Microsoft’s Very Good Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#191

Post by WorldWideWayne » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:18 PM UTC

harkyns_castle wrote: post #109

Infinitesimus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, is it fair to assume you use hardware and software by a source you consider more ethical then? (your classification above rules out Apple and Google as well since they've both done less-than-stellar things )

I basically do my best yes, whilst having to earn a living in my chosen field. FreeBSD and Linux where I can advocate them. Part of my current contract is migrating a customer away from SQL Server to Postgres, and it feels good. Automating powershell on aws instances doesn't feel so good, but it's temporary pain.

Do you speak badly of Apple and Google whenever possible though? Forget about tech corporations - do you speak out against other non-tech corporations as much as Microsoft or is your hatred especially reserved for them? What kind of computer hardware do you run?

Typically, if someone hates Microsoft, they love either Apple or Google. That's been my experience at least.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#192

Post by hga » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:22 PM UTC

wainstead wrote: post #82

hga wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recall that, not even allegations to the effect (there were such for Office competitors), plus I probably would have learned of such while working with a guy who had previous interned at Microsoft on IE of that era. More directly, I'm not aware of any public Windows APIs that handed out data that tricked your code into doing a general protection fault ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_protection_fault )…

My initial search turned this up: http://www.stratigery.com/nt.sekrits.html

All this stuff happened in the Win16 days, Win32 pertains to NT, and for the consumer market, Win 95 and on (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_API). Win 95 was released in late August 95, by which time all these competitors had fallen by the wayside.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#193

Post by Touche » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:24 PM UTC

forgetsusername wrote: post #68

Touche wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They haven't been hits, yet.

They can only innovate, and have no control over what "hits". The above are good products.

My interpretation of the grand parent's comments were that it's nice and all that "Microsoft is changing" but if it doesn't result in a turnaround in their fortunes with consumers and developers it's all for naught. So far I don't see any turnaround happening.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#194

Post by sounds » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:25 PM UTC

detaro wrote: post #74

harkyns_castle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'll never forgive them for their practices. They deliberately stifled competition, shafted developers, abused their position, and rubbed it in our faces. There's no coming back from that, and I'll gladly educate newcomers to IT on their ways. Let them die. The new CEO could be the second coming, you can't fix that cancerous attitude that is entrenched. They deserve to become obsolete, at the very least.

Sadly, if you use such rules there are not many big tech companies left that haven't done such things...

False equivalence fallacy.

You can wish Microsoft would die, and still use an iPhone.

In fact, much of Apple's success can be attributed to Microsoft fumbling the mobile revolution. In other words, people who use Apple may be doing so directly because of how much worse Microsoft was -- due to Microsoft spending their limited resources on zero-sum tactics like shafting their developer ecosystem.

Compete or die. (Microsoft seems to act like they have a third alternative, monopolize. They're still immensely profitable so it's understandable that their shareholders are comfortable with their current course.)

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#195

Post by draw_down » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

I remember using a Windows machine in 2006 that could also double as a tablet. (You could pivot the screen around and then fold it back on top of the keyboard.) It wasn't very good of course, and my point is that this idea is not new by a long shot. So is the enthusiasm for Surface Book coming from the fact that it's made by MS themselves?

Beyond that, it strikes me that the way they talk focuses so much more on narrative than the actual products they're selling. Like "I want you to love MS because you love building things for other people" or whatever.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#196

Post by WorldWideWayne » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #167

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has an unmatched record of screwing pretty much everyone who did business with them Could you list instances of this? Don't get me wrong, they have been absolute bastards in some cases ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I4i is my go-to example). But keep in mind it is a huge company that has done business with thousands of firms over the past few decades, so to substantiate your point, you would have to prod…

While your request is not in principle unreasonable, it's way too much work for me to prove it to your satisfaction, or my satisfaction in a formal, balanced, I'd be willing to publish it way. E.g. I'd forgotten about I4i, despite the prominence of the case. I'm basically asking you, absent either of us going beyond searches like https://www.google.com/search?q=list+of+microsoft+crimes ^_^, to trust my observations o…

You're acting like you hate the company just because they screwed their competitors. Do you hate other non-tech companies who screwed their competitors or is your hatred in this category especially reserved for Microsoft?

Do you speak ill of banking corporations as often as you do of Microsoft?

Also, if you run Apple hardware at all do yourself a favor and take a look at all the screwed up shit that Apple has done because that company has always been an asshole to just about every entity that they come into contact with.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#197

Post by criddell » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

WorldWideWayne wrote: post #189

criddell wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft isn't going to die, but their enormous influence has eroded nicely. They're a mature, profitable, mostly boring company and I'm okay with that. XBox is pretty hip, but the reset of the company is about as interesting to the general public as Oracle, Cisco, or IBM.

Microsoft is as hip and alive as Google is. Google is a boring info-utility to most people. The Xbox is absolutely more cool than anything Google has in their pocket, including Android and self driving car experiments.

> Microsoft is as hip and alive as Google is.

I would probably agree with that.

From a technology point of view, there are things I love about each company. Microsoft's Azure is pretty neat as is Google's Compute Engine. None of that matters to most people though.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#198

Post by sounds » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

hga wrote: post #167

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has an unmatched record of screwing pretty much everyone who did business with them Could you list instances of this? Don't get me wrong, they have been absolute bastards in some cases ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I4i is my go-to example). But keep in mind it is a huge company that has done business with thousands of firms over the past few decades, so to substantiate your point, you would have to prod…

While your request is not in principle unreasonable, it's way too much work for me to prove it to your satisfaction, or my satisfaction in a formal, balanced, I'd be willing to publish it way. E.g. I'd forgotten about I4i, despite the prominence of the case. I'm basically asking you, absent either of us going beyond searches like https://www.google.com/search?q=list+of+microsoft+crimes ^_^, to trust my observations o…

Re: how Yahoo is still in business...

Yahoo made a number of strategic investments which are very profitable.

You could say they are an investment firm with a small tech-sector arm.

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#199

Post by tluyben2 » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:41 PM UTC

tdkl wrote: post #72

mariusmg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aaaa....why not use IMAP/POP3 ? If the server administrator only allows that dumb proprietary protocol, you can't really blame Microsoft there.

Exchange isn't popular in Enterprise just because of email and to say "just use IMAP/POP" is showing that you're out of touch.

Although I do not know why it is successful but you are right; mail is definitely not the reason why it is popular. But I don't think it is for the reasons you think it is popular either. Of all my 25-early 40 year old friends working in enterprises, exactly 0 people like it and they avoid it like the plague when they can. They like it slightly more than Sharepoint, but that's not saying much. To why it is popular still I would wager that's because enterprises just 'have it' and you have no other choice; you are forced to use it. But you were probably going to say 'collaboration' ?

Re: Microsoft’s Very Good Day

#200

Post by tluyben2 » Thu, Oct 08, 2015, 3:44 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #185

I could not help myself, I had to get a surface book, it may end up in the pile of things with great potential but I had to give it a shot. Two devices were in the running for my 2015 tablet HW refresh, the Lenovo Yoga 3 and the iPad Pro. This sort of came out of left field. It has a lot to live up to, I use my iPad every day and for a variety of things, but something I always wanted to do on my iPad, sketch, wasn't…

I for one am curious how much battery life you can really pull out of it. When I see 12 hours on the spec I usually don't get more than 7-8 and that's right there in the 'not enough for a day' zone for me.