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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?

#211

Post by bruceboughton »

unexpected wrote: post #128
rakkhi wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep a notebook for just 3 days, list out every activity that you do on a computer/computing device (tablet, smartphone etc) in just broad terms, personal and work: e.g. read hacker news, write report, review y, code x, watch movie, read magazine, listen to last.fm, gaming, print., scan, take photo, edit photo, check email, check social network, IM etc. Then put a +1 next to everything you did on the web (or could ha…

You are right - but I could also do everything on Android! I'm not saying that there's a market for a "web-based" experience - I just think Android already fills that gap. There are very few cases in where having ChromeOS would be superior to a device with Android. Flash? Flash seems to be a processor issue. Android has Flash, and it should get better as mobile chips get more powerful. The whole flash thing may be mo…

As I understand it, Android apps are native; ChromeOS apps are webapps, so no they won't be compatible.

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

#212

Post by jm4 »

JunkDNA wrote: post #121

Some points: - It's annoying in this day and age to be forced into using the entire MS Stack when I need to work with one specific technology. For example: if I want to test a web app on various versions of IE, I have to run Windows. OK fine, even though IE is the only browser that is tied to one OS, I'll let that go. However, if I want to use the Microsoft-provided free MS Virtual Machine images, I have to run them…

Another case: MS SQL Server. It's a real bear to connect to it from unix since (last I checked) there are no official drivers. You have to use some unix ODBC open source stuff and it's just not suitable for production work.

FYI, you probably want to use the FreeTDS driver on Unix/Linux. It's not an ODBC driver and it is production quality.

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

#213

Post by sadiq »

JunkDNA wrote: post #121

Some points: - It's annoying in this day and age to be forced into using the entire MS Stack when I need to work with one specific technology. For example: if I want to test a web app on various versions of IE, I have to run Windows. OK fine, even though IE is the only browser that is tied to one OS, I'll let that go. However, if I want to use the Microsoft-provided free MS Virtual Machine images, I have to run them…

Very much the first point here.

Microsoft needs to stop trying to lock me in to their stack at every point and turn. Currently, if I want to use some Microsoft technology i'm forced in to the rest of the ecosystem and that's a hurdle that i'll likely never jump unless there is simply no other option.

In some respects, Microsoft is already at a disadvantage over Free and Open Source technology when starting new projects without legacy issues, just from the simplification of licensing and the supplier diversification. To add extra barriers, such as having to take on larger and larger parts of the Microsoft ecosystem to get the best out of one component just makes things worse.

Positive first step would be once and for all unequivocally clear up any IP issues surrounding both Mono and their library reimplementations to silence any critics. Second would be bringing Mono in to the .NET ecosystem as a first class citizen. I like C# and .NET but i'm highly unlikely to use it unless I have some real choices for deploying it. From what i've seen from Mono, it's an impressive project but not yet on par with Hotspot and the CLR.

On a site note, there have been some positive steps. The move to Apache 2.0 licensing on several recent contributions is a positive step and helps prevent more license proliferation.

Essentially, I want Microsoft to compete for my business with technology that I can deploy without the worry that i'm perennially locked in to one ecosystem and one vendor.

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

#216

Post by qeorge »

Requiring approval of apps for Windows Phone 7 is awful. I was excited about the platform until that announcement, and have since jumped ship to Android.

Microsoft, in my mind, has always been a champion of developers. Above all, I would protect that legacy.

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

#217

Post by robryan »

aphexairlines wrote: post #171
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #52

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…

What decline? Microsoft reported $62.48 billion in revenue and $18.76 billion in net income for their FY 2010.

Yahoo is "still big in middle America", myspace clung to the fact that they were the biggest social network in America to for a long time. I saw something from Nokia that had some statement about how strong their market share still is.

In all cases like this while the current performance is good their is a downward trend. While a company as big as microsoft isn't going under overnight long term if they don't address certain areas they will become increasingly irrelevant and from there it isn't hard to see fast moving companies like Google and Apple eating away at their market share in the core product lines.

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

#218

Post by dgallagher »

jodrellblank wrote: post #81

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…

I can't up-vote this enough. Prediction: If Microsoft were to fix all of this in a new version of Windows, 1,000,000 IT support jobs will disappear within a year or two of its release.

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

#220

Post by fsipie »

PhrosTT wrote: post #144
fsipie wrote: post #85

Add stuff into vs2010 to make small, portable executables for Windows with minimal dependancies. Get rid of b.s. like silverlight and wpf and adopt html 5 big time. Rip off cocoa & iphone sdk and make a windows-alike version.

Silverlight is a windows-alike version of iphone sdk... only probably easier to use. In general I think SL and WPF are good... but certain XAML things need to be fixed. When you need 5000 lines of XML to change 1 color, there's a problem.

Hmm silverlight isn't really like iphone sdk. IOS has a visual consistency that means that apps look generally nice across the board. Silverlight is a stylistic smörgåsbord.

I guess I worry if MS are going in the right direction with their web stuff, as silverlight has been out for years and I don't use anything written in it daily at all. All the popular & useful websites use html & jquery & flash.

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