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Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

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Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#31

Post by norea-armozel »

kidmenot wrote: post #19
drinchev wrote: post #6

I was a Windows user for a long time. 5 years ago I switched to OS X, because I think it's closer to the deployment environment I use as a dev. However what OS X did ( when they killed the old one - MacOS 9 and rewrote the whole thing on UNIX based kernel ) was the single greatest move, which I think pays off even these days. This is what I hope should happen with Windows. They should decide on POSIX kernel and compl…

> This is what I hope should happen with Windows. They should decide on POSIX kernel and completely rewrite most of it. They simply can't afford it, not because they lack the resources but from a strategic point of view. See the other comments talking about compatibility. Windows works for many, many, many people and businesses. It would be a suicide move. People, and even more importantly businesses, don't jump on a…

I agree that they're not likely to do a full abandonment of the Windows stack, it still makes money for them so why mess with a good thing? I think more likely is that as Azure expands they'll try to make more money off of that platform and use Windows (desktop/server) as their supplementary income which in itself is a big gamble IMO.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#32

Post by hacknat »

>At Microsoft, those resources are so disconnected from engineering that they seem to rely on whitepapers and customers to learn about their own products.

This is so true. My company was being courted by Azure folks so we got some premium access and it was always laughable and frustrating how much more I knew about their cloud architecture than they did. I remember finally being able to talk to the head of network engineering, who was able to talk me through the finer points of how their load balancers worked (we were bumping up against some limitations). That 5 minute conversation was worth more than all their white papers (which were incorrect and contradictory at times) combined. I think I asked her why they didn't publish this information. She didn't say anything.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#33

Post by AceJohnny2 »

codingmyway wrote: post #5

I've always said sales (and marketing) was Microsoft's biggest problem. The are finally starting to be cool again as the engineers take over. The silo between Windows and development (Azure, .net etc) needs to come down fully to fix Sinofsky's mess too. We're still left with a desktop OS UI with huge animated icons designed for a phone even though they've now given up on the phone market anyway. They gave up too easi…

> The are finally starting to be cool again as the engineers take over.

That doesn't necessarily lead to a successful company.

As a proud engineer myself, I'm not arrogant enough to believe that my kind are the most important in any company. Google has terrible product direction, customer support, and communication, for example.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#34

Post by puranjay »

Try this: Google "Office 365"

The first result just says "Email". The second result says "Office 365 login"

I'm not an internet dunce, but this is just bad user-experience. Why not have a modern landing page that tells me a bit about the product, it's price and what I can expect from it?

Why is the first result a login page?

I've been using Google Docs almost exclusively for work now. I've ditched Word completely. I was willing to give Office 365 a shot, but the signup process is so infuriatingly out of date that I don't feel like bothering.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#35

Post by kabdib »

scholia wrote: post #21

Bit too much Ballmer bashing. He made plenty of mistakes so he's an easy target for the ignoranti, but the adoption of open source, the move to the cloud, the writing of Android and iOS apps etc all started under Ballmer. Ballmer also cleaned up the anti-trust mess and -- while his hands were somewhat tied by a dozen years of constant DoJ supervision -- tripled Microsoft's sales and doubled its profits. This was desp…

Ballmer's biggest mistake was the review system at Microsoft.

- Managers spent easily a quarter of their year on reviews

- Employees often competed against one another (have a great idea? Okay, but That Guy down the hall found out about it and did a half-assed implementation and got a great annual review, and you got slammed for not accomplishing enough. Or maybe your idea simply got sabotaged in some closed-door meetings. Customers? What are those?)

- Sorry, we know all the people on your team are good, but you have to fire five of them. And . . . don't bother picking them, HR already did that without your input.

In 11 years I went through four changes in how reviews were done, and things got steadily worse with each iteration. I hear things are better now; it wouldn't be hard. There was a ton of bad attrition, of really good people who got fed up with things and quit.

In a Q&A session I asked Lisa Brummel, the then head of HR, what she was doing about bad attrition, about good employees who were leaving because of the review system and politics. She wouldn't even admit that the problem existed.

The board should have fired Ballmer five years earlier; on the other hand, they might have wound up with Kevin Turner running things, OMFG. Microsoft Kremlinology is a thing.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#36

Post by hitr »

marcusjt wrote: post #24
hitr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very well said on the Windows phone.I have used three windows phones before switching to Android and I think the UI for simpler things like dialer ,messages or emails was better on windows phone.Especially email was so good ,it used to work a charm even on 2G.I have used built in clients and other options on Android and nothing beats the basic email client on windows phone.May be it was not feature rich for gmail but…

But those are just apps, not the OS and there are any number of replacement dialler, messaging and email apps for Android - are you suggesting that NONE of them are as good as the Windows Phone default apps?

I have tried at least 3 most popular dialer in play store and none of that was as good or simple as windows phone's.I did find T9 search good but searching through the recent call list or finding a linked contact was felt better on windows phone.My biggest gripe is about the email clients.I am still looking for one which is very simple to use and has a simple UI.I find even Microsoft outlook offering is bloated or not simple as windows phone's.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#37

Post by liquidchicken »

hacknat wrote: post #32

>At Microsoft, those resources are so disconnected from engineering that they seem to rely on whitepapers and customers to learn about their own products. This is so true. My company was being courted by Azure folks so we got some premium access and it was always laughable and frustrating how much more I knew about their cloud architecture than they did. I remember finally being able to talk to the head of network en…

We had an escalation to "the expert" on an Azure product one time and the guy's response to one of my questions was literally "I don't know, that isn't in the PowerPoint I brought."

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#38

Post by mark_l_watson »

timwaagh wrote: post #12

I'm reading this from my linux laptop running firefox. my colleagues use macs. I don't think microsoft is gaining anything. nothing against the guy but perhaps its too little too late.

I exclusively run Linux on my laptops and Microsoft is part of my work flow. Their web versions of Word, Excel, and OneDrive are 'good enough' and convenient to have. I never have to worry about working with a customer's Excel spreadsheets as a data source, etc.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#39

Post by throwanem »

labrador wrote: post #2

Use my bookmarklet to hide that horrible image of Balmer sticking his tongue out javascript:(function (){var x = document.getElementsByTagName("img");for (i = 0; i < x.length; i++){x[i].setAttribute("src","");}}());

Here's one you can use to delete arbitrary elements from a page by clicking on them. It's handy in this age of unfortunate design decisions.

    javascript:for(var%20i=0;%20i
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