It looks like big soft-
and hardware companies are prone nowadays to make big mistakes
without having a 'Plan B' to fix them. Recent examples: Blackberry,
Microsoft, Apple.
1. At first Blackberry
wouldn't even admit that the mobile world has changed. Then it sort
of condescended to general user needs and announced its own revival.
And failed. Dismally. By that time tings are seriously bad for BB,
but it keeps on smiling saying a new 'big thing' is under way. Too
slow, too late. When it finally rolls out a fairly decent product
nobody's interested - folks got tired of waiting. The company goes
under.
2. Even at early testing
stages Microsoft received plenty of negative feedback about Windows 8's usability. Still, MS went ahead and released the OS AS IS.
That is, the way MS saw it. Why not fix the 'Start' button before
release? Why not give user an ability to choose? It probably wouldn't
save the OS but at least would've been appreciated by some. No, MS
hurtles forward like a runaway train. What's it get? Infamy and
contempt. Users are good at both, especially when they feel that a
big player in the market is trying to push stuff down their throats.
Now, with Windows 8 months old and gathering dust on store shelves,
where's the promised update, the 8.1? Even having recognized Windows
8 shortcoming the software giant is way too slow in remedying them.
3. iOS 7 was touted
by Tim Cook as
the “the biggest change to iOS since the
iPhone”. Well, the change turned out to be huge. The new iOS
introduced lags, hangs, sudden shutdowns that were typically
associated with earlier releases of Android. What had happened?
Didn't Apple have enough testing time? Did they not enroll testers
competent enough? We'll never know. One thing I know for sure from my
own Apple experience Steve Jobs would've never, never released a
product as unpolished
as iOS 7 is at its current stage. And again, although complaints
about the new release grow as a snowball, Apple is only
vaguely hinting at fixing them at some point in the future. No 'Plan
B', heh? Well, we all hope Apple's 'some time' is not as destructive
as Blackberry's.
Just a brief reminder of
how competitive this market is: Palm, Sun, Nokia, to name a few...
