微软之我见
微软于昨天推出了其称为Surface的产品，该产品乍一看会让人以为是一张桌子+触摸敏感显示屏+底层操作系统。然而实际上是用5个隐藏式摄像头捕捉用户动作的。产品本身根本无任何创新理念及技术含量。Surface与iPhone之差别，就好如玩具火车和航天飞机的差别。如此骗人之产品竟敢漫天要价5千到1万美元。Verizon居然傻到打算将这样的产品用于其零售店内。微软似乎总是能大势吹嘘他们如何如何能带来先进的技术、出色的用户体验…然后就开始大口吸用户的血了。可能有人会说好的设计应受到重视，但微软设计了什么？IE，一个易受流氓软件感染、对Web标准支持问题迟迟未受微软重视而没能得以完善的浏览器；Windows，一个源于对Apple早期操作系统抄袭、易被间谍软件、广告软件、病毒侵染、将许多简单问题复杂化以使其显得高深莫测的操作系统…
Now compare Surface. Microsoft says it’s been working on it since 2001; that’s six years of development. With what result? It’s not small like the iPhone. It doesn’t have a specific user interface. It appears to be built out of spare parts From Ikea. Why was Surface in development so long, and what does it really offer?
In reality, Surface isn’t a giant touch screen system. It’s a frosted acrylic light table. Like everything else Microsoft has pushed out, its also a Windows PC. There’s no touch screen involved at all.Instead, the system uses a series of five video cameras hidden inside the bathtub base. The PC it uses, like most PCs, has support for yesteryear’s 802.11g wireless networking and Bluetooth, as well as the ho-hum 10/100 Ethernet I criticized Apple for using in the new AirPort Extreme and in Apple TV. At least they both offer wireless-n.
事实上，一直以来他们总是以较少的努力骗取更多的钱。Zune推出之时，用户居然被告知之前从被微软为PlayForSure合作伙伴的网上音乐商店购买的音乐将无法在Zune上使用，微软压根没考虑过如何尽量减少用户的损失。这明摆着就是微软在又一次向全世界宣布：我们就是不在乎你们消费者的体验、感受。之前采用的订阅费方式也非常不合常理，有多少人会愿意付出一部分钱订阅一段时间的使用权，订阅到期后如不继续付费，那么用户将什么也得不到，而且还付出了一笔数目不小的钱。不管怎么看，这部分钱花得不值，虽然订阅期内用户可以听到整个网上音乐商店曲库中的音乐，但这其中大部分歌不是用户想要的，用户只需试听歌曲的一小段即可知道某首歌曲是否是自己喜欢的风格。另外，微软似乎非常喜爱广告生意，且不分广告质量的高低。这也是为什么Apple的网上音乐商店中销售电视剧和电影会成功的道理。同时Zune的配套软件的安装及初始配置却是一团糟，可以出现不明原因的安装失败，要不就是同步不成功。这样的产品能卖出去简直就是个奇迹，更不用说最近居然有消息声称Zune已售出一百万台。“一百万台”，恐怕说给7岁小孩都不见得会信。Zune的出现，在我看来是微软看着Apple在全球音乐播放器市场的成功，眼馋，而苦于自己的合作伙伴未能做出多少成就，只有“自己动手，丰衣足食”，在短时间内挤出来Zune，还妄图与iPod争高低。完全是为赚钱而赚钱，而以此种方式行事是命中注定要失败的。再来看看Vista：微软自认为Windows XP已经过时，于是乎在Windows XP上市后七年，终于推出了Vista。而Apple则在这七年间推出了5代Mac OS X，而且代代都有将近100到200个全新特性加入其中：Quartz, OpenGL, CoreImage, CoreVideo, Dashboard, Spotlight…但Vista的开发却因为发布时间问题不断砍去原计划打算加入其中的特性功能。不仅如此，Vista发布之时仍有约5000多个Bug未能解决。Vista的安全方面的改进，虽然比尔•盖茨等人的大恃吹嘘可以将事实掩盖一段时间，但真相总是会有被人发现之日。大部分对Windows XP有效的病毒仍对Vista有效。另外，仅仅添加一步烦人的提示窗口、而无须进行实质的操作验证并不代表操作系统安全性能的改进，而是用户体验上的又一次倒退，就像Windows操作系统内一直未变的那个时常吓人一跳的警告音一样。Vista的Flip 3D可将所有窗口以3D方式展示，设计的初衷应该是方便在窗口间的切换，但你移动鼠标接近某个窗口时，系统并没有提供任何反馈告诉用户在当前位置点击将切换到哪个窗口。微软的设计理念实在让人无法理解。不过，大多数用户似乎不太在乎这些或是不太拿自己当回事，微软也就认为没必要在乎了。怎样赚钱容易，怎样做。
Surface is simply the biggest line of crap Microsoft has pulled off, perhaps ever. It is a loose assembly of cameras in a big box acting as a bar code scanner, Sony’s EyeToy in a huge form factor. But wait, isn’t innovation about taking existing technologies and putting them together in new ways to solve new problems?
OOXML workshop with Microsoft and Czech standardisation institute
The workshop was very interesting. Several good jokes there. Dave Welsh From Microsoft presented Microsoft view of interoperability by showing us simple (two short lines of text, one of them being bold) document created in some dumb demo application and opening it again in Word. “This is how interoperability works in practice!” Everyone there but Microsoft employees (and there were many! ;-) enjoyed that joke. Very good one ;-)Other interesting point in otherwise completely useless discussion was the typical answer From Microsoft representative… If we were talking about positive things about OOXML, Microsoft was the author of the specification. If we were talking about negative things (e.g. the most “innovative” date format representation I have ever seen or “formatlikeword95″ issues etc) the specification was done by TC45/ECMA. Not Microsoft. Microsoft had only one voice there and they could not affect the resulting specification… That was the only answer when we were talking about negatives in the specification.
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