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interface your fears |
Ooh, that stings (because those points are true).
But, before you discount Microsoft, consider where they’re succeeding in significant ways. They’re poised to make some strong strides on the mobile front with Live Anywhere (announced at E3) and Windows Mobile, etc.
MS is not a dying company, even though their browser is decaying and their OS is getting hammered. They have some solid plans (groundwork) in place for a mobile strategy that could take away some of the dominance of the carriers in delivering content (mostly games).
Cheers. Great comic as usual!
Where’s the edit button! I forgot to mention the beating they’ve taken over the iPod… Not that anybody needs a reminder. =)
Discount MS? I think that’s a little early. Apache has a healthy lead on IIS for sure, but Linux is only “challenging” Windows for the place of the OS, and as much as I love Firefox, most people (80+%) still use IE no matter how bad it is.
The interesting thing that Joe said was how MS is targeting games and entertainment. XBOX is actually doing well, with much credit going to the Live service, and it appears Vista is really targeting the Media Center niche.
It’s definitely an interesting exercise to try and divine which way they’re going to go next to try to maintain their empire… I mean company. 
I think the joke of this comic is about how Linux is too self-indulged in the idea of challenging Windows yet neglecting the problem that the OS is actually unusable, while Microsoft made a usable OS and slowly (and finally) getting something stable. So in a way, it criticizes both.
I just don’t understand this comic strip at all. Is it supposed to be funny? What’s the joke? I’m not sure it’s as Leo says, that explanation still doesn’t make it funny to me.
“Linux is challenging them on the OS and Firefox takes them in the browser”
This is the part I found funny as it’s something I’ve heard for awhile. The thing is that they finally seem to be “getting it”. Usability matters, not technical perfection.
What gets me is that it took something happening in the Open Source community that doesn’t usually happen. Since modules are often run by the most prolific coders and a lot of usability people aren’t great coders it took a miracle for this to happen. Ben Goodger and those fellows at Ubuntu are a rarity. They can code and design. Now hopefully this will reverse the long standing trend of RTFM and Open Source will embrace usability, but we shall see.
Nice rejoinder to the bull-headed Open Source pep rally which is the net. I’m no fan of Vista’s bloated hardware requirements or of its price-point, but if the Open Source community hopes to compete, they had better start thinking about usability. Just because you have “right” on your side doesn’t mean you’ll win the OS war. Microsoft is getting their act together, and MS Research is gobbling up some real talent.
Whoops, I guess only Leo got the joke this week. Um, I think it was Kevin’s idea.
OK/Cancel is a comic strip collaboration co-written and co-illustrated by Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi. Our subject matter focuses on interfaces, good and bad and the people behind the industry of building interfaces - usability specialists, interaction designers, human-computer interaction (HCI) experts, industrial designers, etc. (Who Links Here) ?