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Things Microsoft Still Does Well

techland.time.com

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Re: Things Microsoft Still Does Well

#21

Post by AdrianRossouw »

pimeys wrote: post #18
Svip wrote: post #7

Yes, the Xbox 360 has been a success in the US (beating the PS3), but in every other market than the US, the PS3 has beaten the Xbox 360.[1] And the article in question is very US-centric on that regard. I am not saying the Xbox is necessarily bad, but is it better than the PlayStation? I think that's rather subjective. Although I hear that neither Sony nor Microsoft has made a lot of money from their console adventu…

My problem with Xbox 360 is it's selection of games. My wife bought the console for us two years ago and the only games we've played with it have been Skyrim and GTA V, which are also available for PS3. Almost all of the games available are in this so called 'dudebro' category: fps, sports etc. What are missing are the japanese weird and arty, or colorful and playable games that are available for Playstation or Wii.…

agreed.

i went through the library again recently, and I could not find a single exclusive worth owning either of the xboxes (although galleon was nice, and jet grind radio eventually got re-released on PSN).

There is an exception to that of course, namely xbox live arcade. There are still a handful of XBLA exclusives that were worth it, but most of those have been re-released on PSN or steam too.

Re: Things Microsoft Still Does Well

#22

Post by rbanffy »

asadotzler wrote: post #19

It's time to stop joking about IE like that. IE 11 is a fine Web browser these days. Yes, it took them a while to catch back up, but they have and they're a genuinely modern browser today. Firefox is still a better browser, for a good number of reasons, not the least of which is Mozilla's mission to put users and the health of the Internet first, but Microsoft engineers working on IE for the last few years deserve mo…

Microsoft has the best programmers money can buy. Mozilla has the ones money can't. ;-)

The IE team deserves credit for their technical and managerial achievements - it's not easy to actually do something on a company that large.

Re: Things Microsoft Still Does Well

#23

Post by veidr »

beagle3 wrote: post #20
asadotzler wrote: post #19

It's time to stop joking about IE like that. IE 11 is a fine Web browser these days. Yes, it took them a while to catch back up, but they have and they're a genuinely modern browser today. Firefox is still a better browser, for a good number of reasons, not the least of which is Mozilla's mission to put users and the health of the Internet first, but Microsoft engineers working on IE for the last few years deserve mo…

> Shouldn't we be cheering for them to build the best they can instead of insulting them? No, we shouldn't. Do you have any reason to believe that if IE became dominant again, Microsoft would not abuse its position once more? I don't. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice .... (And I wasn't fooled even once, but the Internet at large was). The onus of proving that they mean well is on Microsoft this time, and the…

I think Asa is focusing more narrowly than you are. Both arguments are valid.

As a browser, MSIE 11 is vastly better than previous versions. They took what was just about the shittiest browser on earth, and made it more or less OK. (Although Firefox and Chrome are both better.) From that limited perspective, kudos to them.

As a corporation, though, Microsoft is still a toxic entity with poisonous effects on the ecosystems it participates in. It actively, brazenly works against the interests of the Internet user community as a whole, and those of its own customers. Microsoft the company is a bad actor on the scale of Oracle, Monsanto, Halliburton. So you're right, too.

Re: Things Microsoft Still Does Well

#24

Post by daniel-levin »

The article misses a very important thing Microsoft still does very well: makes money [0]. Irrespective of one's opinion on the quality of their products, they still produce software the provides value for real people. They employ a ton of people, all across the world [1]. Microsoft may have lost a decade in the visible consumer segment (mobile phones, tablets), but they still make boring, profitable, enterprise software that helps them on their way to $22B in annual profit. They're not shrinking either, according to their fast facts page [1]. Microsoft still does business very, very well. Even though I personally don't like most of their products, I'm genuinely excited by the change of CEO, because Microsoft has the resources (perhaps not the culture) to build awesome new technology in the next few years.

[0] http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/msft

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/inside_ms.aspx

Re: Things Microsoft Still Does Well

#26

Post by chestnut-tree »

This article mixes two things - things that Microsoft does well from a UX perspective (like Windows phone 8) and things it does well in terms of sales and profitability, like Microsoft Office (which arguably is not very well designed in terms of UX).

This is true of other large software comapnies too: Adobe with their Creative Suite and Google with Android - both successful in terms of sales, but arguably very uneven in their usability (in my opinion).

Re: Things Microsoft Still Does Well

#27

Post by rbanffy »

fiatmoney wrote: post #4

Microsoft's enterprise software is really, really good. Active Directory, SQL Server, Azure, C# and Visual Studio are all amazing. They also make tons of money, and MS is really good at managing them as cash cows over time. Not coincidentally, they just put the Cloud and Enterprise guy in charge of the company.

Funny how nobody mentions SharePoint ;-)

Re: Things Microsoft Still Does Well

#29

Post by mgkimsal »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #17
Einstalbert wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Oops we developed our product on Silverlight because we're an MS-kit company and now Silverlight is crap. Now what?"

The fact that Microsoft stopped developing a technology that hardly anybody used isn't a surprise, I don't know of any business that would keep supporting something that was so obviously not going to succeed.

"I don't know of any business that would keep supporting something that was so obviously not going to succeed."

Well... MS was that company, up until they weren't.

Re: Things Microsoft Still Does Well

#30

Post by s_kilk »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #17
Einstalbert wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Oops we developed our product on Silverlight because we're an MS-kit company and now Silverlight is crap. Now what?"

The fact that Microsoft stopped developing a technology that hardly anybody used isn't a surprise, I don't know of any business that would keep supporting something that was so obviously not going to succeed.

I've seen it myself, having worked for a dev shop that was deeply married to silverlight (within the past year). Glad I got out of that gig.
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