The Masochist's Institute of Technologyanecdotes of an ambitious MIT student

The past few months, the Internet community has created quite the uproar about a page on Microsoft‘s site, declaring that users should “get the facts” about Internet Explorer 8, the version that will be shipping with their latest operating system, Microsoft Windows 7.

Windows Internet Explorer 8: Get the Facts (external link to page)

Naturally, Microsoft haters, Mac fanboys, and Linux zealots alike pounced on the opportunity to point out Microsoft’s sly, underhanded errors. A few of my friends have ranted incessantly about how immoral and blasphemous Microsoft’s actions have been in putting up this page, oftentimes coincidentially glorifying Firefox/Safari/Chrome/InsertBrowserHere in the process. To which I say: hold your horses and hear me out.

I won’t go through and pick out exactly what is true and what is false about each of Microsoft’s claims – plenty of Firefox-fanatics are happily doing that for me. Instead, I’d like to present a very brief view of the IE8 campaign through Microsoft’s rose-coloured lenses.

Note that Microsoft did not include Opera or Safari in their tests. Why? Because Opera and Safari are known for surpassing IE in many of these fields (Acid3 Test, anyone?) Of course Microsoft couldn’t have that, so they simply waved them off as “lesser” browsers (although I can assure you the number of Opera users can definitely match up to the number of Chrome users.) Also, note how Microsoft refrains from specific language in their descriptions – instead of naming specific “customizations”, they simply refer to “many of the customizations you’d want to download for Firefox.” Note also that they do not claim to have more customizations, or that Firefox has less; they merely point out that IE customizations are already built-in. You know what? This is true. Firefox believes in the freedom and ability of the user to customize as they so wish, which is why they do not include unneccesary add-ons. Microsoft saw an opportunity and pounced, by using Firefox’s absence of toolbar-overload against them.

The tactic is present in many of the points that Microsoft makes. For example, in the “Ease of Use” category, of course Internet Explorer wins! It’s been the standard for over 10 years, so naturally people are more accustomed to opening a Start Menu and hitting the button that says “Internet.” It took me two tries to clarify to a friend that Opera was a web browser and not an oratorio written by Handel. If you were giving your grandmother a new computer, would she recognize “Internet Explorer” or “Safari” or
Chrome” as an Internet browser? Yeah, exactly.

Ultimately, I cannot say I completely agree with what Microsoft is doing (slyly hinting that other browsers’ lack of features is a flaw, whereas the open-souce community insists it’s a good thing to have control over your computer). However, I can understand and sympathize with their tactics – they are a huge corporation. Their job and goal is to make money for shareholders and investors. They know how to market to the general public using tactics that “exploit” human instinct (unlike another OS we know – hint: starts with an L). Microsoft understands that the members of the general public operate mainly on placebo effects - if they think they’re getting better software protection, then they most likely will continue to trust in the product even if a few Trojans manage to slip by. Microsoft understands that people jump to hasty conclusions about their computing experience, and that focusing on improving what used to be bad gains more supporters than improving on what already worked (“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”) The perfect example would be the Vista to Win7 transition.

Microsoft didn’t become a near-monopoly overnight. It didn’t make Bill Gates one of the richest men by catering to sappy fanboys. It certainly didn’t claim such a large share of the marketplace by appealing only to nerds who knew their terminology and could sniff out lies. Instead, Microsoft rose to power by appealing to the general public, who are guillable, not-so-highly educated, and are too lazy to customize a Firefox browser. The general public wants something that works and is familiar. By this time, Microsoft has become a worldwide name. Because the general public trusts heavily-marketed brands, Microsoft can spill half-lies and 70% of the public will gobble it up, which is plenty enough for it to claim a majority of the market share.

In short, Microsoft knows how to twist the truth just right, so that they can appeal to a large portion of users and make them think they are satisfied with what they get. In case you’ve been living under a rock, this phenomenon is called marketing strategy. Don’t be hating on large corporations just because they want profit.

[I now brace myself for flames from the M$-hating community.]