A couple of days ago, I was looking through Outlook and came across some emails from 2004 when I was doing some freelance web design work for a small ministry in Nacogdoches. The lady who ran the ministry had had a website built but couldn’t afford to keep paying the designer to maintain it. I heard about her through my wife and offered to take it over for practically nothing. Now, I should preface this by saying that I don’t consider myself in any way to be a web designer. But at the time, I had aspirations of building a web design business, so I was eager to get a real (paying!) client.

The existing site was a mess. The designer had used Flash to build all the navigation menus (almost a dozen of of them), so simply creating a new page required editing multiple Flash files. And the HTML was so convoluted, any significant changes to the existing pages were next to impossible without redoing the whole thing.

I hated that website.

As I looked through the emails, I wondered whatever became of it. Not surprisingly, the old site has since been replaced by a new one built on WordPress. There’s embedded video and audio clips, links to Twitter and Facebook, and pretty much everything else you would expect to find on a WordPress blog.

It’s amazing how much the Internet has changed since 2004. Even though blogs existed back then, they certainly weren’t as popular or robust as they are now. Websites like my client’s were built as static HTML pages, typically created with Dreamweaver and utilizing very little CSS. Pages were structured with tables, made to ensure compatibility with Internet Explorer. And forget RSS feeds or social media integration. Google Reader, YouTube, and Twitter didn’t even exist yet.

But we take all that for granted today. In 2004 my client had wanted a video posted on the homepage of the site. We were going to post it in Quicktime format so it would work with both PCs and Macs. But I never added it because the size was atrocious; anyone using a dial-up connection would end up waiting forever for the page to load. Today, we would just embed a YouTube video and be done with it.

To get an idea of how far we’ve come in the last several years, consider:

• The WordPress platform was first created in 2003. Today, there are over 32 million WordPress blogs and websites on the Internet.
• Facebook launched in 2004 and now has over 500 million users worldwide and is valued at $50 billion.
• Firefox 1.0 was also released in 2004. Today, it has a bigger market share in Europe than Internet Explorer and commands about 26% of the browser market in the U.S.
• YouTube was created in 2005. As of 2010, 35 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute resulting in over 2 billion views per day.
• Google Reader, one of the most popular RSS readers on the Internet, was also created in 2005.
• Twitter was launched in 2006. Today, it has over 190 million users, 100 million of which were added in 2010 alone (and who tweeted 25 billion times last year).
• Google Chrome was released in 2008. It now occupies about 10% of the U.S. browser market and is the fastest growing web browser, with usage expected to double in 2011.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The point is, the world has changed a lot just in the past 5 or 6 years, and there’s no doubt it’ll continue to change at an exponential rate for the foreseeable future. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get those flying cars we were promised.

Previously:
AT&T’s abandoned plan to take over radio
Can you hear me now?
‘Information overload’ vs. ‘cognitive surplus’
Vanity Fair’s history of the Internet

Gizmodo has a post out about what Microsoft’s successor to Windows 7 will look like. Pretty much anyone you talk to will mention the same things: more cloud integration, better hardware management, better security, faster boot time, expanded use of virtualization, etc. All good answers, and I think accurate ones.

But my gut tells me that if you really want to know what Windows 8 will look like, just look at an iPad. Forget Windows XP, Vista, or even Windows 7. Windows 8 will more closely resemble Apple’s iOS or Google’s Chrome OS than any of its predecessors.

Why? Several reasons:

The desktop is dead.

OK, the traditional desktop PC isn’t dead; far from it. But the shift over the last few years has been away from desktops and laptops and toward smartphones, tablets, netbooks, and other Internet-connected devices (HDTVs, game consoles, etc.). As a result, what we traditionally refer to as an operating system has shifted. It’s no longer about the machine; it’s about the apps. It’s about the data, or more specifically accessing that data anywhere from any device. The OS is no longer the focus, it’s now just the shell. A traditional Windows OS doesn’t fit this model; iOS does.

Microsoft has a history of playing catch-up.

I’m no Apple fanboy, but let’s face it, Microsoft has always lagged behind when it comes to innovation. Windows, Internet Explorer, smartphones, media players. In each case, Microsoft has had success, sometimes even dominating the industry. But that doesn’t mean they have the best or most innovative products. While IE may still own the majority of the browser market, other web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Opera have led in terms of performance, web standards, and innovation. Microsoft recently released an overhauled smartphone platform, but it’s still not as mature or robust as those from Apple, Google, or RIM, all of whom have platforms that are light-years ahead of Windows Phone 7.

The same trend can be seen with Windows, which has historically included features in new versions that the Mac OS had in previous ones. Translucent windows and User Account Control were introduced in Vista in 2007, but similar features existed in OS X as late as 2005. Microsoft overhauled the taskbar in Windows 7 in 2009, but the goal was to make it behave more like OS X’s dock, which was first introduced in 2001. Over the years, Windows and OS X have become much more alike than different, and since iOS is affecting how OS X looks and behaves (for example, the recently announced Mac App Store), one would expect Microsoft to eventually follow suit (which apparently, is already in the works).

Windows Phone 7 may succeed.

The success of the iPhone prompted Apple to replicate its OS for the iPod, iPad, and Apple TV, and features such as the App Store will make it to OS X. And the success of Chrome and the Android smartphone OS led Google to port Android to tablets and create the Chrome OS for netbooks.

Windows Phone 7′s “Metro” interface, meanwhile, took its inspiration from the Zune. If Microsoft’s new Phone platform is even marginally successful, expect Metro to seriously influence the look and feel of Windows 8.

Steve Ballmer is no Bill Gates.

This one is obvious. Steve Ballmer will never come close to rivaling Bill Gates, either in terms of innovation or commercial success. Microsoft dominated in the ’90s largely because of Gates’ vision and leadership. In contrast, since becoming CEO in 2000, Ballmer has kept Microsoft profitable, but that’s about it. Even with successes such as XP, the Xbox, and Bing, Microsoft has lost ground to Apple, Google, Mozilla, Nintendo, and others. Somehow I just don’t have confidence that under Ballmer’s leadership, Microsoft will ever truly be revolutionary. If iOS and Chrome are forging ahead, expect Ballmer to follow blindly in their footsteps.

To be clear, I don’t necessarily expect Windows 8 to look or even behave exactly like Apple’s iOS. But I predict it will borrow heavily from its ideology: the concept of a stripped-down OS that is app-driven and web-integrated. Of course, knowing Microsoft, I could be completely wrong.

Previously:
‘Innovation at scale’ proves just how out of touch Microsoft is
The biggest mistake Microsoft made with Windows 7
Is this what ‘Microsoft mojo’ looks like?

I know, I know, I’m probably the only person in the world who thinks that. Just like I’m the only person to not really care for the stripped-down look of Google Chrome (which Microsoft is clearly imitating).

I understand the trend toward leaner and cleaner browsers: fewer buttons, consolidated toolbars, a fear of anything that might impede upon the sacred real estate that is the interwebs. I understand it, I just don’t fully agree with it.

Personally, I would rather sacrifice a few pixels for more functionality. Let me add toolbars if I want them, add buttons, move them around. That’s why I still prefer the slower Firefox over the slightly more nimble Chrome.

IE 9, however, (or at least this version of it) is even more minimal than Chrome, putting the tabs on the same row as the address bar, which might be fine if you only have 2 or 3 tabs open but could get really crowded after that. And as with IE 7 and 8, the home button is as far away from other navigation buttons as possible, which makes no sense whatsoever. Plus Microsoft has followed Google’s lead of ditching the print button, just in case you had any notions of killing the earth with your print-happy clicky finger.

Of course, the final version of IE 9 might not look anything like this, and it’s not clear how much of the UI users will be able to change to fit their preferences. But copying Chrome isn’t necessarily the best move to make from a functionality perspective. Sometimes less is more, but in this case, less is just less.

Previously:
Even with extensions, Google Chrome needs polishing
Internet Explorer 8: Faster but no Firefox

Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator. Its products are lampooned, often unfairly but sometimes with good reason. Its image has never recovered from the antitrust prosecution of the 1990s. Its marketing has been inept for years; remember the 2008 ad in which Bill Gates was somehow persuaded to literally wiggle his behind at the camera? …

What happened? Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation. Some of my former colleagues argue that it actually developed a system to thwart innovation. Despite having one of the largest and best corporate laboratories in the world, and the luxury of not one but three chief technology officers, the company routinely manages to frustrate the efforts of its visionary thinkers.

He goes on to use as one example the story of how Microsoft’s ClearType technology was resisted by multiple groups within the company, thus apparently undermining any comparative advantages it would’ve provided.

Microsoft, naturally, doesn’t quite agree with Brass’s assertions. It replied that:

At the highest level, we think about innovation in relation to its ability to have a positive impact in the world. For Microsoft, it is not sufficient to simply have a good idea, or a great idea, or even a cool idea. We measure our work by its broad impact. …

[F]or a company whose products touch vast numbers of people, what matters is innovation at scale, not just innovation at speed.

OK, fair enough. Microsoft admits having “a good idea, or a great idea, or even a cool idea” isn’t their top priority, which is another way of saying, “Bite me, Steve Jobs.” No, Microsoft is more concerned with quality. And if quality takes time, then they’re totally fine with that.

The problem is, in the 21st-century world of enterprise and consumer technology, quality doesn’t mean Jack. It’s all about speed, who can get the newest, shiniest product to market the fastest. It doesn’t have to be perfect (the first-gen iPhone certainly wasn’t, and virtually every Google product carried the “Beta” label for years), it just has to exist. If your product isn’t generating headlines on TechCrunch or Mashable, then you’ve lost, simple as that.

But doesn’t “innovation at scale” account for anything? After all, Microsoft is quick to trumpet that Internet Explorer 8 is now the most-used web browser on the Internet. Of course what they fail to mention is that IE6 is still number two. And why is IE6 still so popular? Because thousands of enterprises are stuck with it because their legacy web-based apps simply don’t work with any modern, standards-based browser. In other words, it’s Microsoft’s lack of quality (combined with corporate laziness) that helps keep its numbers as high as they are.

And while Microsoft may be patting itself on the back for the success of Windows 7, it’s completely left in the dust when it comes to smartphones, social networking, cloud computing, and digital media. Even its venerable Internet Explorer continues to lose ground to Firefox and Chrome, a trend that will surely continue as more sites follow Google’s lead of blocking IE6 altogether.

So I guess I could buy the “innovation at scale” argument if the “scale” was more commanding. But it’s not, and the reason is because the quality just isn’t there in many cases.

Brass claims that the lack of innovation is directly due to Microsoft’s “dysfunctional” and inherently competitive corporate culture, which makes any chance of true innovation nearly impossible, and I’m inclined to agree, at least in part. As a former Microsoft employee myself (in enterprise support, not development), I experienced the direct impact of its muddled, ever-changing org chart and constantly-recalibrating corporate visions.

However, Microsoft isn’t really that much different than any other large corporation. Generally the larger (and older) a company gets, the more conservative it becomes; it’s just the way corporate America works. So to blame the company’s mediocrity on its organizational structure is a bit of a cop-out. The fact is, Microsoft just doesn’t fully understand the various industries it’s in, and no amount of org chart reshuffling is going to change that.

Previously:
The biggest mistake Microsoft made with Windows 7
Windows launch party video: the perfect ad for OS X
New Microsoft ‘I’m a PC’ ads: too little too late

Without question, Chrome has a lot of advantages. It’s fast, it’s more standards-compliant than Firefox, and each tab runs in its own process (thus allowing one to fail without taking down the whole browser). But even with the latest updates and extensions (Chrome’s versions of Firefox’s add-ons), it doesn’t really feel complete.

First, Chrome has always been a stripped-down browser, and this latest version is no exception. The simplicity is fine for basic browsing but becomes a severe annoyance if you plan on using it for any extended period of time. The lack of a native print button, the inability to add buttons or move them around, and the mandatory thumbnail page when creating a new tab are just a few of the nuisances. Some of the limitations, of course, can be remedied with third-party extensions, but not all them.

Second, while a lot of extensions are available, none of the ones I tried seemed as well-developed as their Firefox equivalents. IE Tab in Firefox, for example, allows you to configure which sites or domains will always open in an IE environment and allows easy switching back and forth with one click of a button. IE Tab in Chrome, however, has neither of those options. ForecastFox in Firefox displays the weather in the bottom status bar. In Chrome, you just get a button in the top toolbar that you have to click on for weather details. Xmarks, the popular bookmark syncing service, also didn’t quite deliver. Bookmarks would sync but would screw up the bookmarks on my home Firefox install, and even after multiple syncs, it never did work exactly right. And that seemed to be a common occurrence in my experience. While all of the extensions I tried worked to one degree or another, most felt clumsy and awkward.

The more I used Chrome, the more it reminded me of the contrast between Google’s Android platform and the iPhone. While Android has improved considerably since its initial release, it still lags pretty far behind the iPhone in terms of overall user experience, and the apps for the iPhone are far more numerous and generally better developed than those for Android. Such is the case with Chrome and its extensions versus Firefox and its add-ons; while Chrome continues to improve, it’s not nearly as polished as Firefox.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that it’s a matter of preference. I understand why Chrome is so popular, but in my opinion, Firefox is still the better browser.

Previously:
Giving in to Google
Internet Explorer 8: Faster but no Firefox

Hear me out.

Windows 7 has gotten a lot of praise for its improvements over Vista, both under-the-hood changes to the core OS as well as more visible changes such as a revamped taskbar and the introduction of features like Jump Lists and Libraries. It’s not a major upgrade of Vista and certainly not perfect, but most of my complaints are minor. For example, why is there still so much fluff (desktop gadgets, Wordpad, Sticky Notes, etc.)? Why all the boring and/or confusing “Microsoft-isms” (Home Groups, User Account Control, Windows Live Essentials, Windows Easy Transfer, BitLocker, Aero Peek, Aero Shake)? And why is Steve Ballmer still around?

But again, with the possible exception of the Ballmer question, those are minor annoyances. Where I think Microsoft really missed a huge opportunity was in not killing off Internet Explorer. I mean, let’s face it, IE is a disaster. Sure IE8 is better than previous versions, but it doesn’t even begin to compare to Firefox, Chrome, or Safari. It’s slower, consumes a huge amount of memory when using multiple tabs, and miserably fails the industry-standard Acid3 test.

Microsoft needs to completely ditch IE and replace it with a brand new browser built to support web standards, not worry about backwards compatibility. Maybe even build it with Webkit like Chrome and Safari. It would go a long way in restoring the image of Microsoft and would show that they can effectively compete with Google and Apple. They’ve made strides with Bing, now they need to follow it up with a modern, standards-compliant web browser.

To me, Windows 7 would’ve been the perfect showcase for such a browser. Instead, Microsoft seems to be content with the status quo, and that’s a big disappointment.

Previously:
Internet Explorer 8: Faster but no Firefox
Microsoft: Internet Explorer 8 perfect for porn addicts
Windows 7 Beta 1: Initial thoughts
Windows 7 Beta 1: The other stuff

At least that’s the message I walked away with after (reluctantly) watching their new IE8 commercial, in which a wife projectile vomits after finding porn on her husband’s laptop. (If you care to see it, it’s available here.) The point of the commercial is actually to promote IE8′s InPrivate browsing feature, aka “porn mode”, which hides the browsing history from, well, unapproving spouses.

Really, Microsoft? Really? Of all the various features of Internet Explorer you could’ve promoted, you chose to lead off with this one? Yes, the commercial is disgusting, but what I really don’t understand is why Microsoft thinks InPrivate is such a killer feature. After all, Chrome and Firefox 3.5 both have identical features, but those browsers are also much faster than IE and adhere better to web standards.

It seems to me that if Microsoft really wanted to go head-to-head against their competitors, they would try to do so in a way that spoke directly to the user base that would be most likely to use their product. That’s the tactic they took with their “Laptop Hunters” commercials, and it’s the reason those ads work. They’re not targeted at technical users, but rather non-technical consumers who, when shopping for a new computer, just walk into Best Buy and purchase whatever’s on sale.

And that should be the target audience of these Internet Explorer ads: the people who know nothing about Firefox, Chrome, or Safari, and couldn’t care less. They could talk about the speed improvements over previous versions of IE. They could talk about improvements in supporting web standards. They could talk about web slices, accelerators, or other new and unique features. Instead, they resort to low-brow slapstick that says nothing about the product other than it’s great for married men with an addiction to hardcore pornography.

Not exactly a winning message, if you ask me.

(By the way, the vomit commercial is just one in a series of ads — all featuring Dean Cain — that comprise their Browse for the Better campaign. Ironically, as part of the campaign, Microsoft will donate 8 meals to Feeding America for every download of IE8. Here’s hoping the recipients of those meals can keep their food down.)

Previously:
Internet Explorer 8: Faster but no Firefox
New Microsoft ‘I’m a PC’ ads: too little too late

The good news: It’s better. The bad news: It’s still Internet Explorer.

I downloaded and installed it last night, a process that took much longer on my Windows XP machine than it should’ve. And of course it required a reboot, typical for IE but unheard of for any other browser.

After booting back up and logging in, I fired it up and was pleasantly suprised. The speed difference between 7 and 8 was immediately noticeable, and sites that used to be wonky under 7 such as Google Reader now seemed to work properly (imagine that).

But despite all the other new features (see here for a full list) and some relatively good reviews (Wired called it “Microsoft’s First Truly Modern Browser”), the fact remains that it’s still Internet Explorer. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.

Many of the same UI changes introduced in version 7 still exist in 8: The Home Page button is still in the lower right-hand corner of the toolbar and the Refresh and Stop buttons are to the right of the Address Bar. And guess what, it’s still as awkward now as it was then. Seriously, Microsoft?

And while the benchmarks may show IE8 to be faster than Firefox 3.05 and Chrome, IE’s speed will always take a backseat to Firefox’s extensive library of add-ons.

That isn’t to say it’s a horrible product. As IE is concerned, it’s a really good browser, certainly far better than version 7. Those who are happy with Internet Explorer will like the upgrade. I just don’t think it’ll do much to win back the ones who’ve already moved on to other browsers.

Update:
Lifehacker has this to say about IE8 and Firefox:

Firefox is the grandchild of the venerable Mosaic browser and free-roaming son of Netscape. Although Firefox has a myriad of user-friendly, forward-thinking features, a decently secure framework, and an open-source ideology, its most prominent is extensibility. When convincing a Firefox user to abandon Firefox for anything else, even temporarily, you won’t have to fight them over giving up the AwesomeBar or about:config tweaks—you’ll hear a common, understandable refrain: “What about my extensions?” The repository of extensions maintained by Mozilla currently has over 6,000 entries, covering everything from blocking advertisements, to managing your clipboard, to allowing you to further customize your browsing experience with scripts a la Greasemonkey (here’s 10 of our must-have picks). Combine the passion people have for extensions and the ability to sync those extensions across multiple computers and portable installations, and you’ve got a force to be contended with. …

While many or most IE users stick with it for lack of wanting to try something else, Lifehacker readers definitely don’t fall into that crowd—the majority of readers who voted in favor of Internet Explorer are sporting Internet Explorer 8. By contrast, nearly 20 percent of those surfing the web right now are using Internet Explorer 6, which had its initial release in 2001. Version 8 could mark a resurgence for the brand, though. It’s the first version of Internet Explorer to have a strong focus on web standards compliance, as well as increasing rendering speed. And like Chrome, Internet Explorer 8 maintains a separate process for each tab to increase stability and security. Internet Explorer 8 has also beefed up its security measures from previous versions, including active filtering against malicious cross-site scripting and ActiveX isolation from the core of the browser.

With other marketing efforts such as the Mojave Experiment falling flat, it was a smart move on Microsoft’s part to take direct aim at Apple. After all, the Windows/Mac debate has always been about culture and stereotypes rather than about the actual quality of the products.

As well-orchestrated as the ads may be, however, I don’t think they’ll be enough.

Microsoft is in a terrible position, image-wise, in the tech world. Windows Vista, although a pretty good operating system, has been so maligned since its release that no amount of marketing is going to change that. That’s the reality.

But that’s not the only area they’re having problems in. They continue losing ground to Firefox and Google in the browser world, and they’re struggling with RIM, Apple, and soon Google in the mobile OS market. And when you look at online activities (search, webmail, social networking, web-based apps), they’re not just losing out to Google and others, they’re becoming the AOL of the Net in the process. Think about it: which connotes a more professional image, a Gmail address or a Hotmail address? WordPress or Windows Live Spaces? Flickr or Windows Live Photo Gallery?

Microsoft continues to excel (no pun intended) in the OS and office productivity worlds, and they have a strong foothold in the enterprise. But clearly they’re struggling with an image problem in the consumer realm, and ultimately that could be devastating. (And honestly, their own “Windows Live” branding isn’t helping anything.) Even non-techy users are becoming more sophisticated, and they’re going to use the products that best fit their needs. And the fact of the matter is, outside of the enterprise Microsoft does not have the best products in most cases.

The “I’m a PC” ads are a good first step in changing how their products are perceived, but they’re going to have to do much, much more–going on the offensive not just against Apple, but against Google and others–if they hope to remain relevant in the years to come.