Where are the Microsoft Zealots?

 A friend of mine sent me some links earlier today that basically asked where were the Microsoft zealots?

http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/05/why_doesnt_micr.html

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/05/14/good-question-where-are-the-ms-fanboys

This is an interesting question.  I think that there are several answers to this questions:

  •  I don't think that these self proclaimed "experts" are looking out in the community.  I wonder how many times they visit weblogs.asp.net, codebetter.com, dotnetkicks.com, aspnetpodcast.com (couldn't resist that one), or some of the other sites I read every day?  There is a vibrant community out there folks.  Have these people not been to a CodeCamp or local User Group meeting?
  • As much as I don't care for being label anyone's b|tch, the reality is that I fall into the Microsoft camp.  I am more than happy to tell you the pluses and the minuses of their technology.  BTW, I still think Vista stinks and I am hoping that SP1 resolves the problems I have.  I guess that doesn't make me a zealot because I can talk about their technology in a realistic light, whereas a zealot would only know one thing, and that is to blindly support someone's technology.
  • I ask questions in public forums and I get response from the MS developers that are actually building the technology.  How can you not love a company for doing that?  I guess it is kinda like when you were in high school and you wanted to date the people that treated others crappy................
  • They ask questions to their customers and then they provide solutions to those problems and pain points.  Yeah, that is unexciting.  I'd much rather have google technology.  They throw a ton of stuff against the wall and look to see what sticks.
  • Nobody loves a winner.  Thats what Microsoft is.  Everyone roots for the underdog.  Microsoft isn't that.  It is hard to root for them the last 10-12 years since they went upscale and corporate.
  • Microsoft is no longer perceived to be "cool."  Coolness left Microsoft about 1995.
  • I guess that the MS zealots are out making money and the others are trying to figure out how to make money.  I got to where the money is and we get money from writing code on Microsoft's platforms.  We see less money in other platforms.  Yeah, you can make money doing the other platforms, but we haven't seen enough volume in our business to change any focus.
  • The one place that I think google has a definite advantage over microsoft is in online advertising (duh).  We have had no luck trying to contact google regarding their online advertising solutions for a customer/site.  They don't take our feedback and they don't respond to questions.  We would give up on them if they weren't the big fish in online advertising.
PS.  This is a touchy subject, but after discussions at dinner this evening, another issue is that it is perceived by the community that Google, not Microsoft, is hiring the brightest people.  This includes hiring people away from Microsoft.  This is important not in what it does for you at a particular moment, but it tends to point the company in a direction for the next X number of years.

4 Comments

  • Wally, RE: Vista, did you file your problems as bug reports during the beta? If you ARE having issues now, are you reporting them? If not, your "hopes" for SP1 will only lead you to disappointment. You're credible in the Microsoft camp, and the teams will likely listen to what you have to say. If not, send me a list of your issues and I'll get them forwarded to to the right team.

  • Saying that Vista stinks is a bit too strong. In my opinion the initial Vista release was way better than the initial release of XP or 2000. And consider that Vista (XP->Vista) is a far more ambitious project than was 2000->XP.

  • hmmm my question is: why do we need zealots for?

  • Sure there are MS zealots ... isn't that what the MVP program is all about? :)

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