Summary: Microsoft's Windows booster, Mr. Thurrott, is admitting that Windows is a "messy product"

Paul Thurrott is one of the best known boosters of Microsoft. He has been the company's best known Windows supporter (probably bar none) since decades ago. He rarely complains about Windows and he habitually throws FUD at Linux in exchange for payments. This is not being objective; it's being self-serving.

Since Vista 8 is such a horrible disaster (some boosters like Thurrott still actively deny this) there is now a point of break-down of sorts. As Ryan, a former Microsoft MVP, put it in our IRC channels the other day: "Even Paul Thurrott is now admitting there are problems."

To quote Thurrott's analysis, titled "What the Heck is Happening to Windows?"

When critics described Windows 8.1 as a step backwards, I disagreed: Responding to customer complaints is never wrong, I argued, and the new version of the OS made it more acceptable on the many different types of PCs and devices on which Windows now runs. With Update 1, however, I'm beginning to question the validity of this new direction, and am now wondering whether Microsoft has simply fallen into an all-too-familiar trap of trying to please everyone, and creating a product that is ultimately not ideal for anyone.

If you look back over the decades at the many high-level complaints that have been leveled at Windows, one in particular sticks out: Unlike Mac OS, in particular, Windows has always attempted to satisfy every possible customer need, and as such it often provides multiple ways to accomplish the same thing. The result is a messy product, if you will, one that lacks the singular vision that is typically associated with the Mac and Apple's other products.

As one person put it in Diaspora: "I saw this posted at Hacker News, and figured, "Oh, another Apple / Google / Linux fanboy kicking Microsoft while it's down".

"No. This is Paul Thurrott. He's a long time Microsoft booster, some have said shill. And he's clearly got some major questions over the future of the OS if not the company." ⬆