Walt Mossberg dives into craplets

Tonight I read this fantastic piece by Walt Mossberg. I’ll share this relevant snippet:

Personal Technology - WSJ.com
I am not singling out Sony here. I would have had a similar experience if I had chosen, say, a Hewlett-Packard laptop. Most major PC makers feature the security programs and trial software and offers I encountered on my new Sony. They are not part of Vista itself.

The problem is a lack of respect for the consumer. The manufacturers don’t act as if the computer belongs to you. They act as if it is a billboard for restricted trial versions of software and ads for Web sites and services that they can sell to third-party companies who want you to buy these products.

I’m distinguishing these programs, sometimes called “craplets,” from the full-featured, built-in Sony software meant to enhance the computer, or from entire, useful programs Microsoft builds into Windows, such as music and photo organizers.

On my new Sony, there were two dozen trial programs and free offers.

I just bought a new Dell for my parents recently - and aside from the video card fiasco that I blogged about earlier, there was also a bunch of craplets/crapware/bloatware/junkware that I had to clean out. Some of them were pretty aggressive about advertising their… uh… value and offers. At least it didn’t have as many stickers  as my Toshiba M200 did.

I can understand why manufacturers would do this - being a PC manufacturer generally means low profit margins, and these… err… techniques help grow value for shareholders. And apparently customers don’t mind because… heck… they’re still buying computers!

But it leads to a sucky first run experience. And, as Walt pointed out - it slows down your computer. Most people, I suspect, would simply blame Windows.

So how do we get out of this mess? Should Microsoft have to build it’s own PC’s ala xBox and Zune - so that it could deliver a grand end-to-end consumer experience?