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Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

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Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#41

Post by bargl »

johansch wrote: post #39
bargl wrote: post #31

Microsoft has done some very good things and some very bad things. I'll let everyone else point out the bad things because there seems to be plenty of that. I personally like the: Surface products, Typescript, C#/F#, .NET Core, Visual Studio Code, and the Hololens. These are all recently new developments for Microsoft that are really awesome. The fact that a lot of this has become open source is even better. You have…

Have you personally tried the Hololens? They appear to have oversold the qualities of at least the first version.

Yes and I recognize that there is a lot of room for improvement, but it's a really cool idea and I think it's the best Augmented Reality product on the market right now. If there is another one then let me know, because I'd love to see it.

The biggest issue with Hololens is it's field of view.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#42

Post by [deleted] »

UK-AL wrote: post #33
marricks wrote: post #15

I was going to rag on this article for touting the the same non-specific garbage we've seen the past couple days like, "more mac users switching to surface than ever!" without any hard numbers, did is go from 20 to 25? But this article is actually pretty interesting. It focuses on how Satya Nadella has respected the leaders of Companies he's bought out and invited them to key meetings. Using their insight not only fo…

Microsoft used to have a really good reputation for developers. Used to one of the few companies where each developer had their own office.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#43

Post by manyxcxi »

UK-AL wrote: post #33
marricks wrote: post #15

I was going to rag on this article for touting the the same non-specific garbage we've seen the past couple days like, "more mac users switching to surface than ever!" without any hard numbers, did is go from 20 to 25? But this article is actually pretty interesting. It focuses on how Satya Nadella has respected the leaders of Companies he's bought out and invited them to key meetings. Using their insight not only fo…

Microsoft used to have a really good reputation for developers. Used to one of the few companies where each developer had their own office.

Like all big companies your experience depends more on your group than the company as a whole. I've got a number of friends at MSFT in various tech roles, some have their own office as a developer, some are in a cube or open floor environment.

My personal experience, having worked on a few skunkworks projects over there with a couple of different teams was that there were two people to an office that was probably originally designed for one. It was a bit cozy in there for my liking but it wasn't cramped, it was quiet, and a couple of people could stand in various parts of common areas and have an actual 'stand up' collaboration. It actually seemed very collegiate. I recognize the fact that since it was an R&D group they probably had better accommodations for this type of stuff, and that they were in an 'old' building that had these personal offices probably helped too.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#44

Post by supernovae »

anon987 wrote: post #5

Microsoft continues to try to convince us that they are great with press releases and non-organic stories such as this. I, my peers, and my co-workers just don't see it. With billions in reserve it's no surprise they are trying to buy popularity.

I find these kind of comments depressing mostly because they scream "group think". (my inner circle says this, so I repeat it) The new MS is much different than the MS I grew up with in the 90s. It's time for the community to recognize this and just let people bask in positive news that is worthy the bask in.

I love my Surface Pro 4, I love the fact .net is cross platform, I love that Azure is fast and easy to use, I love that Office on my mac is current and that Microsoft's mobile strategy is 100% cross platform unlike that of Apple and Google.. I love that MS is honest these days and its disappointing the community is largely dishonest in return.. often snarky.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#45

Post by morgante »

justinlaster wrote: post #32
morgante wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how anyone could possible claim GAE or similar offerings from Google compete anywhere close to what Microsoft or Amazon is providing. I think your information is quite out of date. GCP is competitive with AWS for many use cases and certainly is better than Azure. The days of GAE even being the primary offering are long gone. There's a reason that if you look at DevOps tools they all support AWS, most al…

It most likely is out of date, but I've continued to see the same sentiments echo'd from other people recently, so haven't bothered to fully revinvestigate. I got the impression from my time with Google's offerings that their culture of "we're consumer focused, not devop focused" (anything from API's to reporting) completely plastered their offerings in the cloud space. >most also support GCP, but very few support Az…

> I got the impression from my time with Google's offerings that their culture of "we're consumer focused, not devop focused" (anything from API's to reporting)

Huh? What does "consumer focused" even mean in the cloud space?

Google has made a substantial effort to buff up their cloud offerings in the past few years and it definitely shows. (AWS is still my first choice though.)

> This might be a case of different tech stacks,

That's true. If you're working with a Microsoft stack then of course Azure will come out ahead. I'm coming from a generic Linux background.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#46

Post by amyjess »

ferentchak wrote: post #10
anon987 wrote: post #5

Microsoft continues to try to convince us that they are great with press releases and non-organic stories such as this. I, my peers, and my co-workers just don't see it. With billions in reserve it's no surprise they are trying to buy popularity.

Have you played with Azure or .Net Core? People tend to enjoy the Surface products too. In this regard I would not say they are "back" but better than Microsoft has ever been. Are they the best at everything... nah but heck the fact that I am saying many of their products are compelling is a big improvement

I got a Surface Pro 3 last year because the form factor seemed ideal for a road trip (I wanted something I could use as a laptop in a motel room and as a tablet in the back seat of a car).

The quality of the machine blew me away. It's easily the best "laptop" I've used in a very long time, and it's become my downstairs computer.

I originally planned to dual-boot it with Arch Linux, but I ultimately decided against it because Windows 10 worked so well on it, especially for the form factor. Any advantages I would've had by running Linux were eliminated by installing Cygwin and KDE Applications (plus PuTTY to connect to my Linode). Since then, that's been augmented by bash for Windows, which is absolutely lovely. Thanks to b4w, it's become my main machine to use when working from home.

More recently, I've visited one of my local Microsoft Stores, and I'm really impressed by the Surface Book and the Surface Studio. Those are some really sweet pieces of hardware.

I used to be a diehard Microsoft hater for most of my life, and now I'm a convert.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#47

Post by vetinari »

rb808 wrote: post #14

I dont understand the new Microsoft business model. I've stopped using office, Windows is now free(?), but most stuff is in the browser anyway. We used to pay a lot of money for SQL server but now there are lots of free open source alternatives. Sure Azure might make some money but its a commodity business, I can't see how it will replace the old cash cows.

Windows is not free. The update from 7/8 to 10 was free for consumers (but not companies), and a new 7/8 wasn't free and new 10 isn't free either.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#48

Post by ep103 »

ferentchak wrote: post #17
cmdrfred wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying the same thing. My coworkers bring up the surface when I mention it, but I don't see it. Tech in general has felt low innovation lately. Its time for silicon valley 2.

Well old Silicon Valley is not done marketing billion dollar web versions of 30 line Unix utilities. Maybe we can make all these things again in VIRTUAL REALITY!!!!

And here I thought I was being original, making a series of microservices for linux commandline utilities

why grep, when you can grep over the network?

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#49

Post by UK-AL »

manyxcxi wrote: post #43
UK-AL wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft used to have a really good reputation for developers. Used to one of the few companies where each developer had their own office.

Like all big companies your experience depends more on your group than the company as a whole. I've got a number of friends at MSFT in various tech roles, some have their own office as a developer, some are in a cube or open floor environment. My personal experience, having worked on a few skunkworks projects over there with a couple of different teams was that there were two people to an office that was probably ori…

They've gotten rid off the office per developer thing now. So not surprised.

A large part is probably demographics of developers is now changing.

Re: Microsoft, Rebooted, Emerges as a Tech Leader

#50

Post by kolme »

rb808 wrote: post #14

I dont understand the new Microsoft business model. I've stopped using office, Windows is now free(?), but most stuff is in the browser anyway. We used to pay a lot of money for SQL server but now there are lots of free open source alternatives. Sure Azure might make some money but its a commodity business, I can't see how it will replace the old cash cows.

- Windows is not free, they just offered a free update for a limited time, which is already over.

- Basically, every non-apple consumer computer comes with Windows preinstalled, and they charge a licence (I think around 50$). That's a solid business model right there.

- Most of the people around me who are not programmers, prefer MS Office to do their work, and they swear by Excel. Google Apps still doesn't cut it for many people. That's also a big source of revenue.

So, the good old business model.

They're not replacing anything that I know of. They're just trying to diversify their products/markets/etc.

Edit: price (http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-RT-Windows-8-Licens...)

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