2003 was better than 97, but not much except for MS Office Document Imaging, which 99% of users (other than me) never use.

Actually, I would argue that customer feedback - whether positive or negative - is absolutely critical to the development of a quality product. It should also be noted that we are talking in terms of a very specific industry that is mostly monopolized, so things are a little skewed and don't necessarily represent a true market.

The feedback about a product to me is just as sure a measurement of quality as the number of defects per 1000 units. Both are measures of how well the unit performed to expectations are they not? One is an internal measure, the other external. As such, I would argue that both are entirely valid measurements of quality. The external ones just also reflect not only the quality of the product, but of the marketing. ;)

I am completely with you there. I wish that Microsoft would give users the option to configure the tool for use in the way that makes sense to them - and not just the "Microsoft" way. I hate the ribbon - it is neither intuitive nor user-friendly to me because I waste a lot of time switching back and forth between tabs trying to find things. And it takes up a LOT of screen real estate I'd rather use for content. In the older versions, I could just create a custom toolbar that had quick buttons for everything I used and needed. Now, though I can create such, it is such a pain to create and use that I don't bother.

Another example of the manufacturer attempting to dictate form and function that actually decreases utility and thus decreases value and quality (in my opinion).

That is something. Sorry things didn't "add up" for the crow. But it was good for you.

My HP 45 or something recently gave out. I learned to love RPN in engineering school (by grad school numbers were irrelevant). I have bought a couple of HP calculators since then assuming they were RPN and been disappointed.

But "she who must not be named" K, wants me to tell the story of how a crow tried to steal my HP45?? calculator one summer on the way home from taking circuit theory I. I was walking down the beautiful tree lined streets of Manhattan KS (Home of the K-state Wildcats) deep in thought about Kirchhoff's Laws when a crow jumps in front of me maybe 15 feet and caws at me. I think it is just a stupid bird so I keep walking, but the crow becomes belligerent, not will to give its ground and flies at me. I turn my head and duck and my (relatively new) HP calculator falls on the cement sidewalk as I back away. I am stunned as the crow lands on the sidewalk and picks up the calculator by a loop in the case and tries to fly away. I can't afford to lose my calculator so I run at the bird waving my hands and shouting. The crow got the calculator 3-4 feet off the ground before I startled it. I picked up the calculator happy to find it still worked and determined to defend it from all birds, bitches, or other vermin.

Windows 8 is almost as bad as the Obama administration. Whenever Microsoft comes out with an "upgrade", it is a downgrade. Anyone remember Office 2007? My Office 97 will run light years faster than anything any of you have.

The HP calculators were indestructible. One of the greatest inventions ever.

I'd say as a daily user of both Win 7pro (on multiple computers) and Win 8.1 (on one system) that the question with 8.1 is more about hardware, not utility. I'm running Win 8.1 on a system with both a touch screen (23") monitor and a separate keyboard and a wireless mouse for those times when it's absolutely needed - and there are those times.

Of course Win 7pro is just great and has been since I built those computers.

So why am I in the camp that likes Win 8.1? "Application". That computer is mounted beside my bed with the monitor hung from a large swing arm so that I can position for use when I'm bedfast and can't sit in my wheelchair at my desk or in my media room or in my studio. In all those places where I'm using a computer with win 7, each has a monitor with a conventional VGA Monitor. As time passes and these computers are replaced and/or upgraded, I plan to equip each with a touch screen and upgrade the monitor to a touch screen monitor.

The price on these were prohibitly expensive in the past. but today they are available under $300, for a monitor that's been flawless for a year. Will they replace the monitor on a gaming machine? No, but the problem is the need for a keyboard, not the use of the monitor.

Running Win 8 or 8.1 on a system with a conventional monitor is a exercise in frustration, at best. I found running the computer in this configuration not at all enjoyable. There are menus that are awkward with just a mouse. It seems like you need two mouses (or mice?) and the on-screen keyboard will pop up when you least expect it and like the mouse, the built-in keyboard carries a couple functions that you'll like on a touch-screen, but is a pain with a regular monitor.

The point it, Win 8.1 is designed for a touch screen monitor. Useing it any other way strips it of it's power.

The consequence of this short term view for me when I was in the oil business was that finding the oil was profitable, and refining it into a usable product was divorced from finding the oil. This made oil refining a breakeven business in bad years and only an 8-9% ROI business in good years. Consequently anyone associated with refining was deemed expendable ... like me.

Investors are very short term focused now. That is true. They don't care whether the company survives after they have made their money.

I just found this interesting tidbit:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/201...

Basically the contention is that investors are growing increasingly short-term focused. If the investors are focused on the short-term, that pressures upper management (usually focused on short-term goals for bonuses) to follow suit.

In my book, quality is measured by utility to the consumer. It doesn't matter whether lack of function is by design or by design flaw - a lack of utility is still a deficiency in value to the consumer and therefore a quality concern. Quality deals with expectations and how well one meets expectations - as you pointed out before.

And I acknowledge the battery problems with the iPhone with the note of how quickly they got it fixed.

My father was one of them. He curses her name to this day.

If that is the case, those are lousy accountants. HP always tracked project costs using the entire lifecycle from initial startup and R&D through production to support and fulfillment - a process that would go for ten years or so after the product stopped being manufactured. If the accounting for any manufacturing firm isn't handling things the same way, they are getting very distorted costs and returns on their product lines.

One also assumes that the manufacturing line is also a static beast with no room for innovation. The manufacturing company I worked for for a time abjured such a closed mindset and actually developed and patented a new production technique for its niche business based on re-engineering their internal manufacturing processes. They weren't inventing a new product for sale as much as simply innovating the way they built their products, but I know they saved a lot of money in scrap and waste and time by using the customized process. Those weren't product-generated profits, but manufacturing-originated cost savings that equated to profits by lowering the variable (and fixed) costs of production. I can't help but think that part of Hank Reardon's genius wasn't JUST the invention of Reardon metal, but the processes by which he manufactured it. Dagny Taggart was constantly manipulating her rail lines so as to keep things running - a "manufacturing"-based effort at efficiency but certainly not an invention.

Just to give you an idea, but I worked for HP for seven years and my father for 22+. Some perspective:

Time to market for arguably HP's most successful printer (the HP LaserJet II) was more than five years. The reason: they wanted a product that was rock-solid. The follow-on lines for the IIP, III, and IV saw similar development times and similar marketplace success. Their performance and quality have been unmatched since.

Now, the typical ttm for a low-end printer is 8-12 months. Granted, they are using a common code base and prototyping is much faster, but I can speak personally about the quality of the engineers and the rigors of testing and they do not compare favorably with what they once were because of cost- and time-constraints (and a change in the market to disposable electronics).

Go back further to when HP made disk drives. They used to have such a high standard of quality that they offered an unprecedented FIVE-year warranty. I was a summer intern there when they were building those things and the people on those lines took great personal pride in doing things right. It didn't hurt that they were incentivized by quarterly profit-sharing down to even the janitors! When HP folded up that division (my dad was right in the middle of it if you want the story), you saw the average warranty drop to a single year and the overall industry took a dive in quality they never recovered from.

Go back even further to HP's vaunted calculators: the must-have for every engineering student. My dad still has a VERY old one that does RPM (reverse-Polish notation) and it still works like a charm 30 years later.

I would argue that having an invention is important, but true market value comes in providing a product that customers can rely on day-in and day-out.

Apple's iPod and iPhone are examples of simultaneous innovation AND quality in a single product. Contrast this with Windows 8 - innovation without quality (as judged by user criticism of interface).