Does Mary Jo Foley need a spanking?

No, not THAT kind of spanking!

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1827927,00.asp
from WinCustomize Forums

Microsoft-Watcher Mary Jo Foley has been the scurge of Microsoft since the mid 90s.  Back when I was an OS/2 developer, there'd be people in the office half-rooting/half-fearing what MJ would write next about the empire. 

Now that Microsoft-Watch.com, her website/super-blog has taken off, her coverage of Longhorn has given many of Microsoft's advocates some heart burn.

The problem Microsoft is having and that Mary Jo is reporting is that Longhorn has been a much more..organic development than say Windows NT was.  The problems it is being designed to solve have changed during the course of development and as a result the priorities of Longhorn have had to change to adapt to new realities in the market.  Of course, when a site like Microsoft-Watch.com points out these changes, it can create some groaning to those who would prefer to sweep under the rug the fact that, yes Virginia, Longhorn's specs of 2005 bear little resemblance to what they were to be at PDC back in 2003 even.

So what's the verdict? Is Mary Jo just telling to cold hard truth, or is she the bringer of an anti-Microsoft FUD party?

12,599 views 21 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I for one thinking that comparing an ongoing and pre-alpha version of an OS based on comments made TWO YEARS AGO are a little trivial.

I mean, almost any software maker and especially game-maker out there makes comments about what they *want* in their next release and what they assume at the time to be in their next release. It's called looking forward. Because the computing world is an on-going and living environment, people and developers have to make changes they didn't see 2 years ago.

Seriously here in reality, isn't almost everything top-of-line right now mediocre in 6 months and most technology available to the masses is almost outdated by the time it gets in our hands?

It seems someone just has to find something to nit-pick against if you ask me.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
i've been a big fan of hers since her pc week days. fight the power, mary jo! you rock!
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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Mary Jo Foley is doing what good journalists should be doing. Something that seems increasingly rare in the technology industry - expose the truth on mega corporations like Microsoft who try to pretend they have some grand "vision" when in reality they're just trying to rev their products to increase their bottom line.

My beef with Microsoft is that they keep trying to make Longhorn out to be the most important version of Windows ever. That's baloney. Watching someone like MJF making Bill Gates eat his words is lovely. What is special about Longhorn? Everything that seemed interesting about it has been pulled. At least they backed away from the "enslaved" (managed) code nonsense a bit.

Without people like Mary Jo Foley, the tech industry would be left with only a bunch of sychophants trying to kiss up to Microsoft.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Nothing wrong with being anti-Microsoft every now and then. On a few occasions the FUD has turned out to be true in the end.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Interesting.

Seems like some fact, and some speculation.

I, for one, do not give sales pitches (MS) or people who want to point out flaws (i.e., Mary Jo) as much weight as I give the final product - "The proof is in the pudding", so-to-speak.

Longhorn will be what it will be.

XP SP2, from my understanding and belief, is what XP should have been released as originally. So if Longhorn is a large improvement on the XP design, I have no real issues - though admittedly, I have no personal issue with MS because I see the software as a tool to get the hardware to perform certain jobs (which it has always done), and I will need a new OS for the computer I am building.

Printed information about upcoming products from unbiased sources is a plus, though I do not know whether this is the case here - if she is unbiased, great.

Thanks for the link, Brad.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It is wise to wait until the product is released and you can evaluate what's really in there before speculating on what it may and may not have, including the obligatory sales pitch.
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Yeah totally! instead of gossipping while being out of the Microsoft house! I'm not against Mary Jo's work in general, I'm just against passing judgements on an unfinished products.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Very wise words, crae!
And I quite agree with you.

 

 

(Where does one line up to watch her get spanked?!)

Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think there's some sexism present too. If Mary Jo Foley were a man, she would be just looked at as a hard-hitting journalist. But because she's a woman, you have geek-patronization directed towards her.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It is wise to wait until the product is released and you can evaluate what's really in there before speculating on what it may and may not have, including the obligatory sales pitch.


I think its better to see what MS is actually saying about longhorn. I for one refuse to actually wait for MS to realease another crappy OS, then wait for patches and updates. So far what MS is saying about longhorn is nothing good. Things usually turn out to be not as good as they are advertised, and right now MS is advertising that longhorn can do crap that other OS's were capabable of doing years ago. I guess Monad sounds nice, but thats about it (and it wont even be released for longhorn). At least its still looking like people will need stardock to make longhorn pretty.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I think there's some sexism present too. If Mary Jo Foley were a man, she would be just looked at as a hard-hitting journalist. But because she's a woman, you have geek-patronization directed towards her

Pardon my French but that's a truckload of bullshit.
I dunno about the rest but I personally don't give a flying "sexual act" about what sex the person at the other end of the line is.
If you give crap, you gotta take crap.

Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I don't see much point of all the articles analysin pre-alpha products as it where the real deal, even though they do include "I know it's not released yet". In the same way I promptly browse on the moment I see someone start of "This OS is better than that OS...". Too many opinions, IMO.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well, I must admit the the choice of words "spanking" would be different if it were a man. The words used would have probably been "kick in the butt" instead. But the intent would have been the same.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top

In the 'good old days' "spanking" was something you dished out to a recalcitrant brat of a child. Now, in this post-holocaust PC world spanking brats is 'out' so the 'other' meaning is presumed.

So....the choice of meted punishment defines the brattishness, not the gender...

Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
recalcitrant adj fml .... [of a person]...unwilling to obey orders
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
"Spanking", "recalcitrant"?? I'm more worried about this sentence: "Back when I was an OS/2 developer, there'd be people in the office half-rooting..."

Where I come from (Australia) this would raise quite a few eyebrows (at least).
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
"So what's the verdict? Is Mary Jo just telling to cold hard truth, or is she the bringer of an anti-Microsoft FUD party?"

If MJ ever had anything good to say about MS, she'd be more believable as a "fair and balanced" watcher, but the fact is she hates the company and everybody in it, and it shows up clearly in her writing.
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What it all will come down to at the end is the consumer. If Microsoft keeps on cutting pits and pieces of Longhorn (and the best bits and pieces it seems) then that means that there is no incentive to go and shell out a couple of hundred dollars for a new OS.

When MS brought out XP they were for the first time faced with the problem that people just didn't switch immediately and the sale of XP started out really slow. There are still lots and lots of people using either Win98 or Win2000 out there. Now we all know that Win98 was an unstable 'pain in the ass' OS, but imagine now that we all have finally a very stable and (thanks to Stardock) good looking OS, why would anyone want to go out an buy a completely new OS which might not be as stable or might initially suffer from child-diseases (who knows?) and is overall only a small improvement over WinXP? There is already a 64bit version of WinXP out there so what exactly is so new and different and better in Longhorn that I should go out and buy it?

I think that this Mary Jo person just points out that Longhorn might not be as different as Microsoft wanted us to believe it is. But as craeonics said; "lets wait and see" (or something like that.. )

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Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Aufisch - you forgot Windows ME. ME was more unstable than 98 I've heard although I never had problems with 98SE or ME.