Chris Pirillo has a post listing his personal Vista feedback to Jim Allchin. I haven't installed the Vista beta 2 yet, but I'm assuming that there is a boilerplate message from Allchin that users receive when they do so requesting feedback.
[Update 3:54pm - It turns out Chris's post was in response to some time he spent with Jim Allchin during which Jim requested his feedback. Good for him!]
Chris took this to heart, and while some may find his remarks pedantic, the fact is that he's absolutely right about every single comment. Having never worked at a software development company (to my knowledge), Chris is showing the absolute attention to detail that is necessary to deliver a stellar product. This list is the kind of thing that Apple engineers would take seriously, and Microsoft has shown it does not for so many years. It's not a sexy or fun list of bugs and changes to do, but collectively they seriously impact the final user experience of the operating system.
Windows already has style difficulties simply by virtue of the fact that there is so much Windows software out there that is aesthetically challenged, to put it nicely. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't appear to be trying to set the bar any higher than it was in XP. This is a real shame.
Robert Scoble, if you're listening, make sure Jim Allchin actually does see Chris's list. Or maybe it needs to go to Bill. Whatever the case, Vista will disappoint if this level of attention to detail is not given to it.
1. Nice comments and I hope that Microsoft addresses the more important of Chris's complaints (the minor ones can wait for a service pack, in my opinion).
However, I must take issue with your praise of Apple with your "This list is the kind of thing that Apple engineers would take seriously, and Microsoft has shown it does not for so many years" remark. I'm a Mac user, and know that OSX 10.0 was released with huge problems with performance, polish, and functionality, despite the problems having been reported by users of the OSX preview builds. I think OSX didn't become good until 10.2, and not great until 10.3. Apple isn't perfect, I don't know how that idea got started.
That said, I think it would behoove Microsoft to follow the OS release strategy that Apple started with OSX. That is, fix Vista's most important problems, release it, then gradually improve it with incremental updates every 12-18 months. But I would prefer that these incremental updates be free service packs rather than $130 updates like Apple's. ;-)
Posted at 7:51PM on May 25th 2006 by Molly C