Two Ways Of Looking At “Good Enough”

Posted on July 10, 2003

Joy Larkin has some spot-on remarks on why many people and organizations put up with Microsoft products: mostly because the only thing more painful would be to switch to something else, no matter how much better it may be.

No offense to the Microsofties who read my blog, but I don’t believe that “it just works” is a compliment in the way you think it may be. Mike’s use of the term “it just works” is just reflecting the fact that in this day and age, if a person is computer literate, then most likely they will be familiar with Microsoft products. And if his users are familiar with Microsoft products, then it makes his Life of a One Man IT Department vastly easier since he won’t have to worry as much about training.

…think of it this way, it’s a compliment in the sense that we all know who Anna Nicole Smith is, but that doesn’t mean you’d want your son bringing her home for dinner.

Exactly — it’s not that “it just works” means that it’s well designed, but rather that it conforms to the expectations and idioms they’ve already had drilled into them from suffering through a kajillion MS products already.

Or, as the inimitable Inigo Montoya might have put it, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”