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Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

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Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#101

Post by datavirtue »

S_A_P wrote: post #17

Microsoft is on an interesting trajectory of late, but it also seems like there is some bifurcation as to what they're doing. On one hand they are trying to embrace Linux and pushing development tools forward, but on the other they are just making every slimy big tech type decision they can. I have my own personal axe to grind with them as they tricked my completely non tech savvy mother in law to upgrade her Surface…

I installed a fresh iso of Windows 10 Pro on my mom's desktop the other day. The experience has changed for the same operating system over the last five years. It felt like I was installing a huge piece of malware. When it pegged the cpu at 100% installing one drive (after I told it not to) I just pulled the plug and installed fedora (which I had recently evaluated for myself). Try installing and running fedora for a few minutes. Blows Windows 10/11 out of the water. I knew that if I sent her machine back with Windows 10 it would be a support nightmare.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#102

Post by datavirtue »

pjmlp wrote: post #49
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Some bifurcation" is quite an understatement! Unless you're trying to partition all actions into "good" and "bad", it's more like octofurcation or dodecafurcation. Microsoft is not a homogenous monolith...what does it even mean to split something that's already split apart? Here's an old org chart which shows Microsoft trifurcated: https://i.insider.com/4e0b340dcadcbbdd35120000 But realistically, each of 5 divisions…

I must admit Windows just doesn't know what they are supposed to do. UWP, .NET Native and C++/CX just tanked due to their mismanagement, and having burned the few believers with what are now about 5 rewrites since Windows 8 was introduced plus having dropped the .NET Native and C++/CX toolchains. Forget about.WinUI 3.0, it is so messed up that Windows 11 still needs to rely on UWP and WinUI 2.x, despite being "deprec…

Former believer here. Fucking done.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#103

Post by [deleted] »

shmerl wrote: post #15
jahnu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software engineer and have many software engineering friends and acquaintances and still even in this group of people who are almost all at least comfortable with Linux hardly any use it for anything except work or learning. It's roughly a 50/50 split for the rest between Windows and macOS. So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS? Non IT workers also seem to fav…

Simple. You need wider pre-install base. That's the only barrier.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#104

Post by MangoCoffee »

fartcannon wrote: post #89
manigandham wrote: post #87

Adtech veteran here. This is week old news, and was expected by the industry for awhile ever since ATT failed to integrate Appnexus properly. Not sure why this thread has turned into so many off-topic complaints about Microsoft but this acquisition itself makes perfect sense. The duopoly of Google and Facebook has weakened with the changing landscape of mobile devices, tracking protection, and data regulation. Amazon…

People are complaining because they don't want adtech in everything. It has nothing to do with it being old news - it's news until the industry is leashed. Microsoft joining in isn't things getting better, it's things getting worse because it confirms a lot of suspicions people have.

what's adtech in everything? a friend of mine is a salesman for billboard ads. people see it every day if they happens to drive by one of the billboard ad that he sold. does that count as adtech?

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#105

Post by adamcstephens »

Dig1t wrote: post #86
S_A_P wrote: post #17

Microsoft is on an interesting trajectory of late, but it also seems like there is some bifurcation as to what they're doing. On one hand they are trying to embrace Linux and pushing development tools forward, but on the other they are just making every slimy big tech type decision they can. I have my own personal axe to grind with them as they tricked my completely non tech savvy mother in law to upgrade her Surface…

Honestly I have found that the iPad is great for older folks for this reason. Not to be an Apple shill, but I've found that things like bricked devices after an update don't happen basically ever.

I gave my in-laws a Chromebook for similar reasons. Either way, most people don’t need a full Windows OS

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#106

Post by pm90 »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #97
pm90 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They kinda already do at this point. It’s inevitable that they would do this considering that they’re business is powered by the same fuel: software developers. Honestly I think this is a good way to create more competition in the advertising space which is currently dominated by Google and Facebook. At some point some “smart” executives are going to decide it’s better to cooperate rather than compete… that’s when co…

"Honestly I think this is a good way to create more competition in the advertising space which is currently dominated by Google and Facebook." I don't think it's a good thing that another trillion dollar company is trying to get a share of the advertising business. It would be much better if we had more small and focused companies.

I agree that it would be better if we had smaller companies. But smaller companies can’t compete with Google/FB in the current market. We either need to create regulations to change the market… or hope that other companies with similar deep pools of technical talent and know how compete with the Big Names.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#107

Post by datavirtue »

vel0city wrote: post #51
S_A_P wrote: post #17

Microsoft is on an interesting trajectory of late, but it also seems like there is some bifurcation as to what they're doing. On one hand they are trying to embrace Linux and pushing development tools forward, but on the other they are just making every slimy big tech type decision they can. I have my own personal axe to grind with them as they tricked my completely non tech savvy mother in law to upgrade her Surface…

Which Surface does she have? I've upgraded a few Surface tablets to 11 and have yet to experience the network drivers fail to work afterwards. Maybe it could also be that I waited a few months after it was out to upgrade and they already had a fix for that issue.

"upgraded?"

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#108

Post by squarefoot »

rapind wrote: post #38
blinkingled wrote: post #4

Why? Windows 11 as an advertising business wasn't nasty enough for Microsoft? I installed it on one of my sparingly used machines and it's as blatant as it gets. The Edge push, all the installed crapware, the telemetry and God knows what else - either way it didn't feel like I was running my own OS - instead it felt like I was running a rented one at a Kinkos.

This is part of their Linux marketing plan. Make windows worse (challenging work!), and push people to Linux. End goal being irrelevance. Very noble!

If Microsoft pushes people to Linux, I'm pretty sure it would be their Linux (WSL + strings attached), nothing that would benefit the true Linux community in any way.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#109

Post by sylens »

echelon wrote: post #11

Damn it all to hell. I swore that since Nadella took over the helm that Microsoft was becoming a good force for the industry. There were so many positive moves. Linux, open source, Github improvements. Now I can see that it's all still classic "evil Microsoft" under the hood. They're taking over our industry with Github/VSCode in the cloud. Microsoft payments injection in Edge taxes web commerce, and with their defau…

Do people still think the XBox has always online DRM? They never even implemented that with the XBox One 8 years ago and they have a new console now.

Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business

#110

Post by type0 »

adamcstephens wrote: post #105
Dig1t wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I have found that the iPad is great for older folks for this reason. Not to be an Apple shill, but I've found that things like bricked devices after an update don't happen basically ever.

I gave my in-laws a Chromebook for similar reasons. Either way, most people don’t need a full Windows OS

Chomebook is at least a computer, iPad is an entertainment device.
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