scott wrote:
>> My problem is this: M$ doesn't even bother *trying* to produce 
>> high-quality software.
> 
> Do you have any evidence at all for that statement, or are you still 
> making things up as you go along?

How about the fact that most other software companies manage to produce 
software of a higher quality than Microsoft, and yet M$ have all the 
best resources? Does that sound to you like a company that cares?

>> Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's not like OpenOffice Writer is anything 
>> like Microsoft Word.
> 
> True, MS Word is a very profitable product.

Indeed. Harder to make a profit from something you give away for free. 
(Though not impossible...)

>> Except that they're not interested in how to make a better product.
> 
> Of course they are, otherwise nobody would buy the next version of 
> Windows and they would go bankrupt.

They don't need to make a better product. They just need to make a 
product which is *perceived* to be better. Huge difference.

(In fairness to M$... Excel works. But they have to somehow make you buy 
the next version. How? I wouldn't like that job...)

> Note that what you consider 
> "better" is not necessarily the same as what everyone else in the world 
> would consider "better".

That, at least, is a geniune problem. It's impossible to please 
everybody. (Well, I mean, without releasing *a lot* of similar but 
different products... which would probably just annoy everybody because 
there's too many to choose form...)

>> They're interested in how to screw the customer out of more money for 
>> the least possible effort.
> 
> Err, yeh, that's the goal of *all* companies.

Maybe I'm just delusional, but other companies seem to at least 
*attempt* to produce quality products. MS seems to focus only on how to 
trick you into spending more money, or how to force you to buy their 
products even if you don't want to.

> Live with it, it's how business works in the real world.

Other companies don't seem to need to use dirty tricks to get your 
money. (In the main, anyway.)

> Yeh I guess that's why nearly everyone I know, as well as switching from 
> IE to FF, also switched from MS Word to OpenOffice Writer... not.

And exactly how many people know that OpenOffice exists?

Exactly.

> I think it's just you that can't get Word to work, even my mum can use 
> it fine :-)

Tell you what, if you'd like to come over sometime and show our Report 
Writers how to make Word stop crashing constantly, I'm sure they'd be 
delighted...

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