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Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

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Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#221

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #220
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most $1000 laptops supported three monitors a decade ago?

Vintage 2015? Yes. Any Dell Latitude (mid tier business line) would have supported 3 monitors and would have been in the ~$1000 range, especially picked up off of Dell Outlet. I have Dell Latitude Windows machines from 2011 that supported 3 monitors.

Using what ports? I had Dells back then and at most they had one VGA or HDMI port.

If you’re referring to using a dongle with its own GPU like some of the modern Displaylink adapters, any Mac can do that.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#222

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

pezezin wrote: post #215
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely no one said consumer computing was going away in 2005. What were they supposed to be replaced with?

Something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Computer (but looks like I got my timing wrong, as those were proposed 25~30 years ago!)

And those were mostly marketed toward businesses not consumers. Even your citation says the idea quickly died when computers were less than $1000.

Around 2000, was the time that eMachines were selling $400 desktops and you had promotions from places like MSN making them free if you signed a contract for dialup.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#224

Post by marcosdumay »

PaulHoule wrote: post #188
marcosdumay wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, almost the entire book is about how companies like DEC and Xerox just could not move to the new technology, whatever their decision makers decided. I really don't understand the executives that read it and decide that "yeah, we are doing that impossible thing, disregard the sensible alternatives the book shows or thinking of something new!"

Windows 8: some people in the early 2010s (me!) thought laptops were cooked…. My hackathon kit from then was a dirt cheap Android tablet, plastic clip, Bluetooth keyboard and Bluetooth mouse. It looked so sleek compared to the MacBooks and gaming laptops everybody else had. I don’t think Microsoft was crazy chasing the tablet dream but I was the only one. Meta Quest: Facebook has users, advertisers and all sorts of p…

Tablets weren't actually disruptive at the time.

That said, no, Microsoft wouldn't be crazy to make a tablet facade for Windows. What made them stupid (still not crazy) was to remove the desktop facade from their OS that sold exclusively to desktop users at the time.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#225

Post by drw85 »

hamdingers wrote: post #6

Author is using Microsoft and Windows interchangeably, this post is only about Windows. Gaming is a bigger business for Microsoft than Windows and that can only ever be consumer focused. There's no mention of Xbox, nor an awareness that Microsoft published games are playable on the Steam Machine.

Gaming is a massive loss leader, MS will never make back the money they invested to buy other publishers. The subscription model will fail aswell, prices will have to go up more, to try and actually make some profit.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#226

Post by drw85 »

__aru wrote: post #91
apples_oranges wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s just like Steve Jobs said: they have no taste. That never changed and it causes them to fail time and again with innovations

I actually think Microsoft is often ahead of it's time with it's consumer-facing products, but executes very poorly. So they have good foresight, but "very bad taste" when it comes to execution. Microsoft was early to making tablets, smartphones, living room PCs, etc. They just royally screw up the execution of each product category every time. Maybe it'd be a fun idea for to take some of Microsoft's failed consumer…

Making a bicycle with square wheels is not being ahead of it's time, though.

Most of the time MS is actually delivering something successful is when they are very late or bought it and put their sticker on it.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#227

Post by CharlieDigital »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #221
CharlieDigital wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vintage 2015? Yes. Any Dell Latitude (mid tier business line) would have supported 3 monitors and would have been in the ~$1000 range, especially picked up off of Dell Outlet. I have Dell Latitude Windows machines from 2011 that supported 3 monitors.

Using what ports? I had Dells back then and at most they had one VGA or HDMI port. If you’re referring to using a dongle with its own GPU like some of the modern Displaylink adapters, any Mac can do that.

Not dongle; docking station (old school ones with port on the bottom).

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#228

Post by munificent »

green7ea wrote: post #126
munificent wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is not whether MacOS is ahead of Windows. As an Apple user since the Apple IIe, I agree it's still the best OS by a mile. But that has basically always been true, at least since Mac OS X. (I liked the earlier OSes too, but they really did crash all the time and have no memory protection, so arguably Windows had some compelling advantages.) The interesting question is whether recent MacOS releases are ahe…

> it's still the best OS by a mile I'm not so sure about that, modern Linux is pretty good — I was able to configure it to fit my needs much better than I could a mac. It's also free of dark patterns (looking at Windows). If you're willing and able to configure Linux, I would say that, for some people, it's much better than a mac.

One of the main things I run on my Mac is Ableton Live, so Linux is a no-go.

Also, I'm no longer the kind of person who really wants to tinker with an OS set up and doing a lot of manual configuration. I just want a decent user experience out of the box and good connectivity with all my various peripherals.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#229

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #227
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using what ports? I had Dells back then and at most they had one VGA or HDMI port. If you’re referring to using a dongle with its own GPU like some of the modern Displaylink adapters, any Mac can do that.

Not dongle; docking station (old school ones with port on the bottom).

That wasn’t a capability of the laptop. The docking station had its own dedicated graphics hardware that drove the extra monitors. Of course the lowest end Macs can do that. When we talk about how many monitors a certain laptop can drive, we mean plugging them in directly to the laptop in some combination of HDMI ports and USB C/Thunderbolt ports.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#230

Post by qgin »

solumunus wrote: post #109
qgin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking like 2028-2030 but it's a moving target. Since we're basically getting flying cars next year at the World Cup, I guess it's going to be after flying cars.

Ok Elon.

Idk they seem pretty serious

https://gizmodo.com/official-air-taxi-provider-of-the-2028-o...

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