For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation • Hacker News Board

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#171

Post by j_baker » Sat, Jun 11, 2011, 5:21 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #104

I have to agree with the Chronicle's basic point which is that Microsoft has talked about "cloud computing" for a long time and not delivered anything. Even a bad anything. Its a very good example of the Innovator's Dilemma [1] in action, you've got some smart folks who see a future problem, and start creating interesting technology and vision around that problem, and then the reality that the company doesn't "need"…

Startups have the risk meter pegged so it doesn't enter into their management decisions, instead they are focussed on execution and they flame out or succeed as they will and when they succeed they clarify the risk around their idea (if it flops the managers can pat themselves on the back for avoiding that land mine, if it takes off the managers wring their hands and wonder if they should have been able to forecast that success.

Your profile says you work for Blekko, and in a senior enough position that I'm going to assume you're not naive enough to actually believe this. Startups are every bit as capable as risk aversion as BigCos, albeit for different reasons. At BigCos, it's sheer organizational inertia you have to deal with. At startups, you have the exact opposite problem: "We're so new and unestablished that we just can't afford to take that kind of risk".

Humans are, as a general rule, afraid of risk.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#172

Post by sjs » Sat, Jun 11, 2011, 5:44 PM UTC

buyx wrote: post #164

sjs wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is far bigger than their cult following. If you attribute their success to the cult you are only fooling yourself. A cult alone doesn't buy 200,000,000+ iOS devices. People generally do not use Apple products that suck, not everything they do takes off. They are just vocal about things that take off and very quiet on the rest, e.g. dismissing AppleTV as a "hobby" even though they clearly want it to take off. Yo…

They do put a lot of care into their products, but their cult following does seem to play an important part in protecting their image. There's another thread on the front page of HN where people are describing how their Apple laptop power adapters burst into flames. I am typing this on an iPad that periodically loses its wifi connection. Googling the problem yields dozens of complaints about this issue. Apple support…

Apple is not invincible, look at the iPhone 4 antenna fiasco.

I agree that it's bad that they deny most problems instead of being transparent about them. It can be extremely frustrating, you file a Radar ticket and then it goes into a black hole and the only feedback you might get is that someone else had the problem too. They are by no means perfect and neither are their products, I didn't mean to imply anything like that.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#173

Post by 6ren » Sat, Jun 11, 2011, 5:46 PM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #170

6ren wrote: post #168

Microsoft makes money from the desktop. The cloud threatens this, the current incarnation of the internet. Over 10 years ago, the internet was supposed to undermine Microsoft, lead by Java. There was even a set-top box, that downloaded everything from the network (sound familiar?) There was a joke about Java's ideal "write once, run everywhere", as "write once, debug everywhere". A similar joke about network-based co…

What gives you the idea that the network isn't reliable now? It's been around for what, 3 or 4 decades? Maybe 10 years ago you'd have been correct, but nowadays the internet's been pretty well broken in. And cloud computing, while new (at least in name), has built billion dollar businesses like Amazon and Google.

A review of Google's Chrome OS netbook noted poor network reception affected everything - even starting up. Of course, that's the mobile network.

Maybe you're right. I was thinking of the Amazon outages, but they weren't due to the network.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#174

Post by justincormack » Sat, Jun 11, 2011, 6:33 PM UTC

sasidharm wrote: post #169

justincormack wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were terrible about merging conflicts, made them unusable to me. Hope Apple have worked out how to do this better now...

Truth is on the cloud.

That does not solve the problem, as devices can go offline. If they come back with a change from an old version you still have to deal with a conflict.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#175

Post by ChuckMcM » Sat, Jun 11, 2011, 11:40 PM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #171

ChuckMcM wrote: post #104

I have to agree with the Chronicle's basic point which is that Microsoft has talked about "cloud computing" for a long time and not delivered anything. Even a bad anything. Its a very good example of the Innovator's Dilemma [1] in action, you've got some smart folks who see a future problem, and start creating interesting technology and vision around that problem, and then the reality that the company doesn't "need"…

Startups have the risk meter pegged so it doesn't enter into their management decisions, instead they are focussed on execution and they flame out or succeed as they will and when they succeed they clarify the risk around their idea (if it flops the managers can pat themselves on the back for avoiding that land mine, if it takes off the managers wring their hands and wonder if they should have been able to forecast t…

This is a fair point. The risks around committing to market a product for which there has not (yet) been established that such a product can work, is the risk that start-ups take. They believe in their better mouse trap and generally see it through to production if they can.

Then there are other risks which everyone is afraid of, like the risk of running out of capital before you're done (perhaps exemplified as the risk of pivoting) and one that is more damning in start-ups the risk of not having enough capital after you release, and your idea fails, to do another idea. While failure is always a possibility, it always hurts.

I accept your premise that humans, in general, are afraid of risk.

Perhaps I should narrow my claim to specifically say that large companies are more afraid of 'new product' risk than companies that aren't currently shipping any products.

I've always felt (but have no direct knowledge of) that Microsoft's initial failure to capture any sort of tablet market was their fear of creating a "new product" that would compete with Windows. I used one of the early Toshiba tablet PCs and was always saddened by what looked like a lack of commitment on Microsoft's part to the notion of a tablet in its software stack. When I used an iPad for the first time I didn't feel like it was a less capable version of MacOS.

Re: For Google, iCloud Is Annoying; For Microsoft, It's A Humiliation

#176

Post by dorian-graph » Wed, Jun 15, 2011, 2:08 AM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #166

dorian-graph wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can any sane person say Microsoft has not delivered anything cloud computing related? That seems similar to saying the sun doesn't exist while staring at it. Unless you're blind or have not been paying any attention to Microsoft for the past ~ > 4 years . . Others have put forward [incomplete] lists of Microsoft's various 'cloud' services and I'll add one. Microsoft Azure. Hell, wasn't there a story on the frontp…

> "Microsoft Azure. Hell, wasn't there a story on the frontpage of HN a day or so ago that iCloud uses it?" The moment someone like Apple starts running a MS-based stack... well, I'd stay inside for fear of airborne pigs. Let's see - a company that is solidly 'nix (to the point where their own desktop OS is POSIX), who has zero track record of building anything using a MS stack, is suddenly going to use MS's cloud of…

Seen any flying pigs lately?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2654918