E.G. for Example: Mutiny Against Microsoft

Linux and Mac zealots, of course. Consumer lobbying groups, sure. But when firms like Gartner start venting anger and advocating alternatives to Microsoft products, that's something else—and it's no wonder Windows XP won't be the boost many in the high-tech industry hope for.

by Eric Grevstad of Hardware Central, an EarthWeb site [September 28, 2001]

The folks at Consumer Reports strive to act as buyer's advocates without acting like cranks. They go ahead and review TV sets and ice cream without urging readers to live in a yurt and eat yogurt. They may secretly wish folks drove Volvos instead of SUVs, but have only three times taken the extreme step of rating an SUV unsafe and unacceptable—so when they do, it gets on the nightly news, sparks lawsuits, is a vendor's PR nightmare.

The other day, the top-tier IT consulting firm Gartner Inc. announced that Microsoft's Web server flips over when steered through the cones. John Pescatore, Gartner's research director for Internet security, said that the recent Nimda and Code Red worms—"the latest in a long series to attack Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) and other software"—should cause IT managers to lose patience with the chore of having "to update every IIS server with every Microsoft security patch that comes out—almost weekly."

As a result, Gartner is urging even conservative, change-averse IT managers to "immediately investigate" a switch to other servers which, though certainly not ironclad, "have much better security records" and "are not under active attack by the vast number of virus and worm writers."

This is a remarkable slap at the software company that's not only the archetypal corporate "safe buy," but practically the only buy. (The Register reports that Microsoft is spinning frantically, telling its sales force to tell customers that lockdown utilities and rewrites are coming—and, hilariously, that troops of "concerned readers" are writing to stress the security vulnerabilities of other servers, as listed in a Microsoft memo.)

And it underlines the real reason Windows XP, which for a while was being hailed as the high-tech industry's savior and a landmark akin to the launch of Windows 95, is going to fall far short of that status. Lately, pundits have been saying that economic funk after September 11's terrorist attacks will prevent the Win XP/back-to-school/holiday boost the market's been wishing for; Goldman Sachs & Co. pushed back its prediction for PC recovery to late 2002.

But I think the difference is that in 1995, people thought the Microsoft emperor had clothes.

Meanwhile, there's the matter of Microsoft's quality control. As has been often observed, digital photos and frou-frou aside, the main selling points of Windows XP are the same ones Redmond's promised again and again for previous versions—it'll work better, it won't crash as much, it'll eliminate the constant catastrophes that we wouldn't accept from any other product but meekly submit to when it comes to computers. Ironically, this time it's largely true—XP is a splendid and stable operating system—but history has turned shoppers into skeptics.

There's the matter of Microsoft's manners. Mainstream media reviews of Windows XP are amazingly alike in saying, "Wow, it's more reliable, but the countless features that push you to sign up for Passport or steer you to Microsoft's e-commerce sites are really obnoxious. Gee, it's more attractive, if you don't mind the hassle of Product Activation and whopping price—only a token discount on additional copies—to install it on all your PCs."

With Windows 95, reporters raved about a cool new OS. With Windows XP, they're saying, "Take your castor oil"—while Consumers Union, the Consumer Federation of America, two other national consumer organizations, and six state attorneys general warn that XP's digital media, messaging, online identity database, and other extensions expand what a district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled illegal and anticompetitive behavior.

There's the matter of Microsoft's greed. IT managers are mad as hell about the company's new short-term subscription, upgrading-every-four-years-isn't-often-enough Windows and Office licensing requirements. A group of large firms in the U.K. has appealed to the government's Office of Fair Trading, claiming Microsoft's new subscription model will nearly double software costs over the next four years. Gartner says the change will force U.S. software budgets up 33 to 107 percent—costing a typical, 5,000-seat corporation an extra $900,000 to $1.6 million.

In short, anyone looking to Win XP to pull sales out of the doldrums overlooks that Microsoft, while it has billions in the bank, has squandered its stock of goodwill. And when a Microsoft rep responds to the consumer groups' critique by telling Reuters that XP "is critically important to the computer industry," it's starting to sound like hubris.

To return to the SUV analogy, when news broke of trouble with Ford Explorers on Firestone tires, drivers had plenty of alternatives. Gartner is daring to blast IIS and Microsoft licensing in an environment where the only vehicles on the road are fleets of Firestone-shod Explorers ... and a handful of Volvos with WordPerfect, Linux, or Mac bumper stickers.

— End