Tell it, Brother!

Lance Unlanoff has posted an open letter to Bill Gates with a top-ten list of his biggest frustrations with Windows. They're quite similar to mine.

1) System Resources Are Never Enough

2) Time for More Detailed Explanations

3) Even When You Do Tell Me, You Really Don't

4) The Information You Offer Isn't Always Useful

5) Sometimes, It Eats My Files

6) Word Can Drag Outlook Down

7) Dopey Smart Tags

8) Useless Messages

9) Windows/Word/IE PC Collects Way Too Much Garbage

10) Nothing Is Lean or Smart Enough

I don't use Word or Outlook because of security issues. I barely use IE, but the software industry's focus on bloatware and "cool features" really annoy me as do the useless and cryptic "help" messages. They need to have a team that goes through everything to explain things in ways that non-technical people can understand. Of course, that might hurt their book sales, but there's no reason everything has to make money.

They ought to pay for the privilege of their monopoly by making a better product.