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

What is Microsoft smoking?

irrlicht3d.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 253 posts

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#131

Post by elorant »

Back when Windows 8 was announced I used to wonder why didn’t they choose the path of Apple, thus making one operating system for the desktop and a different one for mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). I think that they invested too much on the Surface tablet, hoping to produce a tablet that will have comparable capabilities with a desktop PC. In such a device the traditional Windows OS is not enough because we need gestures and a mobile OS is also not enough cause you need the file-system support and all of the facilities you’ve come to think as fundamental in a desktop OS. That’s where Win8 fits. If Surface had succeed I think Windows 8 would have justified its existence. But now it looks like a product without a context.

Why did they chose a path of an enhanced tablet? Probably because they didn’t want to compete with Apple in the $500 price tag. Or because they thought that there is market in the high end of tablets.

The thing is that their tablet strategy has failed and along goes a line of products designed for it, namely Metro, Win RT and Windows 8. Add their inability to penetrate the smartphone market and you begin to realize why Microsoft is considered irrelevant these days.

The only aspect where I read interesting news from MS is their development platform. Perhaps they should stop jerking around and return to their core, aka make software for the enterprise.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#132

Post by daivd »

bromagosa wrote: post #77

I'm going to rant big time, and I expect downvotes, but this is my true opinion, has always been and will always be, so I see no reason to not write it down here. I don't think Microsoft ever cared at all about customers or products. Microsoft has been making money out of patents and white-gloved mobbing for ever, not out of customer happiness. Probably around 90% percent of what they earn in OS licenses comes from p…

AFAIK you don't pay a Windows tax on most laptops. All the adware, crapware, trial software and whatnot that are pre-installed pay for the Windows license. This is why the few Linux laptops that do exist are not really cheaper.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#133

Post by bromagosa »

adventured wrote: post #93
bromagosa wrote: post #77

I'm going to rant big time, and I expect downvotes, but this is my true opinion, has always been and will always be, so I see no reason to not write it down here. I don't think Microsoft ever cared at all about customers or products. Microsoft has been making money out of patents and white-gloved mobbing for ever, not out of customer happiness. Probably around 90% percent of what they earn in OS licenses comes from p…

Ok, interesting claim. So, how much money has Microsoft been making from patents exactly? Since you've made a very dramatic statement, I'd like to see a specific figure. And then I'd like to see that compared to Office, Windows, Server & Tools, etc. Why would anybody buy hardware with Windows on it, only to install Debian? Build your own systems, that's the really obvious and really simple answer. You're blaming Micr…

And since you asked for a specific figure, it seems as of 2011 they were making $444 million annually [1] just out of their patents on Android.

That's just out of the Android patents, a mere fistful among the more than 10.000 patents [2] they hold.

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-microsoft-android-201...

[2] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/11/microsoft_10000_pate...

edit: Also, are you seriously asking me to build my own laptop?

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#134

Post by ben336 »

mattchamb wrote: post #95
easytiger wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Access your entire games library from any Xbox One ... > > while you are logged in at your friend’s house, you can play your games. This applies for all PSN games also. > - Share access to your games with everyone inside your home .. Anyone can play your games on your console--regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you. Interesting. But I'm not sure the value. How many homes have > 1 uni…

>How does one define family? How do they prove it That is something I am also wondering. The worst case would be that they ask for proof of a familial relationship of any form. That is something even I am not prepared to give Microsoft.

When companies make restrictions like that they almost always mean people in general with an upward limit on how many people to prevent abuse (a very generous 10 in this case)

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#135

Post by jacques_chester »

venomsnake wrote: post #61
jacques_chester wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Ente…

The speed with which one technological company can fall is amazing as history has shown time and time again. According to joel spolsky Excel 4 made lotus 1-2-3 obsolete virtually overnight and that was the beginning of the end for them. The fact that MS is strong now means nothing in the long and even midterm. The total share of world computing that Microsoft controls now is lower than in the 90s. They have trouble g…

> The speed with which one technological company can fall is amazing as history has shown time and time again.

I disagree. The speed with which companies relying on a single product can fall has been shown again and again. Companies which are diversified have lasted much longer.

Lotus is gone, Borland is gone, Apple almost died -- but Microsoft are still around.

Microsoft are no longer the absolute masters they used to be (and that IBM were before them). But they, and IBM, demonstrate there is "a lot of ruin in a great company" (to paraphrase Smith).

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#136

Post by daigoba66 »

baby wrote: post #73
jiggy2011 wrote: post #46

Everyone on reddit seems to be up in arms about used game sales, as in the ability to trade in a box + disk. But really, this will likely be the last generation of consoles to support a physical disk. I imagine that by the end of this "round" of consoles 60%+ of game sales for these consoles will be digital downloads. What do use game sales look like in a digital marketplace? If you allow gamers to freely transfer li…

One of the guy introducing "The Crew" at the E3 told one journalist : "you have an iPad? How does it feel whan you don't have WIFI or 3G for it? It feels empty and dead right? I believe consoles are becoming about online now and in a few years you'll understand what I meant here".

But even without WiFi or 3G I can still play most of my games and watch downloaded movies on my iPad!

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#137

Post by jacques_chester »

fhd2 wrote: post #52
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…

Agreed, seems like way too many fronts to fight on. Back in the day when they were the evil empire (TM), this probably made sense - they were able to steamroll into new markets, right over the competition. Now that they're playing catch up in many of those areas, probably not so much. Also, there's more: They're quite a bit into hardware, making input devices and, lately, Surface. They're also a big name in the enter…

When you are in so many markets, your efforts will sometimes be ahead and sometimes behind the competition. It's the sort of normal Poisson distribution you'd expect to find anyhow.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#138

Post by jiggy2011 »

JonnieCache wrote: post #54
mattchamb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but that that is a problem with the distribution method, not the licencing model. The most reasonable answer to this would be that the game disc can be used to install on any console, but only allow that disc to confer a licence once. I do not know how it will actually work, but I am actually excited to see what happens. edit: actually, thinking about it now - I think this is where the always online requirem…

It's gonna be a lot of fun when the master keys leak and someone writes a fake server that just authorises every game. Surely microsoft know that this is 100% going to happen?

I'm sure there will eventually be some form of jailbreak for the console that allows the execution of pirate games.

However the number of people who are willing to jailbreak will probably be small enough that they don't really care.

The beauty of online activation is that the console doesn't need to store the activation key, so you can't leak it by hacking the console as was done on the PS3.

You just sign game activations with a hardware encryption module in a high security datacenter. The console then only has to know the corresponding public key which is not enough to authorize a game for a console that has not been jailbroken.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#139

Post by obtino »

hboon wrote: post #8
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…

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'm not a fan of most of their products, but I've heard good things about Azure, even for Linux hosting.

I have to agree on Azure. It's simply amazing for Linux VM hosting. I urge everyone to try it (whether you like MS or not). The UI for this service is simply amazing!

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#140

Post by exDM69 »

jacques_chester wrote: post #40
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. Ente…

This list confirms what I've been thinking about MSFT for a long time - their primary product is the Office Suite and has been for quite some time. As long as there are billions of people in the world vendor locked to the Office Suite as there currently is, MSFT will be around and kicking for a long time no matter how hard they fail on other fronts. It's no matter how badly Windows declines, as long as it runs Office and a web browser, (some) people will buy it.
Post reply on HN