The biggest problem with Microsoft is their UX. From finding out where to actually use their products, to signing in, wading through modals, popups, terms and agreements, redirects that don’t work and links that point to nowhere. Along the way you’ll run into inconsistent, decades old UI elements and marketing pages that fully misunderstand why you’re there.
It’s a big, unsolvable mess that will forever prevent them from competing with legacy-free, capable startups.
They should delete all their public facing websites and start over.
Thanks. That was a great read. Somehow missed that. Two points to make:
1. Not sure why osnews charactarised this as an "epic rant". I thought he was remarkably restrained in his tone given both his role and his (reasonable) expectations.
2. This to me shows just how hard it is for leaders at large companies to change the culture. At some point of scaling up, organisations stop being aligned to the vision of the leadership and become a seemingly autonomous entity. The craziness that Bill highlights in his email is clearly not a reflection of his vision, and in fact had materialised despite his clear wishes.
When we think about how "easy" it would be for the executive of a large organisation to change it, those of us not experienced at this level have an unrealistic expectation. It's my belief that large organisations are almost impossible to "turn around" once they get big enough and develop enough momentum regarding cultural/behavioural norms. These norms survive staff changes at pretty much every level. Changing it requires a multi-year absolute commitment from the top down. Pretty rare in my experience.
That was epic. The type of email we all dread to receive at work. Can’t fault Bill for his detail though, most of those kind of emails are “website slow, make fast”.
> When SeattlePI asked Bill Gates about this particular email last week, he chuckled. “There’s not a day that I don’t send a piece of e-mail… like that piece of e-mail. That’s my job.”
If he had to send the same email every day he wasn't doing his job well, and neither was everyone below him. Even a fraction of that list is too much.
It's not only public facing websites - Azure is also pretty inconsistent and lately any offer to preview a new UI was a downgrade and I happily reverted back - it's like they have a mandatory font and whitespace randomizer for any product. Also while far from a power user I've hit glitches that caused support tickets and are avoidable with clearer UX. Copilot in Azure - if it works at all - has been pretty useless.
Their UX, their naming conventions from products to frameworks and services, pulled plugged on products, user hostility and so on are all pointing out the root of the problem is elsewhere. I think Microsoft is no longer reformable. It is a behemoth that will probably continue to coast along like a braindead gozilla zombie that just floats due to its sheer size.
Those stupid dialogs that may you think they will help you solve an issue but actually just waste 5-10mins "scanning" just to link you to irrelevant webpages that sometimes don't exist.
It’s a big, unsolvable mess that will forever prevent them from competing with legacy-free, capable startups.
They should delete all their public facing websites and start over.