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

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

#321

Post by Maxatar »

5kh wrote: post #295
Maxatar wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just think you are the other person who replied to me are making the same mistake, which is mixing the means of accomplishing a goal with the goal itself. This is a mistake I see a lot (especially in software development), where people get too attached to a specific means or method that they end up confusing the method itself with the actual thing that needs to be accomplished. The goal for an investor is captured…

You should look up the concept of value investing. If you can buy shares in an undervalued company do so.

That's precisely the argument I'm making. A company's stock price can be undervalued, which exactly means that the stock price can increase without any change in the company's revenue or profitability. The stock price can increase strictly because the actual value of the company has not yet been fully realized without any material change necessary on the part of the company.

As an investor, that's the ultimate goal of your investment.

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

#322

Post by jeremyjh »

RajT88 wrote: post #231
jeremyjh wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its all about Excel. It really is the best spreadsheet, and everyone knows how to use it. But that comes in an Office bundle that includes Teams. And that is why we must suffer.

I agree with it, but it's a wild world we live in when the best spreadsheet has default behaviors which will fuck your data pasted into it when you're not paying attention.

Yeah, its also awesome when you open a CSV with long numbers like tracking numbers or IMEIs and they get converted to scientific notation and lose "precision" when saved in Excel format...

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

#323

Post by egberts1 »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #157
fodkodrasz wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh, well, and I actually also have a dedicated Copilot button on my new Lenovo laptop powered-by-Windows-11. And, guess what, it does exactly nothing! I can elect to either assign this button to 'Search', which opens a WebView2 to bing.com (ehhm, yeah, sure, thanks!) or to 'Custom', in which case it informs me that 'nothing' meets the hardware requirements to actually enable that. How did you manage this? Probably…

> How did you manage this? I did absolutely nothing special, other than running the latest-and-greatest Windows 11 Enterprise, which is what we put on most of our laptops without any customizations other than "require 2FA and some antivirus and firewalling" via Intune. And I just went into our Azure admin portal, looking for any AI goodies to enable, and... there just doesn't seem to be anything there? And we have an…

Enterprise version?

Well, I happened to think many companies woild configured copilot to be disabled: claims to prevent corporate secrets from leaking out or refusal to install internal closed-net Microsoft CoPilot server.

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

#324

Post by RajT88 »

jeremyjh wrote: post #322
RajT88 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with it, but it's a wild world we live in when the best spreadsheet has default behaviors which will fuck your data pasted into it when you're not paying attention.

Yeah, its also awesome when you open a CSV with long numbers like tracking numbers or IMEIs and they get converted to scientific notation and lose "precision" when saved in Excel format...

Exactly what I'm talking about. I'm sure there's other gremlins in there, but this one bites me the most often, and the hardest.

The one failure mode is so fucking insidious where it zeros out your last 2 digits, but otherwise it looks like it pasted OK!

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

#325

Post by _DeadFred_ »

kulahan wrote: post #273
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name a major U.S. public company in recent years that has consistently prioritized improving its product over boosting short term stock price or extracting maximum profits. If capitalism were truly a healthy system about building strong products to create healthy markets, this should be the norm (and enshitification shunned), not the exception. What we actually see is a system of chartered extraction. Corporate execu…

Lots of companies do this (Arizona green tea immediately comes to mind), but more importantly, this has no bearing on the discussion of whether or not capitalism is "good" (really, who ascribes morality to any economic system?), because the US is primarily an exercise in regulatory capture.

Arizona comes to mind because it's the outlier that everyone knows about, the company that bucks the capitalist pressure. Your choice to use it basically proves my point.

Capitalism outside regulatory capture looks like the East India company. You are basically giving me 'no REAL communism has ever been tried'.

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

#326

Post by jamwil »

sylens wrote: post #293
paxys wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Three years? Try 20.

There was a honeymoon period after Nadella took the reigns where it looked like they were putting out good products - Edge before enshittification, VS Code, buying GitHub.

Also WSL.

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

#327

Post by 486sx33 »

BizarroLand wrote: post #264
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...…

The other thing is that they're FORCING it on the users. Its invasive and creepy and assaulty and it has multiplied my loathing of Microsoft infinitely. Someone in Microsoft needs to watch a lecture on affirmative consent. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing with AI, both local and online. If you tell me its available if I want it, I might come dabble a bit. But cram AI into every facet of my machine? That's a 1 way…

[dead]

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

#328

Post by netsharc »

flkiwi wrote: post #233
jandrese wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just him aping every other AI CEO. Every single one has to act like the agents are super-geniuses mere moments away from achieving the singularity like people can't try them out themselves and be disappointed. Some of it is "we think this will work soon so it's ok if we pretend like it's working now", but I think a lot is just needing to constantly shove hot air into the balloon before it pops.

On the other hand, if it's true, it explains a LOT about Microsoft's silly AI strategy.

Maybe he's like Saddam Hussein, being gaslit by his own minions, but in this case the minions are barely functioning word regurgitators...

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

#329

Post by 486sx33 »

jandrese wrote: post #180
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…

The crazy thing is Microsoft was so early with an AI product but was burned pretty badly when it instantly turned into a Nazi. Funny how the constant complaint on Twitter is how the modern AI agents are too "woke" and how Elon has to keep fighting his own AI model to conform with his viewpoints.

Context “ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/microsoft-shuts-down-ai-chatbot... “

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

#330

Post by wpm »

lll-o-lll wrote: post #239
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…

Works good in Teams. Summarises meetings, collects action items. It’s pretty great actually. I don’t know how many forests we are burning to have a digital secretary, but surely the environment can take one more for the team?

"Summarises meetings, collects action items"

Yes, but...does it? How do you know it isn't missing key points raised in the meeting? Not collecting actionable items?

Summarising seems like the absolute lamest thing an LLM could do for me. Like I want a Reader's Digest of my life, written but a word guessing machine.

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