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by Frans Bouma.
Original Post: Microsoft: stop asking for free advice
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Kevin Hammond blogs about the fact that some request for advice ventilated by Rob Relya about XAML caused a response from Gerald Bauer, the XUL chief. Kevin doesn't get the meaning of Gerald's remark and doesn't understand why Gerald made his remark, and argues Microsoft just wants to get the product better by asking customers what they think about that product.
I think Gerald is right on this, Microsoft is no charity and shouldn't ask for free advice, or better: pretend to be asking for a customer opinion while it is in fact using the non-payed brains out there to lead the way. Because that's what's happening here. You see, Kevin, there is a difference between asking a (potential) customer his/her opinion on some given product and asking a (potential) customer to spend time (and thus money, don't forget that) to make a given product better for the supplier (which is also the inquirer). Those are two different things.
Confusing the two is fatal for goodwill among your target audience in the long run. Everybody and his brother knows Microsoft has some of the best brains on the payroll, with a relatively endless budget at their disposal. It's kind of weird that this enormous brainpower doesn't seem to be able to cook up the right technology but has to be checked with the advice (and asking to make XAML better is not just asking for an opinion, but asking for in-depth thoughts and work) from the target audience. What's wrong, is the brain-train having troubles with a brain-drain? It seems like it.
Everybody in the consulting business knows one golden rule: give one freebee to get the job, but don't give too much freebees because you are then out of a job. Microsoft here is consulting brains which are not on the payroll to check if the material its own brains have cooked up is of enough quality to make it into a successful product. Normally, companies hire consultants to do that: do an independent investigation, come with competing ideas, shoot holes in the design. Microsoft however is doing that by asking the target audience, asking the same question to brains in the field to give the same kind of feedback a consultant would require to produce.
Of course there is nothing wrong with that, if you tell your target audience what you're doing. Gerald Bauer understood and said what Microsoft should have said. But what was the response from Microsoft's own employees? "Gerald is wrong!". I beg your pardon? He might be biased when it comes to XAML as he's head of the XUL team, but that doesn't make his remark any less true. Microsoft, if you want a customer's opinion, do a customer survey. If you want to have proper in-depth feedback, which costs time to produce, tell the audience what you're really doing and if they want to work for free for you: fine, that's their choice, but Microsoft, at least have the balls to admit what's going on and tell them. And if you, Microsoft, have really any notion about the difference between asking for a customer's opinion and in-depth feedback, hire those brains in the field to give you the in-depth feedback so they get some reward for the time (and thus money!) they have spend for you.
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