Fifa 2009 gaming tournament

I recently saw a flier in the college campus about a FIFA2009 tournament being organized by the undergraduates as a fundraiser event to install taps in some of the regions in Nepal. A project for a good cause and a game I loved playing...



I was introduced to the EA Sports Fifa games well back in 1999, around the same time I started following soccer. Being an intense and a fast-paced game, I was quickly addicted to it and played for 5-6hours at a stretch. I started with FIFA 97, then moved on to 99, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007, 2008. I had mastered each and every level in all the versions and was looking forward to take part in the event. But I had not played their new version, 2009!!

I registered for the event and paid $10 and was excited to take part in such a tournament here. I had entered a similar tournament back in my undergrad days, which I won..:) The same day, I borrowed the CD from a friend and installed it on my laptop, I wanted to WIN this tournament too!! I practiced whenever I could get some time off assignments and projects. 3 days to go, and I was counting down.

The day came, I was confident of playing well even against a seasoned opponent. As I entered the venue, I was literally shocked. I could see TVs and Big screens, NO computers. Yes, the gaming tournament was on XBOX !!!! I had never seen a XBOX before, let alone play. All the confidence I had of playing well, went down the drains... I played 2 games and lost 3-0 and 2-0. I was happy not to concede 10 goals...:D

I had FUN and what the heck, it was for a good cause!

Forcing your customers isnt a good idea

I have been using the MS Office 2007 for about six months now and I feel that I am much more comfortable with it. Now, I know where to find the icons I need and don't have to do some "how to..." searches on Google, like I was doing when I just installed the product.

When I did some research, I found the main reason for them to dump the old menu style for a new one. Many customers asked for certain features to be included in the next version. When Microsoft analyzed these enhancements requests, they found that 85% of the features were already available in the existing version. The users could not find them as they were hidden within the menu structure. Coming up with the new "ribbon" design made sense to make these users happy and make the features easily visible to new users as well. It also looked "cool". But what did not make sense was that they had not provided a configuration of a "classic mode" wherein users could go back to the old menu structure as they were used to and comfortable with.

Why would they not make it configurable? Why force the faithful customers to change the way they worked, learn new techniques to do the same thing they could have easily done with the previous version? Weren't they worried that they would lose some of their customers to competitors? This was the time Google, Novell and Sun Microsystems were coming up with office suite of products to compete with Microsoft. They even cost less and some were in fact free!!! The customers could easily switch to OpenOffice.org or star office as they could get them for free and the time required to adjust to the new suite would almost be same as the time required to get comfortable with the new design of Office 2007. Wasn't Microsoft worried about that? Developing a configuration for the old menu structure was also not difficult to implement. Within three months of the release of Office 2007, a third-party came up with a plugin that would make the old menu structure visible.

I am not sure how much customers they lost(individual or corporate customers) to their competitors, but I think it is a significant amount. I respect Microsoft for many innovative things they brought to the market, but I feel that the decision of not making the "classic mode" available was a blunder on their part.

Did you switch to Office 2007 or OpenOffice? How long did it take you to get comfortable with the new product? Do share your views.