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What is Microsoft smoking?

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Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#151

Post by zerohm »

The worst thing that could happen to Microsoft in the next 10 years is that they become the next IBM. MS is in danger of becoming irrelevant in the consumer electronics space, but they are deeply entrenched in enterprise IT, where they can make lots of money for years to come.

I don't think the Xbox One is that bad. No one has figured out the formula of owning the living room yet (or taking it away from cable providers) and MS is giving it a shot. I applaud them for that.

Microsoft's strategy is to own the living room.

Sony's strategy is to take the enthusiast gamers back from MS.

Nintendo's strategy is to...well frankly I don't know what the hell Nintendo is trying to do.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#152

Post by cpfohl »

supercoder wrote: post #149
cpfohl wrote: post #148

What's wrong with the name 'XBox One'? Makes as much sense as 'xbox' or 'xbox 360.' Considerably more sense than Atari or Wii... And a focus on TV makes a good deal of business sense as more and more people are dropping cable in favor of streaming shows and movies. Something is going to replace that, for the most part people don't drop a service without replacing it. As far as where the games are...the XBox had 17 ga…

It'll pass in time I'm sure, but everytime I hear 'Xbox One' i think 'Xbox 1'. Some people are going to think they get some pretty good deals on ebay.. I don't know why they just couldnt have gone with 'Xbox'. Not like there is one coming out every year (let alone every decade) , like the iPad people will just say 'the new xbox'. "Xbox One" just seems like some marketing guys idea of a good thing to patronise people…

Ok. I can see that. Thanks for explaining.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#153

Post by pm »

kryten wrote: post #145
pm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I wanted to do IaaS I would have done so already, and most likely on EC2. However, I don't want to spend time doing devops, which is what makes PaaS so attractive in the first place. Actually the true PaaS is Cloud Services, which we've integrated along with the queues and tables. It's definitely not in beta - it's been out for quite some time. Most of my PaaS experience comes mostly with App Engine, which I liked…

You nailed it. That is exactly spot on.

Once I started I couldn't stop. This is my therapy for the last three 16 hour days I've done debugging our Azure-based service. My compatriot (an ex-Microsoftie) has been working with it fully for the last two months, and I have no idea how he maintained his sanity.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#154

Post by tking8924 »

mattchamb wrote: post #109
plainhold wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be obvious but to clarify only one of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time.

Good spotting, it looks like I didn't read it thoroughly enough and misinterpreted it as a result. This does take away a bit of the power from this kind of licensing, but even so, playing co-op online with a single friend who hasnt bought the game is better than only being able to play with friends who have bought the game.

I just wanted to point out that, from the Ars Technica article above, "only one person can be playing the shared copy of a single game at any given time". That, to me, really sounds like its either you OR someone on your shared list, not you AND someone on your shared list.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#155

Post by varunkho »

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.

With Azure websites (in preview) deployment of Mvc4 projects is in the matter of seconds (I have been using it for some months). If you fork a hosted service, yes deployment does take time if you use the official way. Afaik, you can also use the accelerator for web roles [1] to reduce this delay considerably [2].

[1]: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/windowsazure/archive/2011/07/12/now-...

[2]: accelerator is no longer being updated (afaik), chiefly because Azure websites are designed to handle the scenario it was developed for.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#156

Post by aperture »

cpfohl wrote: post #148

What's wrong with the name 'XBox One'? Makes as much sense as 'xbox' or 'xbox 360.' Considerably more sense than Atari or Wii... And a focus on TV makes a good deal of business sense as more and more people are dropping cable in favor of streaming shows and movies. Something is going to replace that, for the most part people don't drop a service without replacing it. As far as where the games are...the XBox had 17 ga…

You make some interesting points, but I don't think it really addresses the heart of the issue.

In terms of marketing, the Xbox One isn't as pleasing to many people as one would come to expect (but then again, Wii U isn't doing much better). I think the naming should have been given a little more consideration, but I don't think that's really anything more than a sub-issue with the platform.

The pricing, however, is. As a marketing team, what needed to be done was addressing the newer generation of consoles and "outdoing" the other competing consoles. The ps4, to be frank, is more superior. I think Microsoft did a splendid job on design and pricing given the time they had to compete with the ps4, so they'll be given credit here. But certainly no real "wins". All of these are foothold attempts, that didn't catch on as much as they expected.

THEN the real issues start. DRM is always considered poorly received. Region locking as well, especially given the prices that are adjusted for European countries. I think the move they made wasn't rash, but it did affect a minority. I'd like to highlight this wasn't the real issue.

Your real issue is "It has always been Microsoft's strategy to encourage outside development of games."

This is the problem. They reason Xbox 360 has SO MANY fantastic games is the Xbox indie development groups. This has helped Google's Android, this has helped iOS. Creativity is what really fosters a community of gamers. But now that indie developers must get publishers for Xbox One, the market will not be as strong.

All in all, I could nitpick over calling windows 8 an "experiment" or the use of apps in the store, or any of that, but I don't think that's the key issue.

The key issue is that Microsoft is getting competition, and we just witnessed them losing quite a significant chunk of the gaming market. The businesses went from 5+ years of XP, and only about 2 years of Vista, 7, 8, and now 8.1 .

I don't think Microsoft should be punished for moving forward, but instead they should be punished for moving in the direction that people haven't liked.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#157

Post by Tyr42 »

inthewind wrote: post #88
DanBC wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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. > On my console, anyone can play my games, whether I take the disc to a friend's house or not. This is hugely beneficial for me and my brothers who, until this point, have been sharing a single console. That's hugely depressing. I have a DVD…

Yes, I think you've nailed this on the head. The licensing is all dressed up, but ultimately MS is the one trying to take a slice of every pie. Having said that, I'm not sure what and how they currently profit from their consoles? It's my understanding that Nintendo and other manufacturers sell the hardware at a loss and make their money on licensing - perhaps that's done on a per game basis, rather than a per unit b…

I know that Nintendo traditionally has been selling their consoles for a profit, though I'm not sure if this carries over to the WiiU.

I know Sony and MS have sold consoles at a loss before.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#158

Post by RyanMcGreal »

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…

Every Microsoft debacle peels off a few more users. I grew up on DOS as a kid and rode the Microsoft train through Windows 3.1, Win95, Win98SE, Win2K and WinXP but jumped ship to Ubuntu in 2008 after everyone had a chance to see just how bad Vista was. I was also increasingly conscious of the cultural shift in Microsoft: away from a legendary fidelity to API stability and toward an ever-shifting grab bag of disposable fashions and fads, starting with the compatibility break from VB6 to VB.NET.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#159

Post by Draiken »

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…

Even on Office, people use it because it's pretty much the only thing they can use. Not because it's a great product.

You work on a company and they have office. You didn't choose, you can't change it. It's just there.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#160

Post by timrichard »

SamColes wrote: post #76
archivator wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly offtopic but can you point me to a description of said font issues? My Android Studio (IDEA) fonts seem fine (on latest Kubuntu and Fedora w/ KDE).

IDEA-57233 Editor font antialising/appearance problems on Linux http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-57233

Hi, have you tried the AAHack plugin? It made a difference for me when running IDEA on Arch/Gnome.
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