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Microsoft Flow

flow.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft Flow

#21

Post by spdustin »

huac wrote: post #12
g051051 wrote: post #10

It says it's a free service and doesn't directly mention any restrictions, but when you try to sign up it will only accept something it thinks is a work or school email address. So I guess self-employed people who use Gmail don't count?

assume they're doing a soft launch with o365 for business customers before full launch

It's been turned on for some time now. Just no marketing push that I've seen. Quietly hidden away on Azure under another name, IIRC. It's early still, though, and my memory is going a bit. :)

Re: Microsoft Flow

#22

Post by g051051 »

arsalanb wrote: post #16

Microsoft always gives the vibe of a company that is desperate to salvage some pride from its glory days. It was once a giant, but now they're on the brink of redundancy, in terms of being viewed as "innovative". This opinion may be controversial to many, but it is what a lot of people are thinking. They experiment, which is phenomenal. But none of those experiments have been a major hit. Apple has flagship products…

When have they ever been considered innovative? Virtually every successful product has been either copied from or bought outright from another company. The only real exception I can think of is OneNote (which preceded EverNote by 5 years).

Re: Microsoft Flow

#23

Post by atonse »

arsalanb wrote: post #16

Microsoft always gives the vibe of a company that is desperate to salvage some pride from its glory days. It was once a giant, but now they're on the brink of redundancy, in terms of being viewed as "innovative". This opinion may be controversial to many, but it is what a lot of people are thinking. They experiment, which is phenomenal. But none of those experiments have been a major hit. Apple has flagship products…

Ok I'll feed the troll.

I've excitedly watched what Apple has done in the last 10 years (and exclusively use Apple devices in my home, and have convinced many family members to switch).

But as a technologist who likes to see companies with great resources move fast, to me MS has been much more exciting lately as a tech company than Apple.

We are seeing the manifestation of the new Satya Nadella decree, which went from "prop up Windows at any cost" to just "build stuff people like."

We're constantly seeing these kinds of things come out of MS now, and I can't help but see that it must be a really exciting time to be an MS employee right now, judging by the sheer amount of experimentation going on.

Re: Microsoft Flow

#24

Post by tyingq »

g051051 wrote: post #10

It says it's a free service and doesn't directly mention any restrictions, but when you try to sign up it will only accept something it thinks is a work or school email address. So I guess self-employed people who use Gmail don't count?

It looks like they are just trying to limit abuse during a rollout. Forcing a "work" or "school" email to try and hold back anonymous signups.

You can pre check an email with their embedded ajax call:

https://flow.microsoft.com/providers/Internal.User/users/use...

If the JSON comes back with "consumerDomain":true, then it won't allow the signup.

They don't seem to be catching all free email services. At the moment, it appears you could sign up for a free Yandex email and get signed up for Flow:

https://flow.microsoft.com/providers/Internal.User/users/som...

Re: Microsoft Flow

#25

Post by akadien »

atonse wrote: post #23
arsalanb wrote: post #16

Microsoft always gives the vibe of a company that is desperate to salvage some pride from its glory days. It was once a giant, but now they're on the brink of redundancy, in terms of being viewed as "innovative". This opinion may be controversial to many, but it is what a lot of people are thinking. They experiment, which is phenomenal. But none of those experiments have been a major hit. Apple has flagship products…

Ok I'll feed the troll. I've excitedly watched what Apple has done in the last 10 years (and exclusively use Apple devices in my home, and have convinced many family members to switch). But as a technologist who likes to see companies with great resources move fast, to me MS has been much more exciting lately as a tech company than Apple. We are seeing the manifestation of the new Satya Nadella decree, which went fro…

I think this nails it. In many ways, Microsoft is playing catch-up with Apple, Google, and Facebook. But they have good momentum right now. I, for one, am happy with the Nadella era.

Re: Microsoft Flow

#26

Post by tyingq »

hadrien01 wrote: post #9

Microsoft already created (and abandoned) a IFTTT competitor in 2012: http://onx.ms

"on{X} lets you control and extend the capabilities of your Android phone using a JavaScript API to remotely program it."

Perhaps in the same space, but that's a very specific sub-niche. This new offering looks more like an actual competitor.

Re: Microsoft Flow

#27

Post by tyingq »

tacos wrote: post #15
wmccullough wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read it? It has integration with a ton of non-Microsoft products?

If you're going to be pedantic over an obvious joke, then at least be more specific than "a ton." Total service breadth (11) is presently countable on fingers while naked.

>Total service breadth (11) is presently countable on fingers

I tried, but it keeps overflowing the data type.

Edit: There are actually 31 services: http://imgur.com/a/NR7Af

Re: Microsoft Flow

#28

Post by arsalanb »

atonse wrote: post #23
arsalanb wrote: post #16

Microsoft always gives the vibe of a company that is desperate to salvage some pride from its glory days. It was once a giant, but now they're on the brink of redundancy, in terms of being viewed as "innovative". This opinion may be controversial to many, but it is what a lot of people are thinking. They experiment, which is phenomenal. But none of those experiments have been a major hit. Apple has flagship products…

Ok I'll feed the troll. I've excitedly watched what Apple has done in the last 10 years (and exclusively use Apple devices in my home, and have convinced many family members to switch). But as a technologist who likes to see companies with great resources move fast, to me MS has been much more exciting lately as a tech company than Apple. We are seeing the manifestation of the new Satya Nadella decree, which went fro…

Firstly, I didn't intend to "troll" Microsoft.

Well, I agree with the last sentence. Satya Nadella was the much needed U-turn from the Balmer era. It's just that by the standards Microsoft has set for itself, they've under-performed over the years. I'm talking about major failed experiments like Windows Vista, Lumia (or even the entire Nokia acquisition)

Re: Microsoft Flow

#30

Post by chris_wot »

There used to be a tool called conduit, part of Gnome. It was pretty amazing, in fact pretty much did DropBox before Dropbox but also synced everything and allowed for custom actions.

Could have been a killer app for Gnome, but Gnome decided that redesigning the notifications area and the clock was more important.

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