And… Cut! August 10, 2009
Posted by Chuck Musciano in Leadership, Technology.Tags: Customer Service, Details, Technology, Users, Windows 7
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Microsoft is making a huge marketing push as the official release of Windows 7 looms on October 22. Having learned many, many lessons from the failed Vista deployment, Microsoft seems to be headed for a successful launch. I’ve been using Windows 7 for several months now, and I really like it. Could there be any stumbling block that will trip Microsoft at the last minute?
Yes. And it has nothing to do with networking, security, speed, or any other technical detail with the product. The potential Achilles heel of Windows 7 is… Windows MovieMaker.
Really? Really. Vista included, for free, Windows MovieMaker. While it’s not the slickest video production tool in the world, it’s enough to get the job done, and many videos were produced using MovieMaker. I can tell you that several school projects in my house would not have been completed without MovieMaker.
Windows 7 does not bundle Windows MovieMaker. Instead, users are expected to download and install the Windows Live tools, which include a new version of MovieMaker. And when I say “new,” I mean “essentially useless.”
Here’s how this disaster will play out. Many families will acquire new computers running Windows 7 by the end of this year. At some point, their children will be faced with producing some video for school. This will be discovered at 10 PM on the night before the video is due, when the child announces that MovieMaker is missing from their new computer. Even after figuring out how to download and install Windows Live, they’ll learn (around 11:30) that it is useless. Tears and yelling will ensue, and it will all be Microsoft’s fault.
All the goodwill earned with the many nice features in Windows 7 will be undone with one bad grade blamed on Microsoft. This could all be easily avoided if Microsoft will just bundle the old MovieMaker (and it’s ability to directly burn a DVD) into Windows 7.
The lesson is easy: success depends on attention to the details. Specifically, the details that matter to your customers. You can get all the big stuff right but miss on a few crucial details, and you get the same black eye as if you had blown the whole project.
I am still frustrated that I cannot easily program speed-dial numbers on my VoIP telephone. It was easy on my old non-VoIP phone from a different vendor, but is an end-user nightmare with this new phone. Everything else is great, but when anyone asks me about these phones, my first reaction is to talk about the lousy speed-dial features. How did this detail, which affects every single user of these phones, get overlooked? Even now, it remains unaddressed after years of complaining.
Good leaders pay attention to the details. You can’t get immersed in them, but you need to be aware of them. Asking the right questions at the right time is an important skill. Putting on your “user hat” and looking at a system with fresh eyes can help you find the crucial details that will make or break you.
My advice: pay attention and don’t lose focus. Identify the details that matter and deliver on them. And, if Microsoft doesn’t change their plans, buy your kids a video editing package when you get your next home computer.
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Good feedback – I will pass along to the Windows Live Movie Maker (WLMM) team. Without getting into alot of detail – the current release is beta and v 1.0 – the team wanted to make the tools easier for users so that initially some of the more ‘advanced’ components like timeline, layers, etc were removed. Look for updates to the WLMM version to add new features and add back some of these more advanced components. Offline we might be able to share a few additional details but most of the specific feature roadmap is still confidential.
While not the most seamless process – you can also download Windows Movie Maker 2.6 which includes the timeline and other advanced features – this installs and works great on Windows 7. See http://tinyurl.com/2ul8mx for download link. I was recently putting together a video for my parents and was looking to add multiple audio tracks which the current version of WLMM does not support so that’s when I found version 2.6 available online. Hopefully this fills a gap for you until features driven by customer feedback is available in future WLMM versions…
Tim,
I think that you miss the point that Chuck wants to make: pay attention to details and don’t lose focus.
On the former one, the details are not which version of Movie Maker is better or more suitable for bundling, it’s who is using the Vista free version and like to continue to enjoy it. Not knowing who they are or worse yet, knowingly ignoring them is inviting trouble.
On the latter one, the focus should not be on which features to include (yes, they are necessary, but not suffient). It should be on the customers and the benefits they would gain (or lose) from the new version.
If Microsoft continues to ignore the value side of the equation and put all the focus on the prouesse of technical features, it has a long way to go.
Tim,
Thanks for the feedback. I find the desire to make WLMM “easier” interesting. The original WMM was wonderfully easy to use, and my kids were cranking videos in minutes. Coupled with the DVD burning, it was an awesome package.
I have used the old WMM 2.6 on Windows 7 and it runs fine. Except for the crucial link to a DVD burner. WMM 2.6 looks for Windows DVD Maker and integrates seamlessly. When it cannot find WDM, it provides no alternative to burn a DVD. The cool part of the WMM/WDM partnership was the amazingly simple DVD menus you could build and burn in just a few minutes.
There is no WDM available for download and use with Windows 7. At my house, we created the video with the old WMM on Windows 7, copied it to a USB drive, went to an old Vista machine, and loaded the video into WMM just to burn it. Not a good solution.
Again, the devil’s in the details. Windows 7 needs a native DVD burner to integrate with WLMM. A small nit, but one that will annoy many, many kids and parents at some point in the school year.
I think ‘easy’ is subjective
– no doubt the three of us are adept at finding, installing and using software for some productive purpose – heck, the fact I had to choose whether to reply via Twitter or via blog is self-evident enough of that fact 
For many others, this process can be difficult and the software might be so overwhelming with choice and option that the user ultimately gives up. I have found that for some, ‘easy’ = ‘productive’ and for others ‘easy’ = ‘simple’ – often it can be difficult to satisfy both definitions. Personally I was frustrated the first time I used WMM – I think it was a download for Windows XP – I wanted to use it to stitch together photo’s and make a photo movie similar to the inbox Windows Media Center experience when creating a slideshow. At that time WMM was only for video media and could not create what I wanted so I stumbled upon PhotoStory and even purchased an add-on from Sonic that enabled PhotoStory to send directly to DVD. My understanding was that there was a conflict that prevented Microsoft from including functionality to send to DVD with PhotoStory – I am not a lawyer but my understanding was it was related to existing OEM agreements… Interestingly I still maintain a Virtual PC image running Windows XP w/ PhotoStory for my yearly photo stitching project for my dad’s Rotary Club trips to Peru…
Either way, as a consumer I completely understand the sentiment and realize everyone isn’t happy with every foot forward as inevitably sometimes there is a step back – reference other WLMM feedback around removal of timeline, multiple audio tracks, etc. Having spent some time in the Redmond mothership, I do find it a bit naive to think that designers and developers ‘knowingly ignore’ their consumers. Many people I worked with over the years take great pride in making software that millions of people use and often are completely obsessed with details – I was on a team once that looked at instrumented data from our usability labs and focus groups to find ways to remove individual mouse clicks – the rationale being that 2 extra mouse clicks * some very large number of consumers = an even larger amount of wasted productivity. Same holds true for other teams I personally spent time on that looked at ways to reduce reboots in situations like applying hotfixes, re-configuring network settings, installing software, etc. In that case, the effort to understand and resolve in code was the easy part, integrating into products ensuring no regressions or collateral damage was definitely much more difficult… I have been in my fair share of ‘disagreements’ between product development and marketing arguing over the value of making a change or ignoring a change based on our different points of view of providing value to the consumer. Fortunately this dialogue happens to the benefit of consumers – for those of you with experience in product development or engineering you know what I am talking about… To make a parallel – there are reasons why all the beautiful cars you see at the auto shows are prototypes and often never make it (or when they do are designed or function much differently) to market… Back on track in software, of course this fanaticism can often lead to solving problems where there aren’t any – believe me, I was a part of some of those too
Does removing an extra mouse click per hour increase anyone’s productivity in a dramatic way? – maybe not… Does removing a few mouse clicks make the user feel the software is intuitive, simple and easy? – maybe…
Chuck – I am curious about the native DVD burner comment… On the PC I am on right now I am still running RC bits (Enterprise SKU) and DVD Maker is available via Start Menu. I did verify that WLMM does not currently integrate w/ DVD Maker nor does the WMM 2.6 download integrate in any elegant way but DVD Maker is there… Again without getting into top secret territory, if this is a sticking point I think you will be pleased to see how things transpire – stay tuned…
Tim,
Thanks for a long, thoughtful reply.
First, this was not a post to bash Microsoft. I used the WMM example to demonstrate the danger of overlooking seemingly innocuous details. As you (and lots of other people) know, I am a big fan of Windows 7 and really like the product. If anything, I’m hoping that Windows 7 won’t get tripped up by missing one or two small things that can make a big difference.
I also understand that W7 is still in pre-release, which is why the post closed with a hopeful tone that this will all get fixed before the final release. I’ll point out that my VoIP phone vendor hasn’t fixed the speed-dial problem, and I’ve been complaining about that for three years. I’ve given up hope on that one.
I’ve been in those design meetings as well, trying to understand real end user needs and balance that with sincere efforts to build great tools. It’s hard, that’s for sure. It is interesting, though, to see different perceptions of the same tool. I think WMM is really easy to use, as do my kids. I doubt that translates to someone who has never dealt with any sort of audio/video editing tool, but I wonder how much is fairly obvious when you get started with it for the first time.
I do have DVD Maker in my W7 install, but nothing natively points me to it. I also have PhotoStory running on W7 (the XP version runs just fine). I used it to create a photo montage for my daughter’s graduation, but had to manually create a video and pull it into DVD Burner myself. I can do the same with DVD Maker, but the current output options for WMM do not include any hi-res formats, so I did the final rendering on a Vista machine.
I am very hopeful that this will get fixed before October 22. Again, any project’s success depends on the all the details coming together. Managing all that is hard, whether you are releasing a new OS or running a small project. Good leaders stay on top of all the details and make sure they get handled.