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July 9, 2005 12:02 AM
Broken: Microsoft Products search
One of Microsoft's flagship products today is Internet Explorer, the ubiquitous Web browser.
Robert Steflik invites you to use the search form on the Microsoft Products page to search for Internet Explorer.
(Hint: It doesn't come up.)
Usually in the software world, the word product refers to something that is sold, at least in web site terminolgy. While Internet Explorer is considered a flagship product, it is free. Anyone with a dictionary may argue that a product doesn't have to be sold, and many web sites have freeware products, but if you visit the Microsoft Products home page, you'll notice that everything listed is sold.
Aaron, that's exactly what I was thinking as well. This is the same reason you don't find Windows Media Player. Besides according to Microsoft both Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer are integral parts of Windows XP, so when you download a new version, you're essentially patching Windows.
They're not bundling a Microsoft product with the windows distribution, IE and MP are part of Windows.
Broken.
Microsoft is complacent to assume that everyone would know that it's bundled and not sold separately. But if you didn't have it and wanted it, it should be found in exactly this search. Same with media player.
Broken.
Certainly, the fact that MS treats IE as part of the OS can expain why it cannot be found when searching from the MS Products Information Centre, but this is a classic example of structuring your web site, and information around the way the company thinks, rather than how the customer thinks.
Question: Where would you like to go today?
Hint: Anywhere Bill Gates will allow.
Answer: Definitely Broken.
Oh come on, Bleedat. Who would want to buy/download IE when EVERY WINDOWS AND MAC COMPUTER COMES WITH IT?
Who wouldn't have IE?
Bob, let's see, shall we, why someone might want to download IE. Well, let's say their hard drive crashed. Oh, or maybe they are setting up a usability testing station with multiple browsers. Or perhaps they have a partitioned drive with multiple OSs. Or perhaps somehow their version of IE was corrupted, damaged, or deleted accidentially. Maybe they want to install another language version.
Also, Bob, another interesting thing you may wish to consider: good customer service means providing solutions. If a customer types in Internet Explorer, why not simply provide a category of links called "free products" or "other products". It doesn't cost Microsoft anything, and for the users who have ended up at the products page (mistakenly or not), they still have their wish fulfilled: a download of IE.
Oh, but maybe you're one of those guys who believes that it's up to the user to understand a company's internal product and business divisions. Yup, makes sense to me.
I can follow the reasoning that maybe IE isn't really a "product", per se.
But try searching for say, "Word" or "Excel". The first couple listings are books about these applications, followed by old versions of the software! That's pretty bad.
Especially given these examples, I'd say the search system is defintely broken.
New Macs don't ship with IE any more, do they? I thought Tiger omitted it.
I'd say the MS search is broken. Maybe it is possible to rationalise it as IE not being a 'product', but that's just a semantic point, really, and it's still contrary to a user's expectations.
Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs/ Add/remove windows components/Internet Explorer
wow, hrmm, and then itll either install or uninstall and ask for your system disk, which everyone should have.. unless they're a thief and borrowed from a friend. If you have windows, I.E is easily accessible.
The puzzle is not why the number of apologists for Microsoft is so great but, rather, why there are any at all. Can you imagine any other merchant:
-Excuse me, where is your restroom?
-We don't sell restrooms.
-Oh, I knew that...but would you direct me to your restroom.
-You should have gone before you got here.
-Please just tell me where the restroom is.
-It's out of order.
Alright, alright. But still, most computers come with system recovery disks with all of the bundled programs on them. Anyway, the Site Searcher gives you the IE homepage. Oh well. I'm probably just being contrary anyway.
No, new macs DO NOT have IE on them anyways, which is good 'cause i don't want Microsuck Internet Explorer gaying up my Mac. They come with Safari on them, which i used to download Firefox.
| They're not bundling a Microsoft product with
| the windows distribution, IE and MP are part
| of Windows.
So how would I find IE 5 for Mac? Macs don't come bundled with IE, at least not any more...
| Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs/
| Add/remove windows components/Internet
| Explorer
|
| wow, hrmm, and then itll either install or
| uninstall and ask for your system disk,
| which everyone should have..
Actually, it doesn't actually uninstall IE, it'll just remove the shortcuts to it. You'll actually have to find IEXPLORE.EXE and delete it to get rid of IE.
| No, new macs DO NOT have IE on them anyways,
| which is good 'cause i don't want Microsuck
| Internet Explorer gaying up my Mac. They
| come with Safari on them, which i used to
| download Firefox.
You fail to realize that Safari is better than FireFox. If you insist on using the Gecko engine, use Camino, which is a version of FireFox designed exclusively for OS X.
I'm gonna go ahead and say not broken, contrary to just about every one else here.
http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&na=88&View=en-us&qu=Internet+Explorer
The third result takes you to a page with the IE 6 SP1 download. I don't know whether that's just SP1 or IE with SP1. The first result takes you to IE's home page. And, for those of you who are curious here is how to download and install IE for Windows. But, like others said, who wouldn't have it.
Jon---be careful. You have to follow the instructions precisely as originally posted. Go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/products
and search for: "internet explorer", "word" and "excel".
These produce odd, mostly useless results.
my question is who the hell uses the product search anyways, i just use the "search Microsoft.com" function
Okay people, not to be off topic, but FireFox does NOT exist. the world's best browser is Mozilla Firefox, not FireFox.
And I don't like Safari, as i'm used to Firefox, so that's what I use.
[quote]my question is who the hell uses the product search anyways, i just use the "search Microsoft.com" function[/quote]
Oh, I get it: the product search feature isn't broken. I'm broken because I should have used either Google or the main site search. Because IE isn't technically a product. Even though Microsoft is in the product business and IE is one of the things they make and distribute.
Silly me.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: Orbitz flight search results | Main | Next: (for fun) Skyline view
_@_v - that's probably because internet explorer isn't a physical sell-through product like windoze xp or micro&soft office.
_@_v - btw if you search all of micro & soft for internet explorer you'll get a link to the internet explorer home page
Posted by: she-snailie_@_v at July 9, 2005 04:08 AM