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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?

#81

Post by jodrellblank »

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 warning to pass through every new connection.

I mean the mess of software licensing which got no better, then worse with KMS/MLK keys.

I mean the web browser which is now a web browser with a first time startup wizard full of pestering questions.

I mean the event log viewer which was basic and fiddly, and is now massively complex looking and still fiddly.

I mean the scheduled task list which is now a scheduled task maze.

I mean the Control Panel which is now a Control Panel Advent Calendar.

I mean the Exchange Management Console which morphed into a Half-a-management-console-half-a-scripting-language.

I mean the Windows Explorer which locked up a Pentium 4 when accessing an optical drive or network still locks up a Core i7 920 when accessing an optical drive or network only now it tries to hide the optical drive first.

I mean the IIS6 tree which became an IIS7 "lets arrange everything inspired by our favourite abstract artist!" mess.

On and on and on, they sell me on industry leading desirable features like Branch Cache and Outlook Anywhere and yet my everyday experience is Microsoft the Bully.

"Come here, jodrellblank, we have a brand new system for you to try with $newfeature!"

"Wow! run run run"

Security warning tripwire, Are you sure checkbox, Did you notice the information bar? Would you like to move or copy files from this location? Error 0x28003210D ha ha! F1 for help? Sorry, we removed that help system in this version. Online search? Ours is awful, you'll never find that error. Helpful utility? You no longer have rights to run it, "admin".

Want $feature? Why don't you just come and get it then? It's right here... FOREVER OUT OF YOUR REACH.

cries in a corner

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

#83

Post by ern »

nhebb wrote: post #15

I would like to see .NET framework penetration numbers. A lot of .NET developers still target 2.0 for desktop apps because the perception is that that 3.0+ have a much smaller installation base - even though numbers posted on statowl.com and Scott Hanselman's blog suggest otherwise. This is definitely one case where more transparency by Microsoft would benefit both them and the developer community. I would also like…

Talking about penetration numbers on 3.0+, data on WPF and Silverlight adoption would be useful.

MS should also consider making Silverlight and WPF more compatible.

And if WPF adoption is lagging expectations (as I suspect it is), figure out how to simplify it and flatten the learning curve.

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

#84

Post by rakkhi »

roadnottaken wrote: post #74
rakkhi wrote: post #5

Interesting if real. Ok lets go for benefit of the doubt, starting with the highest priority items: Mobile technology - The Windows phone 7 will not succeed. Sure you will sell a few phones but for the marketing and sheer executive brainspend on this you will not get a profitable return within 5 years. I had a good debate on Quora about what sucess looks like for Microsoft and I don't think this is realistically achi…

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 convinced.

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

#87

Post by rakkhi »

edanm wrote: post #50

The biggest thing Microsoft should do is make the desktop king again. This is possible - users don't care whether they are using web applications or actual apps, but there are huge benefits (in terms of what you can do) to desktop applications. This is evident in the amazing rise of Apple's App Store. But there's a problem. Web programming, while allowing generally crummier applications, has some benefits that far ou…

I just really disagree with this: "Web programming, while allowing generally crummier applications"

With HTML5 and AJAX technologies a web application these days can do everything a rich client application can with the added benefit of accessibility everywhere from any endpoint.

"The biggest thing Microsoft should do is make the desktop king again" .... keep flogging that dead horse with your buggy whip

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

#88

Post by unexpected »

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…

We'll see how ChromeOS does! It seems to me that you won't see any netbooks labeled Google - you'll see them marketed as "Acer", "Asus", or "Dell".

Focusing on the web experience and printing (to combine your reply to my other comment) seems like a very narrow niche to me. It seems like ChromeOS is trying to position itself between Android and something like Windows 7.

Surfing the web and wanting to print is a common use case - but in that example, why would I want a device that does that, but not get a full fledged computer? I can't even install my own apps! Why would I need the capability to print - yet buy a device that pretty much requires me to be online all the time?

It just seems very risky to me. Why not add a printing function to Android? Wouldn't it be cool if you could hook up your phone and connect it to a printer and print? Wouldn't Android devices have "proper" flash if they had more powerful processors? (which is a function of mobile processors getting more powerful)?

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

#89

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

cryptoz wrote: post #80
unexpected wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, ChromeOS certainly doesn't look bad. I just have a hard time figuring out - what's the difference between the two? What use case does ChromeOS solve that Android doesn't solve? I consider myself web-savvy and fairly technical. If I have trouble answering this question, what is the average user going to think? People are turning towards experiences - which is a combination of hardware and software. W…

> What use case does ChromeOS solve that Android doesn't solve? Printing. Browsing the web and writing long emails like a normal user, rather than like a tablet user: no weird issues with mouseover, fully-functional built-in Flash, etc, etc. There are lots of differences between the web experience offered by Android and the web experience offered by Chrome OS. Also, normal people won't have to make a decision in a st…

> fully-functional built-in Flash

But, but, but Adobe said that full Flash was coming to mobile platforms everywhere. Are you saying they lied?!

Seriously, that's meant to be something Android does.

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