“And it just works!” (from: Paul Thurrott)
http://www.internet-nexus.com/2005_04_17_archive.htm#111426206683392947
This week, a poorly researched Fortune Magazine article alleges that Microsoft’s “new” mantra is, “it just works.” The article quotes Microsoft group vice president Jim Allchin as saying that ” the number one design goal for Longhorn has been: ‘It just works.’” Mac fanatics and the anti-Microsoft cabal at Slashdot jumped all over this comment, complaining that Apple had been using the phrase to describe the Mac since the Switch ad campaign.Sorry, Apple fanatics. If Apple came up with the phrase “it just works” for the Switch ad campain, then they copied it from Microsoft. The software giant has been using the phrase for at least a decade, which of course is widely documented in many places. After a very cursory search (you Mac guys should get some good searching tools, ahem), I found a short blurb I wrote in December 1999 related to the marketing plans for Millennium, which became known as Windows Me:
Windows Millennium is the first deliverable from the Consumer Windows Division and its focus lies in advancing technologies for home computer users in four key areas: PC Health/”It Just Works”, digital media and entertainment, the online experience, and home networking.That, however, isn’t the oldest document I have related to Microsoft that references this phrase. In the Windows 95 and Office 95 Evaluation and Migration Kit, dated January 25, 1995, Microsoft twice uses the phrase:
With Windows 95, configuration of hardware resources is greatly simplified over legacy configuration techniques-it just works.In the Windows Me Digital Media Technical Overview, a document provided to the press at the launch of Windows Me, Microsoft also uses the phrase:Users need not concern themselves with the inner workings of Plug and Play-it just works.
As the PC continues to become a more integral part of entertainment experiences from Web surfing to discovering and purchasing digital media, there is an increasing need to provide the same, easy, “it just works” experience that consumers have today with appliances such as televisions and stereos.OK, how about some more online references, which you can more easily check yourself? I found these examples quite quickly:
WININFO EXCLUSIVE: Windows Millennium to debut May 26, 2000! (February 2000)
Microsoft is designing this release around four key goals, digital media and entertainment, the online experience, home networking, and “it just works,” a marketing phrase designed to promote Millennium’s self-healing capabilities and compatibility with a vast array of hardware and software.Windows XP Hardware and Software Compatibility (February 2001)
Like application compatibility, Microsoft’s stance on device compatibility is as simple as it is impressive: “Buy it, plug it in, and it just works,” said Microsoft program manager Eugene Lin succinctly.Jim Allchin Talks Windows XP (August 2001)
Jim Allchin: “But we’ve made huge gains with XP. You plug in camera, and it just works.”Given the evidence, the following argument made by these children seems even weaker than usual:
Allchin must be an idiot. He certainly sounds like one. He’s been “in charge of Windows for almost a decade.” ‘Nuff said. Oh, one more thing, where’d he get the phrase, “it just works?” Straight from his number one supplier of ideas, of course, Apple Computer: http://www.apple.com/switch/whyswitch/.Apple’s Switch campaign, of course, started in June 2002, well after all of the articles and documents quoted above.
Does that mean Microsoft “invented” “it just works”? Of course not. It just means that certain Mac fanatics are willing to jump all over Microsoft, or any other perceived enemy, even when they don’t have the facts. Maybe someone used the phrase back in 1983 or 1992. Who knows? But pointing to the Switch campaign as proof that Apple used this phrase first is incorrect. And jumping all over Allchin for using a phrase he’s been using to describe Windows for a decade is both wrong and childish.