It Just Works
Posted on Friday, April 22nd, 2005 at 16:27.
Fortune: Microsoft’s New Mantra: ‘It Just Works’
“You shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time struggling with things,” Allchin said, adding that the number one design goal for Longhorn has been: “It just works.”
Maybe Microsoft was unaware of the Apple Switch campaign, where I flat out said, “It doesn’t crash. It doesn’t freeze. Everything just works.” While this phrase is a great mantra, Microsoft fails at making anything work well, if it works at all. That is why I switched to Mac OS X and that is why I will never go back.
Mac Daily News has more good commentary.
wow. what audacity.
that mac daily news article cracked me up (not to mention the tiger ad in the washington store)
regardless of who copied whom, apple got it out faster.
Okay… when I read this article I was thinking what are they talking about? Microsoft has been using “it just works” since the days of Windows 98. Just look at all the documentation from those days mentioning the phrase.
“With Windows 95, configuration of hardware resources is greatly simplified over legacy configuration techniques–it just works.”
Apple has been using it since 1998 too.
I would argue that the concept has always been with the Mac OS. Apple never had to preach “It just works” because everything always did. Regardless of whomever said it first, Apple accomplished the goal first. Microsoft just admitted they still haven’t achieved this goal.
Scandalous!
Mac blogs are a-twitter with the news that the latest round of Windows ads may have been made using Macs. My buddy Rich pointed this out to me yesterday, saying he spent the better part of his morning writing various new columnists who talked about the…
I wonder when Microsoft will stop spewing baloney about securing and tuning up Windows, and start DOING IT! Man, I wish I had a way to get a Mac! :)
“It just works” must be Microsoft’s idea of a joke. I can hardly count the number of times Windows, Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Powerpoint have failed me at a critical time.
A week ago I was studying for a law school exam and Word completely messed up my class notes. Why does one formatting change affect the whole document and I can’t “undo” it?
Today, my home computer froze on me after working on notes for a test I have this week. Now the computer won’t reboot. I’m instead working on my laptop, but of course I can’t get the document off my home PC that I worked on all morning. One might suggest I talk to someone more familiar with computers to help me. Except that I have a Computer Science degree and worked in the IT industry for 16 years.
My wife has an Apple iBook which is great. I’m buying a Powermac for myself this summer. Apple: It (really) just works.