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…
Mobile was obviously a big failure on their part, though I think their only misstep was being late to market. On the other hand bing has been good for them (and it's great for consumers). Hard to call a multi-million dollar business unit a failure.
Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
211–220 of 255 posts
Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everything is about perception. What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors. Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. Saying stuff like Linux is cancer, the iPhone a toy/joke, acting like a clown during conference.
"What Satya did was change Microsoft's image and culture for the better, insuring Microsoft's cash cows have a future and stay relevant in a world that is changing rapidly with other strong competitors. Ballmer's style of leadership would not fly today. " Totally disagree. Which of MS customers do you think care about 'perception' of how nice the CEO is? Do you think Siemens is going to spend $500M on Google cloud be…
Perhaps having Linux in Azure was inevitable, like you said, but I don't think something like the Linux subsystem stuff they implemented in Windows 10 would have been OKayd by Ballmer. Same thing with stuff like VS Code and the new switch to Chromium for Edge.
It's about a culture where these kinds of ideas are encouraged and can develop into features and products.
Why is Google so successful? Because the culture allows people's ideas to develop into what became huge products loved by millions of people.
Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, it seems like you are describing the car crash that was Windows 8? Seriously, if you haven't tried Windows 10 since it first came out, try it - I held out on Windows 7 for years, but I'm really glad I switched.
I can’t thing of anything useful that MS added since Windows XP. Going from 16 bit cooperative to 32 bit preemptive in the 3.x to 9x change, useful. Going to multiple accounts with permissions in the 9x to XP change, useful. Rearranging the UI time and again since Vista, and sucking up CPUs with scannning processes, so what? Note that I really only used Windows at work, anyway (instead of Linux, or more recently OSX)…
Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#214Steve Ballmer, technical bits aside. Just couldn't play as a successful CEO in PR Role. He was too aggressive, abrasive and even somewhat rude. Aside from that, one of thing most amusing things and one Ballmer excellent business moves was suing nearly every Android Smartphone Company for patent infringement. Microsoft literally makes money off of Android Smartphones but what's confusing to me is how Apple takes all o…
IIRC the android revenue is rolled into the x-box revenue under some nebulous category when they break out revenue in their earning (forget the exact title). This hides the massive losses they are taking on x-box and all things x-box related. The android revenue is almost pure profit and nearly $2B annually. (they make this money by licencing patents to phone makers that use android such as HTC and Samsung)
Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#215Earlier 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…
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.
Seem like a phenomenal miscalculation to not have this built out as a cloud service already.
It would help keep more small companies in a Windows ecosystem and bring them into office 365.
The version they have today seems to offer 10% of the on premise solution.
Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#216Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love my microsoft natural ergonomic keyboard 4000
I like my Microsoft mice too.
Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#218Earlier 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.
> The problem is they are no longer best-of-breed for any of their markets Operating systems? I personally love Windows 10 (now its more mature), and Windows Server 2019 is embracing containers. On cloud, AWS is very entrenched, but Microsoft can capture a lot of the enterprise market. I've worked extensively with Azure, and I think it's a fantastic product. TBH, I'm not sure there is a "best of breed" cloud provider…
Server 2019 is no exception.
At the company I work for IT ops deliver VMs as a service. The windows ones have huge disk footprint and take at least 3 times as long to deliver. Moreover dsc is not featureful enough compared with ansible. So it's also a pain to script/automate for. The failure rate is higher. And let's not forget the need to put antivirus on them.
Lots and lots of reasons to escape from that platform, I could go on for a while.
Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#219Earlier 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.
Speaking as an OS engineer who's worked on both kernels a lot, Windows is way better under the hood for low-latency, responsive end user stuff than linux Then again, WinMo 7 was way faster and more responsive than Android at the time, and look how that turned out..
Still it's probably a lot cheaper to fix some latency issues on linux that to maintain your whole kernel. The main issue with linux is the GPL for drivers, a long with kernel API instability.
Re: Microsoft’s Resurgence Under Satya Nadella
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
I take it you don't know anyone who works at MSFT?
I work at MSFT. There's a difference between being critical of a product in an effort to improve it, and classifying the product as 'crap'. My opinion, and I think most msft employees would share it, fall into the former, and not the latter. There's a lot to be proud of in both Windows and Azure, even with full recognition that they aren't perfect.