October 2000 || Volume 01, Issue 03

Who Says Microsoft Can't Write Great Software?

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- I've had a new computer at work for a few months now. It's a PC. To be precise it is a Compaq Deskpro Minitower. I didn't ask for this particular computer. When it arrived, I noted that it came with pretty much everything except a DVD drive. With a 750 MHz Pentium III processor, 128 MB of RAM and an 18 GB hard drive controlled by Windows NT 4 with Service Pack 6, it's not a bad machine at all.

Don't get me wrong. I'd never abandon my Macs for one of these. But, the fact is that this is the first PC I've ever had that I didn't dread cranking up in the morning. Believe me, that says quite a lot.

Having been behind the wheel of this thing for months, 5 days a week, allow me to make a few observations about it:

1. It does not crash.
2. It does not crash.
3. It does not crash.

There! And when I say "It does not crash," I mean that to include no Blue Screen of Death either. In months! I'm very impressed.

I observed that the same applications that give me fits on Windows NT (and Windows 98) are the same applications that give me fits on my Mac -- Microsoft applications. Let me make that point again. Microsoft applications don't run any better on Microsoft operating systems than they do on the Mac OS. That's just plain weird.

So, I was surprised to see MacAddict, discussing the as yet unreleased Office 2001 for the Mac, ask in the October, 2000 issue, "Who says Microsoft can't write great software?"

Well, me, for one.

I don't know what's going on over at MacAddict. I've read them since their 1st issue. I watched them go into decline. I've watched their recent resurgence as a serious magazine. Frankly, I enjoy reading them again as I have not in a long time.

Who can explain this sudden insanity? Perhaps their carrot juice has fermented.

Microsoft Never Ceases to Amaze Me

Microsoft products are a constant source of wonder. For example, my wife had me print an invoice the other night. Never having done that before, I fired up Apple Works 6 and searched for an invoice template. Not one to be found. I searched their web site to no avail. Pretty much my experience with downloading AW templates from Apple, now that I think about it.

Wait! What if Microsoft Word has an invoice template? In a fit of desperation, I restarted the trusty ol' Mac with the Microsoft extensions turned on. (Too many crashes with them turned on to keep them active normally.) No invoice template there either. I popped in the Office install CD and found one. Heck, this is looking up, I thought. I called to my wife, "Hey, wife, I think Microsoft got this one right!" She asked me, "Are you all right?"

I installed the template then went through 15 minutes of misery as Word wouldn't let me alter some fields in the template. How weird. I used the little "Office Assistant" character, who led me right to the answer -- in some option or another I had to deselect the "Don't" let me overwrite the data on the template. How weird. Isn't that what templates are for? To be overwritten?

Microsoft logic always amazes me.

That done, everything worked fine. Or, so I thought. I completed the invoice, dating it 2 days into the future, when the event to be invoiced would actually occur.

When I printed the document, Word replaced my date with today's date, obviously fetching it from the Date & Time settings in the computer. No matter what I did, Microsoft's efforts to "help me" simply got in the way. I never solved that puzzle. Nor was I inclined to invest a whole lot of energy in doing so.

Platform Independent Helpfulness

This "I know what's good for you" attitude of Microsoft's generally seems to get folks in trouble. I discussed in a previous column an entire government organization dragged to a halt because of Microsoft Office 97's default formats. In their own peculiar wisdom, Microsoft makes defaults very, very formatted. This can be good for the 10 percent of the population that might actually use that format. For the rest of us, it's an unqualified disaster since it is so unfathomably difficult to override the defaults.

Imagine trying to, first, navigate your way through that byzantine maze that is Microsoft Word options, then, second, transfer that knowledge to 50 technophobes.

Now that I've got Office 2000 on my NT machine, I see we've made little progress in 3 years.

Stupidity -- A New Millennium

Why in the hell is factory default set so you must select an entire word when you highlight text? This is absurd. More times than not, all I want to change is one or two letters. Not only is this setting the factory default in Word, but Outlook also. Which means you've got to negotiate your way through the ridiculous option setting on two Microsoft products. Double your pleasure, double your fun...

Can you say "Integration?" I knew you could.

Just the other day I had to consolidate a bunch of information I'd received from various folks via Microsoft Outlook into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. This required an intermediate stop at Microsoft Word to edit, format, spell check, etc. before actually pasting the info into Excel.

Guess what, the text lost all its formatting as it was pasted into Excel. That is to say, it would only paste it in as one font size and style. If I had text in Word that had a heading of 12 point type in bold, while the rest of the text was plain 10 point type, it all appeared identically formatted once pasted into Excel-- no bold, no different sizes, etc.

Asinine is the word that comes to mind. I mean, how integrated is the Office suite if it won't even do that?

Many more horror stories abound. Which brings me back to David Reynolds' question, "Who says Microsoft can't write great software?" I do David. I do.

One can only hope that Office 2001 for the Mac won't be the "more of the same" that Office 2000 is for Windows. One hopes for lots of things.

To me, the sad thing is that Microsoft never really seems to get it -- other than the market share I mean. That they have. And if they're going to dominate the world, could they please ask those of us that actually use this stuff for feedback?

I would have gladly have beta tested Office 2001 to the ends of the earth. I would have passed files back and forth between Office 2000 and Office 2001 and back again to Office 98. I would have stress tested them in ways that would have curdled the Microsoft Mac Office team's blood. I would have generated hundreds of comments.

Having used every Microsoft Office version ever issued for PC or Mac, I'm not hopeful. That's not to dog Microsoft. It's the truth. I hope with Office 2001, they finally nail it. I'd like to honestly say I enjoy a Microsoft product and that I think it's worth the money.

I'd like to say that MacAddict Executive Editor David Reynolds is right. I'd like to finally be able to plunk down my money for a Microsoft product and not feel totally, shamefully screwed.

We'll see.

Craig Cox - craig@macosjournal.com
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