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Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

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Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#61

Post by tstrimple »

jimbokun wrote: post #56
jfoutz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could make Visual studio better than XCode for iOS apps. They could make a really nice Android toolchain too. If they could grab a good fraction of mobile developers (5-10% ?) they'd be in a good position to launch some sort of device. Well, they could try.

"They could make Visual studio better than XCode for iOS apps. They could make a really nice Android toolchain too." Wouldn't this just lead to more and better iOS and Android apps?

Yes, but as we've seen with Linux VMs on Azure and Microsoft Office for other platforms, it's better to service the competition than to miss out completely on that market.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#62

Post by untog »

TylerE wrote: post #46
huxley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia has done a great job of building marketshare on the back of extremely-low-margin phones like the 52x series, but I would hesitate to declare it a victory for Microsoft/Nokia just yet, it might just be a dead-cat bounce.

Not to mention that "market" share will be much lower on those low-end phones, as surely the kind of people buying them are not splashing out tons of cash on the appstore. That's what Apple has always gotten right - looked at things in terms of margin and value of the customer, rather than just shipping the most widgets.

That's what Apple has always gotten right

Not necessarily 'right'. Selling low-margin devices at high numbers isn't 'wrong'. They're just two different business strategies.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#63

Post by pmelendez »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #6

Microsoft isn't nuts. They simply missed mobile. Microsoft almost missed the Internet, and retained some of their dominance only after decisive top-down action and investment. By the time Microsoft understood what was happening in mobile, it was too late. The fiasco was compounded by Ballmer's indecisive reaction, but it was already set in motion. Anything Microsoft does with mobile, perhaps short of something that l…

> Microsoft isn't nuts. Yep. Their spectacular mediocrity is only now being revealed, that's all. Look, they've been great simply by virtue of being in the right place at the right time. There was an incredibly TREMENDOUS hidden demand for a PC and an operating system for it, and MS happened to be there at the time. A half-blind monkey in the same place at the same time would have made a truckload of money too. It wa…

> "Their spectacular mediocrity is only now being revealed"

me·di·o·cre adjective 1. of only moderate quality; not very good.

I beg your pardon, but there are people out there who think that Visual Studio, Office and even WP8 are vastly superior in comparison with the alternatives. Quality not always guarantee success (You can ask Apple with the original Macintosh but there are several examples of that in history)

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#64

Post by tstrimple »

steven2012 wrote: post #25

Microsoft should split up the company into smaller ones. This is something that should have happened with the anti-trust case a decade ago, but unfortunately it didn't happen. I said to myself at the time, it would have been the best thing for the software industry if we saw Microsoft split up into an OS company and an applications company. Now, I think they should split off Windows, Applications, X-box, and Mobile.…

I disagree completely. That's essentially the way things were a few years ago. A big part of Microsoft's problems, both internal and external, come from the fiefdoms that sprung up around the different divisions. They were effectively different companies with the same CEO. They rarely communicated well and this lead to a lot of unnecessary duplication of work. Microsoft is now on a path to unifying the ecosystem and this is fantastic from a developer perspective. I can write an app for Windows 8, and the vast majority of code for it can be reused directly on a Windows Phone or Xbox app. That is significant. As much as people complain about Windows 8, unifying the UX across the platforms is a Good Thing. Using a Windows Phone, Windows Tablet and Xbox all feel very similar. None of that happens with different companies.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#65

Post by vinceguidry »

pantalaimon wrote: post #12
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #3

How is this nuts? These are all smart moves as the personal pc landscape is changing and moving toward mobile devices. Making your desktop users happy with ye olde start menu and giving away WP are very smart moves. MS still will make a lot of money of its patent portfolio via android and its own WP app store. Selling an OS is an outdated concept and everyone knows it.

Why do people repeat saying that "the personal pc landscape is […] moving toward mobile devices"? I don't know anyone who stopped using their PC just because they got a tablet or smartphone. Sure there is a decline in sales for PCs because the market is saturated and for the most people, unless they are gamers, their 5 year old computer will do just fine. Yet people keep shouting that the days of the desktop computer…

> I don't know anyone who stopped using their PC just because they got a tablet or smartphone.

My mom did. Switched to using her iPad last year. Occasionally tries to make her ancient PC retrofitted with Win8 work for her, then shrugs and goes back to her iPad.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#66

Post by MLR »

LordIllidan wrote: post #11
gdrulia wrote: post #10

I actually find it very interesting in a good way that metro apps will be able to run in a desktop mode. This can be a great reply to google chrome desktop apps.

If they can be resized and used as normal windows - I'm all for it - that's how I use apps on a normal desktop operating system!

I'd assume they could scale fine but have a minimum resolution of 1024*768, I think that's what MS used as their base when designing Metro apps.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#67

Post by pmelendez »

drcode wrote: post #44

Luckily Windows 8.1 is just barely capable enough for me to run virtualbox with an ubuntu image. How people can get by using Windows 8.1 as their main OS (beyond using it merely as a shell to launch virtual machines) is beyond me. Microsoft deserves to lose big time in the marketplace for their half-assed attempt to glue a phone interface onto desktop PCs.

Haters gonna hate.

I installed Windows 8.1 on my laptop (2008 model so no touchscreen) and the experience has been great so far. I do spend more time on the desktop side than in Metro side but even then in overall is faster, more reliable and with nicer features (i.e win+x, universal search, etc.) than windows 7.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#68

Post by pmelendez »

TylerE wrote: post #46
huxley wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia has done a great job of building marketshare on the back of extremely-low-margin phones like the 52x series, but I would hesitate to declare it a victory for Microsoft/Nokia just yet, it might just be a dead-cat bounce.

Not to mention that "market" share will be much lower on those low-end phones, as surely the kind of people buying them are not splashing out tons of cash on the appstore. That's what Apple has always gotten right - looked at things in terms of margin and value of the customer, rather than just shipping the most widgets.

>"Not to mention that "market" share will be much lower on those low-end phones"

You are thinking just in USA, the consumer behaviour is way different in markets like China, India and Latinamerica.

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#69

Post by jerf »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #48
nine_k wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While WM7 may be quite fine (I heard this multiple times from real users), it would take long time and much effort to acquire enough mindshare. What WM devices lack is a killer feature . They are just another fine smartphone line, unfortunately incompatible with software for market leaders, Android and iOS. With this regard, Jolla looks about as good, and it runs Android apps, too.

>>>> What WM devices lack is a killer feature. They are just another fine smartphone line. This is pretty much the case for any smartphone. A "killer feature" for me is something other than taking pictures and video, running apps, making calls and texting. I have yet to find a phone that has something besides these 5 basic features. Microsoft has always been dominant in the enterprise market so the retail game is not…

"A "killer feature" for me is something other than taking pictures and video, running apps, making calls and texting. I have yet to find a phone that has something besides these 5 basic features."

The phone that slides into a clamshell laptop unit and becomes my laptop, with appropriate blended features. Acer has prototyped it, and a couple of others, I think, but the time may have come. Tablets are doing it, but there's probably still room for this to work.

'Course, Apple's probably got this already prototyped out somewhere and will be dropping the iPhoneMac on the world about two years before Microsoft can react....

Re: Has Microsoft Gone Nuts?

#70

Post by TylerE »

untog wrote: post #62
TylerE wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention that "market" share will be much lower on those low-end phones, as surely the kind of people buying them are not splashing out tons of cash on the appstore. That's what Apple has always gotten right - looked at things in terms of margin and value of the customer, rather than just shipping the most widgets.

That's what Apple has always gotten right Not necessarily 'right'. Selling low-margin devices at high numbers isn't 'wrong'. They're just two different business strategies.

Look at net profits of Apple vs everyone else. There is a right and a wrong.

While it's hard to tease out just phone profits, Samsung has a profit margin of ~12% whereas Apple's is closer to 30%. Huawei is under 8%.

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