I want to say "Thanks for making it affordable and easy to people from all parts of the world and all levels of income to have a personal computer."
Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
191–200 of 381 posts
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#1921. Fire your browser team - the entire division. IE is the dead, stinking remains of 90s technology. Save yourself a ton of grief and money and standardize on Gecko or Webkit. Then make it a mandatory upgrade. Do what Apple did - change or get left behind. It may hurt in the short run, but it's paid off in the long run. 2. You know that buzz that Apple and Google have? When was the last time you heard anyone who does…
40 million programmers?
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#193Personally, the main thing I dislike about Windows is the lack of proper window management. There's no real Focus Follows Mouse, you have to use third-party applications to get windows to Stay on Top, or to have a second taskbar on your second monitor, etc. It's unfortunate that your OS is called Windows, but compared to your competition you are severely lacking in your ability to usefully manage windows!
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#194Personally, I think Microsoft needs to make the strategic "pivot" to selling experiences - not necessarily operating systems. They've done a great job of this with Xbox and Windows 7. I was incredibly sad when the Courier got cancelled. This was a big head pound moment for me. At it's core, MS sells software, but increasingly, it seems apparent that consumers are going to spend their dollars on hardware/software comb…
The Courier was precisely the device I wanted. I don't know if they had it working as well, or could make it work as well, as it did in the videos. I remember describing a device like the Courier the day before I saw it.
HUGE disappointment.
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#195Microsoft needs to spin off sub-brands like Toyota has done with Scion. There's a lot of cool stuff that Microsoft would have better luck selling under a more hip brand name.
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#196At this point probably the smartest thing which Microsoft could do would be to adopt some Linux distro (perhaps OpenSuSE, which they already have some relationship with) and base all of their future development on top of it. At a stroke this would eliminate many of their security and malware problems, dramatically improving the user experience. Windows remains prevalent, but at present as a software developer I'm not…
I love Linux as much as the next guy, but this is off base. A good deal of Microsoft's strength lies in backward compatibility and entrenchment. Serving up a brand new OS could potentially destroy that competitive advantage. A better strategy might be to incorporate better support for open protocols and document formats into their products and allow easier interoperability with the outside world. My biggest beef with…
I disagree. I think much of the weaknesses of Windows - especially its security woes - are due to trying to be too backward compatible with previous versions, which has meant that long standing problems have either not been addressed, or only inadequately patched over.
Making a clean break with the past and moving to a new system where network security is fundamentally designed into the product from the very beginning, even if it's not based on a Unix clone, would be move in the right direction.
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#197* Dual-monitor remote desktop! Please??!! * What are you guys doing with Windows Installer (MSI)? You create this installation standard which everyone adopts, then you stop supporting it yourself, making people install Office 2007 and Silverlight with BS desktop startup scripts. WTF? * As alluded to by others here, stop making stupid UI changes for no reason. I've been using Windows since 1992, upgraded to Win7 a cou…
Dual-monitor remote desktop! Please??!! You need the RDP 6 client (>Vista), but it's there. Open Remote Desktop Connection, Click Display Tab, check "Use all my monitors for the remote session"
You just blew my mind. Thanks!
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#198Don't let dynamic languages in the CLR die!!! (IronPython, IronRuby)
Reach out to ClojureCLR too!
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd argue that putting F# in VS2010 was pretty bold. Certainly that's the thing I'm most excited about, that any major vendor has done recently.
To me bold means directly related to your core business. F# is a neat little language but it's success or demise would not mean much on the balance sheet of microsoft corp.
The developer experience on their OS is directly related to their core business.
Re: Ask HN: What do you want to tell Microsoft?
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
The server and tools revenue doesn't say anything about .NET. I didn't say get rid of SQL server or their server OS. Compare the popularity of C# + VB.net to other languages to see .NET has less than 1/20th of the market. And that for a company that not so long ago dominated the software market. .NET is useless for * desktop applications, since the forward and backward compatibility is not guaranteed. * Downloadable…
On Window XP the download for .NET 3.5 Client is just ~28Mb for machines with no framework, ~ 40 MB for .NET 4 (again, with no other version) and the web installer is only ~800 KB. Over 80% (or even 90%) of Windows clients have some version of .NET installed, and since it's being pushed through Windows Update, some stats are reporting .NET 3.5 at more than 60%. The Windows 7 marketshare is bigger than 10%, which mean…
Details missing the point. Yes it's possible to use .NET, but Microsoft development tools aren't automatically the best choice anymore, and often even the worst choice.