentions is branding. Trying to put everything under one name and use it for several different applications that are independent of each other is confusing. But the Live Games and Live functions of the Xbox are not bad. What they need to do is just start with one Live application and then add functionalities of other applications into it gradually instead of just changing the names of existing applications and then trying to force them to work together.
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OMG Bob was the greatest thing ever concieved - Said no one, ever.
 
Games for Windows Live has my respect for making GTAIV playable on my PC, which as we all know is no easy feat.
 
From the article:
Windows Mistake Edition (officially called "Me" for no discernible reason)
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It was called "Millenium Edition", and that joke/insult was lame, even by my standards. :(
 
similar to the post that I made few days ago, microsoft has HUGE branding/management issues.

windows 8 is a disaster.
 
this was my post
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1738913


I been and to a point still am a somewhat big MS supported, but that is slowly changing with recent products/brands that MS made, released, screwed, renamed, and or allowed to fail because of **** poor innitiative and support.

Not even sure where to start.

Zune excellent idea, great build quality, good software, poor marketing, poor to non-existant global release, with no marketing, no global release ms simply let it die

The original Tablet PC, this failed fast and bad. maybe not fully MS fault, now they are trying again, will they succeed, probably not.

Kin Phone, this one deserved to die, MS should never even let this one see daylight.

MS WebTV, anoher failed atempt, Apple got their AppleTV, Google their GoogleTV, then there is Roku, WDTV and numerous other products.

Money, another failed product, could have still be around and succeed, other products from different companies are still around

Encarta, could have been so much better, if only it was updated more often, backed by build online database, more multimedia, could have been better then wikipedia, but no, MS starts something and ever stands by it

Passport, wallet, .net passport, microsoft passport network, live id, windows life as past or MSN, microsoft account...... seriously! make up your mind!! how many times are you going to rename the same service. this is another reason why MS brands always fail, when people learn about one MS brand like windows live, next year is renamed to something else.

MS search, MSN search, MSN, Live search, Bing, again pick a name and stick with it, why is google so sucessful? maybe because everyone know what is it? and it doesn't get renamed every few years.

Microsoft network products, for few years MS made routers and such, and again instead of making them better and release new products they did their thing and dropped the brand/line.

Expresions, another products that had good potential with some work and good marketing, lower price it could on some level rival some adobe products and maybe even create a niche market with unique products.

mappoint, another brand tha is failing and failling fast

windows mobile, this failed hard, and everyone knows it

windows phone, while some (especially here)will not excactly call this a failure yet. but market share point of new, its not doing all that great.

windows, now this brings us to thier biggest products, MS seems to be going though cycles, windows 95, windows ME, Vista and now 8. after each screw up, they recover a bit by releasing a much better products for its time like 98se, XP, 7. This cycle shouldn't happen.


So why is MS so bad at brands, products and sticking by their product?

1) Inconsistency, MS brands are all over the map, a lot of it has little to no association. then MS can't keep up their mind, brands keep changing, when consumers learn of one name, MS renames it to something else or drops it.

2) poor follow-though, a lot of thse products failed becuse MS released them and pretty much let them fail. no ads, no marketing, limited availability, often not even mentioned on main site, hidden somewhere hard to find

3) poor design, all MS software that failed or soon will (money, encarta, mappoint) once designed has not really change till the time it failed.



i'm sure i missed quite a few MS failures over the year
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nekrosoft13 said:
this was my post
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1738913
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The thing is with the Tablet PC, as badly and quickly as it failed, Windows Tablet PCs of various form factors have been made continuously by a number of OEMs for over a decade now and there will more Windows tablets than ever with 8. Obviously Windows tablets at least prior to Windows 8 didn't fare well at all, but it's hard for me to think of any other product that's considered by many to be as big of a failure as Windows Tablet PCs that's over 10 years old and that's actually growing on both the hardware and software sides, even if they are far behind iOS and Android tablets at this point.

There's plenty of issues facing Windows 8 tablet devices but that is a market that's going to grow unlike traditional laptops and desktops.
 
I'm still waiting on a Courier-like device... dual 7" screens and closing like a book is my ideal personal device... Of course maybe the OS on it wasn't the best, but dammit I want this as a form factor!
 
heatlesssun said:
The thing is with the Tablet PC, as badly and quickly as it failed, Windows Tablet PCs of various form factors have been made continuously by a number of OEMs for over a decade now and there will more Windows tablets than ever with 8. Obviously Windows tablets at least prior to Windows 8 didn't fare well at all, but it's hard for me to think of any other product that's considered by many to be as big of a failure as Windows Tablet PCs that's over 10 years old and that's actually growing on both the hardware and software sides, even if they are far behind iOS and Android tablets at this point.

There's plenty of issues facing Windows 8 tablet devices but that is a market that's going to grow unlike traditional laptops and desktops.
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one of the biggest issues is windows rt, windows device that doesn't run windows applications.
 
Disposed said:
Im lost. :confused: Some inside joke i dont get?
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There was a patch a few years ago which uninstalled Rockstar Social Club for GTAIV, and in it's place use Games for Windows Live. The game went from "laggy and unplayable" to "playable." You could actually run around, interact and shoot like all the other GTA games. No joke.
 
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