Business and enterprise software, and other applications that help a business run

We have talked much lately about the difficulties in which Microsoft finds itself. These difficulties are, of course, of their own making. They have become the establishment, they have become both conservative and reactionary, they have relied too long on old code and old designs, and they have decided, somehow, that the quality of their code no longer matters. All of these are bad signs.

They have also taken to reversing their own announcements, sometimes within hours. Most recently, they priggishly announced that they were delaying the distribution of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP. Their reason for this was a decision to give Windows Vista fixes higher priority with developers. They had apparently decided to ignore their only current working operating system (XP) in favor of their current badly-stumbling operating system (Vista). From any standpoint, a bonehead move.

However, mere hours later, they changed their minds and released the new service pack for XP, which had apparently been ready for release all along. In the course of a few hours, Microsoft management went from looking stupid to looking downright moronic. They had certainly been less than honest with their customer base. They had certainly attempted to serve their own needs first.

We do not need a company that continues to act as irresponsibly as Microsoft has been acting, and especially not in the drivers seat of the largest platform for business software in the world. I cannot remember when they last made a good, clean decision that was in the best interests of their customers. In all likelihood, it is much too late for things to change for the better at Microsoft. Good riddance; we all deserve better.