Why isn't Microsoft better?

Question

How can a company with decades of experience, considerable financial prowess, and the ability to attract the industry's top talent, still continue to churn out products that are inelegant, buggy, counter-intuitive and sub-standard? (No mindless anti-Bill rants, please. Seriously, I'm baffled by Microsoft's intrinsic crappiness, and wonder if anyone can explain it rationally and convincingly. Many thanks!)

Good point, Valdis. But here's an analogy:

A giant sports shoe manufacturer tells you candidly that they've spent $300 million on R&D to make a pretty reasonable shoe, which they sell for $100. They say they can raise the standard of the shoe to 'good', but that'll cost them extra, and the shoes'll cost more.

My first question to them: 'Why did an investment as large as $300 million yield a result that was only 'reasonable?' Why was a company of your stature, resources and people even moderately content with that as your ROI?'

PS: Let's assume, conceptually, that $300 million is the correct R&D cost for shoes that are in the 'good' range.

Answer 1

There were a lot of good answers, but all of them missed the basic *real* reason:

Because being better isn't financially productive.

Yes, they *could* spend more time testing and debugging the product. But that would drive up the price. Now, the market is willing to pay $199 for a mostly-works version of XP. However, how many people are ready to pay $499 for a *good8 version? (And remember that the price could go even higher than tat if sales drop off - if the added research and development costs $400M, and 40M buy it, it adds $10 to each copy. But if only 20M buy it, it adds $20 to each copy, and so on.

Before you're too harsh on Microsoft, consider why McDonald's sells so many cheesburgers off the dollar menu, even though they suck - because people *buy* cheap hamburgers.

Answer 2

Realize that it is fairly easy to write a piece of software and get it to work properly. However, you only know that it works on the system or systems you've tested it on. You were working in a closed environment. Since Microsoft has to port its product into an open environment with tens of thousands different hardware and software configurations, it's near impossible for them to forsee all problems and conflicts.

Back in the 90s, a lot of the first Microsoft releases were functionally buggy. In other words, it wasn't the environment causing the problem. Instead, some software features failed to work as intended. These kinds of bugs are unacceptable and suggest that the software wasn't properly tested before its release. A lot of that is a thing of the past and you don't hear much of that happening in products released today. The Windows XP platform is pretty tolerable compared to older versions of Windows (though far from perfect).

Trust me. I know what you're getting at. How could the top software company still release a product or operating system that has so many flaws? It's hard to really understand why. However, after being in this business for almost 15 years, I can tell you that things are ten times better now than they were back then, and a thousand times better than the days of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

Answer 3

Microsoft or for that matter most of the huge companies definitely have talent to create much better products than what they are doing today, but this talent is usually divided into different groups which are like Iceland's, each having its own targets,own aims, and some times these aims counteract with each other as well as with the total goal of company. In case of Microsoft, with its bureaucratic nature of management this affects the overall performance much severely than other companies. Even though microsoft has power in terms of money they definately lack in management of their resource. And it seems that since begining the aim of microsoft has never been to make best products but to make products that are resonably good and can be sold.

Answer 4

Why not? It is all designed by humans.. and in the computer filed everything is based on fail and trial.
But again.. you can not underestimate Microsoft.. They are the one that made the Home PC possible.. and everyone of us now has computer at home, working with the easy to use Windows system. And no matter what people say about other operating systems.. the bottom line is : they all use the " Click on icon" system to get programs to starts and files to open.. isn't that inspired by the Microsoft Windows!!

Answer 5

Who could think that Microsoft stinks....if it wasn't for them there wouldn't be any of the windows that ever came out and you probally wouldn't be asking this question right now. I would like to see that all people who do not like Microsoft would try to do better. I am sure u are familiar with the Sony bio(one of the best laptops ever made) well that runs on windows xp which is made by the one and only Microsoft.
And Sony competes with them and they use their software so Sony knows that they Cant make anything better than windows. And one last not for all of you who think bill gates is bad cause is very rich: he started as a computer nerd just trying to make money for everyday needs he didnt think he would get very rich(well at leat probally). And he gives alot of money for education in America. He pais for children to be vaccinated. Well that's all.

Answer 6

Because they don't have to be. The people who buy their computers are trapped in a cycle of endless Blind Faith in technology and 'someone will make it better'.
People are buying computers based on advertising and emotions, not actual critical thought and need for them. Most of the computers are unnecessary to a sustainable world society, and the quality we get is only as good as the people who are buying them. "The customer is always right". That is true from a corporate performance standpoint, so if the customer doesn't know crap about what they need, that's exactly what they get.

Answered from Firefox on SuSe Linux.

Answer 7

Microsoft is the leader in most software applications. Yes, just like most companies there will be issues with certain applications. Everyone has their own opinion but you cant deny that microsoft has come out with some of the most influential software available.

Answer 8

There are people out here that cannot set their home page in a browser without help.

Pushing all sorts of buttons not knowing what they are doing with about 55 billion different computer combinations.

Make a bug free program for that environment.

Answer 9

Products are totally produced by nerds. They need some normal-guy types at the go-no go decision points.

Answer 10

Funny thing is, nobody has done better. Apparently being "best" isn't good enough for you. Of course, I'm sure you have a hundred "If it was me....." scenarios. Too bad it's just a pipe dream.