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GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

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Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#101

Post by redial »

saagarjha wrote: post #75
redial wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any potential the Watch has is clearly not enough for a strong app market to develop. > Which developer wants to miss out on serving potentially millions of users? You are forgetting that most developers already have millions of potential users on the iPhone with a market at least 30x bigger than the Watch's, and iOS has none of the limitations the Watch has. Right now a Watch app requires an iPhone app, is hard to m…

The upside for you is that if you have a watch app and your competitor doesn't, customers are going to choose your product over theirs.

That is what in theory you think happens. What actually happens is that in very few app categories that is the case. For example, not a single game is losing market share to a competitor because they do not have a watch app.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#102

Post by fjsolwmv »

chris_wot wrote: post #26
Razengan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which developer wants to miss out on serving potentially millions of users? What kind of “killer” app do you envision for a watch? Being able to check messages, calls, Uber, flights, etc. right on my wrist are all killer applications for me, along with the fitness features of course. I suspect the upcoming walkie-talkie will be fun too (something that should’ve been there from the start.)

I think you make your own point. There is no killer app, so why would developers care about millions of people with a watch they can’t do anything novel by a third party?

The watch is a UI for iOS apps. There are zillions of iOS apps.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#103

Post by djsumdog »

notveryrational wrote: post #91
staticassertion wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept reading, waiting for the insidious part. So what you're saying is that Microsoft has a company wide strategic vision to improve its relationship with developers? Did you leave some part out?

Nothing where they are going to gas all the developers or something. Nope. It's more about priorities and intentions. Microsoft doesn't care about the developers. It cares about having the dominant platform. It recognizes that its image makes that difficult. The GitHub acquisition: Microsoft didn't suddenly get more beautiful. It put on a mask. It will kill GitHub - or at least let it flounder - if that's what's best…

Feels like a page out of The Dictators Handbook:

> First, politics is about getting and keeping political power. It is not about the general welfare of "We, the people."

Or I guess here, 'we the developers.'

I don't think Microsoft is at all alone in this spot. Github got a huge payout from this. It benefited them. We don't think of them as a Microsoft style company, but they made the same decision we might have seen in reverse. They didn't sell out before, but now the payout was significantly high enough. It's the old "You'd be stupid to turn down that much money" line from Thank You for Smoking.

But keep in mind, Adobe, Oracle, Intel, Amazon .. they'd probably all do something like this if some essential backers on the board thought it was in their best interest, with the goals always being around maximizing profit (so you can pay all those CFOs, CTOs, board members and controlling stock members). The people who make these decisions care about staying in power .. and are most likely very far removed from actual development .. or their userbase (in this case the same thing).

Just look at what happened with a userbase of gamers and the Facebook purchase of Oculus.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#104

Post by Razengan »

krrrh wrote: post #77
unethical_ban wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like having time easily accessible. Though I have some philosophical and design issues with Apple, the biggest thing, the #1 requirement of any smartphone for me, is a notification LED for messages. I like seeing at a glance who or what is notifying me. Why is an LED so important? Because I want to identify a message quickly, without my phone always in my pocket (e.g. it's on my desk or next to the bed). With a wat…

Don’t underestimate where the watch trumps LEDs: discretness and gentleness. After owning one for a few years I can’t stand the abrasive sound of a vibrating cell phone on a table.

> the abrasive sound of a vibrating cell phone on a table.

Indeed. Waking up to that cacophony can mar one's entire day.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#105

Post by outside1234 »

some_account wrote: post #94
staticassertion wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept reading, waiting for the insidious part. So what you're saying is that Microsoft has a company wide strategic vision to improve its relationship with developers? Did you leave some part out?

Microsoft is forcing employees to use Microsoft tools when there are better ones to solve the problem. Read that again and think about the culture they have at Microsoft, then think about the open source culture if it's the same. Do Microsoft embrace open source?

Cmon, google does the same thing, Facebook does the same thing. They are all at the scale where they can’t adopt random JavaScript framework of the week.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#106

Post by fjsolwmv »

blub wrote: post #70
jlgaddis wrote: post #16

Since the announcement, I’ve been trying to figure out what the most evil uses of “telemetry” that could be incorporated into Github in order to invade user’s privacy are. I’ve had a few (small) ideas but I’m confident that Microsoft already has people much more evil^W^Wsmarter than me working on this very problem (if it wasn’t already figured out beforehand).

They also have LinkedIn. Microsoft realised relatively recently, like Google did a long time ago, that they can give away the sources to the non business-essential stuff and make money through services and exploiting user data. .Net core, a text editor, those are the trinkets that keep the naive developers happy and content that they support a company that is open-source "friendly". That's why open-source is no longe…

That's why FSF tried to move from GPL to AGPL. But companies are obviously not interested until they have a next gen business model and SaaS/PaaS is commoditized.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#107

Post by reacharavindh »

The best case for GitHub would've been for Redhat to acquire them :-( Just feeling sad for what has happened. Microsoft is in it for business. Talking about "change of heart" for a company is bullshit. It's all associated with the business model one way or the other. RedHat would've been the best model. Imagine. Buying GH, open sourcing it, selling a self-hosted version of it for paid support....

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#108

Post by megaman22 »

djsumdog wrote: post #103
notveryrational wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing where they are going to gas all the developers or something. Nope. It's more about priorities and intentions. Microsoft doesn't care about the developers. It cares about having the dominant platform. It recognizes that its image makes that difficult. The GitHub acquisition: Microsoft didn't suddenly get more beautiful. It put on a mask. It will kill GitHub - or at least let it flounder - if that's what's best…

Feels like a page out of The Dictators Handbook: > First, politics is about getting and keeping political power. It is not about the general welfare of "We, the people." Or I guess here, 'we the developers.' I don't think Microsoft is at all alone in this spot. Github got a huge payout from this. It benefited them. We don't think of them as a Microsoft style company, but they made the same decision we might have seen…

Oculus is vaporware, right? I don't see anything that encourages me that whatever thing they were aiming at will be a thing?

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#109

Post by djsumdog »

digitalzombie wrote: post #96
staticassertion wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kept reading, waiting for the insidious part. So what you're saying is that Microsoft has a company wide strategic vision to improve its relationship with developers? Did you leave some part out?

I think the original comment is trying to convey is that perhaps developers should be wary of goodwill. Microsoft have done this in the past. They actively eat the browser market share with IE and left it alone after being the monopoly in web browser. This forced Netscape to become Mozilla. They also tried to be the gateway and believe OS is the gateway for all program and was left in the dust with web app and web se…

Google is pretty much doing the same thing with Chrome. Opera has switched to its rendering engine and Firefox's share is dropping (after Google pumped tons of money in them and used their work to enhance their own offering). Gecko is barely on the map while Google's render can be found in newer versions of Opera, Vivaldi, and others.

I mean if you go back far enough, Microsoft did this with IE. IIRC, they licensed a bunch of stuff from NSCA Mosaic, who thought they were going to make some good money off a percentage of sales. IE was originally part of the Plus! pack which you had to pay for with Windows95, but then MS released their browser for free.

Re: GitHub Is Microsoft’s $7.5B Undo Button

#110

Post by Razengan »

redial wrote: post #48
Razengan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which developer wants to miss out on serving potentially millions of users? What kind of “killer” app do you envision for a watch? Being able to check messages, calls, Uber, flights, etc. right on my wrist are all killer applications for me, along with the fitness features of course. I suspect the upcoming walkie-talkie will be fun too (something that should’ve been there from the start.)

Any potential the Watch has is clearly not enough for a strong app market to develop. > Which developer wants to miss out on serving potentially millions of users? You are forgetting that most developers already have millions of potential users on the iPhone with a market at least 30x bigger than the Watch's, and iOS has none of the limitations the Watch has. Right now a Watch app requires an iPhone app, is hard to m…

As others have said, think of your Apple Watch app as an extension to your iOS app's UI: it enhances your iOS app vs. the competition that doesn't offer the wrist UI.

I've seen users requesting a Watch version in reviews for iOS apps. Even I have chosen some apps in the past over others specifically because they offered a Watch app, like navigation apps and flight checkers etc.

As a user though, I must say that if "monetizing" and "selling on its own" are more important concerns for you than make your product/service a better experience for ME, then I probably wouldn't want to use any of your apps.

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