“The European Commission’s report on Microsoft sheds new light on a corporate culture and business practices that led regulators to sanction the company last month for anticompetitive practices,’ Michael Parsons reports for CNET News. “The 300-page document delves in part into internal e-mails that executives of the software maker have written in recent years, often with a strikingly blunt perspective on the weaknesses of Microsoft’s software.”
“In a section describing the way that Microsoft’s Windows operating system has become a ‘must-carry’ product for PC vendors, the Commission quotes from an internal memo drafted for Chairman Bill Gates by C++ general manager Aaron Contorer in 1997,” Parsons reports. “In the e-mail, Contorer outlines why he thinks customers have stuck with Windows despite Microsoft’s shortcomings. He attributes their loyalty to the high costs of switching away from their existing heavy investment in the Windows application programming interfaces (APIs).”
“‘The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most ISVs would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead,’ the e-mail reads. In the EU report, Contorer’s e-mail says that the API investment is what has kept customers using Microsoft’s software when alternatives were available,” Parsons reports “‘It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO (total cost of ownership), our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties,’ the e-mail said. ‘Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, (but) it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Perhaps never before have so many been so abusively manipulated while actually paying for the pleasure.
Related MacDailyNews article:
Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness – December 20, 2003
so so true on your comments
it’s a shame
1st post
“In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago”
Well i am not surprised. Although I am surprised that MSFT admits this to themselves. I think Thurott is going to have an epilectic attack if he reads and understands this.
He has been duped. Who would have thought.
Tell us something we don’t know. Any successful business is honest about their strengths and weaknesses.
Rasmus, good point on Thurott. I’m curious to how he will handle this. He’ll probably never acknowledge it.
This should be publicized. This deserves to be publicized.
This is so juicy…why should any of the news media shy away from this? But my bet is that we will only read this quote on this site and maybe a few others. How more obvious can anyone get for Win$in tactics?? And in the process, they even admit their shortcomings. If the media, Mac media, and Mac users need admitted juicy shortcomings from Micro$in, this is it here right in your face.
Forgot to say…I wonder if they will appeal their traffic ticket for this?
“patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO (total cost of ownership), our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties”
This MUST be plastered on every billboard, web banner and executive washroom around.
Next time I hear a Windows puke talking to me about the high price of Macs and the Mac’s proprietary OS, I can pull this MICROSOFT quote out and shove it down their pathetic throats.
(I feel better now)
Well, Dr. Dude, I am gargling just to get ready, but the email is from 1997, when pc’s and macs were priced similarly. Since then hardware competition has made pc’s inexpensive compared to macs.
Pulling this quote out makes as much sense as that “layfayette helped us so we should love the french” idea.
Get current. Try to join the 21st century.
Im glad I finally saw the light
“Self-incrimination”.
Joe,
The truth hurts. Expecially in black and white from the horse’s mouth, so to speak:
“‘The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most ISVs would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead,’ the e-mail reads. In the EU report, Contorer’s e-mail says that the API investment is what has kept customers using Microsoft’s software when alternatives were available,” Parsons reports “‘It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO (total cost of ownership), our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties,’ the e-mail said. ‘Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, (but) it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move.'”
Not time-specific. Just as pertinent today. You lose. In more ways than one.
If Windows users read this they really would be sick. I agree with everybody on this page, we need to distribute this to everyone who’ll listen.
Isn’t it funny how when Apple can’t ship products because demand is so high it gets plastered everywhere, from CNN to BBC, but when M$ say something as bad as this there isn’t a word said.
The worm is turning, REVOLUTION! DEATH TO MICROSOFT!!!
Joe, how much has really changed? Obviously you know that you’d have a tough time convincing this crowd, and you’d apparently have a tough time convincing the EC as well.
Try to focus guys. Dude’s point was about TCO. Mine was that the price differential between pc’s and macs has changed since 1997, making that old estimation of TCO (seven years old, several lifetimes in the industry) completely bonkers. I “win”.
Not that it matters. As tread points out I can’t win here, and obviously that isn’t the point. When you guys get giddy and ignore the obvious, I will be here to help you regain your “credibility”.
I am going to be busy today (sometimes I get to work), so I will put out the flames this pm…..just so you know I am not ignoring you. But please don’t take advantage of my time away to spout more specious BS.
Joe,
I have joined the 21st century by leaving behind “good enough”. By the way, how can you say that in 1997, PCs and Macs were priced similarly? I have ALWAYS heard that Macs were more expensive (aside from the TCO argument).
I notice you had no reply to the “buggy” part of the quote. hehe
Dude
BTW, I work for Paul Thurrott at .NET magazine, so I must be a credible source of information – not!
Man I wish I had a Mac, but I’ve spent so much on PC’s that I can’t back down. Did I just type that?
Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Buggy Software!
Windows sucks – even the execs at M$ know it!! HaHa!
Even if all the Windows users could recite the facts from that memo by heart, until Apple or someone comes up with a strategy that makes it easy to switch, it will not happen in any large numbers.
“Add a Mac” is probably the best so far. The switch has to be made incrementally.
It is easy to say, “just trash them all and buy new Macs!” How many companies can afford that?
It is obviously true that if Windows users continue as they are, the cost of not changing will be higher, but one of lifes’ painful lessons that I have learned is that just because something needs to be changed, that does not mean I have the money to do it. That is true even though I many KNOW what will happen if I don’t.
Whoever came up with the idea of “Add A Mac” is the closest thing to genius that we have, so hopefully Steve will jump on that with some factual advertising that will show that, rather than the fuzzy image ads that win advertising awards, but don’t actually accomplish anything. Awards from your peers in the ad world mean nothing, only the ones that come from someone buying your product.
class action lawsuit. class action lawsuit. class action lawsuit. class action lawsuit.
isn’t it curious that despite this knowledge back in 1997, Windows has become susceptible to its own momentum – vis. a vis. their inability to fix all those things they knew they were screwing up back in 1997, and the years they now require to transition to Longhorn. So, it’s a Windows “windows” mentality. No wonder no one can break it. It’s part of Microsoft’s own culture. Eg. programmers saying that well, they need me so much they can’t fire me, just hope I patch up mistakes eventually and one day, maybe one day, actually close all those open ports. Ha, the programmers are their own monopoly their, and even Microsoft is shackled to itself. Oh, the irony. Thank god for small, flexible companies – oh, and now profitable and debt-free.
If I was to go out today, April 22nd 2004, and buy a brand new top of the range Dell (shudder) with a copy of XP Professional on it, how many ports would be open?
Yep. “Add A Mac” is a great idea.
More thoughts: You have to look at the problem from the point of view of the Windows user.
Analogy: You are on a train (Windows), and the train is still accelerating out of the station, say at 40 miles per hour.
But you have “radar” and you can “see” an approaching collision, in that the train tracks eventually run smack (literally) into the side of a mountain.
You know you should jump off, but at 40 miles per hour, what are your chances of survival. If you execute the jump properly so that you roll with the impact and pick the right piece of ground, (or a mattress) to land on, you CAN survive it.
But you may not. It’s your call, and I am afraid that many people will elect to not jump off the train even though it is now going 50 mph and headed for 75 just before it hits the mountain.
There is another factor here. Too many people who are a part of the Mac world look with contempt upon Windows users and say: Screw them, they made their stupid choice, so let them SMACK into the mountain!
Fine, as far as it goes. But we are going to get hit with the wreckage.
Saying that they deserve their fate does nothing to improve Mac sales.
It means that Apple needs to find a way to lay out the mattress for Windows train riders to jump on to. Can Steve do that, since I have no reason to think that he does not lean toward the “elitist” side which tends to say Windows users deserve their fate? Don ‘t get me wrong, he is a genius, but I just wonder if he just does not care a lot more about iPods than Macs. It is a easier field to play on.
And will Gates declare war if Apple gets aggressive on the “Switcher/Add a Mac front? I would not doubt it.
It may just be that with iPod profit and the fact that OSX, laptops , G5’s etc, that Apple is in a better position to fight the war than they have been in a long time. I can’t answer that.
Maybe we need to let Windows implode just a little more. But since most computer users don’t see the difference between Windows and Mac (hint: why is that??, and what are you going to do about it?) the implosion could hurt us just as badly.
Either way, something has to change, otherwise it WILL change.
I see Joe’s point about initial cost changing and thus affecting TCO, but the average prices of pc and macs have both gone down. Macs have always been more expensive then pcs. Maybe this price differential has changed, but by how much? I’m guessing $200 max. Average prices for macs: $2000 to $1600. Average prices for pcs: $1300 to $700. Of course I’m just making up numbers (actually the $1600 is my estimate based on last quarter’s sales figures and the $700 is from a google search), but $200 isn’t that much in terms of TCO
I thiunk you’re wrong. They’re not ‘Good enough’. An eMac might be ‘Good enough’ even though you’d rather have a 20″ iMac, but a Dell isn’t ‘good enough’. I would waste so much time with a PC, that I’d give up using it.
Balls. I keep doing that. That message was me in response to Dr Dude, not from Dr Dude. Apologies.