Um, Hello? It’s called Business for a Reason

Scott Fulton III posted an article on Windows 8 and makes a comment at the very start that he’s “perturbed” that it doesn’t offer as many details as he’d like.

So, let’s look at this with some crack-infested goggles and see things like these “journalists” want to see them:

Microsoft should just roll over and spill their guts to the press and the world at large.  Roadmaps for where they ultimately want to reach should be shared with everyone, so we can all “benefit”.  How exactly do “we” benefit from knowing where Microsoft, Google, Apple, or anyone wants to ultimately go?  It might make him feel good to know this information, but it really does NOTHING to benefit him or anyone else.

Now, let’s put on some prescription goggles that clarify things a bit:

Microsoft, like all business entities, exists to make a profit.  Period.  The same goes for Apple, Google, EMC, IBM, Autodesk, Adobe and whoever.  Even Ubuntu exists for profit.  If they didn’t, they would starve to death or work for someone else and do these things as side projects with inconsistent, infrequent results that benefit NO ONE.  Well, let me correct that a bit:  It would ONLY benefit their competitors.  You know, those people that seek to undermine their efforts and achieve maximum profits in shorter time.  That’s what business competitors do, after all.

All the a vendor, regardless of industry, owes their customers is a finished, reliable and beneficial product.  Beyond that is fluffery.  Insights into “next version” and “roadmap” stuf is simply intended to make the customer aware of where the products are going in the future.  Not now.  In the future.  Again: NOT NOW – IN THE FUTURE.  The vendor does not “owe” the “future” to customers.  Somehow this message got confused and lost in the masturbating brainjacking we call “media coverage”.  So-called journalists all want to be the first to break a new story about the future, as if they have a crystal ball or sleep in the same bed with the CEO.  It’s all bullshit.

It really annoys me to death how the discussions always devolve into third-person narrative about products which make them sound somehow organic.  As if they just happen.  They grow on trees.  Companies are referred to as singular entities, like people, with a distinct personality.  Wrong!  Wrong!  Fucking wrong!  Software is written by people (who eat poorly, sleep little, engage in risky hobbies and usually focus on one specialization, not the whole product or “system”).  Companies are a collection of people who get a paycheck from the same letterhead.  You will not find the same personality or get the same answer from any two employees of a given company, so STOP treating the company like it exists without the employees.  “Microsoft this…” and “Apple that…” are phrases used by idiot bastards who should be stomped in the nuts with ice climbing boots.  Wake up.