The Microsoft Strategy

Posted on August 16, 2005 by Gene

God, no wonder people are so wary of computers. It’s all Microsoft, a company which trumpets “ease of use” but has no real idea what that means.
Example: On MSNBC, I just clicked the “Free Video” player, only to be confronted by a pop-up window that says “MSN Video does not support your computer’s operating system.”
Well, screw you, too.
I then clicked on “Get MSN Video system requirements”, which then spawned yet another window which didn’t give me the system requirements, but instead says “Recent customer questions: Why doesn’t MSN Video work with my pop-up blocker?”
I still have no idea what the system requirements are, other than the obvious: only a Microsoft product. and evidently, even if you’re using a Microsoft product, you can’t be using a pop-up blocker.
Boom — just like that, I’ll never be visiting MSNBC or MSN again, and will never be seeing any ads they might have placed on those pages.
Do they think that this tactic will convince people to dump the computer and software they already have just to view some tiny, blocky video? Do they think that in order to access a website people will make a change like that? What a stupid move on their part.

p.s.: as I switched over to CNN, an OS-independent website, I was amused to read the big red banner across the top: BREAKING NEWS A worm shut down computers running Windows 2000 software across the United States. More soon.
Hahahaahaa!!!!