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Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives.
And so he decided to browse fast.
screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET
At what point does corporate loyalty break and honesty take over?
I’m moved to finding the answer after viewing (a small portion of) a Microsoft presentation called “Datacenter Transformation. Migrating Apps, Workloads and Data to Azure.”
It was given last month by Michael Leworthy, a member of the Azure migration team. On Tuesday, however, a magical part of it came to light, courtesy of Softpedia.
The exciting part, you see — for many, at least — is that 36 minutes and 40 seconds into the presentation, Leworthy suffered a painful mishap.
There he was offering an insight into virtual machines, with the help of Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 browser, Edge.
He was skating along and suddenly caught an Edge. The company browser froze.
What do you do? Try and reboot, reload and relay the message that this had never happened before? Or curse the Edge team for producing a substandard browser?
Rather poetically, Leworthy — whose presentation was 73 minutes long — didn’t bother to wait for Edge to right itself. Instead, he almost immediately offered these slightly caustic words: “I love it when demos break.”
He paused but a few seconds before uttering this heresy: “I’m going to install Chrome.”
It was as if this was a familiar occurrence in his world. Yes, he giggled. Yes, a number of his audience giggled with him (and applauded). It surely wasn’t, though, the browser’s finest hour.
Indeed, when Chrome began to download, it offered this painfully appropriate message: “Browse fast.”
As it loaded, Leworthy declared: “And we’re not going to make Google better,” as he refused to check the box that sends statistics and crash reports back to Google.
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Neither Microsoft nor Google immediately responded to a request for comment.
Though some might Leworthy’s dilemma chuckleworthy, he surely has to be admired for not mindlessly towing the corporate barge.
The browser didn’t work. He knew something that would. So he downloaded the something that would. And that did.
It’s a reflection, perhaps, of the new attitude instilled by CEO Satya Nadella. He’s shown himself to be far more open to accepting the existence of rival companies than was his predecessor, Steve Ballmer.
He’s even been seen with an iPhone in his hands and handling it with aplomb.
You can either decide you’ll only use Microsoft products — which, for example, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates insisted their family did — or you can accept that your product might still need work and move right along.
Who cannot admire Leworthy when he added: “The Edge on these machines is locked down a little bit, there are some things that just don’t work”?
My colleague Tom McNamara offered Edge a very good rating in his review.
Still, one wonders whether Leworthy had perhaps practiced his presentation before his snafu.
Even if it’s your own company’s product — especially if it’s your own company’s product — make sure it works.
Otherwise, there might be laughter.
