Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 255 posts

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#101

Post by zozbot123 »

weberc2 wrote: post #96
zozbot123 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows 95 ... should have never existed because... NT was a thing. Windows NT needed way high-end hardware to be usable at the time. (Even Linux did, if you wanted to use a Win95-like GUI and not be limited to the text-only CLI.) Windows 95 was a hack, but it was still miles better than pure MS-DOG and 16-bit versions of Windows. > Windows 98 ...introduced completely unnecessary IE integration and the Active Deskt…

> Guess what, that integrates the web browser at a far deeper level than Win98 ever did. That's the entire point; it uses the web browser because the web browser became an operating system (in the "application platform" sense of the word, not in the "kernel" sense) in its own right, and ChromeOS is Google's attempt to follow it to its conclusion. This is categorically different than Windows' deep and arbitrary integr…

> This is categorically different than Windows' deep and arbitrary integration of Explorer.

Nope, Internet Explorer had its own "application platform" for the browser at the time, known as ActiveX. Of course ActiveX came with huge security drawbacks, not unlike Windows 9x itself, but OTOH it was somewhat usable compared to the security-oriented Java "applets". And ActiveX components did find some use in Windows 98, much like the web-based components in ChromeOS.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#102

Post by gatvol »

king_magic wrote: post #74
nostromo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is they are no longer best-of-breed for any of their markets, except maybe Office. Microsoft doesn't break out Azure revenue, but by all accounts it's quite small compared to AWS. And Office is very much under threat. If you work with young people you'll notice they tend to prefer G Suite apps over Office - most likely because Google has done a great job getting their software into schools.

Uh, Azure revenue, by many accounts, is greater than AWS: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/10/29/1-microsof... https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/04/27/microsoft-... And sorry, G Suite is a joke compared to desktop Office for serious work. It doesn't matter what the youngin's prefer, what matters is what gets (or facilitates getting) real work done in the enterprise, which generally revolves aroun…

You ever tried actually using Azure `services`? What a joke! On the surface they try to have feature parity with their AWS analogues, scratch the surface any that illusion quickly evaporates. Nowhere close. As for O365 - old mode, still nowhere close to GSuite for new ways of working.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#103

Post by kirion25 »

diegoperini wrote: post #93
matrix wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heavy-handed updates forcing frequent reboots are the deal-breaker for me. It seriously pisses me off to come back to my machine only discover that all those editor windows I had open gone, the IDE close, and all the open browser tabs lost, etc. Why are frequent full reboots even necessary in this day and age?!

It's ok if they are necessary. It's not ok if they are needed ASAP.

I agree with the gp that consecutive full reboots definitely shouldn't be necessary. That Windows forces your hand on when to reboot just worsens the case.

The state of Windows update is terrible to me. Say what you will about Linux, but updating on most distros is a breeze compared to Windows.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#104

Post by eknkc »

blinkingled wrote: post #89
eknkc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I remember reading this particular comment when it was new. It mostly feels like “ok guys this is the best we get out of this” to me though. If they do not go with a different approach, the filesystem will always be an issue with WSL. I planned ditching my mac in favor of WSL. Due to MBP hardware issues and the fact that a git status would take 10x time drove me away. I wish it was good enough though.

git status maybe 10x slower on WSL than native Linux - I wonder how much slower it is than macOS - in my brief use macOS filesystem never felt anywhere near Linux fast to me.

Never been bothered by it in practice but good question. The newish filesystem (apfs) feels faster in daily use so your experience might be outdated by now.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#105

Post by avtar »

eknkc wrote: post #72
nailer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is a pretty good kernel, GNU/Windows (aka WSL) effectively feels like Linux, with some drawbacks mainly NTFS being very slow (which Microsoft are aware of and working on - see https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/873#issuecomment-425... ).

Yeah I remember reading this particular comment when it was new. It mostly feels like “ok guys this is the best we get out of this” to me though. If they do not go with a different approach, the filesystem will always be an issue with WSL. I planned ditching my mac in favor of WSL. Due to MBP hardware issues and the fact that a git status would take 10x time drove me away. I wish it was good enough though.

I keep a Debian VM around with Samba exporting my ~/src directory to the Windows host. That way it’s possible to avoid file system issues while still being able to use editors and other tools (Adobe CC apps in my case).

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#106

Post by devereaux »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #36
devereaux wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are small things, but they could also be good signals- a bit like canaries in the mine. To say that differently, every story about Google or Facebook is usually some horrible thing. I would not touch their product with a 10 foot pole. A few years go, I uninstalled all facebook stuff and even whatsapps. Now I do not buy anything even remotely connected to google (such as android phones) because it gives me the cr…

"You should not underestimate the power of a narrative or even impressions." I'm not. I'm saying (from Shiller, world leading economist) - that narratives are usually wrong, and the MS case is evidence. VS Code and 'open source' Chakra are very, small, things. They are not even canaries. (Caveat: Azure allowing linux is important strategically though) I personally fall victim to this myself a lot, making undue correl…

I fully agree with your analysis -- the whole of it, including our wrong focus as hackers.

And you're right about Ballmer: he made risky moves that are now paying quite well.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#107

Post by rubyfan »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #5

"When Satya Nadella took Microsoft Corp.’s helm five years ago, the conventional wisdom was that the company’s glory days were behind it." Have a look at this MS revenues [1] and consider why for a moment there is any 'conventional wisdom' like this? MSFT stock price did languish during this time of amazing growth which I guess validates that 'conventional wisdom' was in fact sour, but it's hard to see why it was. Ro…

> For whatever reason, the industry press never liked Ballmer, and I guess they like Satya.

Bad business acquisitions and management decisions notwithstanding...

Developers, developers, developers.

Chair throwing.

Bad dancing.

Many other crazy antics.

Being an archetypal business man and probably the defining image of MSFT in the 2000s - you literally couldn’t make it less cool.

Lots for industry media to troll.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#108

Post by twblalock »

adventured wrote: post #100
twblalock wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to compete in mobile and failing is a misstep. Microsoft missed out on smartphones, one of the fastest growing and most lucrative market segments in tech industry history. Trying to compete in search and failing is also a misstep. Bing is just not as good as Google. It's arguable that Azure would not have been successful under Ballmer either, because it's unlikely he would have embraced Linux to the extent tha…

I agree that mobile and search were missteps, specifically putting themselves into a position of competing so poorly in those areas overall. It's also unrealistic to think that one company could own desktop, mobile, search, office, etc. Microsoft was going to own desktop, mobile, search? $300-$400 billion in revenue? $130+ billion in profit? No. That's absurd. Holding Ballmer to account for not conquering planet Eart…

> Microsoft was going to own desktop, mobile, search? $300-$400 billion in revenue? $130+ billion in profit?

> No. That's absurd. Holding Ballmer to account for not conquering planet Earth is not a fair premise.

I didn't say Microsoft needed to "own" mobile and search. They just needed to be competitive, instead of trying and failing which is what they did.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#109

Post by GVIrish »

nostromo wrote: post #87
king_magic wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, Azure revenue, by many accounts, is greater than AWS: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/10/29/1-microsof... https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/04/27/microsoft-... And sorry, G Suite is a joke compared to desktop Office for serious work. It doesn't matter what the youngin's prefer, what matters is what gets (or facilitates getting) real work done in the enterprise, which generally revolves aroun…

Microsoft includes a bunch of non-Azure products under their cloud revenue. And they do it to confuse people and falsely claim they're outpacing AWS, which as you just proved, works.

Why shouldn't Office365 be counted in cloud revenue? "Cloud Revenue" doesn't exclusive mean IaaS or PaaS.

Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella

#110

Post by devereaux »

saosebastiao wrote: post #56
devereaux wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #1, eventually I expect Microsoft to release their own Linux distribution and keep Windows as a GUI. I would not be surprised if their failed project Astoria was reused to run android apps on that.

Why would it need to be Linux? I love linux, but mostly because it works well and is open source. I'd love for a big tech company to put their weight behind SEL4. That would go a long way for Microsoft: formally proven security, tiny footprint, good performance, etc. It's something that has massive potential for super computers all the way down to IOT. It just needs a proper ecosystem behind it. Or maybe buy QNX off…

Because of the market share and ecosystem.

As you said, it works well and it's open source. But that's not enough, as they could then chose BSD. But Linux is what's used by most, not BSD.

Given Microsoft new strategy to just adopt what everyone else is using, they will eventually use the Linux kernel.

Post reply on HN