What is wrong with Microsoft?

11 years ago

“Microsoft’s had a tough year, and it’s not even half over,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld. “The software giant has retreated from flubs in licensing, the design of its flagship Windows operating system and most recently, innovations it wanted to bake into its new game console, the Xbox One.”

Keizer asks, “What’s going on? Is the company’s decision-making suddenly fundamentally flawed? As the PC industry goes through its largest-ever slump, is it so desperate that it’s trying to milk revenue wherever it can by forcing change — even when it knows customers will rebel? Has it taken to hauling up the white flag at the first sign of resistance rather than toughing it out, as the old Microsoft might have?”

“Philip Morton, a senior practitioner in gaming at Foolproof, a U.K. user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design consultancy, wasn’t sure which it was — though he leaned toward the latter — but he was certain Microsoft screwed up on the Xbox One,” Keiser writes. “People will accept change, Morton said, if it’s clear there are benefits to doing so that outweigh the burden of the change itself. While that may read as obvious, Microsoft either forgot it or knowing it, plunged ahead anyway. ‘Microsoft had a carrot and a stick, but it was all stick and no carrot,’ Morton said of the Xbox One plans, which were pitched as a way to simplify sharing games within a family or group of friends, and to make a customer’s game library available from any Xbox console. ‘Xbox has been successful despite Microsoft, not because of it,’ he said.”

Tons more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: What isn’t wrong with Mcirosoft?

And a fish rots from the head down.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Tayster” for the heads up.]