Many times, as I have gone through life, I have heard, “The New Improved.” The problem with that is that many times improved isn’t better. Invariably, when you try to tell those saying it’s improved won’t listen. They don’t like that we don’t like the “improvements.”

My best guess is that it hurts their egos. They put a lot of effort into it, you know. They put a lot of money and research into it, you know. They spent a lot of time and money that really look nice that I will never use. And then they ask me why I don’t like it and they pay absolutely no attention to me. I am not a big corporation, you know. The reason I don’t like their new Outlook.com is that there is something wrong with me. The reason I don’t like their cloud is that there is something wrong with me.

Everyone knows that that it is better, you know.

My personal opinion is that the biggest problem with computers nowadays is that the wrong people determine what to buy and what is needed. Those who are members of the board and know little or nothing about computers determine what to buy. Those who use the computers have little-to-no input on what is purchased. Those who use the computers and deal with the problems daily are told that they have the best equipment and software. It is what the computer salesmen have said, you know.

And those using the computers end up with a ton of bells-and-whistles that are never used and making-do without those things they need.

One thing that experience has taught me was that all corporations large and small who refuse to listen to their customers fail. As an example, who would have ever thought Sears, one of the largest retailers in the world at one time, is now a small shell of what it was. It totally surprised me. It was one of those outfits you just knew would last forever.

Someday, someone will come up with another truly better operating system and Microsoft will find their product in a heap as with others who can’t accept the fact that some people don’t want or need something that does everything at the cost of requiring enormous amounts of hardware. Some folks like me like to manage my own system.

At one time, I reformatted my system disk once every three months and reloaded it. It did not take that long. Moreover, it provided a confidence that if something happened, I could start with a new system and be operational in a few hours. Now it took a week for me to migrate from my older system to the new system. Incidentally, I had the distraction of MS trying to get me to accept the new outlook. I’m still having to go through and deal with The Cloud stuff. What happens if I lose access to the web.

And, by the way, I still have a good operating older system from which I migrated. Who knows how long it would have taken if I was recovering from a major failure.

Perhaps, there are a few of you out there who cringe as I do, when they hear Microsoft advertising that they have come out with, “improvements.”