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Ask YC: what desktop software do you want?
5 points by tx on July 22, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments
After following the web sphere for a while I've grown a little bored of web sites: seriously, how many slightly different ways of "discover and share from anywhere!" can there be? Perhaps I'm not a typical Internet user: I have no issues with "finding relevant content", my email is not "overloaded" and I find it trivially easy to stay in touch with people I care about. Even downloading free music isn't that hard. I open about one or two accounts on various web sites every week but never use anything except for google services and a couple of forums (including this one). When I forget my password, or even feel lazy to deal with a login form, I usually move on.

But I do have computer-related problems that need solutions and web sites won't help. For instance I do a lot of photo/imaging work and RAW converters along with Adobe's monopoly in image processing is frustrating. I also haven't found a backup program that my friends could use without my help. Online "equivalents" of these two problems only make me think "are you serious?" I also always wanted to have a magical CD, that can, with a click of a button, convert a brand new Dell or HP computer into NORMAL tool, not infected by intrusive shitware beyond recognition.

Look at a typical non-technical user running Windows: the bastard is ALWAYS in some kind of pain: I get phone calls regarding some kind of computer problem all the time. People at large fight with their computers on a regular basis, isn't that a problem worth solving?

What I am seeing is that a whole class of real, everyday problems is being completely ignored and most of the development moved on to building online time wasters in pursuit of a piece of advertisement money. But what is happening around me is this: after wasting half day on reddits, youtubes and diggs, people just moan and get back to work - muscling their way through current crop of desktop software. This is why Apple kicks so much ass if you can afford it. But even Apple software often feels like a bare minimum they had to provide in order to avoid being just a browser launcher.

Am I the only one who feels that innovators got chased off desktop by Microsoft a long time ago and they never went back?

Is there some kind of software that you want?



I'm not just trying to sound contrary here, but I feel like the battle to make the Windows OS usable is all but lost. As long as people have been trying, it hasn't and probably won't happen. You just can't build a palace on quick sand.

MS will come to a point in the next 5 years where it will either have to completely revise the core of its OS or eventually be diminished by Mac and Linux. Windows itself is one of the root causes of the SaaS boom...


I share your concerns. However, i moved to a GNU/Linux distribution over 2 years ago and never looked back.

I have always said that the Microsoft environment is a hostile one for developers. And that is without saying anything about the quality of their platform.

There are still a lot of problems to be solved on the desktop side for which online equivalents probably won't work right now. Its just a matter of who steps up and solves them...hint


This is why Apple kicks so much ass if you can afford it.

I'm no MSFT apologist nor have I worked with them but if you think that MSFT is ignoring the recent gains by Apple in the OS market, that would be a mistake IMO (and when I say "you", I mean the collective you and not you personally). MSFT is all about recognizing what they are good at, fixing it, and taking the next step to rebrand as some new name lol.

Anyway, the software I want is a better email client. Outlook does 50% of what I want and while it does some things well there is a big opportunity for a competitor in that arena.


What more do you want an email client to do? What does Outlook do well?


I need to be to do better printing, better contact management, better searching, better handling of large files, and better spam filtering. I like Outlook's interface but it needs help in those areas. Outlook 2007 was a big disappointment to me since there were no real improvements in those areas.




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