Microsoft - what exactly is their problem?
Microsoft - what exactly is their problem?
Author
Discussion

UKBob

Original Poster:

16,277 posts

296 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
Ive got a windows phone and although in many respects its brilliant (word, excel, media players, internet explorer, outlook email, etc) its also utter shite, and typical microsoft. It crashes. Is full of bugs. Often wont boot up. Takes forever when it does. Tells me its not ready, asks me to wait 15 seconds. Sends garbled texts (could be something else? Its never happened to me before). Couldnt find one of the drives (micro mc) the other day. Has software issues.

The second most unreliable product I have ever owned in my entire life (except PC's) was the xbox 360. More of the same really. But why?

Microsoft have more money and resources than anyone else. Whilst its understandable if a product of some description is launched and lacks QC one year, how on earth do microsoft manage to launch buggy substandard products year after year after bloody year... for 15 years running confused

sheets tabuer

21,537 posts

246 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
By buying the competition and tieing up the resellers

hugh_

3,750 posts

272 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
I've got an O2 XDA MiniS running Windows Mobile 5 and its exactly the same. A friend has just got a Nokia N95, its does almost everything that mine does (excluding word and excel, but including adobe acrobat(which I use more)) and its fantastic, I think I'll be going that route next

add vantage

5,964 posts

251 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
the more it can do, the more different pieces of software it runs, the more hardware/chips it has in it, the more complex and full of holes it becomes. try starting from zero. reinstall the latest firmware. then install good software, not cheap freebie stuff. see if that makes it more reliable. if not, it's just a bad product. latest ones have good reviews...wm6, right?

srebbe64

13,021 posts

268 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
Microsoft have a (possibly underserved) reputation for using the public as their product testers. I never buy MS first release products, best to wait until version 3 or 4 is released I've found!

UKBob

Original Poster:

16,277 posts

296 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
add vantage said:
reinstall the latest firmware. then install good software, not cheap freebie stuff. see if that makes it more reliable.
Im the kind of user who doesnt bother networking his devices together, enjoys the fancy apps, but does expect (nay hope) that the product would work better than it does without needing medical treatment first.

add vantage said:
latest ones have good reviews...wm6, right?
I dunno paperbag

srebbe64 said:
Microsoft have a (possibly underserved) reputation for using the public as their product testers. I never buy MS first release products, best to wait until version 3 or 4 is released I've found!
Quite!

add vantage

5,964 posts

251 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
i have a nice windows mobile phone but it's quite old. it's the second one as the first one kept locking up on me. i dont' blame microsoft, but htc, the manufacturer. waiting for one device that has 5mp camera, gps, web, good music playback controls, and good phone features. There seem to be a few around now, but I am waiting for it to get past version 1.0 so I don't have the problems you are having.

Strangely Brown

16,227 posts

262 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
UKBob said:
Microsoft have more money and resources than anyone else. Whilst its understandable if a product of some description is launched and lacks QC one year, how on earth do microsoft manage to launch buggy substandard products year after year after bloody year... for 15 years running confused


The answer is simple, it's because people keep buying it. All the time that they can get away with producing shite and keep their market share they have no reason whatsoever to change. Face it, people buy Microsoft products because people buy Microsoft products. It certainly ain't because they're good. Until there are enough people who refuse to buy anything with MS software in it there will be no change.

Vote with your wallet and buy stuff that they haven't ed up with their pervasive crap.

I have Windows XP installed under bootcamp on my Mac only because the other half MUST have it for and ECDL course.

GregE240

10,857 posts

298 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
Well Rob I've got the same phone as you - bought on your (and Podie's) recommendation.

3G / EDGE / HSDPA - tick
Quad band - tick
wi-fi - tick
MS Mobile apps - tick
Decent storage - tick

FREE upgrade to WM6 - MAJOR tick.

My only gripes with it are poor battery life - 2 days and its flat.

Can't help but think you've got a lemon there, fella.....

ThePassenger

6,962 posts

266 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
Strangely Brown said:
I have Windows XP installed under bootcamp on my Mac only because the other half MUST have it for and ECDL course.


Which is scensoredt, you'd expect a basic computer proficiency course to come in Mac flavour as well.

Strangely Brown

16,227 posts

262 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
ThePassenger said:
Strangely Brown said:
I have Windows XP installed under bootcamp on my Mac only because the other half MUST have it for and ECDL course.


Which is scensoredt, you'd expect a basic computer proficiency course to come in Mac flavour as well.


That is exactly the argument that I make against it. It is a course that teaches the pupil how to use a specific version of specific software. It does NOT teach general IT competence and as such is a complete farce. Additionally the course material has so many errors in it that it's hard to believe.

Ultimately it is a piece of paper that opens doors in her particular line of work so she must plod through it just to get the qualification. Other than that it has no value whatsoever.

ThePassenger

6,962 posts

266 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
Strangely Brown said:
ThePassenger said:
Strangely Brown said:
I have Windows XP installed under bootcamp on my Mac only because the other half MUST have it for and ECDL course.


Which is scensoredt, you'd expect a basic computer proficiency course to come in Mac flavour as well.


That is exactly the argument that I make against it. It is a course that teaches the pupil how to use a specific version of specific software. It does NOT teach general IT competence and as such is a complete farce. Additionally the course material has so many errors in it that it's hard to believe.


So as useful as the two CLAIT's I picked up for a laugh (MS-DOS version of Works based) and by the sounds of it as well written and structured.

cptsideways

13,895 posts

283 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
I've had 5 different phones/PDA's running windoze they have ALL been CRAP (and their multiple replacements) constantly getting errors, hanging up incoming calls, freezing up & generally being crap at being phones & crap at anything else. Utter utter rubbish of the highest order IMHO.

NEVER EVER I AM BUYING A WINDOWS BASED PHONE/PDA AGAIN

Podie

46,649 posts

306 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
GregE240 said:
Well Rob I've got the same phone as you - bought on your (and Podie's) recommendation.

3G / EDGE / HSDPA - tick
Quad band - tick
wi-fi - tick
MS Mobile apps - tick
Decent storage - tick

FREE upgrade to WM6 - MAJOR tick.

My only gripes with it are poor battery life - 2 days and its flat.

Can't help but think you've got a lemon there, fella.....


Rob, which variant have you got..? Greg has the HTC "original" and I have the Orange SPV M3100.

Interestingly, I've not had a single crash since I got it (about a month or so), and my previous WM5 device (SPV M600) didn't crash either.

WTF do people do to their PCs/phone/gadgets..?!? I can't recall the last time anf my PCs crashed either...

davidd

6,719 posts

315 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
I have had a couple of smartphones (SE p800, m600i) the p800 was good the m600i is a pile of utter poo.
To make up for this vodafone gave me a palm treo 750, which is running a plam tweaked version of wm5 and it is utterly brilliant (apart from the battery life which is a bit pants). The treo really is rock solid, everything just works, push exchange email the lot.

Alas we are moving to orange so I have a shiney new samsung i600 sitting in my draw which I think should do everything the treo does but with a lighter handset..wm5 with a load of samsung enhancements...

If yours is wrong see if you can get the firmware flashed, the wm5 platform should be pretty solid.

D

agent006

12,058 posts

295 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
Anyone criticising Windows Mobile has evidently never used Nokia's recent implementations of Symbian.

tinman0

18,231 posts

271 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
agent006 said:
Anyone criticising Windows Mobile has evidently never used Nokia's recent implementations of Symbian.


don't really have any real problems on my "recent implementation". sorry.

nicecupoftea

25,607 posts

282 months

Thursday 3rd May 2007
quotequote all
On my second WM phone (SPV C500 and SPV C600) - have had a few issues (mainly running out of memory) but generally they've not been bad.

The SE P900 was the worst phone I have ever had. Absolute rubbish. How did they manage to cripple Symbian so much? My Psion 5mx was fantastic, great OS, transparent, didn't patronise the user, then the P900 mad

Bro has an SPV M3100 - very impressed, will probably end up with one of those next.

J_S_G

6,177 posts

281 months

Friday 4th May 2007
quotequote all
hugh_ said:
I've got an O2 XDA MiniS running Windows Mobile 5 and its exactly the same. A friend has just got a Nokia N95, its does almost everything that mine does (excluding word and excel, but including adobe acrobat(which I use more)) and its fantastic, I think I'll be going that route next


Afraid the Nokia N series also have software shot to hell by bugs.

And see the other posts for details on the SonyEricsson P-series.

And, while we're at it, anyone ever try getting a Nokia 7110 (first proper WAP phone) back in 2000? I got through 11 different handsets with different firmware on those whilst trying to get one that would actually work.

Afraid it's not just Microsoft - it's almost anything that's feature rich and complex. A lot of the older consoles/phones didn't have these problems because they weren't doing particularly complicated things. The ratio of complexity to bugs is, unfortunately, non-linear.

davidd

6,719 posts

315 months

Friday 4th May 2007
quotequote all
another huge issue is when the operators (vodafone in my experience) cripple the os, the se m600i was particularly bad in that respect.

D