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What is Microsoft smoking?

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Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#31

Post by tehwalrus »

mattchamb wrote: post #18

Im probably going to lose what little karma I have for saying this, but the XBox One's licensing model is more attractive to me than the PS4's model. I'm getting all of my information from here: http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license These are the points I find interesting: - Access your entire games library from any Xbox One ... while you are logged in at your friend’s house, you can play your games. From this, i can…

Sounds interesting, and a lot like Steam (which, like you, I've spent a fair bit of money on over the years now.)

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#32

Post by precisioncoder »

sn0v wrote: post #16
zainny wrote: post #4

Interestingly enough there is a point at which I thought Microsoft was really going to hit some home runs not all that long ago. Since then though the trifecta of Windows Phone 8, Windows 8, and Xbox One has turned me away from their entire product line. Combined with my own movements over the years towards open source desktop software and web applications (Google Docs, etc.) and Microsoft barely rates a mention in m…

Sure, WP8 has its quirks but I don't think it's all that bad? The interface is clean, the OS is smooth and the app store has quite a few useful apps (although a few major ones are still missing).

I've heard that what you say above is possible with the right third party apps but after trying it out I decided that it's Vista 2.0. Vista had good things going for it but they were cancelled out by the annoying features. IMO win7 is the best release Microsoft has ever made and I wouldn't be surprised if it had the same long lifespan as winXP while win8 languishes in obscurity. With the strides gaming has been making on Linux though I'm really hoping that I can make a permanent switch at some point soon.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#33

Post by pm »

kryten wrote: post #21
hboon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of most of their products, but I've heard good things about Azure, even for Linux hosting. Disclosure: I was at Microsoft for a couple of months due to an acquisition.

I find the actual process of deploying stuff to Azure very costly and terribly slow. If something doesn't work as intended on Azure, your turnaround time is quite high. This is far too common a problem as well as the development services they offer for local dev aren't 100% the same as the target environment.

Not to mention things like no automatic logging, no automatic HTTPS, 20-60 minute deploy times, unstable dev tools. I've dealt with the quirks of MVC4 which I grew accustomed to, but the other problems are making deploying a solution (something I'm trying to do now) very painful.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#34

Post by precisioncoder »

kryten wrote: post #25
mattchamb wrote: post #18

Im probably going to lose what little karma I have for saying this, but the XBox One's licensing model is more attractive to me than the PS4's model. I'm getting all of my information from here: http://news.xbox.com/2013/06/license These are the points I find interesting: - Access your entire games library from any Xbox One ... while you are logged in at your friend’s house, you can play your games. From this, i can…

I think that idea probably works well... ...until you have to drag an entire BluRay disc over the Internet before Halo 14 will start.

That would be awesome since it would mean there would be tons of consumer pressure to increase upload/download speeds and hopefully get ISPs upgrading service.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#35

Post by arethuza »

The £429 price in the UK looks like a mistake to me - I know the launch price of the 360 was ~£280 and a Kinect is ~£100 but I still think that in these times of austerity it is a bit steep.

Mind you, I will buy one once Halo 5 (for me) or FIFA 14 (teenage son) comes out...

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#36

Post by to3m »

kryten wrote: post #17
valdiorn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, start button is just the very beginning. Whoever thought a full-screen calculator app was going to be a good idea was an idiot.

This. Times a million. I actually knocked up an image of my calculator (HP 50g) against my TFT screen both scaled accordingly as an illustration of this shit crock: http://s16.postimg.org/qu05lh5r9/wtf.png

Fortunately I've managed to somehow miss out on the Metro calculator app. It looks to suffer from the problems described here, only worse yet than existing calculator apps, on account of the size of all the Metro widgets compared to the size of the 21+" (non-touchable!) monitor sported by your average desktop PC: http://prog21.dadgum.com/107.html

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#37

Post by jiggy2011 »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #23

Microsoft Is Spread Too Thin. That's it. That is the reason most of their products are half-assed. They have database systems. Server, desktop, and tablet/phone operating systems. Web, desktop, mobile development environments, all in multiple languages. They have their IaaS and PaaS offerings. They have end user services like Skydrive and Outlook. Then there is everything Office. And games, both PC and Xbox. Also, Bi…

Microsoft's business model is basically "we are all things to all men". It's all about vertical integration.

They aren't attractive because their products are necessarily that compelling on their own, it's that if your entire computing is Microsoft (as it was for many people late 90s-early 2000s) a lot of problems go away.

The killer app for Windows server is that it is designed for managing Windows desktops for example. If you are running OS X desktops, why bother with it?

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#38

Post by JoshGlazebrook »

pm wrote: post #33
kryten wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the actual process of deploying stuff to Azure very costly and terribly slow. If something doesn't work as intended on Azure, your turnaround time is quite high. This is far too common a problem as well as the development services they offer for local dev aren't 100% the same as the target environment.

Not to mention things like no automatic logging, no automatic HTTPS, 20-60 minute deploy times, unstable dev tools. I've dealt with the quirks of MVC4 which I grew accustomed to, but the other problems are making deploying a solution (something I'm trying to do now) very painful.

I think you have to keep in mind Azure is not just a PaaS (which of course is still in beta as websites)

It's has an IaaS equivalent of EC2.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#39

Post by jiggy2011 »

arethuza wrote: post #35

The £429 price in the UK looks like a mistake to me - I know the launch price of the 360 was ~£280 and a Kinect is ~£100 but I still think that in these times of austerity it is a bit steep. Mind you, I will buy one once Halo 5 (for me) or FIFA 14 (teenage son) comes out...

I think you may have answered your own complaint there.

IIRC the PS3 was even more expensive when it came out.

One advantage of a console is that it is an "investment" in that you know buying one will give you at least 5 years worth of supported gaming. Compare that to buying an iPad, the first gen iPad was released in 2010 and it basically obsolete now.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#40

Post by jacques_chester »

AlexanderDhoore wrote: post #23

Microsoft Is Spread Too Thin. That's it. That is the reason most of their products are half-assed. They have database systems. Server, desktop, and tablet/phone operating systems. Web, desktop, mobile development environments, all in multiple languages. They have their IaaS and PaaS offerings. They have end user services like Skydrive and Outlook. Then there is everything Office. And games, both PC and Xbox. Also, Bi…

> This is probably an incredibly incomplete list.

You've actually hit Microsoft's five business units. In order of revenue:

Business Division (ie, Office): $24B

Windows & Windows Live: $18.8B

Server & Tools: $18.7B

Entertainment & Devices: $9.5B

Online Services: $3B.

With the exception of Online Services, each of these business units alone is doing enough revenue to qualify for inclusion on the Fortune 500 list.

Entertainment & Devices makes more revenue than Yahoo does in total. More than Hertz and Barnes & Noble.

I would love -- love! -- to be spread so thin.

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