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From the NY Times: "The Windows era at Microsoft, long in eclipse, is officially history. Microsoft said on Tuesday that it was splitting up its Windows engineering team and that the leader of its Windows business was leaving."
Microsoft is ready for a world beyond Windows
"We want to move from people needing Windows to choosing Windows, to loving Windows. That is our bold goal," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella three years ago. At the time, Microsoft was unveiling more details about Windows 10, and surprising people with technologies like the HoloLens headset. It was an exciting time of opportunity and optimism that had Microsoft betting on people loving Windows so much that Windows 10 would be running on 1 billion devices within three years. Neither wager worked out — which is fine, because Windows as we know it is no longer critical to Microsoft's future success.
Microsoft announced a new reorganization yesterday. It's the fourth major shuffle inside the company over the past five years, and the most significant of Nadella's tenure. Microsoft is splitting Windows across the company, into different parts. Terry Myerson, a 21-year Microsoft veteran, is leaving the company and his role as Windows chief. The core development of Windows is being moved to a cloud and AI team, and a new team will take over the "experiences" Windows 10 users see like apps, the Start menu, and new features. There's a lot of shuffling going on, but Nadella's 1,300 word memo leaves little doubt over the company's true future: cloud and AI.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:32AM (18 children)
So, Microsoft has lost it's way, and doesn't know where to go. They entirely missed the boat with phones and mobile devices. The game console contest is drawing to a close. And, the desktop is receding in importance. What will MS do now?
Well, a lot of us have known for a couple decades that MS would eventually have to diversify. Maybe they can get into the buggy whip business? I just can't see a lot of innovation from Microsoft. A search engine - already done, repeatedly. The cloud? Phht - that's going to fizzle soon enough.
Maybe they should get onboard with Elon Musk. Musk does innovation. Microsoft wishes that it were innovative. Looks like a pretty decent pairing to me. Future headline: "Musk drives Microsoft to Mars!"
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:44AM (8 children)
I disagree. Microsoft went to the cloud and with spectacular results. Hold on, I have to take a piss. Uh, I took a fat piss, and that was awesome, but MS saw what was coming and they did a good job with their Office360.
They made a very smart move with their cross-platform jump. It sucks when you're on-platform because of all the bugs but they saw what was coming and handled it nicely. Great move, Microsoft.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:55AM (6 children)
You do make a point. After all, idiot CEO's are dedicing to move to Office365. My computer at work was pushed to update last night. Derp-a-derp - all our shits is in da CLOUD! What could possibly go wrong? Christ, I want to puke.
Do you think NSA, FBI, and the other alphabets are moving to Office365?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:05AM
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/publicsector/announcing-the-new-aws-secret-region/ [amazon.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_365 [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:15AM (2 children)
I'm not talking about 3-letter agencies, I'm talking about everybody else who has to use Microsoft crap. And for everybody else, MS handles it nicely albeit with stupid bugs. The Office360 has plenty of bugs but that's kinda the point: MS is going full-retard into cross-platform.
Whether or not you like it MS is here to stay. And it's got a lot of nice features that others don't.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Saturday March 31 2018, @04:13AM
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @08:44AM
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:25AM (1 child)
> Do you think NSA, FBI, and the other alphabets are moving to Office365?
Do you mean as an office suite, or as a surveillance platform?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:16AM
As a surveillance platform of course.
For the office suite, the Google Apps are better priced; besides, they need to stay in good relations with Google, won't happen if they take everything from MS.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:12AM
I can't use that one for 5 days every year (6 during leap years). Not recommended.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:39AM
" I just can't see a lot of innovation from Microsoft. "
That's because, for the vast majority of what they've done, they haven't innovated at all. They've taken ideas that were already successful and cloned it, then tried to kill off the original. (ie: IE!)
Unfortunately for them the new markets don't have a heck of a lot to do with the PC directly so they can't really force a win with their industry stranglehold.
I tend to look at the PC market's slowdown to be a 50/50 split of two main things. 1. hardware advances have slowed down. Even gamers don't need to upgrade nearly as fast as they use to. 2. Microsoft screwing around with Windows to make it anti-consumer as they try to such every bit of data out of people to sell. (Meaning since getting a new computer would mean being forced into the latest OS that they seriously want to avoid, they keep clinging to their old computer until it completely dies on them. Which has the effect of slowing down the industry as well.
I still don't see PCs dying out any time soon. People can go on about tablets and smartphones replacing them but in most cases that just isn't the case. Often times people are getting a new phone to go along with their PC since they don't serve the exact same purpose.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by terrab0t on Saturday March 31 2018, @11:31AM (7 children)
They didn’t miss the boat. They launched several boats of their own which sank.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:03PM (6 children)
I'd say their boats sank specifically because they launched several. They screwed both Microsoft fanatics and application developers. Users: "Ha! I bought a Pocket PC device!" Developers: "And I wrote apps for it!" Oh wait, they just killed it. Users: "Ha! Now I have a Windows Mobile device!" Developers: "And I wrote apps for it!" Oh wait, they just killed that too. Users: "Ha! Now I have a Windows Phone 7 device!" Developers: "And I wrote apps for it!" Oh wait, Windows Phone 8 won't run on Windows Phone 7 hardware and the compatibility shim to let Windows Phone 7 apps to run on Windows Phone 8 will eventually be removed. Microsoft: "Announcing Windows Phone 10!" Users and app developers: "GTFO"
Compare that to iOS and Android, in which getting your application to work on newer versions was either automatic or a relatively tiny amount of work. Granted, Android sucked (and sucks) for getting a newer version of the OS on older hardware. But Google didn't have a ten year history of screwing previous mobile operating system adopters when they launched Android.
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 31 2018, @04:28PM (4 children)
Someone with a clue must have left the leading ranks of Microsoft. Once they knew how critical backwards compatibility is, to the point that they maintained a list of quirks from previous versions needed to be enabled for different programs to run on the newer version. You could even run most ancient DOS programs on the newest Windows versions.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:01PM (1 child)
Meanwhile on the previous Windows, the OS could be updated and in most cases still work with 10+ year old hardware made by companies that no longer exist or have the source code. And there was some consistency in the interface.
Many Large Corporations understood the benefits of that. They don't want to spend money and time retraining their staff just because some MBA decided to "reimagine" the steering wheel, brake and throttle pedals. They have more important things for their staff to do - like their actual jobs. Your table at work should be the background not the foreground and play a supporting role. Not fucking choose to install updates just when you have to make an important presentation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:50PM
From an end user perspective that's the benefit and the drawback of free software, right? If there's abandonware (like old kernel API formats) you have the freedom to maintain it yourself or pay someone else to do it. But if you lack the skills, time, or money, you're screwed. I think history has demonstrated that this particular major headache with free software is a lesser evil than all of the locked down, DRM, privacy-violating garbage the proprietary vendors hit us with.
But it's a terrible situation either way. A few years ago at one of the FSF conferences a presenter made the point that freedom by itself means nothing. You can tell a starving man with no money that he's free to buy all the food he can eat, and that freedom has no value and won't save his life because he has no money. The free software world has that problem in spades - access to source code that you lack the skills or resources to use.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:04PM (1 child)
It really is amazing just how badly they screwed up mobile. They were there years before Android and Apple. I'm not sure what it was - maybe they never took it seriously, or maybe they thought of it too much of a threat to their desktop monopoly, or maybe it was just since the first attempts weren't a runaway success they got axed. But really, all they needed to do was just stick with it, keep investing in it, not screw over the people who did buy in and invested into the platforms, and I'm sure they would have picked up momentum and would be one of the big players in mobile right now. It's not like they didn't have the money, and the XBox shows that they are willing to sink a bunch of money and resources into something with the long-term goal of becoming a major player in a market.
Oh well, maybe it's for the best, though we could use another player in the Google/Apple duopoly right now, even it is Microsoft.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:45PM
Agreed on all counts. I hate Microsoft, but I think the current duopoly is worse than having Microsoft as the third major player. I don't see any upstarts making serious headway, either. The market looks like it's locked tight. I've love to be wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @09:16PM
Did their boats sink because they didn't plug all of the holes?