31–40 of 50 posts
"extremely loyal user base"
Is it really loyalty? Or is it inertia (people learned it once upon a time) combined with lock-in (everyone else is sharing documents in this proprietary format)?
Something deep in the Nokia 920 was turning on and spinning the CPU like mad; the unit would heat up and drain the battery by mid day. Nothing I could do fixed it; I waited through two system updates and it was never fully addressed. (AT&T was never very quick about releasing updates, either; separate problem). I finally downgraded to an iPhone a few weeks ago. I can use the iPhone all day without worrying about the battery, but the mail client (which I use constantly) is a lot more clumsy to use than the one on the Windows phone.
Microsoft is at the mercy of bad little code monkeys who write drivers at the BSP (Board Support Package) level, which are usually done at contract houses like BSquare. The code I've seen some out of these places has been . . . marginal. In the cases I've had to use it, I've usually wound up rewriting a lot of it. You get code that passes tests, but that's about the only bar for acceptance; internally the code is usually badly organized spaghetti whose mission is to pass the tests, and that's it.
You want the driver-level code in your system to be ROCK SOLID. If you contract this work out, you're going to need a great acceptance system [code and design reviews, because automated systems like WHQL are inadequate and get gamed anyway], a way to update drivers in the field so that mistakes can be corrected quickly [phone releases seem to happen every 9 months or so, so nope], and you want to be able to get good feedback from customers [looks at AT&T . . . sighs].
A phone is a top-to-bottom thing; blow one level and you've got a bad product. Microsoft hasn't really figured this out yet; maybe with the Nokia purchase they'll have a full stack and finally do everything right.
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I keep hearing this, but it's just such a foreign concept to me. The idea of - for lack of a better term - surrendering my entire development stack to a single company rings just about every alarm bell in my head. What happens when (say) .NET isn't the best tool for a particular job? Just close your eyes and use the inferior tool anyway? Or use the right tool and just throw the hard-won Microsoft ecosystem synergies…
"Oops we developed our product on Silverlight because we're an MS-kit company and now Silverlight is crap. Now what?"
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"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.
As such it always amazes me to see otherwise intelligent people complain about Microsoft dumping or abandoning them and their Silverlight-based products.
The technologies in Silverlight are in most cases directly portable to WPF, Windows Phone and WinRT. Any Dev that throws out effort based on Silverlight probably deserves being abandoned.
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.
What else have you tried? IMO, it is very hard to find anyone that worked on the MS stack, moved to something else and wants to go back to Microsoft.
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Agreed--I think the living room 'hub' is DOA in a world of smartphones and tablets. Why would I want to mess around with some clunky 10 foot interface when I can just pull my phone out of my pocket or pick up the tablet on my coffee table?
You may be content with a 10 inch screen, but I live in a flat of 24-28year olds, and my xbox sees more use as a youtube player than it does as a gaming device. My flatmates are content to search for things using the awful controller text input to play them on the tv rather than use the laptops sitting right in front of them. I'd tell them about SmartGlass, but I doubt they'd use it.
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.
>Active Directory, SQL Server, Azure, C# and Visual Studio are all amazing What else have you tried? IMO, it is very hard to find anyone that worked on the MS stack, moved to something else and wants to go back to Microsoft.
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…
In Brazil, Xbox has sold more than PS3 according to the local game industry association. And with the PS4 prices being 2x that of Xbox One, some are predicting Sony will be too late when it finally can make PS4 cheaper. The same happened with PS2 (people could only get them bringing from Japan) and it essentially boostrapped Xbox here. It's happening again.
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> 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 ecosy…
Seriously. They drop products faster than Paris Hilton changes her hair color. They are involved in multi million settlements due to throwing their users privacy rights under a bus. Do you really want a browser from a company that is only interested in violating your privacy for a few extra dollars? Why put MS in the same league as Halliburton but give a free pass to Google?
But kudos to Firefox thou, I don't use it normally, but form what I read and little I used, they actually care about the user.
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…
Is that the victory they aimed for and planned on?