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

Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

windowscentral.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 385 posts

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#201

Post by thfuran »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #183
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #62

Well, the major problem Microsoft is facing is that its AI products are not only shoddier than average , which is nothing new for them in many categories, but that this time the competition can actually easily leapfrog them. Like, I have a 'Copilot' button prominently displayed in my New Outlook on MacOS (the only platform where the app-with-that-designation is sort-of usable), and it's a dropdown menu, and it has...…

I've always suspected Microsoft is a front for an ineffable cosmic evil that is trying to crush the human spirit into bewildered, abject despair. How else do you explain Teams and the Hotmail UI?

You're thinking of Larry Ellison.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#202

Post by adabyron »

kayhantolga wrote: post #96

As a .NET developer who actually likes some Microsoft products, I can say this: the Copilot series is the worst thing they've shipped since Internet Explorer—and honestly, it might overtake it. The sad part is they had a huge head start before competitors gained access to powerful models, yet this is what we got. If you haven’t seen how bad it is, here’s one example: Copilot Terminal. In theory, it should help you wi…

When was the last time Microsoft had a unified vision that was focused on building an amazing line of products that integrated well with each other?

I can only think of short snippets in history where they moved in that direction for maybe a year or two & then went scatterbrain.

Microsoft has benefited from a monopoly in the enterprise and has never been forced to innovate from a product perspective. See Slack/Teams as a case study of how they have operated when even slightly pushed.

* Edit - .NET, C#, TypeScript teams are an exception to the above. Highly underrated. Amazing talent there. Not sure who all gets credit. Anders & Mads for sure though.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#203

Post by WhyOhWhyQ »

I personally never found Microsoft software anything but shoddy: Microsoft word, internet explorer, power shell, outlook, powerpoint... these all make me shudder... I'll give them visual studio, that one is pretty good. I think Excel is fine. Skype was okay I guess. Anyway, I think the shoddiness can't really be the actual threat to Microsoft given their track record.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#204

Post by Lammy »

Draiken wrote: post #161
graemep wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its obvious the GP means free market capitalism, which is what almost everyone who favours capitalism thinks is the form it should take.

Talk about utopia huh? Free markets never existed, don't exist and never will. Markets are defined by laws and regulations in which they exist in. They can't ever be "free".

Relevant U.S. Constitution: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#ar...

> “The Congress shall have Power… To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#205

Post by Angostura »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #97
throw310822 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other day I've clicked on one of Outlook calendar's copilot prefilled questions: "who are the main attendees of this meeting". It started a long winding speech that went nowhere, so I typed in "but WHO are the attendees" and finally it admitted "I don't know, I can't see that".

Absolutely! There are so many scenarios where they could actually add some value, and they're fulfilling, like, exactly none of those? Even in Visual Studio Enterprise, their flagship developer product, the GPT integration mostly just destroys code regardless of model output. I truly cannot fathom how any of that made it past even a cursory review. Or how that situation would last for over 6 months, but, yet, here we…

I’ve found it fairly useful in Excel. The suggestions to clean up data are pretty good and it’s spat out some quite gnarly formula on request

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#206

Post by transcriptase »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #119
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #62

Well, the major problem Microsoft is facing is that its AI products are not only shoddier than average , which is nothing new for them in many categories, but that this time the competition can actually easily leapfrog them. Like, I have a 'Copilot' button prominently displayed in my New Outlook on MacOS (the only platform where the app-with-that-designation is sort-of usable), and it's a dropdown menu, and it has...…

There's AI in Teams to. I wanted to use it to recolect info from my chats but apparently it's unable to do so.

So it’s like Copilot in Excel, that can’t interact with or seemingly even see the contents of the spreadsheet that’s in focus.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#207

Post by verzali »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #183
ZeroConcerns wrote: post #62

Well, the major problem Microsoft is facing is that its AI products are not only shoddier than average , which is nothing new for them in many categories, but that this time the competition can actually easily leapfrog them. Like, I have a 'Copilot' button prominently displayed in my New Outlook on MacOS (the only platform where the app-with-that-designation is sort-of usable), and it's a dropdown menu, and it has...…

I've always suspected Microsoft is a front for an ineffable cosmic evil that is trying to crush the human spirit into bewildered, abject despair. How else do you explain Teams and the Hotmail UI?

That would certainly explain the Loop UI

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#208

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

cezart wrote: post #168
Draiken wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a great tool to allocate resources efficiently Sorry but... WTF are you talking about? It rewards self-destructive behavior in favor of short-term gains. Shareholders have *zero* commitment to the companies they buy shares from and will happily switch their entire portfolios on a whim. It's essentially people chasing the new shiny thing every single day. Let's not forget it's a known fact that people with insider k…

Depends what you compare it with. I grew up in the post soviet union. That system allocated resources to various monopolies who were too big to fail. Turns out allocating capital based on who can make things that people want/need to buy, and do it with a profit, multiplies said capital way faster. From this point of view, over time your initial base grows into all kinds of industries etc. That's probably why the USA…

Until your economy congeals into various monopolies who are too big to fail, and you lose the rematch because you're so busy counting beans you stop paying attention.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#209

Post by [deleted] »

kayhantolga wrote: post #96

As a .NET developer who actually likes some Microsoft products, I can say this: the Copilot series is the worst thing they've shipped since Internet Explorer—and honestly, it might overtake it. The sad part is they had a huge head start before competitors gained access to powerful models, yet this is what we got. If you haven’t seen how bad it is, here’s one example: Copilot Terminal. In theory, it should help you wi…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#210

Post by Marsymars »

outside1234 wrote: post #8

Microsoft has a problem that they hire the middle block of talent in the market. They do not chase the top 20% most expensive nor the bottom 20% least expensive. But this also means they end up with average products. They don't have the talent to do something exceptional. This has worked well for them when they can just come in and copy something (say AWS in Azure) and not pay the innovation cost, but AI seems differ…

> Microsoft has a problem that they hire the middle block of talent in the market. They do not chase the top 20% most expensive nor the bottom 20% least expensive.

That's only if you're only looking at the top 10% or w/e of the market in the first place. New grad software engineer salaries at MS are higher than the median software engineer salary in the US.

Post reply on HN