Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft? • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by sharjeel » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:05 PM UTC

Microsoft is dumping its rock solid Windows Mobile platform. This is a huge concern for me.

It was developed with years of efforts and in 6.5 Microsoft got it much right.

However just because Apple's marketing strategy worked really well, it didn't mean you needed to scrap your well built-in well tested platform in favour of a copy of iPhone called Windows Phone. It has so far not been able to create any excitement in the market yet but on the other hand Windows Mobile has a lot of fans.

Windows Mobile has thousands of useful applications which help so many people around the world. On the other hand, Windows Phone is just a new platform: do you really think scrapping away will convince those hundreds of thousands of Windows Mobile users to upgrade to something on which their favourite apps are no more available?

You need to encash the already built hype and following rather than pretending that you don't have anything at all and starting all over.

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

#52

Post by fauigerzigerk » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:06 PM UTC

I would ask Steve Ballmer whether he is aware of the fact that Microsoft's licensing for Windows and SQL Server makes scaling out impossible and hence knocks their platform out of the race for cloud computing, at least when it comes to web apps.

I would ask him whether he really thinks that SQL Azure with its $100 per month for 10GB price tag is anything but a sad joke.

I would ask the people who design the Microsoft partner programs why their programs as well as their websites are so incredibly bureaucratic and complicated.

As a Microsoft shareholder, I would ask them to show me growth or raise the dividend so I can participate in the slow but still profitable decline that is the inevitable consequence of their current strategy.

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

#53

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:07 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #49

jacquesm wrote: post #39

You want strategy? Ok, here is strategy: Do something bold for a change, really bold. Open source windows or office, do whatever scares you most and then make a go of it. With the talent pool you've got there you should easily be able to out-compete the market when you've done something like that, it will go a long way towards getting forgiveness for deeds done in the past and it will align your goals with the world…

> Developers have wised up to lock-in and other tricks and corporations are more and more moving to solutions that they control Yeah, you can see that with the iPhone, the Apple Store, and all the various clones that pop into existence like mushrooms (hello Kindle). Sometimes I believe developers live in la-la land, totally disconnected from reality.

There are plenty of attempts at the creation of new walled gardens, but I don't think they will have a very long life.

The examples you give are all tied to very specific hardware, microsoft thrived on open hardware making tools and supporting those tools.

Look at where IBM is going for what microsoft could be like.

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

#54

Post by c1sc0 » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:07 PM UTC

points wrote: post #28

siglesias wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because netbooks are not the future of ultraportable computing; tablets are, and Chrome OS is primarily part of a mouse and keyboard driven paradigm. Also it is making increasingly little sense for Google to support two divergent operating systems.

That's just ridiculous. Is this theonion.com ? Step outside the bubble for a second. Most people don't have tablets, and don't want tablets.

Strongly disagree. When I see those little sparks of delight in my mother's eyes when she is using her iPad I think I see a pretty strong predictor of Apple 'being onto something'. Tablets are not about being great multiple-purpose devices. They're about being good enough.

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

#55

Post by arethuza » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:09 PM UTC

unexpected wrote: post #45

arethuza wrote: post #41

Do something courageous with web browsers - deprecate the IE line of browsers and create a completely new browser based on WebKit. Offer both to users for a few years with a view to phasing IE out completely within X years (say 5). Maybe offer a way of providing hints (maybe through AD GPOs) of which sites should be opened using which browser - that would probably make short term adoption within enterprises less pain…

I wouldn't want WebKit to become the dominant engine. I like the current competition - it keeps everyone honest. Remember, when IE was the only browser, look at all the trouble that happened!

Yeah - I guess I meant something, anything, that would be a clean break with IE.

Maybe they should buy Opera Software?

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

#56

Post by bad_user » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:11 PM UTC

I would like Microsoft's Developer Division to start supporting Linux more ... Windows servers are too expensive for me making scale-out strategies a PITA and IMHO technically inferior to Linux from a startup perspective.

Biztalk/Webspark are nice initiatives, but not enough.

And I would totally shell out the cash for a MSDN subscription / Visual Studio if I could choose Linux for deployment.

Better yet, collaborate more with the Mono project from Novell. Open-source more of the .NET platform.

The few open-source projects from Microsoft built around .NET don't really have an open-source development methodology ... let others contribute to the DLR, IronPython and IronRuby. Don't fear getting your property tainted ... how many projects from Apache have had such problems, or not getting used by the Fortune "whatever" companies?

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

#57

Post by Tichy » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:14 PM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #47

Tichy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS X: can't deal with the Finder. I frequently don't know how to navigate to an upper directory, for example. I have troubles with the task bar, too (sometimes somehow I can't drag stuff into applications). I miss the show desktop button. I don't like that Apps stay open when I press "X" and I have to close them all with CMD+Q instead. Cut+Paste does not exist. It's all little things, but they add up. Windows 7: now…

No show desktop button anymore. It's there-- it just isn't labelled unless you mouse over it. All the way to the right, on the taskbar-- to the right of the clock. Lower-right-hand corner of the screen.

Thanks - I would never in a million years have discovered that by chance. It is just an empy rectangle attached to the side of the screen - wtf?

OK seriously, what Microsoft (and also Apple) should do is start a "coach your mum or granny" initiative. Everybody should help their granny or grandpa with their PC every once in a while. It is amazing how complicated it is to explain some things.

How do I explain that "show desktop" is just an empty rectangle? How do I explain that apps are not really closed when you close them? And so on. Just imagine a noob sitting there asking "why?" and having to explain. Then improve the feature.

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

#58

Post by bad_user » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:16 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #53

bad_user wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Developers have wised up to lock-in and other tricks and corporations are more and more moving to solutions that they control Yeah, you can see that with the iPhone, the Apple Store, and all the various clones that pop into existence like mushrooms (hello Kindle). Sometimes I believe developers live in la-la land, totally disconnected from reality.

There are plenty of attempts at the creation of new walled gardens, but I don't think they will have a very long life. The examples you give are all tied to very specific hardware, microsoft thrived on open hardware making tools and supporting those tools. Look at where IBM is going for what microsoft could be like.

I would really like to believe that, but more and more I think we're heading for a closed/industry.

The App Store isn't the only example, how about all those developers integrating their apps with Facebook, Twitter or the Google apis.

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

#59

Post by pierrefar » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:16 PM UTC

limmeau wrote: post #19

pierrefar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes very good point. Build a good foundation OS and then virtualise for backwards compatibility. I think .net is a good bait for such a new system. From the little interaction I've had with C# devs, they seem to like it.

There is already the XP mode in Windows 7, which boots a virtualized XP for compatibility.

Thanks. Didn't know that.

Hopefuly this means that implementing the idea I'm talking about is not too much of a stretch from the current code.

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

#60

Post by DeusExMachina » Fri, Sep 17, 2010, 12:19 PM UTC

Stop with things like the funeral parade for the iPhone. Really guys, that was really lame.

MS should refocus on its priorities. Every now and then comes out the iPhone killer and fails. Even if you have a good product with Windows Mobile 7, iPhone should not be your target. Android is eating your market share. The iPhone is a closed box from Apple, Android is the OS that runs on phones from different manufacturers, which is the same strategy of WM7 (by the way, why does everything get called Windows at MS? You don't even have the window concept on a phone).