Re: I can see clearly now that IE7 is gone...


"John Lockwood" <john.lockwood@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:C2298E76.1F999%john.lockwood@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 22/3/07 16:12, in article
DF67F0A8-5CC6-4CF7-8829-B7722907EC9A@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Dale"
<dale0973@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Since I know you follow this forum, I know that you are aware that bugs are
terribly expensive to fix and that you just cannot ask the Windows Media
Player product team to fix a bug.

Sort of like Firestone tires on Ford Explorers, bugs only get fixed when not
fixing them costs the company more than fixing them would cost.

Dale

Since Microsoft are charging UK customers D_O_U_B_L_E the US price for
Windows Vista I would have thought they could afford to fix a few bugs.

Good point. Perhaps they could fix the bugs in the UK version and leave them in the US version. :) Seems reasonable and fair to me.


One could also argue that the bad customer experience and PR caused by bugs
IS a cost to the manufacturer.

I agree totally. That is why I am always interested in finding out about any bugs in any software I write, both free software that I give away on my site or software that I write professionaly for work. In both cases, I can't always spend the time to fix every single bug but I definitely want to know about them. If they are as amateurish and laughable as some of the bugs in Windows Media Player are, I would fix them just for the sake of my reputation or I would pull the software completely.

After all even Jim Allchin thinks WMP sucks.

"I have to tell you my experience with our software and this device is
really terrible,² he wrote in the e-mail. ³I expect you already knew this
but I had not personally experienced it. Now I spent last night really
playing with it. My goodness it is terrible."

Interesting. Do you have a reference for that quote? And if even he thinks WMP sucks so bad, why isn't Microsoft doing anything about it?


Not to mention notorious Windows phile Paul Thurrott being a dedicated
iTunes user. http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/apple_itunes7.asp


iTunes pretty much sucks too. But Paul is correct; it is better than WMP and it is better than any other commercial player I have ever tested - and I have tested a bunch. My wife uses iTunes exclusively. She won't touch Media Player and, if I could get an N version of Windows in the US, she would insist on having it. The only reason or way I can stand to use WMP is that I have written my own front end for the player. I very seldom have to use the Windows Media Player UI.

The problem here is that every single Windows user has already purchased a media player so there is absolutely no room for anyone to make a good quality player and sell that player in hopes of recovering their costs and making a small profit. Those alternative players that exist are not good quality and don't have the market share to make them viable to investors so that the makers can make them high quality. Even iTunes only exists to support iPods. If there were no iPod there would be no iTunes for Windows.


.

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