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Microsoft, Past and Future

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Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#51

Post by 72deluxe »

stormbrew wrote: post #9
csmithuk wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

using a computer without Google products is something that people just don't really do anymore This is rather naive. In certain circles yes but by far the majority of people use just their search.

Is there some particular reason to exclude that? Because most of those people who 'just' use their search use their search a lot.

But there isn't brand loyalty with free web products. Users are fickle. I happily used AltaVista, Yahoo! and Lycos before moving to this weirdly named Google thing. I happen to use it because it is the default but change the default (without asking) and eventually people won't mind. Having said that, I do find Bing awkward, so perhaps I do use Google out of necessity, but not loyalty.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#52

Post by testrun »

gnaffle wrote: post #37
23arboo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft can can do in the enterprise, they are entrenched pretty deep!

Microsofts enterprise business is founded on the fact that everyone runs Windows, so no, that doesn't work well in the long run (ask Novell).

or IBM

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#53

Post by dingle_thunk »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #43
beloch wrote: post #28

What I find surprising is that, in the process of writing a historical review on Microsoft, anyone would ignore the fact that MS has repeatedly identified areas of profit, moved in, failed spectacularly, iterated aggressively, and ultimately become dominant, at least for a time. e.g. What killed Netscape? Microsoft's surface tablets are signs of big things to come. They're currently too expensive for what they are, b…

Which problems do Surface tablets solve? For example, iPhone completely changed my life overnight, mostly due to its navigation features and ability to look up phone numbers. I think Surface will only be dominant if it solves a problem for people. So, which problem does it solve, and why is it useful for people?

Apple were not the first company to create a phone with navigation features.

Surface is a tablet which can also run Photoshop, AutoCAD, MATLAB, Visual Studio, Flash, and whatever other weird legacy apps are kicking around. It can multitask. It has a proper digitizer. It has a kickstand and a very innovative cover. Yes it's not a laptop. No it doesn't have the Android store. That doesn't mean it's useless.

(P.S. just noticed my hacker news account is 1337 days old today. wheee.)

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#54

Post by 72deluxe »

csmithuk wrote: post #25
acqq wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I just can't believe you're real. Red Hat has the most stable (measued in the years of support without the change in the underlying technologies) OS configurations of all commercial offerings. What was that that you got better supported from Microsoft than from Red Hat? Specifics please.

Actually no. We get 13-14 years out of Microsoft offerings which is enough lead time for test, provisioning and an 8-10 year lifecycle. Plus due to overlap we have enough time to test v.next. With respect to support you get a very narrow configuration of supported software and hardware with RH. Keeping it rolling isn't as easy as it looks. The developer support is awful as well. Documentation is shitty,you're tied to…

I hadn't thought about it but you're very correct about documentation for development. Doxygen generated pages are one thing, but the MSDN is another and it's excellent.

Well done Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#55

Post by simonh »

sz4kerto wrote: post #41
simonh wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS currently has an advantage in digitizer features on the Surface. But if a swing like this was going to happen, for the reasons you suggest, it would be happening right now. Furthermore, even if such a swing does begin, you are assuming two things: Firstly that Apple will not respond effectively to MS establishing such a niche. Secondly that Android will also fail to compete for that niche. The problem is that all…

It's very difficult to change fundamental things in your well-established, popular OS. See Windows x86/x64, see the difficulties of redesigning iOS in version 7, see the disappointed people who buy an Android hybrid and try to use it as a laptop replacement. For some reason, I have all kinds of tablets at home -- iPad Air, Surface 2 (with RT), Sony Xperia Z, ... Currently I feel that it'd be a shame if the Surface di…

Apple performed a complete, ground-up redesign of their entire iOS UI layer from drawing board to shipping product in less than a year. Evolving a platform isn't a quick or easy task. It took Google maybe 3-4 years to pivot Android into a truly effective iOS competitor, and MS took even longer to respond because they had to start again from scratch. However adding a digitiser and better keyboard support, if they ever bother, would take a few months work. Even for much more ambitious projects Apple has demonstrated they are at the top of their game and as agile as ever, or as anyone else.

They may well add the digitizer, but I don't think Apple will bother with better keyboard support than they already have. I think they view laptops and tablets as being complementary devices. A digitizer might make a tablet a better tablet, but a keyboard just turns it into an inferior laptop.

As tablets do evolve Apple's advantages in market share, app ecosystem dominance, software development and their 64-bit processor technology head start all place them on the strategic high ground in all the ways that matter.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#56

Post by 72deluxe »

csmithuk wrote: post #36
gnaffle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you any more tied to old JDK versions on Linux, compared to Microsoft? Also, I'm curious to what requirements you have that makes it OK to upgrade hardware and apply service packs and Java updates, but not to do OS release upgrades on Linux?

There are no supported versions by RedHat other than that which ships with the OS distribution. To get a recent JDK we then have to deal with Oracle as well and the cost goes right up. With the CLR and Microsoft there is one point of call under one contract. Plus no one wants to deal with Oracle. Hardware isn't upgraded. It's replaced when it fails. It's easier to get hardware off the shelf that is certified for Wind…

I had to upgrade a machine running an old version of Slackware on the 2.0 kernel. Yes, from about 1999 I think.

It was impossible to get that Perl web system running on anything modern without massive pain.

For the wonderful bliss of Linux-land, at least with Windows you know that something written 20 years ago will probably still work. (Yes, I know - they shouldn't have written it in Perl)

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#57

Post by whitef0x »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #48
beloch wrote: post #28

What I find surprising is that, in the process of writing a historical review on Microsoft, anyone would ignore the fact that MS has repeatedly identified areas of profit, moved in, failed spectacularly, iterated aggressively, and ultimately become dominant, at least for a time. e.g. What killed Netscape? Microsoft's surface tablets are signs of big things to come. They're currently too expensive for what they are, b…

>> "Yeah, so MS might dominate the content-creation/student/artist tablet niche" I doubt it. A keyboard alone isn't enough to win that market, great software is. Look at the content creation apps available on iOS - iMovie, Garageband, iWork, Paper, Brushes, DM1, Amplitube, Notion. It's going to be hard to catch up with that. They are built for touch. The people using them don't need a keyboard. A keyboard isn't reall…

I would like to add to that, quality of design that third party apps and native apps on Mac OSX seem to have (in general) is much higher; this brings the more 'artsy' and student vertical onboard. UI/UX has obviously been a large part of OSX for quite sometime, which is obviously aided by Apple's minimalist design philosophy.

Moving from OSX to Windows I have noticed a large lack of ease of use and good UX flows in a lot of third party apps.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#58

Post by hrktb »

beloch wrote: post #28

What I find surprising is that, in the process of writing a historical review on Microsoft, anyone would ignore the fact that MS has repeatedly identified areas of profit, moved in, failed spectacularly, iterated aggressively, and ultimately become dominant, at least for a time. e.g. What killed Netscape? Microsoft's surface tablets are signs of big things to come. They're currently too expensive for what they are, b…

There seems to be an underlying assumption that in a year or two, the Surface will have fixed all it's main flaws while the iPad and android tablets will stay more or less the same.

One can argue if the iPad is a glorified phone or not, but I think Apple isn't moving any slower than Microsoft, and it is reasonable to expect a more capable iPad in the years to come. Although it's third party hardware, stylus support has come a long way, even if it might not be as good as the Surface digitizer, it might as well be good enough for average users.

The race is on, and I wouldn't bet my shirt on Microsoft taking the lead anytime soon (in 5 or 10 years, I don't know)

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#59

Post by simonh »

dingle_thunk wrote: post #53
sillysaurus2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which problems do Surface tablets solve? For example, iPhone completely changed my life overnight, mostly due to its navigation features and ability to look up phone numbers. I think Surface will only be dominant if it solves a problem for people. So, which problem does it solve, and why is it useful for people?

Apple were not the first company to create a phone with navigation features. Surface is a tablet which can also run Photoshop, AutoCAD, MATLAB, Visual Studio, Flash, and whatever other weird legacy apps are kicking around. It can multitask. It has a proper digitizer. It has a kickstand and a very innovative cover. Yes it's not a laptop. No it doesn't have the Android store. That doesn't mean it's useless. (P.S. just…

You had me interested right up until Flash. Really?

Adobe and Autodesk all have multiple apps on iOS. How many Metro apps have they released? That's the metric that counts when we're talking about tablets.

All the software you're talking about only really works in desktop/laptop mode with a mouse. As long as that is true, MS will be an also-ran in the tablet space.

Re: Microsoft, Past and Future

#60

Post by TorKlingberg »

His vision of a future Microsoft sounds an awful lot like "Don't you dare compete with Apple in any area". Server backends platforms and cloud computing are the areas that Apple don't care about owning or controlling.
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