Microsoft's "New Coke" Moment? 786
theodp writes "Remember New Coke? Twenty-eight years ago, Coca-Cola replaced the secret formula of its flagship brand, only to announce the return of the "classic" formula just 79 days later. Had it launched in 2013, Coke's Jay Moye suspects a social media backlash would have prompted it to reverse itself even sooner. In a timely follow-up, ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols points out that Microsoft is facing its own New Coke moment with Windows 8. 'Does Ballmer have the guts to admit he made a mistake and give users what they clearly want?' Vaughan-Nichols asks. 'While it's too late for Windows 8, Blue might give us back our Start button and an Aero-like interface. We don't know.'"
It's like deja vu all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like Microsoft already had their 'New Coke' moment with Vista.
Two failures in three OS launches is going to be a lot more difficult for the shareholders to get over.
They've done this before (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember Microsoft Bob?
Apparently, neither did anyone at Microsoft.
"You're holding it wrong" (Score:5, Insightful)
Rarely ever will a CEO admit a mistake. It's the user's fault for not loving it.
Re:New Coke? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bob
Me
Vista
Clippy
Zune
Re:New Poke (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't suck because of a lack of an Aero like interface
The Metro interface doesn't suck
Windows 8 sucks because it flips between the classic and the metro interface seemingly at random. Yes, we computer folks know that it depends on whether the program has been written as a metro program or a classic one, but from the start screen there is no way to tell what interface you'll end up in when you click on a program. And I'm pretty sure that consistency is one of the central tenets of good UI design.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
I switched to OSX about a year ago, and while it has its shiny moments, it also has lots of blunders and I wouldn't really say that it's a better desktop than Windows 7. Besides, calling "standard desktop OS" something that has ~10% market share is ... funny.
Re:They've done this before (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Microsoft is after they got to a certain size they started taking on characteristics of IBM. It does seem that the attitude is "they'll take what we give them." Their decisions about their products always seem to be based on what is good for THEM and what they want reality to be rather than what is good for users and what actual reality is.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with the "LOW MARKET SHARE!!1!!" comments is that you're talking about a company having a 10% of a market worth billions of dollars. I will take 10% of a billion dollars any day of the week.
Apple *is* getting converts in key sectors and if Microsoft continues to blunder and do whatever the fuck they want they will get more. Microsoft won't go anywhere - there are too many Microsoft zombies in upper management - but to roll out the "low market share" argument is absurd here when Apple has more cash on hand than the federal government.
Re:Wishful thinking. (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on what the companies who pay a lot of money for licensing are saying. MS dont give a real shit about the consumer but the Enterprise - who by far are the ones MS depends on - are saying no, they dont want W8 or Metro.
Ya think MS are going to stand there and stick to their guns when Enterprise says fuck it and refuses to upgrade?
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of Microsoft's 'failures' are the result of doing something new. And then when the 'improved' version comes out, it can be quite a hit.
Vista - flop
Vista SE (Win 7) - big success
Office 2007 - somewhat of a flop due to criticism of the Ribbon
Office 2010 - not a whole lot different from 2007, but a lot more popular now that people are familiar with the Ribbon
Windows 8 - Works pretty good, but people bitch about the UI
Windows 8 SE (Blue?) - Hey, Metro apps are cool now. Maybe.
Of course, they have done it backwards...
Windows 98 SE - pretty good
Windows 98 SE 2 (Win Me) - "Hey, people will forget about this once Vista comes out"
Apple priced itself out of the market (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple *is* getting converts in key sectors
No its not...and it won't Apple will never be a serious contender for the Desktop, it simply costs too much. Sales dropped 22% last quarter...and shrunk a more manageable 2% this, but any pretence of world domination, or mass exodus to Apple simply aren't happening.
The reality is Apple could buy Dell (about 22 times), or they could License their OS, but if anything they have got used to relying on Microsoft being so awful..they get to roll around on wads of cash...and even though the salesman is dead, Cooky seems indent on second guessing what a dead man will do.
I love the idea of Apple going for Microsofts throat, but they Love the incredibly profitable Duopoly. It looks like companies are putting bets on Android...and Linux is sneaking market share.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
OS X may be "much better than both Windows and Linux desktops" but it will never be the "standard desktop OS". Apple's business model presents itself as the premium option, not the standard one, and Apple would just as soon see OS X die in favor of iOS.
A desktop line consisting of gimmicky miniature, an all-in-one, and and overpriced, functionally obsolete deskside doesn't make for standard even if it makes for the standard for you.
Re:"You're holding it wrong" (Score:5, Insightful)
With most large companies, it's up to the Board to admit the CEO made a mistake. Usually with a severance package that your entire family couldn't earn in their collective lifetimes.
Re:New Coke was a Flop? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, New Coke and then the switch to "Classic Coke" concealded the real changes from using sugar to using corn syrup as a sweetener. Classic Coke was *not* identical to the old Coke formula, it was considerably cheaper to make because of that switch to corn syrup.
We might see something similar with the taskbar, where they re-organize the taskbar in Microsoft's classic non-backwards-compatible ways but conceal them behind the restoration of any taskbar whatsoever.
it's not the metro ui they want. it's the software marketplace that they want. that's the whole business case for windows8 from microsofts view. they had to create a new ui so they could force developers to submit to paying a real ms tax of thirty percent.. well, they didn't have to do that but the backlash is less.
just imagine the execs eyeing getting thirty percent from every CS installation. thirty percent from every autocad installation.
Re: New Coke? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:New Coke? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Erh... the search function worked better in XP, actually. That's something I don't get with MS, why do they REMOVE features users enjoy about their system (like,say, search) and ADD features that drive you nuts (like, say, redesigning the friggin' interface to make my desktop look like an oversized tablet PC).
Re:Apple priced itself out of the market (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Windows 8 Is the Innovation MS needs (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope not. I hope they stick to their guns. Look, I am not the biggest MS fan, but Windows 8 is probably the most innovative and certainly the boldest thing MS has done in years. Maybe, ever.
the start button is an afterthought, it was something to get rid of how we used Windows 3.11 (which was permanantly opened folders). It was neat, it worked, but that is the past. The part people don't seem to grasp is that window with all those boxy icons IS the start menu. it is just visulazed now.
they will cave, because that is what MS does, but they shouldn't. Windows 8 is fantatic, and MS should grab their users and drag them out of 1995.
Have you tried using w8/2012 over a low bandwidth link? The suckiness is terrible to behold. Visual prettiness may belong on a tablet where big icons are needed to accommodate big fat sausage fingers, but how useful is a touch screen going to be on a server where you need to create a new account or something useful?
The way I get around w8/2012 is much like w7 - hit the windows key and start typing what I want. w8 is _so_ much slower to give me the answer so i'm less productive.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
I switched to OSX about a year ago, and while it has its shiny moments, it also has lots of blunders and I wouldn't really say that it's a better desktop than Windows 7. Besides, calling "standard desktop OS" something that has ~10% market share is ... funny.
I don't think he meant it like that, i.e. in terms of market share. You are too stuck in the MS fanboy idea of Windows, Excel, Word etc. and their market share making them 'Industry Standards'. He probably meant more like that OS X is becoming more of a benchmark/reference point to measure your own Desktop OSes usability against than Windows is, i.e. that people are more likely to steal ideas from OS X than Windows 8. Of course you may disagree on whether OS X is the best UI ever made. Having used both I'd say it's better than Windows if only because OS X has a lower UI friction factor, although Windows 7 made major strides in that department so it's less of a factor than it was in the time of XP and Vista. I don't think anybody will be using Windows 8 as a usability reference UI any time soon. If OS X was discontinued tomorrow my next choice would probably be Gnome 3, bugs and all rather than either Windows 7 or 8.
Re:Windows 8 Is the Innovation MS needs (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep, nothing says "innovation" like confusing the hell out of your users and removing the ability to have multiple programs on screen at once.
Because nobody who uses Windows multitasks, right?
Re:Apple priced itself out of the market (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:New Coke was a Flop? (Score:4, Insightful)
Spoken like a true american that has never tried a non-hfcs beverage outside of their border...
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has more cash on hand than the federal government.
That is a fairly low bar, I have more cash on hand than the federal government as I don't run a deficit.
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:2, Insightful)
this, absolutely this. The search has been going downhill for ages.
even with XP I always made the reg changes needed to get the Windows 2000 style search back, because it actually worked, especially when it came to searching IN files.
These days something like Total Commander is *essential* for decent file management and searching within WIndows. Aren't such things meant to be the fundamental aspects of a good operating system? What went wrong? Can we even access EXT natively yet either?
As an operating system, performing core operating system functions Windows has been slipping for a while, Win 8 was just the latest in the many steps toward turning it into a content delivery system rather than an operating system.
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Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Office 2010 - not a whole lot different from 2007, but a lot more popular now that people are familiar with the Ribbon
I'm sorry, but no. Just because people are complaining vocally anymore about something originally done five years ago and another screw-up that took place three years ago doesn't mean things are ok now.
I got use to the ribbon, but I still hate it and it is still way less productive than the file menu. I switched to LibreOffice for all my home stuff, and later switched to Ubuntu, because of the ribbon and how badly MS Vista was. I only use MS office when I have to deal with work stuff. One of the small differences between 2007 and 2010 was the replacement of the circular windows button with the green "file" tab, making it closer to the older style file menu and slightly more usable, it still sucks donkey nuts. It takes way too long to load, options are literally hidden in the interface, sometimes not in the main interface at all and are unintuitive when they are there.
Re:New Poke (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New Poke (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is the trend of being cool because you can complain has left . Can't find the start button? Yes it's damn annoying I agree, but New Coke sucked all around. Windows 8 isn't all about a single button. A keyboard you aren't used to will ruin your life much more miserably, but do you call Dell and tell them the computer should go in the garbage? It's time people got used to this mess. Yes as a hardcore 24 hours a day user it is definitely a mess and why we can't get to the shutdown or log off screen with a click is frustrating. You are not going to sell businesses on this model the way it is right now. But it is not going to make anyone go out and change their life. Let the insane and moaners do whatever makes them feel better. I will donate a leper to your cause.
You don't seem to get it. Microsoft is a business that is attempting to sell a rather expensive (~$100 and up) product to consumers. If you want to sell your product, you have to listen to what your customers want. You can't just brush off their complaints by saying that they will eventually get used to it. Well, you can, but you'll lose a ton of business that way, and shareholders will start to get unhappy.
It may be an exaggeration to say that "the customer is always right" – sometimes individual customers really are unreasonable – but if thousands of customers are telling you the same thing, then you should damn well listen.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:3, Insightful)
bullshit... search in windows vista, 7, and 8 are total crap.
You can only find 'microsoft approved' files and types. Quick... go into your windows. find *.log and *.bak within the last 30 days only... yeah. you can't. How about all files that changed in the last 3 days.. not just media files... ALL files.. yeah.. can't do that either.
And it's fucking slow too. On top of needing indexing running all the time which is itself fucking slow too.
search worked much much MUCH better in 2k and xp.
they fucked it up. as a result i simply removed the entire search and indexing system from windows 7. and used a plain ol freeware version for my finding files needs.
Yet another core component of windows... i have replaced with a FREE and much better alterantive... One of these days i'll have nothing left of 'windows' but the core... and thats the time to switch totally to nix or android.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Still doesn't make OS X the standard. And Microsoft is in the enterprise not because of "Windows Zombies" but because they offer the enterprise tools. OS X server is a joke, especially since the further dumbing down in 10.8.
Re: Apple priced itself out of the market (Score:1, Insightful)
Two things I notice:
1) nobody I work with has a desktop.
2) Apple portables outnumber windows and Linux combined
Where I work Apple has taken over the desktop.
Re:New Poke (Score:5, Insightful)
It took me 15 minutes to figure out how to shut down my computer in Window 8. Windows 7, you press the windows button and there's a shut down option.
Re:Apple priced itself out of the market (Score:4, Insightful)
uh, what?
desktop and tablet/smartphone are not the same market, at all. one can have a desktop for a variety of reasons, and a tablet as well. There's nothing that says one is exclusive of the other. What also shares the market of the tablet/smartphone is the netbook, which is basically going away aside from the ultrabooks which are trying to separate from the netbook market but coming up against the desktop market to some degree.
Microsoft Never Really Knew What They Were Doing (Score:5, Insightful)
This industry can turn on you in an instant (Well a decade-long instant, you really have to not be paying attention.) Look at Sun, no one ever thought anything would take them down. A decade before Sun went under, I attended a Linux con in Denver and had some SGI rep try to convince me that his company was crapping daisies and unicorns. I asked him point blank why I should buy a storage solution from him when I knew for a fact that IBM would be here two decades from now. He then tried to blow some marking smoke up my ass, but their company sank shortly thereafter. I started seeing the same writing on the wall for Sun later on, and they were gone a couple years later. I really feel like these guys believed their marketing and thought nothing could take them down. Well these days Microsoft's competitors are VERY quick on their feet and can take over emerging markets before Microsoft's lumbering behemoth even realizes there's something to take over. So they're coming in against already-established and VERY popular players. So unless Microsoft loses the complacency and learns how to compete in this new era, the gutted remains of their company will join Sun and all the others in the "Also-Ran" bin of history. This is not an anti-Microsoft rant. This is a warning.
My guess is the future will be pretty robust competition between an Android-based Google OS and OSX. Though I'm still not sure about Apple without Steve Jobs' vision to keep them rolling. Plus, once they exhaust the world's supply of brushed aluminum, things will get difficult for them, too.
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:0, Insightful)
No, no no no. You don't get to pretend to be authoritative about something subjective. You don't like he Ribbon, that's fine. Don't pretend like your way is the only way. Others (myself) like the Ribbon.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. I'm head IT manager so let's use my company as an example. I checked when our bosses wanted to get a mac for media editing (which is comical by itself). It works with exactly zero of our software suites. ZERO. No CRM, no office, no database apps, nothing. In fact, Firefox and Safari don't work with our ASP software either. Macs are toys for clueless rich people and have no place whatsoever in a professional environment. Forget compatibility, just go with cost. It's an idiotic choice.
Dude, you need to calm down. Every single one of your complaints is about cross platform issues If you designed your infrastructure with only Windows in mind and didn't factor in portability needs you have only yourself to blame. You might as well be complaining that pickup trucks are crappy pieces of equipment because they have zero parts commonality with your companies bulldozers.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has more cash on hand than the federal government.
That is a fairly low bar, I have more cash on hand than the federal government as I don't run a deficit.
No... In reality you don't have more cash than the government, because you are the government. People forget that anything that is done by the government is done in their names, whether they like it or not. So that deficit... yeah, it's your deficit too... Maybe if more people understood this we would have better government.
Re:New Coke? (Score:4, Insightful)
They didn't own them, but they sure as hell talked to them before Vista was released. If the drivers weren't ready, the OS shouldn't be considered ready either.
is it Ubunutu's/Red Hat's/Gentoo's/Debian's/etc... fault that nVidia's/AMD's/Creative's/etc... drivers are garbage on Linux?
If they have the market power & control over vendors like Microsoft did, then yes.
You *can* brush off complaints... for a while (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to sell your product, you have to listen to what your customers want. You can't just brush off their complaints by saying that they will eventually get used to it.
Of course you can, particularly if you're right. Most people are naturally resistant to change, even if in the long run it is change for the better. Experienced business management teams know this, as surely as politicians do. They still promote ideas that their research tells them are better than what was there before or necessary to cope with where the world is heading, and they accept that in the short term they will take flak for it, and they hope to survive market forces/elections for long enough that their newer idea starts to pay off.
Obviously there is a risk involved in that strategy if you're not in a secure position to start with. That's why these big tech companies love their war chests. And obviously sometimes people do push things that aren't really better at all. They made the wrong call, and in the long run the hostility is still there and their strategy doesn't pay off.
But I think the important question here isn't whether Microsoft should be listening to their customers more, it's whether they're right about the change. The immediate, knee-jerk feedback from customers may or may not be a reliable indicator of that.
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. -- Henry Ford
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:3, Insightful)
It hardly matters if half your user base loves a change, if the other half utterly loathes it. You still lose half your customers.
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Office 2010 - not a whole lot different from 2007, but a lot more popular now that people are familiar with the Ribbon
I'm sorry, but no. Just because people are complaining vocally anymore about something originally done five years ago and another screw-up that took place three years ago doesn't mean things are ok now. I got use to the ribbon, but I still hate it and it is still way less productive than the file menu.
Where are mod points when I want them? People lost the choice as it was use 2003 software or use the ribbon. Businesses eventually migrate as support and features in 2003 got dropped.
Productivity wise, 2003 file menus >>>>>> ribbon.
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the real problem here for you is that you are averse to change. Your complaints remind me of all the folks on Facebook complaining when they change the UI because "the old style is way better", and then a year later when Facebook updates again, same story. The one they had before (which everyone once hated) is suddenly the shining example of a design masterpiece, and the new version "sucks donkey nuts."
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
I got use to the ribbon, but I still hate it and it is still way less productive than the file menu.
Ditto. Like most other people I'm unsettled by relearning an environment but usually adapt rather well after a short amount of time. However I still hate the ribbon. It is not intuitive or useful and as many have pointed out, it robs you of space in the direction you need it most.
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:4, Insightful)
The ribbon sucks. Having to hunt for things that change depending on "context" sucks. The program is guessing what I need, and getting it mostly wrong. It sucks. It doesn't make any sense to me because when I expect one thing, I see another. And talk abouit UI clutter, much of the ribbon space is useless and doesn't enhance productivity at all. At least, not for me.
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Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
I spent plenty of years in corporate IT, sorry. Interoperability was always a big thing - even bigger now with smart phones and tablets and all kinds of other ways to get at apps and data.
You remind me of a guy at a local company I used to do work with here. He ran the company on an AS/400 and couldn't understand why people weren't happy getting their reports as TIFFs. I was able to get his data out of the AS/400 and into an actual database that folks could connect to using odbc from their desktops, allowing them to not only run the same reports themselves but also pull the data into Excel and manipulate it further.
It doesn't take infinite money - hell, the server I set up to run it was pulled from the trash bin (literally) and reconfigured with FreeBSD in about an hour. It went down one time in 3 years when someone tripped over the power cord in the server room.
I know how to run IT, and I also know how to explain patiently to "upper management" why it might make sense to spend an extra $10 now for longer term benefits. These are skills you should learn.
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
How much more of a change can you get than going from Windows to Linux or MS office to LibreOffice.
I'm an early adopter and will switch to the latest and greatest with every sip of coffee. I'm quite happy to buy into new tech and things that are better because of changes, but not when the changes are purely because a large organization decided that's just the way it's going to be with no otherwise good reason.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that it's Apple's fault your company sucks?
Anyway, don't think you're safe just because your IT department uses Windows. You'll run into trouble when someone in the executive suites wants to do business on his iPhone or iPad. "Our system doesn't support it" is generally not an acceptable answer in these cases. Maybe you should start looking for a job with an organization that doesn't have its head firmly lodged up its ass?
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows may be salvagable, but not Metro. Microsoft would be wise to gas it now.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:1, Insightful)
That's a punishment?
Re:It's like deja vu all over again (Score:4, Insightful)
YES!! I AM AVERSE TO CHANGE! Wanna know why? Because computers and software are not shoes. They're tools. If I wanted my tools to change, then I would be very accepting of not being able to find the handle on my new crescent wrench or how to use my new swingless nail driver (hammer).
I want my hardware and software to work day in and day out in the familiar comfortable way I am used to with improvements to those specific patterns. I want it to be predictable and reliable. Gradual, well-planned and NEEDED change is good. Change for the sake of change is not, and I think that's what we have way too much of today.
Save the change for hairdos and wardrobes.
Re:OSX is better anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
You setup a server in such a way that someone could trip over the power cord, and we're supposed to take your IT background serious? Really? For your sake, I hope there is much more to the story, because that's some seriously bad stuff.
I did the software setup as an outside consultant. Someone else placed the server in its room. I would have never done that.
And, if you think that's bad - I had another client one time that had their Sun e450 plugged in to the same power strip as their laptop. They nearly lost their web site when they accidentally pulled the plug on the 450 instead of the laptop one Friday evening. Oh, and no backups.
I do what I can...