[steve8918]

I think the main problem with Microsoft is that their strategies have been more focused on doing things that reinforce their Windows monopoly. I can understand why, since it's what keeps them alive, but it also forces unnatural behavior, like embedding IE into the OS, and prevent natural innovation, which is what Windows is suffering from currently.

Now their focus appears to be changing things so that people will upgrade their OS. This is also unnatural behavior, because frankly nothing really needs to be changed anymore, except adding more device drivers and making the OS faster. Changing things around for no particular reason will likely annoy a lot of long-time Windows users (like me). They are providing the exact same functionality, but are just moving things around, to give the illusion of change and value.

However, I think one strategy they are doing is that by using the "Ribbon" experience, they are trying to keep newer Windows users from being able to migrate seamlessly to Linux or MacOS. Right now, everything across all the OSes is menu based, so there's little friction in migrating. If a new generation of users are used to the Ribbon, then moving over to Mac or Linux will be "annoying" to them.

So I think the article is misunderstanding Microsoft. Microsoft isn't making changes because they want to improve the user experience. They are trying to change the user experience in order to preserve their desktop monopoly by leveraging their new users and preventing a barrier of entry to other OSes. Which makes sense from their perspective because they have the money to do the research, and they manpower and resources to make these sweeping changes.

[dpark]

>Microsoft isn't making changes because they want to improve the user experience. They are trying to change the user experience in order to preserve their desktop monopoly by leveraging their new users and preventing a barrier of entry to other OSes.

You're looking for a malicious intent in everything Microsoft does. Isn't it possible that the Windows execs simply believe tha the ribbon interface is an improvement rather?

Your idea also just doesn't make much sense. If switching to the ribbon adds a large barrier to entry, then it's also a large enough change to discourage customers from upgrading to Windows 8.

[steve8918]

I don't think it's malicious, I think it's self-preservation. It's a fact that their innovation has been strangled because of their strategy to circle the wagons around Windows. Look at what happened once they gave their engineers some breathing space: they created Bing, which is seemingly decent. Also, X-box and especially the Kinnect. Microsoft CAN do innovative things, the only problem is their corporate culture to protect Windows at all costs.

Changing the user experience, to me is a competitive enhancement. Do you think people actually cared about that much about menus that it needed to be changed? It's really doubtful. It's obvious that they are trying to differentiate themselves from the other OS's with it.

Ribbon was the only major new feature added to Office. Again, it's obvious they were doing this in order to give people a reason to upgrade, because Office is now fully-featured, with very little reason to upgrade. I'm still using Office 2003, and I could probably get away with using Office XP or 97.

In terms of discouraging current users, that's why they have the option to remove Ribbon for older customers, but they will default to the new way for new users. I'm still using the Windows 95 interface on Windows 7.

[mkr-hn]

Have you used the ribbon interface in Office?

[steve8918]

Yes, I use it at work (I use Office 2003 at home). I've grown up on 20 years of Microsoft Word (since Word 2.0 on DOS) so I'm very familiar with the menu system, and I know the features that I need. So Ribbon is annoying for me. I'm sure for new users it's not annoying at all, because it's all they know, and they might find the menu system hard to use.

Hence my point that for new users who tried to migrate to OpenOffice or Google Docs, they would find the menu interface unfamiliar and annoying. I think MacOS is annoying because I can only resize a Window from the bottom right-hand corner, but I'm told they changed that in Lion, which my guess is that it's to appease old farts like me that want to migrate to MacOS. So Apple is doing the reverse, which is to make their OS more palatable (but not completely change) for die-hard Windows users.

[mkr-hn]

I've used Office/OO.o/LibreOffice/WordPerfect for most of my life and had no problem with the ribbon. I've used thousands of interfaces across several OS families, so maybe neither of us has a clue. Bias and anecdata are hard to see past.

Are you sure you're not extrapolating your use case into the audience MS is targeting?

And I'm not sure this is a problem. From my perspective, the ribbon is a huge improvement. Should Microsoft focus on cross-OS metaphors? I want them to focus on improving their product.