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Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

#131

Post by NickPollard »

sspencer wrote: post #102
rakkhi wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently working on a the 3'rd floor of a household brand and as I look around there is not a single desktop, everyone is using a laptop - some with a docking station some without. Everyone has a large 24inch monitor to plug their laptop into. My last company issued an IT direction that we would not buy anymore desktops - only Sunrays for virtual desktops. So as far as the future of desktops in offices, I am not…

Same setup here (a very small shop) - everyone usually just plugs in a 24" monitor to their MBP. Can't remember the last time I used a desktop tower. Notebooks, monitors, and servers are the offices of the future.

I'm not so sure, who needs a powerful laptop when you can get a desktop machine much more cheaply and a phone/tablet for mobile?

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

#132

Post by stan_rogers »

rakkhi wrote: post #84
roadnottaken wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desktop is NOT DEAD. All those other devices are primarily for consuming media -- which is great. But I'm still using a desktop with a keyboard if I want to do any, y'know, work. I spend ~8-12 hours a day on a desktop and everyone else I know with any kind of office-job does too. And that's a lot of people. Tablets/console-games aren't going to change this any time soon.

I'm currently working on a the 3'rd floor of a household brand and as I look around there is not a single desktop, everyone is using a laptop - some with a docking station some without. Everyone has a large 24inch monitor to plug their laptop into. My last company issued an IT direction that we would not buy anymore desktops - only Sunrays for virtual desktops. So as far as the future of desktops in offices, I am not…

You actually said: >>Why do you really need more than a XBOX / PS3 and a tablet & phone now?

A laptop (particularly one of the "desktop replacement" variety) is certainly not in that class. Why would a minor change in form factor force a wholesale change in OS strategy?

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

#134

Post by BillGoates »

gizmomagico wrote: post #103
BillGoates wrote: post #91

I would tell Microsoft to go back to their 90s mindset. Less focussed on big corporations, and more on getting (Windows) Microsoft software everywhere. Back then Microsoft was maybe an evil empire, but at least they did some exciting things from a developers viewpoint. @Balmer: Get rid of .NET. There are people who use it, and some of them actually like it, but it will never become the huge success you thought it wou…

Don't wait for W3C, if it's up to them we will have to wait till 2019 for a complete HTML5 specification. The other browser developers will either follow, and if not, developers will decide if they make a windows only application. Wow! Are you actually suggesting they try and hold back the development of the web for another 5-10 years, if they can pull it off? "Just make everything about websites IE-specific again an…

No the opposite of holding back. Without MS we wouldn't have AJAX or Rich Text editors at the moment.

I am fully supportive of open standards, but it's rare that companies together can develop one. The year 2019 I mentioned was wrong, the final specification of HTML 5 is planned for 2022. Even after half the spec has thrown out already.

So MS has to go back at what they did best. Embrace and extent. Make the existing specifications work, but add more (useful) functions. Such as 3D, printing documents or a real rich text editor. The other browser developers are already doing such, so if MS wants to stay significant, they will have to do something.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

#136

Post by gaius »

jodrellblank wrote: post #81

Dog food their own software and systems more, and where it's unpleasant to use - improve them. Far too much of my Microsoft using experience is of a solid technology which is idiotically annoying, and a new version which ups both desirable features and irritation at the same time. I mean the remote desktop client which has a ton of user experience flaws which hasn't improved for years, then developed another security…

Dog food their own software and systems more, and where it's unpleasant to use - improve them

The bits of MS that do do this (e.g. the Visual Studio team) produce extremely high quality.

Tho' I can't imagine that the Word or Excel teams use any other word processor or spreadsheet...

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

#137

Post by aikinai »

rakkhi wrote: post #84
roadnottaken wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desktop is NOT DEAD. All those other devices are primarily for consuming media -- which is great. But I'm still using a desktop with a keyboard if I want to do any, y'know, work. I spend ~8-12 hours a day on a desktop and everyone else I know with any kind of office-job does too. And that's a lot of people. Tablets/console-games aren't going to change this any time soon.

I'm currently working on a the 3'rd floor of a household brand and as I look around there is not a single desktop, everyone is using a laptop - some with a docking station some without. Everyone has a large 24inch monitor to plug their laptop into. My last company issued an IT direction that we would not buy anymore desktops - only Sunrays for virtual desktops. So as far as the future of desktops in offices, I am not…

I don't think roadnottaken meant towers specifically when he said "desktop." The market data for years has been showing that physical "desktops" are all but dead with laptops taking over, but I believe roadnottaken and the grandparent were debating the future of traditional mouse/keyboard operation systems on desktop/laptop PCs.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

#138

Post by ergo98 »

Keep on doing what you're doing: Microsoft has been a good corporate partner in the technology space over the past few years, perhaps humbled a little, and it has served the company well.

On the product front there isn't much to say - Windows 2008 R2 is excellent. SQL Server 2008 R2 is excellent. Visual Studio 2010 / .NET 4 is excellent. These are top of the game products, so....maybe lower the price? The only thing keeping these products from absolutely dominating is the price of entry, especially given that the competitors largely cost $0.

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

#139

Post by gaius »

JunkDNA wrote: post #121

Some points: - It's annoying in this day and age to be forced into using the entire MS Stack when I need to work with one specific technology. For example: if I want to test a web app on various versions of IE, I have to run Windows. OK fine, even though IE is the only browser that is tied to one OS, I'll let that go. However, if I want to use the Microsoft-provided free MS Virtual Machine images, I have to run them…

MS needs to really decide how much longer they want to push an OS that is based on Windows/DOS heritage and not unix

You know the "Windows/DOS" stuff in NT is an emulation layer, right? It's known as WoW, Windows on Windows. The NT kernel is the work of Dave Cutler, of DEC VMS fame, and it is actually very, very good (form your own opinion about what has been layered on top of it).

Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?

#140

Post by loewenskind »

cryptoz wrote: post #78
unexpected wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it's not "dead", but it doesn't have any "e-buzz" right now. It was designed to be a tabletOS - how come all the upcoming tablets are all going to be based on Android? Are Android and ChromeOS going to interact with each other? It seems silly to have two free products that compete with each other doing very similar things - especially when both of them are supposed to offer the same thing experience-wise. An…

Chrome OS was not designed to be a tablet OS. It can be used on a tablet, but if you read the launch blog post it's very clear they are targeting netbooks, not tablets. Since that day they have of course expanded to include tablets, but suggesting that was the original idea is misleading at best. Also, Chrome OS hasn't been released to the public yet and so it's absurd to call it "dead". The planned release date is i…

Well, look how good Linux did on the netbook. And on Linux you could at least do what ever you wanted if you knew how. I expect this is just another to-be-abandoned-at-some-future-time Google project.
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