It was an experiment they should have tested with a FOCUS group, not on the general public.
I heard - not substantiated - they did test with an "internal" focus group - that is, with a bunch of Microsoft employees who overwhelmingly said they did NOT like it. But, once again, the marketing weenies made the decision to ignore their own people and go ahead with their marketing scheme - and the C-level execs backed them up.
So morons being morons and not doing their due diligence with wide audience focus group testing? Yeah, on that we agree completely.
No, I don't think it is about doing their due diligence (not this time, anyway). It was about not caring and ignoring what their own focus group was telling them. No doubt IMO had they done a wide-audience focus group, they would have heard the same complaints they did not want to hear.
Bill_Bright said:
History has also shown over and over again, that most of the time, Windows users adapt and eventually just accept what Microsoft throws at.
Moose muffins!! Windows 8/8.1, BOB, CE, Phone anyone? I could go on like that..
Well, I did say, "most of the time" but, sure! You're right. But those are exceptions. I note while Microsoft Bob was a failure, Microsoft still pushed and is pushing harder today with other "virtual assistants". Windows CE lasted 26 years (and is still out there) so not sure I would call that a failure. The Microsoft Phone went away so they stopped throwing it at us. And of course, when Windows 8.2 (AKA Windows 10) came out, users adapted and accepted it.
I mean when looking at the big picture, the vast majority of Windows users over the years have done exactly what I said they do - they adapt and eventually accept what Microsoft throws at us. Yes, some users eventually jumped ship and migrated to Linux. But even most of them still keep a Windows machine (or VM of Windows) around. Even Mac users run Windows on their Macs.
@Vayra86 - no doubt if not for Windows, the OS, we would still be using WordStar or WordPerfect, perhaps Netscape too. But it should be noted that Word became the dominating Word Processor because it was and is a damn good word processor. Excel killed VisiCalc and Lotus 1-2-3 because Excel was good enough to do so.
Yes, the marketing weenies were doing their thing - aggressively - and the C-level execs wanted to get Microsoft to rule the world. But if not for the excellent work of the developers, Microsoft would not be in the top 10 list of biggest global companies today.
If people didn't like Windows better, we would still be using some version of IBM OS/2 - or dare I say, MacOS, or something else.
This all goes back to what I said earlier - and I think it important we remember that
the developers at Microsoft and very clever and exceptionally good, some of the best at what they do. Their problem is the same as ours and that is the marketing weenies and C-level execs keep putting their grubby, greedy mitts in the developers business.
Look at Edge - the first version - not the current Edge but the unfinished version Microsoft shoved out with W10. I know a couple developers on that Edge project who were adamant that Edge was still unfinished and definitely NOT ready and should not be included with W10. They felt, and correctly so, Internet Explorer was a better option - despite all the bad publicity it was still getting.
I know for a fact their managers agreed and relayed those concerns to upper management. But the C-level execs ignored those concerns, instead listened to the marketing weenies' misguided advice that said they need a new browser with W10 - regardless. So they pushed it out anyway. It clearly was unfinished, incomplete, full of bugs with missing and broken features - which of coursed became a total flop and PR nightmare - just as those developers and their managers warned would happen.
It was so bad, Microsoft had no choice but to totally abandon it and come out with a totally different (other than the name) Edge, based on an entirely different engine/kernel (Chromium). IMO, they should have branded it with a different name too. But Microsoft's misguided, confusing, and often duplicate/similar naming conventions for different programs over the years is for another discussion.
