Microsoft's IE7 team sez, "We heard you!" ::)

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx

"How to HEAR without really listening"
Blake Ross sez:

Interviewers are asking my opinion of Internet Explorer 7. This, of course, is a softball. They tee it up anticipating a homerun account of how Firefox trounces IE.

But I've been answering truthfully: IE7 is a solid product. It vastly improves upon IE6 with useful features like anti-phishing that Firefox 2 will replicate.

I have nothing to gain from gratuitously denigrating IE. Firefox is and always has been about serving users, not crushing competition. It is scary to think what life would be like if I woke up each day thirsting for the fall of another company. If Microsoft hadn't abandoned IE, there would have been no gap to fill -- no user frustrations to tackle -- and we probably would not have started Firefox.

But they did abandon it. For four years, and in the face of rampant pop-up ads, viruses and spyware, Microsoft left for dead a browser that hundreds of millions of people rely on. They've admitted it, and at the Webstock conference, Program Manager Tony Chor apologized for it. I've met Tony personally. I believe his apology.

Then I see the IE7 homepage proclaiming that "we heard you" and I just get furious, because I know that "you" isn't really you, grandpa, Meredith, Jamie, Fletcher, Matt, Mike, Phil, it can't be, because you complained for years and nobody heard you. It's not you; it's us. It's Firefox, Safari, Opera, Flock, Maxthon. Only the drip drip of leaky marketshare echoes in Redmond.

I know this is just the game, know that the IE marketing team wrote that sales pitch. The pitch I'm writing now isn't to them but to the developers. You are working at a company that finds positive impact a mere side effect of competitive destruction.1 In thirty years, do you want to look back and think "I did that" or "I stopped that company from doing that"?

I urge you to find a company that truly listens to them, not us. It is much more rewarding.

[Darren Dirt]

The M$ team may have "heard" us, but apparently Vista hears something not even said:

Windows Vista Speech Recognition Demo Gone Awry (video)

[Mr. Analog]

That's just part of a long history of bad MS demos (recall the Windows '95 launch...). They get it right in the end... right?

[Lazybones]

I seem to remember back in CST something about DEMOS and having a scripted dry run.. Seems that almost no one does this in the real world.

[Mr. Analog]

We do at Sierra, in fact if it's not usually working a good three or four days in advance we push the demo date back (at least this is how it's worked so far).

[Darren Dirt]

I seem to remember back in CST something about DEMOS and having a scripted dry run.. Seems that almost no one does this in the real world.

Wow, that sounds like a good practice to follow. Sounds like you had an intelligent team leader to ensure you didn't go into the one-shot demo unprepared... *whistles*