Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

gamesradar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 242 posts

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#141

Post by jbj »

grababner wrote: post #74

'He tells us: "Eventually somebody would come back to you with your idea – they would say, 'Hey, you know, this doesn't need Windows at all'. And you have to control your urge to fucking kill them, because you've been telling them that for two years and now they finally come up with it like it's their idea. But that's the Jedi mind trick." ' OMG. I learned this a few years ago working in a corp environment with stubb…

That was alledgedly how the Technical University of Denmark was started by Hans Christian Ørsted after he praised government officials of "their" idea of a polytechnical learning institution.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#142

Post by dwd »

grababner wrote: post #74

'He tells us: "Eventually somebody would come back to you with your idea – they would say, 'Hey, you know, this doesn't need Windows at all'. And you have to control your urge to fucking kill them, because you've been telling them that for two years and now they finally come up with it like it's their idea. But that's the Jedi mind trick." ' OMG. I learned this a few years ago working in a corp environment with stubb…

I once worked at a place where I would constantly suggest switching to GoLang to solve some performance scaling issues.

I recently got a call from a recruiter asking me if I was interested in a job programming in Go...

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#143

Post by tremon »

aparsons wrote: post #78

> "You'd have to sit in a meeting with Bill, and he's frighteningly brilliant. People throw around the word 'genius' all the time, and the way people say 'genius' is not accurate if you've met somebody who is a genius – somebody who, when you meet them, it seems like aliens are whispering in their ear because there's no way they could know these things otherwise. This is a different kind of a thing, and Bill's like t…

In a different universe, I think Microsoft [..] builds “AWS” and “Chrome” around the IIS/IE combination. With reason to abandon the Wintel cash cow, IE may not have been so distastefully bad.

Instead, we would have TCP/IP replaced my Microsoft QUIC(tm), accompanied by a 40,000-page specification riddled with "just to what IIS does" explanations, thereby ensuring no other browser could ever emerge.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#144

Post by hawk_ »

jmkd wrote: post #122
grababner wrote: post #74

'He tells us: "Eventually somebody would come back to you with your idea – they would say, 'Hey, you know, this doesn't need Windows at all'. And you have to control your urge to fucking kill them, because you've been telling them that for two years and now they finally come up with it like it's their idea. But that's the Jedi mind trick." ' OMG. I learned this a few years ago working in a corp environment with stubb…

The art of diplomacy is to let other people have your way

That's a great way to put it. BTW if you are quoting someone else, would love to know the source.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#145

Post by dsincl12 »

hawk_ wrote: post #144
jmkd wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The art of diplomacy is to let other people have your way

That's a great way to put it. BTW if you are quoting someone else, would love to know the source.

David Frost

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#146

Post by pjmlp »

foldr wrote: post #137
bennysonething wrote: post #100

"world's most reviled software" Right, yeah, people hated Microsoft's software so much that they bought it by the bucket load. Also that comment about midway being problematic. Why is it problematic!? Did WW2 not happen? Who'd actually be offended?

The early 2000s were peak Micro$oft hate time. You had to at least pretend to hate Microsoft if you wanted to have any technical credibility.

Ironically I know plenty of M$ haters that nowadays are MS certified consultants and partner shops.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#147

Post by pjmlp »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #116
aparsons wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve hated it. Bill hated what it turned out to be by 1999 (I left around then). Dave Cutler hated it. Eric Engstrom saw it more as a defensive strategy. Microsoft poured an incredible amount of talent and resources that would have gone towards the Web into Xbox.

Considering what MS did to the web with the resources that were left over, it's possible the web had a lucky escape. Meanwhile Xbox has been a product driver - a big mostly positive influence on Windows gaming and on other platforms.

From I am standing, with the Web turned into what is basically ChromeOS, I am not so sure how lucky it was.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#148

Post by pjmlp »

nailer wrote: post #121
rantwasp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one could argue that Windows is the most popular consumer OS even today (keep in mind the HN is not representative for what people normally run). Also, a decade later, Microsoft is experiencing a software renaissance, in part, due to the the work Ballmer setup. One example: Azure. In the cloud space there are 2 gorillas: AWS and Azure (everything else is vaporware and at this point I don't think it would be wise to b…

The most popular consumer OS is Android. Arguing anything else goes against all known stats. Microsoft's renaissance is mainly due to Nadella focusing on software and services instead of selling Windows. You mentioned Xbox as a way to support Ballmer. The Xbox story mentioned in the article does not support Ballmer. Agreed re Azure but I don't know if Ballmer was still focusing on Windows for Azure, which seems likel…

Try to do Office documents for school work on Android.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#149

Post by pjmlp »

edgyquant wrote: post #67
unnouinceput wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market did not moved to mobile. Mobile is alongside desktop. People like diversity and mobile offered another one. And people who have only mobile in their homes are poor that can't afford desktop but I see mobile as a gateway drug to desktop. Once people will have enough money, will also buy desktop exactly because mobile hooked them in the first place.

1) Yes mobile moved the market by capturing hundreds of millions of people who would never have owned a computer otherwise, and Microsoft failed to react to this. 2) Do you have any data to back up the claim that mobile usage leads to desktop purchases? I have never heard such a claim before

Given that I see more Windows laptops and 2-1 devices than Android tablets around here, Microsoft has reacted quite well to this.

Additionally given the amount of people that run Office on their phones, in spite of total lack of usability to do such kind of work on those devices, again very good reaction.

Re: An internal team 'hoodwinked' Bill Gates into launching the Xbox project

#150

Post by pjmlp »

TylerE wrote: post #35
HenryKissinger wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows remains the most popular operating system for computers by far, and that will never change.

I suppose that depends on how all gazillion AWS instances running Linux counts.

On top of Hyper-V actually.
Post reply on HN