No way to lose

I sit at my desk, writing this the night before Windows 95 is "offically" released to an eagerly awaiting public. It's already gone on sale on the East coast, but it will be two more hours before it's available in California. A computer store in San Jose has announced it will begin selling Windows 95 "one nanosecond after midnight". Cripes.

Bill Gates has won again. Windows 95 is a guaranteed winner for the boys in Redmond, and I'm sure they've broken into the bubbly by now. And why not? Microsoft is releasing the most eagerly anticipated piece of software in the (admittedly short) history of computing. The forecast is an immediate, guaranteed sale of thirty million units ... if you assume 270 million Americans, one of every nine citizens will be holding a copy of Windows 95 in their hands by year's end. That's about one for every other household family.

The Beatles surmised they were more popular than Jesus Christ. Well, in a Revenge of the Nerds twist, Bill Gates has outdistanced both the Beatles and the man from Galilee. Jesus had twelve friends and worked for free; the Beatles were four guys that sold their song rights to a guy who's drinking buddy is a simian. Compare this to Bill Gates, who has marshalled more manpower than the Battle of the Bulge, and he'll be making bank on this for a very long, long time.

At least until someone shoots the decrepit IBM/Intel architecture in the head and puts an end to this wicked craziness. I won't bother with the obvious, comparing Win95 to the Mac's decade-old achievements, that has been written to death and is plainly obvious. I will point out that Win95 does not put the nail in the Mac's coffin. Compaq and Dell and others have made putting together a home PC system almost as simple as the Mac. But after a year, when the computer novice wants to add another hard drive, or a FAX/modem, or a CD-ROM drive, watch out.

Ten years ago, Apple really truly approached this issue as a comsumer electronics question. Steve Jobs and company wanted to make a computer as friendly as your coffee maker. I can't say they succeeded, but a standard home installation of a Macintosh is comparable to setting up a home stereo or VCR. This is a good thing.

Any PC user who calls the Mac interface "too cute" and then slobbers on and on about Win95 needs to be hit over the head with a stack of Microsoft manuals.

Unfortunately, Apple has been struck with a case of operating system envy. Their advertising tactics have come full circle, from the tres chic Big Brother ad to directly slamming Microsoft for lack of future vision and direction. I won't even argue if this is valid or not, but selling thiry million copies of anything buys a company a lot of time to think and plan, and is enough money to hire the best people to do it right next time ... even if those people work for Apple.

Why does Bill Gates survive? Why do the business and home consumers keep coming back for more of the same? I suspect it's a general perception issue, the voice from the past that continues to haunt the corridors of Apple's Cupertino offices: "the Mac's not a real computer". Plus Microsoft's aggressive development style, a software version of the Japanese automobile strategy, a continual cycle of gradual improvement and refinement.

I think this is more accurate than many would grant. It really does explain a lot; look at the very topic at hand, Windows 95. Nothing really "new" here, any way you look at it. For example, the user interface has changed, but there's nothing so radically wild that knocks you on your ass out of shock. Get rid of the 3-D effects, the beveled edges, the animated icons, and lo, it's Windows 3.x. And the toolbar -- sheesh. Windows toolbars (a.k.a. Program Manager replacements) were all the rage three years ago. There were so many shareware toolbars floating around out there, and you couldn't tell one from the other. Microsoft was the last company to figure this out, apparently, and incorporated it right into the operating system and made it the centerpiece of their marketing blitz.

What kind of user-interface "experts" are they hiring anyways? They way the toolbar layers and sub-menus everything, by the time you get to the item you want to run, you've pushed-and-clicked from the left side of the screen to the right and back. Whadda mess.

And why hasn't anyone slammed Microsoft for moving that damn close button? The company I work for has had beta copies of Win95 for months, and I still click the close button thinking I'm maximizing the window. I only realize my mistake after the application has shut down. So then I have to click on the toolbar again, work through nine menu heirarchies to find the application again and get it running. Of course, the window winds up a little small, so I maximize it ... hell's bells.

If you haven't guess by now, I'm not real impressed by the interface. On the whole, it seems pretty candy-coated, and it really bugs me that this hasn't received more criticism in the computing press. Any PC user who calls the Mac interface "too cute" and then slobbers on and on about Win95 needs to be hit over the head with a stack of Microsoft manuals.

Okay, interface aside, even the underlying architecture is one of slow, gradual improvement. As various "undocumented" books will point out, Windows 95 is still running on top of old, reliable MS-DOS. Even if you run pure 32-bit applications, Windows 95 will call down to the real-mode MS-DOS layer for help, and it does it quite a bit. Microsoft's got too much money, people, and motivation to do this due to stupidity or laziness. This architecture maximizes compatibility with any application, driver, or network out there, without relying on the third-party vendors to play catch-up and rewrite their code. To ask Microsoft to make Win95 a full 32-bit OS (like Windows NT) is to ask Microsoft to bite the hand that feeds. There's just too much money on the table for them to give away the store, even if it's for good engineering or aesthetic reasons.

I was just joking a few paragraphs back about Microsoft doing it right the next time -- they'll never do it right. The unfortunate side effect of this gradual improvement is that Microsoft's stuck supporting old software, and as long as backward compatibility is a major selling point (it always will be), you can be damn sure Microsoft will continue to foist compromises rather than solutions on the American public.

Anyone arguing that Windows 95 technology suffers is dead on target, but I think it's pretty obvious that success in the computer business has very little to do with a quality product. It's a right-place-right-time equation, mixed in with aggressive sales tactics, good networking, and solid people dedicated to the product, no matter how crummy it may be. Microsoft's success is juggling these diverse elements while still keeping an eye on the moving target that always lies ahead.