Microsoft Doesn't Learn

The marketing effort for Windows 7 now underway clearly illustrates one thing: Microsoft has not learned from the past. For some reason, they seem to think that people actually care about the features of their operating system. The truth is, people don't really care. In fact, they want the operating system to be as invisible as possible.

Windows 7 is likely to follow the same fate as Vista.

The Failure of Vista

Vista was initially promoted as the great answer to all of the problems of previous Windows versions. In fact, some even predicted that it would be the last operating system that Microsoft ever produced, at least using our current definition of an operating system.

But Vista was the biggest disappointment that Microsoft has ever experienced.

Few remember today that at the Vista launch, Microsoft had stated that they would no longer support or sell previous versions of Windows a mere nine months after Vista's initial launch. This mandate was eventually repealed as it became clear that users were not happy at all with Vista.

Microsoft's strategy since the 1990s has been very simple: upgrade your system!

This strategy was the rocket fuel behind Microsoft's meteoric rise from a small company at the beginning of the 1990s to the world's largest software company today. Few people remember that when Microsoft went public that both Lotus and Apple were larger than Microsoft.

What drove Microsoft's rise was that every new upgrade of the PC operating system -- particularly when coupled with a new CPU release from Intel -- was a "no-brainer" decision for users. Buying a new PC, with the new Windows version, was basically faster.

People dumped their i286 computers with Windows 2.0 almost immediately when i386 computers with Windows 3.0 became available. Then, they dumped those PCs when the i486 processor came along with 32-bit support and Windows NT 3.1 was introduced. 

To fully benefit from the improvements in processor speed and faster operating system, users also upgraded their applications. After all, those applications became more closely integrated with the operating system at this point and was another "no-brainer" decision to switch to Microsoft Office products.

Microsoft Word suddenly became faster than WordPerfect on the new operating system. Microsoft Excel suddenly was more easily integrated with other desktop products, unlike Lotus 1-2-3. Pasting a graph from Excel into PowerPoint was easy, but could be troublesome with non-Microsoft products.

So, everyone upgraded their applications with new Windows PCs as well. It was a financial bonanza for Microsoft and institutional investors became trained to load up on Microsoft shares well before the "WinTel" upgrade cycle actually began.

This strategy worked quite well and repeated itself several times during the 1990s.

But then, the upgrade cycle bonanza came to an end when...  the PC became good enough!

At that point, upgrades went from being no-brainer decisions to true nightmares.

The transition from upgrades being no-brainer decisions to becoming feared events happened at different times for different users, but today, the fear of upgrades is widespread among individual users and system administrators.

The reason is simple: most people have working systems and PCs already. The major issues faced by users today are not speed or capacity -- it is simplicity and inter-operability. The most common problems faced by PC users occur when what used to work just fine now no longer works.

The most common problem faced by PC users today is making sure that a new piece of software recently installed does not disrupt everything else that already works.

And upgrades actually exacerbate this problem, not relieve it.

Vista's biggest problem, in fact, was the lack of drivers for existing hardware. This meant that a user who bought a new PC with Vista might not be able to run their already existing printer or scanner that had been working fine for several years.

Even worse, upgrading to a new driver for a particular printer or other hardware device was not always possible. Instead, the Microsoft solution was "buy a new printer."

But even worse that that problem was the fact that some older software, which had always been backwards compatible, now did not work on Vista. This was particularly true for applications running on servers (such as databases or integration tools) and system administrators were slow to adopt Vista.

After all, Vista was not accompanied by a faster, clearly superior hardware platform.

The upgrade problem was even more deeply feared by business users.

In the 1990s, system administrators could easily argue to business owners "we need better (more) hardware (software) right now -- that's why the system isn't working as well as you want."  But over the past 10 years, most enterprise systems have reached a fairly functional and operable stage. The "spend more now" argument has faded.

In fact, the pendulum has swung in the other direction.

To upgrade an existing, functioning networked system from Windows XP (or earlier version)  -- upon which a revenue generating business was depending -- and swap out the underlying operating system with a completely new operating system was to put one's job at risk.

Upgrading just the operating system in a networked business system is now viewed as the technology equivalent of pulling a tablecloth out from under a table completely set with fine crystal china. The only difference is that few business owners will applaud the system administrator who could do it -- but almost all will fire the administrator who breaks all of the dishes.

Vista failed because upgrades became viewed as a poor risk/benefit tradeoff.  It is no more complicated than that.

If you could just buy a box of "holes," would anyone buy a drill?

This is the point that Microsoft seems to be missing. No one really cares about new features of the operating system.

If we all had our wishes, we would never have operating system interactions at all. All users really want is to manipulate data at the application level. We want to use our word processors, Web browsers, instant messaging, media viewers, calendars, and even play games. The operating system is a necessary "evil" in order to get those tasks done.

As long as finding the relevant information or files is easy, most users don't really care how the operating system works. What users really want is an invisible operating system.

But Microsoft does not seem to see that.

The current ad campaign promoting the release of Windows 7 accentuates new features for users.

Apparently the most important of these new features is the ability to "wiggle the windows" on the desktop, in order to more neatly organize multiple open windows.

Is that worth a $199 upgrade on a PC that is now running Windows XP?

We suspect that most users will not see value in that type of new feature.

In a column on March 28, 2007, we predicted that "Vista Will Disappoint."

The main thesis of this argument was that "upgrades break things."

The past two years have shown that our viewpoint was correct, as Vista is now viewed as perhaps the biggest failure in Microsoft's history.

There is nothing about the pre-release Windows 7 hype that indicates Microsoft has learned anything from the Vista fiasco, however.

The most significant lesson from the evolution of the PC is that the operating system is becoming less important, not more important. But Microsoft seems devoted to emphasizing how Windows 7 has become better and more desirable. Who cares?

In fact, if many of the basic operating features change, which will require users to have a new learning curve for Windows 7, the reaction will be tilted toward the negative side, from a starting point of ambivalence.

Admittedly, we have not yet seen a version of Windows 7. But from the marketing messages and everything we have learned about Windows 7, it seems likely that it will be just as much of a disappointment as Vista.

But the reason won't be lack of drivers, poor backwards compatibility, or other issues usually blamed for Vista's failure. The weak market reception for Windows 7 will likely be due to the fact that users just don't care.

And Microsoft does not seem to have grasped that simple lesson.

Of course, when the only tool one has is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  That's why Microsoft keeps focusing so much effort on operating systems.

Comments may be e-mailed to the author, Robert V. Green, at rvgreen@briefing.com