Read this as MS buying XRandr lol
Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
61–70 of 153 posts
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#62> Microsoft’s shared vision of empowering a free and open web and championing an open industry alternative via a global advertising marketplace makes it a great fit for Xandr. > Microsoft can accelerate the delivery of its digital advertising and retail media solutions, shaping tomorrow’s digital ad marketplace into one that respects consumer privacy preferences, understands publishers’ relationships with consumers a…
I suppose they don't really have anything about this acquisition that they want to share with us, but it'd be weird to say nothing at all.
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Edge push This is one area I give MS a pass. Google engaged in aggressive Chrome pushing for years, people seem to forget now that it’s so ubiquitous they don’t really need to anymore. It’s good someone is fighting back. Especially since, while I much prefer Firefox, Edge is actually decent.
I still remember their ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCgQDjiotG0 But Chrome had a clear advantage those days compared to other solutions Microsoft's value proposition? PDF users and memory consumption?
Don't forget one-click payday loans!
https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-edge-buy-now-pay-la...
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#64Microsoft is on an interesting trajectory of late, but it also seems like there is some bifurcation as to what they're doing. On one hand they are trying to embrace Linux and pushing development tools forward, but on the other they are just making every slimy big tech type decision they can. I have my own personal axe to grind with them as they tricked my completely non tech savvy mother in law to upgrade her Surface…
"Some bifurcation" is quite an understatement! Unless you're trying to partition all actions into "good" and "bad", it's more like octofurcation or dodecafurcation. Microsoft is not a homogenous monolith...what does it even mean to split something that's already split apart? Here's an old org chart which shows Microsoft trifurcated: https://i.insider.com/4e0b340dcadcbbdd35120000 But realistically, each of 5 divisions…
My experience has been their right arm doesn’t talk to the left. Still mostly good people inside. Except for some enterprise sales.
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#65Every day since Windows 11's release, Microsoft is alienating people and indirectly making desktop Linux the better option.
So you're saying 2022 is the year of the linux desktop?
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a software engineer and have many software engineering friends and acquaintances and still even in this group of people who are almost all at least comfortable with Linux hardly any use it for anything except work or learning. It's roughly a 50/50 split for the rest between Windows and macOS. So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS? Non IT workers also seem to fav…
> So how can it be remotely plausible that Linux will become a mainstream desktop/laptop OS? Because of time and inevitable changes happening to everything over time. Remember when Windows was nothing and everyone was using something else? Remember when macOS was nothing and everyone was using something else? Same thing can happen with Linux, or some other operating system. Sure, might take 10, 50, 100 years, but eve…
It's still a long way off - have a look at the recent Linus Tech Tips challenge where he and Luke had to daily drive Linux for a month.
They're technical people, and yes, LTT is hammed up a bit (I call it the Top Gear of Tech), but the number of issues they ran into that you just don't on Windows (in most cases) was illuminating.
I have no troubles running a Linux home server, but I don't have time to fiddle around so my gaming desktop is Windows, and for work it's MacOS.
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I must admit Windows just doesn't know what they are supposed to do. UWP, .NET Native and C++/CX just tanked due to their mismanagement, and having burned the few believers with what are now about 5 rewrites since Windows 8 was introduced plus having dropped the .NET Native and C++/CX toolchains. Forget about.WinUI 3.0, it is so messed up that Windows 11 still needs to rely on UWP and WinUI 2.x, despite being "deprec…
It makes me think of the disaster of the Linux desktop and X Windows. The first thing you notice about Linux is all the different widget sets that clash with each other such as Motif, Lesstif, tk, gtk, qt, fltk, wxWidgets and many more. They all seem to be in a competition to look worse than all of the competitors. They also seem to share the belief that "font metrics don't matter" and be completely indifferent if la…
I have to agree, despite my occasional pro-Windows comments.
Here are two more nice pieces, despite VS being a WPF application, the team that owns the installer decided it was a great idea to rewrite it in Electron.
And C++/WinRT tooling is so back to the 90's that even using MFC feels more fun. Apparently no one in WinDev can afford C++ Builder or Qt licenses to get how pre-historic they live.
So we get Forms, WPF, WinUI/UWP and WinUI/Win32, MAUI and then Blazor not happy with WebAssembly also tries to sell itself as Electron replacement on top of all those stacks via WebWidgets.
Clearly the cat has left the house and the mice don't know what to do.
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Edge push This is one area I give MS a pass. Google engaged in aggressive Chrome pushing for years, people seem to forget now that it’s so ubiquitous they don’t really need to anymore. It’s good someone is fighting back. Especially since, while I much prefer Firefox, Edge is actually decent.
I still remember their ads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCgQDjiotG0 But Chrome had a clear advantage those days compared to other solutions Microsoft's value proposition? PDF users and memory consumption?
> "Microsoft's value proposition??"
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2021/05/21/preview-micro...
"[...] To help these students on their learning journey, we are excited to announce that Microsoft Math Solver will be available as a preview feature starting with Microsoft Edge 91 stable. Microsoft Math Solver allows a student to snap a picture of a math problem – be it handwritten or printed – and get an instant solution with step-by-step instructions to help them learn how to reach the solution on their own."
Built-in vertical tabs? Tab Collections? If you like Chrome as a browser, and don't really care about Google, isn't that better to use the built-in one? "It's not IE11" is value for anyone using "the browser which comes with Windows".
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#69The tech big companies are getting too big for their own good. Their core business is not large enough to satisfy the growth demands so they have to branch out into other sectors. Give it a few years and Apple, MS, Google and others will basically offer the same products and services. I really wish they would get broken up so one division doesn't have to do shady things to satisfy the needs of other divisions.
They kinda already do at this point. It’s inevitable that they would do this considering that they’re business is powered by the same fuel: software developers.
Honestly I think this is a good way to create more competition in the advertising space which is currently dominated by Google and Facebook.
At some point some “smart” executives are going to decide it’s better to cooperate rather than compete… that’s when consumers get exploited. Which is why the threat of regulation is important.
Re: Microsoft buys Xandr, AT&T’s advanced advertising business
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Desktop Linux is great for Grandma who only needs a web browser and it's great for greybeards who remember what config file to edit, but anyone in between is going to be doing a LOT of pasting incantations they don't understand into terminal windows.
Ironically modern Linux is trying to alienate the grey beards with uneditable config files, breaking decades of convention, etc.
Only those that never used UNIX commercial clones, which have deviated from System V long time ago.