I never understood why Microsoft were selling software to protect their own operating system. It’s good to see they’re taking the software in the right direction - lightweight, nonintrusive and best of all free.

When you think of Microsoft you pretty much always picture a global conglomerate, a company with many diverse aspects – unable to say what “business” they are actually in. Why is this a bad thing? I think it’s because customers don’t know who they’re talking to. They’re got this idea of a big not caring company in their head; and frankly Microsoft aren’t really helping themselves drop this image.

It’s sad that people think this way because, believe it or not, Microsoft, actually make some very cool products. The Xbox 360 for instance – at the end of the day a success, and is still my choice for gaming consoles.

It certainly isn’t an easy thing to change your public image and by no means will it happen over night, but I believe that there are a few things that Microsoft can do that can be at least stepping stones to having the general public have more of an understanding for what Microsoft are here to do, and how it can help you – the user.

The Solutions

Feedback is one of those things that is easily taken but given very little, that is why it is so important – because if you get a feature request, they probably, really, really want it! Microsoft have a history of not using the feedback from users that they get.

What better way is there to get people to use your product then putting in everything they want to see?

Microsoft is a very large company, and they’re making an absolute fortune. I think it may be best for them to pull out a few weeds and drop some of their smaller, less successful projects and focus on what is actually working for them and bringing in money. So, drop Surface and MSN TV and start putting more resources into Windows, Live and Xbox.

From there it will be a lot easier to see what Microsoft are all about. I would try having a different colour scheme for each sector of the industry Microsoft are in. Maybe red for Live, green for Xbox and blue for Windows and so on.

My next point really leads off well from what I just covered. I want integration, no, seamless integration between all that Microsoft does. This is key because if a user can buy a game for their 360 that they saw while using Microsoft Search, then walk over to the Xbox and play it. They’ve got a winner. People don’t want to care.

If that worked perfectly, nothing less, I would start using MS search today. It doesn’t take a couple more innovations like that to make me switch back to Windows.

I think that for the past two years the words ‘Windows Vista‘ have meant nothing but problems. With Windows 7 Microsoft are solving half the problem – but I think that it’s time to retire the Windows name and move on to something totally new.

What do they gain from this? Well, to start off with, no preconceptions about that they will produce. They can think completely out of the box. There’s no need for legacy support; one of the things that has been holding Windows up for the past few years is that they feel they need to support older software, hardware and users. So the back end of Windows is old and crumbling.

In the end, it’s less about dropping the Windows name, but more an excuse to move on completely from what people expect from their OS. Obviously there are some marketing advantages to this as well, this really encapsulates what I have been talking about – this is Microsoft’s big chance at recapturing the essence of what Microsoft and their OS is about.

Finally, I think Microsoft should get a bit more excited up in front of people. For better or worst they’re changing the way people think and work – not many people have that sort of opportunity. Embrace it and I think you’ll find you’re working a lot better and producing better products on the whole. If a coder can be excited about getting up and writing a log-in script – so can a user be excited about using it.