Microsoft.com goes AJAXed

This is perhaps the first time I have seen a big corporation choose to revamp their entire Corporate Website into an AJAX-enabled rich experience.

Microsoft.com now uses rich-client webtricks.

Does that actually help make your experience better? I need your vote in the comments?

My two cents?

1. Like all MS products, the website has bugs. Maybe they are trying to highlight that fact in their corporate website brand.
2. It is way too slow — ironically slower than without the AJAX. That could be another metaphor for how poor architecture results in bloated apps from the company, but I wont pin that on them.
3. I find it more difficult to find things. The previous main page was well structured to find information — the new “rich popup menu interface” is just slow and confusing.
4. They have mimiced the MS Office “Ribbon” interface… not sure if that improves my experience much.

So all this ends up requiring me to do is (1) tolerate bugs on what was previously a perfectly runnign solution and (2) go through the entire learning curve of a more complex interface, if not as complex.

If they had shifted from the previous one to a much simpler interface, I wouldn’t complain so much. The same rule applies to product design — you product should be much simpler than the existing pain.

I had just expected the Father of PC Software company (MS) to be a better leading example of the importance of doing that.