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Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

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Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#21

Post by Legend2440 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

Yeah, this book was hugely influential https://www.google.com/search?q=innovator%27s+dilemma&ie=UTF... And came to the conclusion that many firms like DEC and Xerox did not sufficiently move to new technology because their customers were not interested and didn’t feel served by it, at least not until it had decades to improve. Today we have the FOMO dilemma where executives all read that book and no way they are goin…

You see this happening right now with LLMs. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc are incredibly worried about being disrupted. But all they can really do is try to shoehorn AI into their existing products (OSes, search, social media), which is a difficult sell to their existing customers.

Ultimately, LLMs will probably find their place in a new product category instead.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#23

Post by d3Xt3r »

reilly3000 wrote: post #7

IDK I started running Bazzite on my workstation after Win11 died on me a couple weeks ago, and if it is the premier experience for Linux desktop gaming then we aren’t there yet. It is great as far as distros go, don’t get me wrong. But WiFi dies after waking from sleep, and bluetooth worked once then died. I had to hack on it for a bit, then do it again with immutable OS patterns in mind. MS is certainly leaving an o…

> But WiFi dies after waking from sleep, and bluetooth worked once then died.

That sounds like a hardware compatibility bug to me and not Bazzite's fault - I don't have those issues on my ThinkPad Z13, nor on my GPD Win Mini 2024.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#24

Post by GeekyBear »

crazygringo wrote: post #9

> Number one is that Microsoft just does not feel like a consumer tech company at all anymore. At least in terms of Windows/Office, Microsoft has never been a consumer tech company. They've always been focused on corporate sales. There have always been consumer-focused side areas, from Bob to Encarta to MSN to Xbox. But Microsoft's bread and butter has always been corporations. I don't understand how the author think…

> Microsoft has never been a consumer tech company.

The Zune wasn't consumer tech?

Windows 95 was definitely consumer tech.

Windows XP was about making the Windows NT line accessible for home users going forward.

Weirdly, Windows Phone was aimed at consumers at a time when they really could have leveraged integrations with products like Exchange and Office to stand out.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#25

Post by liuliu »

blitz_skull wrote: post #19
rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

Windows 7 is the last good one. And that is only... Oh, almost 20 years ago. Never mind.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#26

Post by frameset »

blitz_skull wrote: post #19
rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

It's telling that to defend Apple against the charge of stagnation you immediately attacked Windows.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#27

Post by cameldrv »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

Yeah, this book was hugely influential https://www.google.com/search?q=innovator%27s+dilemma&ie=UTF... And came to the conclusion that many firms like DEC and Xerox did not sufficiently move to new technology because their customers were not interested and didn’t feel served by it, at least not until it had decades to improve. Today we have the FOMO dilemma where executives all read that book and no way they are goin…

This more recently happened to IBM (as a computer manufacturer). If your platform is not accessible to hobbyists, the next generation will not be familiar with it, and when they go get a job, it probably won't be with the technology they don't know. Then, assuming there is a credible alternative, the inaccessible technology will die out in a generation, as we've seen with IBM mainframes.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#28

Post by o_m »

The way Microsoft are ruining Windows makes it seem like enterprise users are the tech debt they want to get rid off. Like making their servers non-deterministic by serving random ads or leaking secret content to their AI. It makes sense that they would rather have their customers run Linux on Azure, so they don't have to do R&D for their own OS.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#29

Post by jen20 »

qgin wrote: post #17

Nobody seems to want to use Copilot, but Microsoft is in a great position when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing. They can just provision however many virtual coworkers to a Microsoft Teams instance and you'll be handing off documents and chatting with the AGI workers pretty much as you would any other remote worker. Microsoft doesn't have to be first or best here. Just owning the plumbing of so many presen…

A new Turing test: when all the AGI worker bots would rather gargle razor blades than use Microsoft Teams, we might be close.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#30

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

qgin wrote: post #17

Nobody seems to want to use Copilot, but Microsoft is in a great position when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing. They can just provision however many virtual coworkers to a Microsoft Teams instance and you'll be handing off documents and chatting with the AGI workers pretty much as you would any other remote worker. Microsoft doesn't have to be first or best here. Just owning the plumbing of so many presen…

> when AGI "drop-in office workers" become a thing

How many more weeks? Also, is this before or after flying cars?

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