Re: Microsoft burning party

On 6/19/05 9:49 PM, "Craig Deutsch" wrote:
<snipped a ton, reacting to general impressions>
>
> Agreed. It's the definition of "their market" that concerns me.

You make a lot of interesting points, which I'm not particularly concerned
with debating, but your conception of the Mac user base does interest me.

First, you seem to think that there are a number of Mac users who don't own
MS Office because it isn't 'good enough'. I'm not really sure that's true.
I think there are probably a lot of Mac users who refuse to buy MS products
on principle, but I'm not sure that's related to good enough. There are
definitely a number of people who buy Mellel because Word is not good enough
to do right-to-left, but most of those people also have Office. I see a lot
of people complaining about Office, but they all own it. I don't see too
many people saying, you know, I thoroughly drove the Test Drive and decided
not to buy because it didn't have XYZ feature. (Admittedly, haven't been
looking, would certainly be interested in such anecdotes) So I think
drawing conclusions by correlating features to purchases may be a flawed
approach.

Furthermore, as I have said on this board before, and will say again--this
board has an extraordinarily large number of people complaining because they
are trying to use Entourage in a corporate environment and the MacBU's
stated market was never corporate. So yes, I think you are somewhat
right--getting Exchange features working perfectly was probably *not* at the
top of the priority list because a very small proportion of the MacOffice
installed user base needed it, and those people were forced to buy Office
for Word/Excel/PPT compatibility for their jobs *anyhow*. This may be
changing, but let me count down how I see the past.

Entourage 2001--very first version of the product--not at all trying to be
an Outlook sub because Outlook 2001 was still parallel
Entourage X--fast port of Office 2001 to the X platform so the OS X switch
wouldn't fall flat on its face--few new features added anywhere, but
apparently a start made on the Exchange ability? An update released to add
to Exchange features
Entourage 2004--first major upgrade of the product as the stated Exchange
client

So I don't see the four major upgrades that you have referred to twice. And
I think any theory built on experience with Entourage as an Exchange client
is simply too focused to accurately explain how the MacBU may be
strategically thinking. I would love to know the percentage of MacOffice
owners who need Exchange features, but I'm guessing it's under 25%. Seems to
me even on this board (which draws people with problems), it's only around
50%. (these numbers are just wild guesses)

And I do not mean to imply that the people who complain here are asking for
too much or complaining too much, because for sure in software development
it seems it's the squeaky wheel gets the grease, please complain away,
though preferably relatively politely and in a helpful manner. :) I'm just
saying that there's a way to explain the slow improvement without resorting
to theories about deliberate sabotage of the Mac product.

> It should
> not be the job of MS MVPs to legislate intelligence or comment on user
> ignorance at a public message board that's designed to help, not hinder,
> better use of the product.

MS MVPs don't have a "job". They are all people who for some reason think
it is fun to hang out and answer questions. This board is a self-regulated
public community in which MVPs have all the same obligations and privileges
as everyone else, including the privilege of meeting snark with snark. My
own definition of the P for Professional involves a) not getting personal b)
making sure helpfulness outweighs any snippiness
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

And re that crack back there about "microsofties" (not Craig's I know)--only
accurate if the definition of "microsofties" is people who use MS products.
I thought "microsofties" was commonly used to refer to employees, of whom
there are none posting on this thread.

And nothing I have said above is based on information I've had access to as
an MVP (for Word, def not Entourage), but only on my own impressions and
reading in newsgroups, on the web, etc.

DM

PS. If I start burning anything, Apple and Adobe are next in line, so I'm
really not inclined to go there in the first place. :)

.

Relevant Pages

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