Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hang on - how has google enriched the developer space?
Guava is the main piece I think about. GWT? Guice? What else?
Angular? Repo? Popular web browser that does not suck? Being a force behind new HTML5 APIs?
Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
501–510 of 584 posts
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree re development but whether Android is open depends where you are in the world and where you draw the lines on what constitutes Android. In North America and Europe it's theoretically open but OEM's dependence on Google's services (which for many people are part and parcel of the Android experience) and the control Google exert through that means that there are real limitations on how open it is in reality. This…
I don't disagree with anything that you're saying; I've already hinted at it with my previous post. That said, yes Android isn't technically Android without Google services but it doesn't mean that stripped down it's still not useful. Just ask Amazon or one of the many companies in Asia that have forked it. > until there are solid FOSS alternatives to those services you can't use Android to put together a compelling…
Yep, I don't think we're disagreeing, I'm more commenting on - I'm certainly not saying that Android isn't open, more that open should be seen as a continuum rather than a binary switch.
The interesting thing for me is how Google react to the areas where they're losing control of Android. For them Android is (or was) a means to an end - it stopped Apple getting control of the mobile space which would have made Google beholden to Apple for traffic to their services.
I personally don't believe Google have particularly strong feelings about Android as an open source property, they care about it for what it does for them in areas they do care about. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few years and what that means for Android.
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm always surprised when C# developers think VS is the best thing ever. Having used multiple languages and technologies, I'm not even slightly impressed by VS.
Everyone on HN used multiple languages and technologies. Have you used VS with ReSharper?
ReSharper is being made by the same company, that makes IntelliJ IDEA. They're trying to bring the goodies _from_ IDEA _to_ VS.
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#504Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft cooked it's own hotdog. They have always been 2 steps behind on virtually every product release. Windows phone - check. Browser that supports modern javascript - check. An OS that looks wonky on the desktop because they're attempting to play catch-up with mobile devices - check. You can probably throw Azure cloud services up there too. If this guy can clean house and run a better ship that what they've been…
Two steps ahead in terms of GUI design though (not talking about applying it correctly everywhere).
How they could be ahead, when in their design a piece of drawable does not indicate if it is actionable or not?
It their mission for minimalism, they threw out a few good pieces. Now they have to figure out, how to catch up and not to blow up in their face.
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you can't use Android to put together a compelling smartphone without Google I actually have an older Galaxy S and I installed CyanogenMod on it without Google's services, so no Google Play, no GMail, etc... The phone is actually usable. I have more apps on it than I have on another Win Phone 8, a Lumia that I received as a gift. As a browser, I'm using Firefox, which I happen to believe it's the best mobile browse…
This is exactly it. Many people don't realize this when they say Android is not open. But you could install F-Droid, which is a repository of open source Android apps and you could pretty much live without Google at all on Android. You would lose many conveniences but you will still be able to make use of all your phone's smarts.
Technically yes but:
1) This is really an option for a relatively small part of Android's install base most of whom don't know F-Droid exists, let alone how to install it or why they might want to.
2) Any company wanting to produce a phone on this basis is (a) depending on a lot of other products and organisations and (b) putting out a product with - for instance - a substandard maps product next to the competition.
So yes it's open, but not in the way that I think many would like it to be (that is where a genuinely open phone that the average punter can and does use exists).
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Bing is a lost battle. The real question is what can they do on Azure, and can they move people to a cloud-based Office suite. On arrogance - this comes with size. The larger a company gets, the more internal stakeholders they have. What was once a simple, "Of course we'll change that" turns into "Who else is impacted to this change?" to "Let's only change what we need to, and not get distracted by everything…
Bing has 1/3 of search volume if you include Yahoo, which it serves. Hardly lost.
Maybe it's just a bias on my part, but I don't see anyone using "Binging" as a word to look something up. I would like to see the #s more in depth. (How much of it is directed from Yahoo, and IE, etc)
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Microsoft released the source code to Windows 98 OSR2, which is effectively abandonware as far as I understand, it would be great. A lot of multimedia applications and old games would instantly become easier to preserve. Is there still any value for Microsoft in Win9x?
Why not XP? The have no interest in supporting it. And millions of people still want to use it.
Because this would allow these millions of people to continue using this fork of XP rather than eventually buying a MS operating system.
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bing has 1/3 of search volume if you include Yahoo, which it serves. Hardly lost.
Maybe it's just a bias on my part, but I don't see anyone using "Binging" as a word to look something up. I would like to see the #s more in depth. (How much of it is directed from Yahoo, and IE, etc)
I occasionally do that ironically. On the other hand, I find 'Googling' increasingly awkward and tend to just say search.
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not XP? The have no interest in supporting it. And millions of people still want to use it.
Because this would allow these millions of people to continue using this fork of XP rather than eventually buying a MS operating system.
But this is the attitude Microsoft needs to eliminate. The days of making money on operating systems is rapidly fading away. They already gave away Windows 8.1 as a free upgrade, so they're aware of it.
An open source XP would get many hackers interested in Windows, something they desperately need.
Re: Satya Nadella – Microsoft's CEO
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't matter that Office360 does blah blah blah -- the next generation of office workers aren't using it now, and that's a problem for Microsoft. I agree that google doc products are inferior to MS Office. (I find that Libre Office is good enough for me.) It's a funny argument to bring up though. Ignoring the cheaper, inferior alternative is exactly what led to Microsoft's dominance over IBM.
> I agree that google doc products are inferior to MS Office. (I find that Libre Office is good enough for me.) It's a funny argument to bring up though. Ignoring the cheaper, inferior alternative is exactly what led to Microsoft's dominance over IBM. But Microsoft is not ignoring Google Docs. The Office web apps are also free, have more features than Google Docs, and have better compatibility with Office files. Micr…
I have some kool-aid I'd like to sell you.
Desktop versions are close irrelevant to this discussion.
Office web apps are completely irrelevant, I think. I've never met anyone who has ever used them. 100% of people I know who use web apps use Google's.