Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#291

Post by tinus_hn » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #243

tinus_hn wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct connections for audio or video calls are a patented ‘invention’ that is why the major vendors like Microsoft and also Apple changed to server based communication.

There were a number of patent trolls that tried to milk this but if I could resist them then certainly so could the likes of Microsoft. This is definitely not the reason for the switch. See also: https://jacquesmattheij.com/my-brush-with-a-patent-troll

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirnetX#Patents

Unlike these big companies you probably don’t stand to lose half a billion dollar. You’re just going to go bankrupt.

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#292

Post by ConceptJunkie » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:23 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #234

mattmanser wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enterprise software is a catch-all term, I worked on enterprise software and none of our customers were bigger than 500 users, most were less than 100. Enterprise software comes in a huge variety of quality.

Enterprise software is a nebulous term, I understand you hear a vague description of large software when you read it. Personally, to me, Enterprise is an entirely negative adjective, implying a software that spends more effort trying to do things it needs to do to support itself than it does trying to solve problems. Enterprise also carries the meaning (again for me) of terribly architected software, possibly designe…

Or in the case of Microsoft, the software has been around since the DOS days and is nothing but legacy kludges.

Look at Office for an example. It's a 30-year-old code base and everything about it shows. Office is clearly designed to maximize the number of tick marks marketing can put in their materials, and very little else.

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#293

Post by mostlyskeptical » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:27 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #262

I bet one hundred dollars that if I tried to login to my old Skype account right now, it would take an hour to figure out how the fuck to reset my password, because"Microsoft account" bullshit. I bet it would take me three hours to make a new account, for the same reason. Try making an account for Microsoft's iot cloud thing. Good luck. Edit: https://youtu.be/lfby-SOWWqQ So, holy shit, somehow it auto populated maybe…

At least some of their other stuff is a nightmare. I still haven't figured out how to use their oauth correctly, or use their iot stuff at all.

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#294

Post by ConceptJunkie » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:30 PM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #213

abiox wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are banned what's the story behind that? (i'm not familiar with that domain.)

JWZ is not a fan of being linked to by HN. JWZ redirects referrals from HN to an obscene image.

Just for that, I'm going to port xscreensaver to Windows.

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#295

Post by ConceptJunkie » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:38 PM UTC

stephenhuey wrote: post #12

mnkypete wrote: post #4

Um.. I'm not sure the article author is familiar with the fact that "Skype for business" (the "complex" one) is actually home grown and was just rebranded from Lync. This is not at all the same as the consumer Skype, which actually tries to be a weird mixup between Snapchat and whatnot at the moment (failing utterly of course). Skype for Business (+ PSTN calling) is actually pretty great on Office 365 tbh...

I do not understand why a software company who has long made money in the enterprise with Office, SQL Server, etc cannot make an integrated chat program that works well in a corporate environment. This Lync Skype beast is so buggy and it doesn't even have code paste one tenth as decent as what Sametime had a decade ago, and MS makes TOOLS FOR DEVELOPERS! Do they not use Lync/Skype in-house? Dog-folding should make it…

Several years ago I worked with an ex-Microsofter who'd worked on the NT kernel and SQL Server. There were several times when I asked him why so-and-so was so awful, and his response was always that they didn't have the good people working on it, because they were all working on NT and SQL Server. My response was that as big as Microsoft is, they should have enough good people to go around.

Really, I'm convinced it's not the average engineers in the trenches who make the products so horrible, but management and marketing's influence over management that causes everything to be a trainwreck.

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#296

Post by emodendroket » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:39 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #254

burntwater wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wifi and continental breakfast. At cheaper hotels, both will often be free. In an interesting twist, while a free continental breakfast will often be significantly lower quality than a paid higher-end breakfast, I've found that the free wifi is almost always significantly better than the paid wifi. In fact, many business hotels have tiered wifi plans. And they all suck, even their most expensive plans will be worse t…

Ok, but I'm still wondering which hotels are these corporate-friendly anti-consumer hotels. I haven't seen any hotels with non-free Wifi, and I've stayed at quite a few different big ones. As for continental breakfast, sure it's not as good as some really good sit-down breakfast restaurant, but it's free and more importantly it's fast: you just go down to the lobby and either eat it there or grab some stuff and take…

Do you not live in the US?

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#297

Post by LoSboccacc » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:39 PM UTC

Wait. Skipe was necessary for a while as the only workable free solution and established a good marked hold lasting till now, but I don’t remember a single day when it was beloved. It always was a compromise between free and not terribly broken.

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#298

Post by freeone3000 » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:40 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #254

burntwater wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wifi and continental breakfast. At cheaper hotels, both will often be free. In an interesting twist, while a free continental breakfast will often be significantly lower quality than a paid higher-end breakfast, I've found that the free wifi is almost always significantly better than the paid wifi. In fact, many business hotels have tiered wifi plans. And they all suck, even their most expensive plans will be worse t…

Ok, but I'm still wondering which hotels are these corporate-friendly anti-consumer hotels. I haven't seen any hotels with non-free Wifi, and I've stayed at quite a few different big ones. As for continental breakfast, sure it's not as good as some really good sit-down breakfast restaurant, but it's free and more importantly it's fast: you just go down to the lobby and either eat it there or grab some stuff and take…

Mariott-branded Mariott, such as the Courtyard. DoubleTree by Hilton. Generically, airport hotels.

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#299

Post by noonespecial » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:43 PM UTC

erikb wrote: post #257

Exuma wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just license your phrase?

You can also buy an enterprise license. Just contact our very competent sales team for a quote and NDA.

...they will be wearing costumes, be on drugs, and be dedicated to "professionalism".

You will not able to get a quote without a meeting in person to discuss "features and options" of the product in order to "synergize with your existing ERP marketplace strategy".

Re: Microsoft Turned Consumers Against the Skype Brand

#300

Post by nikolay » Thu, May 10, 2018, 8:43 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #278

nikolay wrote: post #251

Many people replaced Skype with Viber as there's no spam. I have a very old Skype account with a vanity username, which results in tens of Russians adding me and wasting a few minutes a day blocking and reporting them for spam. Also, when abroad, Viber's audio codecs seem to use less bandwidth and provide better audio quality. I actually like the new Skype very much, but the spam issue needs to be solved! There are m…

> Many people replaced Skype with Viber as there's no spam Except from Viber themselves, that is.

I agree! They obviously don't want to learn from the mistakes of others!