Bill Gates email rant about Windows Functionality

That email was hardly a masterpiece of literature, you are being skeptical for the sake of being skeptical. Do you think he would get to where he is in life by being a total idiot?
 
Exactly, the company has progressed due to good marketing and installing a big base of future windows users by giving windows away free to students and school to start off with.
 
The point is, he isn't massively technical. He knows how people think RE: computers, and that's why he's acting like a layman - the techs probably don't see anything wrong with the system ,but normal people do!

And normal people is where the money is.
 
The point is, he isn't massively technical. He knows how people think RE: computers, and that's why he's acting like a layman - the techs probably don't see anything wrong with the system ,but normal people do!

And normal people is where the money is.
He isn't massively technical? He is a computer and engineering genius in almost every sense of the word. What he can do is can shut off the technical side of his brain completely, and review something from the lay point of view.

Also, the e-mail is from Bill - read the article on Gizmodo and it cites an interview where Bill was asked about the leaked e-mail, he confirms it.
 
:rolleyes: yeah okay.

Why is that so shocking? That I think vista's shell and user experience is worse than it was in XP. Sure a lot of under the surface improvements were made but I think they sacrificed usability in the process..
 
By the way, I advise everyone to watch that Bil Gates thing that is on iPlayer at the moment; you'll get a good insight into the screaming, frustrated kid side of him, the very technical geek side of him and finally the incredibly casual "observer" side of him
 
Why is that so shocking? That I think vista's shell and user experience is worse than it was in XP. Sure a lot of under the surface improvements were made but I think they sacrificed usability in the process..

I think Vista is crap but the email is about Windows XP. It is from 2003.

Most of the email is actually criticising the (then) poor Microsoft.com website.
 
I think Vista is crap but the email is about Windows XP. It is from 2003.

Most of the email is actually criticising the (then) poor Microsoft.com website.

I know that but the point is things still have not massively improved on the usability side of things. Issues that were pointed out back then are not all that different today..
 
I withdraw my earlier comment purely because i didnt realise the date, yes the site is still not ideal, but to have that level of difficulty now would be beyond layman stupidity, as it was then though, yes it's conceivable
 
That's just it though, he's NOT a technical guru, he's just a very VERY good salesman (by his own admission).

Hmmm, when I watched the thing on BBCi player about bill gates and him leaving it said he litrally was a crap salesman and thats when they brough in Steve Ballmer for sale stuff?
 
Hmmm, when I watched the thing on BBCi player about bill gates and him leaving it said he litrally was a crap salesman and thats when they brough in Steve Ballmer for sale stuff?

Ballmer was brought in because of his marketing knowledge not sales.

I have to agree with Mr^B. I see Gates as an incredibly successful businessman who masquerades as a technical geek as it suits his company's purpose. His big break was that he spotted the potential for software first and capitalised on that very well, but it has to be remembered that Microsoft did not write MS-DOS, the product that established their monopoly, Microsoft bought it from another company. I doubt that Gates himself has done any hands-on technical work since then.
 
Bill Gates is a good guy. Anyone who gives so much to charity and doesn't publish it via every news medium is good in my book!
 
I find that many of the best managers in fields like IT no longer have any idea how the technicalities work, they're good managers because they employ people who are the best. Any manager who always tries to know more than their staff isn't doing their job properly.

I doubt BG knows any more about programming windows than any of us :p good thing he has an army of developers to do it for him, he just has to tell them how to make it work from a customer perspective.
 
Back
Top Bottom