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What is Microsoft smoking?

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Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#181

Post by jodoglevy »

alextingle wrote: post #165
adventured wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, their substantial diversification beyond Windows means that it's very, very unlikely Microsoft is going to fall (easily or quickly). Microsoft could lose the entire consumer Windows business and be just fine (despite the hit their stock would take), particularly as they keep growing in other sectors while Windows becomes less important by the day (and is clearly done growing as a business). Consumer Windows…

The vast majority of Microsoft's profits come from Office. Windows makes a little bit, and everything else loses money.

This is fundamentally incorrect. Only Online Services Division (Bing) loses money. Everything else makes money, and Windows definitely makes more than "a little bit."

Operating Income by Division FY13 Q3: Windows: $3.46 B Server and Tools: $1.98 B Online Services: -$262 M (loss) Business: $4.1 B Entertainment and Devices: $342 M

It is interesting that people perceive so many businesses at Microsoft as "failing" even when they have healthy income and growth year after year.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earn...

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#182

Post by jodoglevy »

venomsnake wrote: post #143
jacques_chester wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

But Microsoft have single product. While they do sell it from 5 different department is combines to one interwoven whole. That is great on the rise but can be terrible when every customer lost means losing network effects. The more google apps/ Libre gain traction the less valuable the windows desktop becomes. The less valuable the desktop - the server becomens less valuable and from there the DB. Computer ecosystems…

Microsoft has 12 billion dollar businesses. Apple has 6. Google has 1 or 2 I think (although I can't find a source for that).

Sources: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar-bus...

http://www.mediabizbloggers.com/group-m/Is-Radio-Apples-Seve...

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#183

Post by inthewind »

kryten wrote: post #180
inthewind wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just annoying though. It's like not being able to move your music freely around your devices. Granted that you probably will probably only have one Xbox one, but it's still a pain. MS don't seem to have sorted the licensing model, to make it convenient with their OS, I have a copy of Windows 8, that I want to move from one machine to another at some point, and I'm sure it will be non-trivial. Not to mention th…

Moving windows 8 around is trivial. Most of the time it just activates. Occasionally it makes you phone them which takes about 3-4 mins. However when you have a VLK and you don't notice that the KMS server has fallen over, shit hits the fan on an epic scale...

Idiots guide to moving it from one machine to another?

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#184

Post by varunkho »

pm wrote: post #164
varunkho wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cheers. Unfortunately while we have a web role we have two worker roles running long-background processes to deal with Exchange streaming subscriptions (this isn't really a website, it's an API). This is more than I found when attempting to search for a solution to a quicker deploy, however.

You can use accelerator for worker roles as well. Though it is not updated any more but it is open source.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#185

Post by Zarathust »

jemeshsu wrote: post #83
venomsnake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft had all the cards to win the device war. But they forgot what made them win the PC war. They tried to emulate apple while forgetting that people that bought into apple ideology already had apple. If the W8 arm was unlocked it would have been a big winner. WP7 just needed fast moving instead of stagnation and they almost got everything right with the original xbox and X360 in the beginning. But I am moving a…

> They tried to emulate apple while forgetting that people that bought into apple ideology already had apple. Agreed. Their enterprise offering is strong. And one day they will realize it is IBM that is their destiny, and drop out of consumer market.

I see Microsoft in a position similar to RIM 5 - 8 years back. They have tons of revenue from big business that are kinda locked in to their stack. There is no need for large innovation in those very mature markets and they innovate by pushing more of the same. I may not be an office power use, but I see very little significant changes in Office since 2003, only small features tweaked.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#186

Post by blktiger »

stefanve wrote: post #124
iMark wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft's definition of family is extremely generous - in short it can include your friends, and doesn't appear limited by geography. See the "It's a 'family' affair" side box: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/06/microsoft-defends-the-...

"You'll be able to link other Xbox Live accounts as having shared access to your library when you first set up a system and will also be able to add them later on (though specific details of how you manage these relationships is still not being discussed). The only limitation, it seems, is that only one person can be playing the shared copy of a single game at any given time. All in all, this does sound like a pretty…

If it works like their current 'family' accounts do, then everybody is basically sharing the same gold membership. So you all pay for xbox live gold on the same billing information.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#187

Post by falcolas »

I don't think that Sony "won" E3, or that Microsoft lost. Instead, Sony called Microsoft's bluff.

Stay with me here. All of the restrictions that Microsoft has put forth are enforced by software - they can all be pretty easily reverted. I'm willing to bet that Microsoft was really hoping that Sony would see this as the future of console gaming, and would follow their lead at E3. This way consumers would have been given two relatively equal choices, and both Microsoft and Sony would have higher revenue streams and control over their products.

Sony, though, decided to appeal to consumers instead of their own pocketbooks, and now I feel that in order to be successful, Microsoft will have to follow suit, and slowly back out all of these restrictions "after further consideration".

It was a good gamble, (let's face it, there was a time not so long ago that betting on Sony opting for more control over their devices was a sure thing) and Microsoft lost this time. But in a year, when the new consoles are out, and if Microsoft dials back the restrictions, nobody will care what was announced this year. They'll be playing Halo4, MGS (RDR style), and COD: Ghosts, and couldn't care less about where Microsoft's stance started.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#188

Post by mynameisvlad »

easytiger wrote: post #89
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…

> - 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…

> Interesting. But I'm not sure the value. How many homes have > 1 unit.

I don't see how that has any relevance to what you quoted. What you quoted says that there's a console license for the game (as well as an account-license for the whole play at a friend's house) and that anyone can play the game on the console it's licensed to, regardless of if you're signed in or not.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#189

Post by sauravc »

astrodust wrote: post #176
venomsnake wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft had all the cards to win the device war. But they forgot what made them win the PC war. They tried to emulate apple while forgetting that people that bought into apple ideology already had apple. If the W8 arm was unlocked it would have been a big winner. WP7 just needed fast moving instead of stagnation and they almost got everything right with the original xbox and X360 in the beginning. But I am moving a…

What made them win the PC war was what landed them in federal court. By controlling the Windows ecosystem they could "disrupt" any competitors trying to produce applications, pushing Office while alternatives struggled, and they could use Office to push Windows. Charging OEMs a flat "per-CPU" fee for licensing meant that Microsoft was getting paid regardless of the OS being shipped on the system. They eventually had…

What landed them in Federal Court was bundling a browser (the most advanced at the time) with their OS for free. Over a decade later, we all know that a consumer OS that ships without a browser is an incomplete product (as BillG testified in the case).

What Apple is doing now with dictatorial actions in its app stores is just as, if not more, overreaching IMHO. Does that make it OK? No.

But keep in mind why people were actually interested in what MS had to offer back then. Just as we still buy Apple products despite their anti-competitive behavior, people bought MSFT products in the largely because the product addressed their needs better than others and the price was right.

Re: What is Microsoft smoking?

#190

Post by mynameisvlad »

plainhold wrote: post #43
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…

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

That's incorrect. Only one of your family members can play each of the games in your shared library at a given time.

So you can't have two people playing Halo 5, but you can have one person playing Halo 5 and one playing Forza 5.

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