Julie Leung: Seedlings & Sprouts: A few notes on products and services:
Microsoft’s Robert Scoble took it in the teeth with grace and curiousity: he responded to someone’s complaint that your products suck by listening and taking notes. He asked in return How do they suck? Wow!
Jeez, you’d think he would know . . . don’t they run Windows over there?
Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger:
I tell that story because for the past two weeks I’ve gotten quite a few people to tell me just how our products (or our company) suck. The thing is, there’s a group of us at Microsoft who are tired of being told this and who are going to turn around the world’s perception of the products we build. This group is growing in size.
I feel like I’m heaping scorn on the guy, but come on, two weeks he’s been hearing this? I’m still fond of my description that “using Windows in a multidisciplinary way was like driving nails with your bare hands—bloody, painful, and unproductive” from somewhat more than two weeks back.
Seriously, if they wanted to sit down with users of all types — the hunt and peck typists to the power users — and really watch them work and then sat down with the opinion leaders who care about stuff like DRM and users owning their own data, Scoble’s dream might be taken seriously. He’s well-liked, widely-quoted/cited but does that translate to results?
This post from Jason Kottke might put this into perspective. It doesn’t have to be a comparison between Apple and MSFT but hey, that’s how Scoble’s piece opens: he sees Apple as his competition, but I’m not sure Apple, ie Steve Jobs, sees it the same way. He’s pursuing an ideal, while his imitators are chasing him.
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