Chandler "Microsoft" Bing :-)

I took a look at Microsoft's new search engine "Bing". I was quite impressed with it. Maybe because by now Microsoft is just known for not getting "search" right :-). So the bar was quite low. However I liked what I saw.
At the "AllThingsD" conference last week Steve Ballmer was asked about the name "Bing". He said that they didn't want users to keep clicking back and forth. It tried to do more that simply find the best links and put those in front of the user. Fair enough.

When I heard the name, the first thing that came to my mind was "Chandler Bing" :-). Maybe because I am huge F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fan. But the name 'Bing' is almost synonymous to Chandler Bing and thereby Matthew Perry. I wonder why Microsoft hasn't yet taken Matthew Perry ("Chandler Bing" from F.R.I.E.N.D.S) as their brand ambassador. Chandler was smart, witty, funny, had a job in "Data processing and statistical analysis" and very very popular; not too different from what Microsoft is trying to achieve. If they used Jerry Seinfeld for the brand name "Microsoft", they could've easily gone with Matthew Perry for their search business.

And one by one they could introduce new features named Monica (where they keep the search engine clean), Joey ("date" search), Ross (academia search), Rachel (deals search) and Phoebe (?? search) :D. Maybe this could be the way of bringing all the six of them together again!! As is, we hardly see anyone from the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. starcast these days.

SRK ... A Microsoft?

Time and time again, I happen to meet people who just simply can't like Shahrukh Khan :). It happened recently when I asked a group of friends if they would be willing to watch "Rab ne bana di jodi". Its amazing ... since he's probably "The superstar" that the Hindi film industry has seen. And even more interesting are the reasons that people have to not-like him.

Most people say that he is hardly an actor. In all his movies, its SRK who is the the main lead... and not Raj or Rahul or Om or whatever. Its as if Shahrukh, the person, is put into some real like situation and the camera is capturing the scenes. Compare this against Aamir Khan who almost everyone agrees is the better actor.

Although, I agree with this, I don't think this is good enough reason to just completely hate SRK. Fine, he doesn't go into the character but makes the character look like him. So what? The ultimate aim of a film should be to entertain people with characters on the screen which are likeable. If SRK does that job for a film, then whats wrong? So when you see a DDLJ, you want to have Raj as your friend or a member of your family. When you see a Baazigar, you root for Vicky even though you see him going on a killing spree. When you see a "Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa", you do empathize with Sunil even though you see him lying and manipulating his way through. No point talking about Swades and Chak De India since almost everyone seems to like them.

Maybe I am an absolute nerd or just completely out of my mind, but I couldn't help comparing this situation with that of Microsoft :).
In the tech circles, most people just seem to go slam-bang against Microsoft.Its amazing ... since that is probably "The Company" that the software industry has seen. And even more interesting are the reasons that people have to not-like him.

Most people talk about how Windows wont work under some circumstances or worse still, it will crash just out of the 'Blue' (WOW... how subtle was that ;) ). It was they who made the 'PC' really what it is. Without Windows, probably the computer would've never been personal. And not just that, maybe the software industry would probably not existed at all.

From what I think, most of this criticism comes from --- "I am an industry insider. I know it better than most. And guess what... Microsoft sucks." We've all been in these situations where claiming something completely extraordinary catches everyone's attention, people are in awe and probably makes one feel above the rest. But if one thinks rationally, its almost stupid :).

Microsoft has made such an impact that people expect too much from them. And when that does not happen, people criticize them :). For e.g. quite often when Windows crashes, it because some driver written by some companies other than MS did something wrong. Windows did a good thing to crash because that saved your PC. If it had just continued, you might have lost your hardware or data or both. Neways... will talk about BSODs in depth later.

But the point to note about both, SRK and Microsoft is that people like them. They're famous and successful. And most of us would want to be that. So rather than criticizing them people should try to learn from their success (don't emulate it if you don't like it... but just criticism makes no sense).