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posted by janrinok on Wednesday July 22 2015, @09:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the ouch dept.

We knew that Microsoft's quarter was going to be a rough one after it announced a $7.6 billion write-down of the Devices and Services division it purchased from Nokia last year, and so it has come to pass: on revenue of $22.2 billion, the company had a gross margin of $14.7 billion, an operating loss of $2.05 billion, a net after-tax loss of $3.20 billion, and a $0.40 loss per share.

This was driven by a $7.5 billion goodwill and asset impairment charge from Nokia Devices and Services, coupled with a new $0.78 billion restructuring charge, and a further $0.16 billion cost for integration and previously announced restructuring. In total, the company booked $8.4 billion of losses in the quarter.

This loss eclipses the $0.49 billion loss in that fourth quarter of its 2012 fiscal year that was driven largely by the $6.2 billion write-down of the aQuantive advertising firm.

But even absent that massive hit, the quarter wasn't a good one. That $22.2 billion of revenue is down 5 percent on the same quarter last year, and excluding the one-off Nokia charges, operating income was $6.39 billion, down 3 percent year on year. The company's Device and Consumer segment was down sharply, as sales of non-volume-licensed Windows and Office continued their fall on the back of a weak PC market: Windows license revenue from OEM preinstalls was down 22 percent, and consumer sales of Office were down 42 percent. Windows Phone revenue was down an even sharper 68 percent, due to a decrease in royalty payments, though sales of Lumia hardware were up more than 10 percent to 8.4 million, compared to 7.5 million in the same quarter a year ago.

Microsoft (MS) Office has always been a main revenue engine for them, so the 42 percent drop in consumer sales may be the most sobering part of the report, not so much for total sales (corporate are what's important) but as a canary in the coal mine for Office.


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  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:14AM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:14AM (#212571) Journal

    If you truly believe what you are selling? Then steeep right up and take the Hairyfeet Challenge, celebrating 8 years of watching Linux puke on its own drivers and die hard!

    Take ANY mainstream consumer oriented (not LTS, because even Ubuntu advises against mainstream users using LTS) from FIVE years ago, this simulates a 5 year typical lifecycle. This BTW is less than HALF a windows support cycle, so I'm cutting linux a break. Lets say you use Ubuntu, that would be Ubuntu 9.10 and can be downloaded from their archive. Install it on ANY PC, desktop or laptop (NOT VM as that isn't real hardware and comes with special drivers) that has a wireless card. Wireless is required because more and more mainstream users are ditching wires and nobody wants a laptop that doesn't have wireless, do they?

    During this phase you are the system builder so CLI (which is usually required because Linux driver support is poor) IS ALLOWED. Once its installed you are no longer the system builder but THE USER, so like a windows user you are only allowed to use the GUI. You then get to "enjoy the freedom" of using nothing but the GUI (because if you can't even update the thing without CLI you're no match for windows are you) of updating to current...with ubuntu that is SEVEN RELEASES, just FYI. You will film this and post it to youtube, you only have to upload the final install process of each release and a pic of the device manager showing working hardware complete with wireless showing WPA V2 connection, but the complete video should be hosted on dropbox to prove you aren't faking it.

    BTW in case it isn't clear working hardware means WORKING HARDWARE, it does NOT mean wireless that can't use WPA, it does NOT mean a PC with no sound or VESA video, it means FULLY WORKING HARDWARE and again if you are unclear please see the highlighted areas as completing the challenge REQUIRES vids of the final install of each upgrade (last I checked that would be EIGHT for Ubuntu, and around SIX for most others, be sure to have room on your SD Card!) along with a 5 minute video of the end of each install showing that upon completion you could go to hardware manager and had 100% functional hardware with NO FUTZING. After all if you have to futz with the thing just to have functional drivers it isn't on the same level as Windows now is it? BTW the first Windows that passed the challenge was Win2K (RTM to EOL with ZERO failed drivers, 10 years of support) WinXP (14 years, ZERO fails) and both Vista and 7 can go from RTM to current with ZERO failures. For the record I have tried the challenge with Ubuntu (both LTS and regular), PCLOS, Fedora (one guy swore Fedora would pass) and Mandrake/Mandriva and NOT A SINGLE ONE could pass a test that Windows has been able to since Win2K. If your OS can't even do what Windows could do 15 years ago (and from talking to Mac OSX users Mac could do since the early 00s) then I'm sorry but you just aren't a viable solution to anybody that actually values their time above $0.00.

    Oh and before anybody tries to move the goal posts by bringing up servers, embedded, or Android? The average server has no sound or AC97 audio chip, a video chip like the Rage Pro II from over a decade ago, and no wireless. No crap its easy to run on a server when the majority of server hardware is older than dirt. The vast majority of embedded and Android devices receive exactly ZERO OS upgrades so they literally only have to make it work once and like consoles they have a severely limited hardware set that never changes, again easy to get an OS working when you only need a single working driver for each piece of hardware and never update the thing. But we aren't talking about those we are talking about desktops and despite my hope that during the 10 years I've been testing Linux things would get better (as Windows licenses are a serious cost for system builders) not only has things not gotten better but time after time I've watched gobsmacked as devs who care more about their personal entertainment that the functionality of the OS have thrown out mature working code for alpha quality bullshit that has sent Linux back years wrt quality and stability. See tossing KDE 3 and Gnome 2 for KDE 4 and Gnome Shell which last I looked still haven't reached feature parity with what came before (and certainly isn't as stable) and tossing ALSA for Pulse which to this day is still the most brittle part of any Linux system and is the usual first offender to cause a distro to fail the challenge, and now we have systemd,a classic case of never ending feature creep that has forums filled with broken systems...sigh. As a wise Linux admin once told me "Linux never gets any better, it only gets different".

    --
    ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
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  • (Score: 2) by hankwang on Thursday July 23 2015, @07:17AM

    by hankwang (100) on Thursday July 23 2015, @07:17AM (#212579) Homepage

    You conveniently left out that Ubuntu recommends non-LTS because you're supposed to update every half year. Your challenge would be like trying to run Windows XP SP1 without further updates.

    This is not to say that I haven't had my share of annoyances with Linux on new laptops, but it usuallly wasn't the wifi support. More things like the ethernet adapter not waking up after sleep, occasionally not resuming after suspend, clickpad-type touchpad that doesn't do click-drag gestures, HDMI out without audio, LTS repositories that move around requiring manual apt tweaking.

    For balance: my work laptop (hp elitebook 8xx; my employer bought them my the hundreds if not thousands) with Win 7 would lose ethernet connectivity all the time due to a driver issue. It required me and my coworkers many helpdesk calls to get that fixed. Resume from suspend will usually greet me with a 20 second freeze on the password prompt.

    • (Score: 2, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 23 2015, @12:09PM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday July 23 2015, @12:09PM (#212629) Journal

      Then go right ahead and update every half year (LOL, please do!) because it will just shit on its own drivers faster because as I have demonstrably proved with the Hairyfeet challenge Torvalds driver model DOES NOT WORK. Tell me friend, how many others use his "proven" model? Answer ZERO, not even BSD or Haiku uses his design because again it does not work. Sure it worked when all Linux drivers could be passed along with the OS on a single floppy, but when you are talking over 100,000 drivers, with thousands more released every year? Basic math will show that you end up with a mythical man month situation, which Linux has had since the early 00s.

      So please PROVE ME WRONG, it costs you nothing, takes only a couple hours, yet NOT A SINGLE ONE of these Linux defenders will take such a simple challenge, why? Because they know what will happen, Linux will shit on its own drivers because Torvalds driver schema is shit.

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday July 23 2015, @09:29PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Thursday July 23 2015, @09:29PM (#212860) Journal

        Again, i point out the problem i had with modem drivers and windows:

        windows asking me if i want to download the modem drivers off the internet when i could not connect to the internet without the modem drivers.

        Dumb operating system.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 23 2015, @11:48PM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday July 23 2015, @11:48PM (#212922) Journal

        Oh and allow me to ROFLCopter for being labeled "troll" for actually asking Linux updates not to shit on the drivers because if that doesn't show how fucking sad and willing to take shit the Linux community is? Nothing will.

          I Mean when MSFT tried to push Windows Mist8ke, did we take that shit? FUCK NO we got mad! We slammed it to the wall, told everybody to avoid it like an STD, and now that shit is being dumped next to Windows ME and we are getting what we asked for, which was Win 7 with more speed!

        Yet here I am, showing you with one simple little test, using nothing but Linux on bog standard hardware YOU choose that Linux has a fundamental and FATAL FLAW, a flaw that no other supported OS in 2015 has BTW, not even OS/2 Warp (which is still updated and sold as Ecomstation BTW) and yet what is the reaction of the Linux community? Get pissed at ME because their devs handed them a shit sandwich and said "eat up chumps". Hell they rammed first Pulse and then systemd down your throats, even though the majority clearly said DO NOT WANT, and what did you do? Take the shit or in a tiny minority case let them run you off...fucking sad man, just fucking sad.

        For fucks sake people STAND UP FOR YOURSELVES, refuse to just take what you are handed because its free because your time fixing their fuck ups is NOT free, and demand better! How the hell is things ever gonna get better for Linux if nobody is willing to stand up for even basic fucking functionality like "my system should update without shitting on itself"? Come on guys, its 2015 and Linux can't do what Windows could in 2000, its time to pitch a shitfit and DEMAND BETTER.

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @08:48AM (#212593)

    The Hairyfeet suck your own challenge? No thank you, in fact, no "thank you", just "NO!" How long (pun intended) do we have to endure the hairypenis challenge? Will not it sumday subside, like a pimple on the arse of humanity that is not cancerous? Or will it endure in the face of billion dollar loses by the Mother Corporation, well after there is no longer any business model for small mom and pop (well, at least a pop) venues to mitigate the missteps of a monopolistic software juggernaut? All of us have not had any difficulties with Linux drivers, outside of some bastards like Broadcom and Nvidia, for years now, and the fact that we have problems with those particular corporations speaks to the fact that they are sucking it hard on the proprietary path of their monopolistic overlord. I, for one, do not welcome them. I despise them. And any two-bit computer repair shop that sucks to to such pathetic attempts at an effective monopoly deserves, well, it deserves what it gets.

  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday July 23 2015, @11:10AM

    by Gaaark (41) on Thursday July 23 2015, @11:10AM (#212619) Journal

    and STILL no thank you.

    I know you support windows for a living, but you need to stop worshipping it: MS fed crap to its' users until they actually had challengers. Then they were forced to spend money and time on fixing up the 'blue balls of death', etc.

    I bet you that if linux had the driver support windows has (and don't tell me MS doesn't use their monopoly to enforce that non-support), linux would have a better share of the market and you WOULD be able to do the HAIRYFEET challenge, and linux would STILL be more stable and secure than windows.

    So say 'Thank you', or you would still be dealing with blue screens of death, etc.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 23 2015, @01:57PM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday July 23 2015, @01:57PM (#212660) Journal

      Are you REALLY so dense? I WANT Linux to pass, I WANT Linux to get its collective shit together, you think I LIKE paying out the ass for OEM copies of Windows?

      But the fact of the matter is that the Linux driver model is broken which the challenge proves beyond a shadow of a single doubt. Tell me friend, if his model is sooo great why does NOBODY, and I do mean NOBODY else use it? None at all? Even the other free OSes like BSD and Android have stable driver ABIs, why? The answer is simple without one the drivers get shit on because everything below the drivers are as stable as the shifting sand.

      So again if you don't believe me? PROVE ME WRONG. The challenge is free, takes only a couple hours, and you can use any consumer Linux distro you want. Ubuntu, PCLOS, Mint, pick your poison. It won't matter because the drivers will be broken before you even get to the halfway point, which is less than a quarter of the Windows support cycle!

      For fucks sake guys, you'd think I was asking Linux to solve the P VS NP problem when all I am asking is for it to update without shitting itself...has your expectations REALLY gotten so low you're willing to accept this as an impossible hurdle, and that is acceptable to you? Really? I had hopes when coming up with the challenge when the users saw how truly fucking BROKEN the driver model is they'd get mad, demand change! Instead they just accept their OS is a broken mess and actually defend that bullshit...how truly fucking sad.

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday July 23 2015, @11:22PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Thursday July 23 2015, @11:22PM (#212909) Journal

        Now, I know where your coming from!! Now, I'll be willing to listen!

        I can't claim I know about driver models, etc. Yes, there are pains sometimes... As I've said before, I won't be moving anyone to Linux unless they ask me to: I don't have the time to hold hands with anyone(but I also don't have time to handhold Windows users either).

        But Linux is MY bud, whereas Windows used up its welcome for me. Someday, maybe BSD will get there for us all to use. Or HURD, lol!

        Thanks for the enlightenment, Hairy. :-)

        And I'd drop the challenge, if I were you... Windows has its challenges too.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:46AM

          by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:46AM (#213434) Journal

          Why would I when its brilliant in its simplicity and proves what I have been saying for a fricking decade? What is wonderful about the challenge is I stack the deck in Linux favor and it STILL loses, how is that for proof? I mean these FOSS fanatics act like I asked Linux to solve P VS NP when it is literally nothing but "Update a Linux distro to HALF a Windows support cycle"...that is it, that is ALL it has to do! It does NOT have to support the full 10 years, it does NOT have to support high end graphics cards, it does NOT have to support printers, it does NOT have to support anything more funky than a wireless card and those have been bog standard in laptops for over a fricking decade!

          When I first hear of Linux back in 03 I thought it was a great idea, an OS I can install for free, with all these advocates saying it does MORE than Windows? Fucking great, it'll save me a mint!...But after testing it for a few years I came to one obvious conclusion, which is LINUX IS BROKEN and moreover its broken in a way that every.other.OS.on.the.planet. figured out how to fix a decade and a half ago! And you wanna know the worst part? What will make you either fucking sad or mad as hell? The reason they give for WHY its broken is not only complete bullshit, but shows the majority of Linux advocates to be fucking hypocrites! They say "Oh we can't have anything as sensible as an ABI so our drivers aren't constantly breaking, because then they might not give us our precious code!" then what do they fucking do, what comes out their mouth on every damned Linux article ever printed? "Oh you should use Nvidia graphics"...which is a fucking binary blob and don't give them anything but the fucking finger!

          So the Linux nutbars, or FOSSies as I call 'em, can call me names ALL they want, I have come up with the most simple test in the world, asking only for nothing but the most basic of functionality, frankly shit that no OS should be considered acceptable if it cannot do and IT FAILS. It fails no matter what hardware you pick, no matter what OS, hell I had one declare he had managed to "pass the challenge and prove me wrong" yet when I asked for details and the pics? He had used SciLinux (because your average consumer is using an HPC distro designed to process CERN data, failing the first condition of the challenge) which he chose specifically because its rarely updated, then when I asked for the pics? he admitted that it ended up with only VGA video (strike 2) and no sound (strike 3, you're out!) but "those things aren't necessary for a functional PC!

          So until the Linux community admits "Okay this IS a problem, an OS should be able to be updated without destroying itself" then I will keep posting the challenge in the hopes that as many people as possible get to see how fundamentally broken Linux is in its current state. Can you use it on servers? Sure, because the average server has AC97 and Rage II and has companies like HP paying money out the ass to constantly fix the drivers Torvalds and friends shit on, can you use it embedded? Sure because you only have to get it working once on a very limited subset of hardware and you are done, you could do the same with anything from BSD to FreeDOS no problem. But until this obviously broken mess of a subsystem gets replaced (which probably won't happen as long as Torvalds has a pulse, because it gives him and his cronies power and replacing it would involve him admitting it was a bad idea) it is simply unsuitable for purpose as a desktop OS. The FOSSIes can scream and gnash their teeth but the last Windows that Linux could compete with? Windows ME, as that OS also had problems updating the OS and having drivers break, every version since? I can take an RTM copy and update to current and the drivers that worked at the start will work at the finish and as the challenge proves beyond a shadow of a doubt this is NOT true of any Linux distro in 2015 and that is just fricking sad.

          --
          ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2015, @06:39PM (#212798)

      if linux had the driver support windows has

      Linux supports more devices than any other OS.
      It's a point of pride with gregkh and The Linux Driver Project.
      Linux supports old gear that Windoze stopped supporting several versions back and Linux supports new stuff that old (obsolete, unsupported) versions of Windoze never did support.

      you WOULD be able to do the HAIRYFEET challenge

      The Hairyfeet Challenge is simply an anti-Linux crusader trolling by using rare edge cases.
      He knows it's crap.
      He knows that the only gear that meets his challenge is the stuff with closed-source-only drivers produced by crappy Write-once/Monetize-forever vendors that are typical in the Windoze realm.
      To verify his challenge, you have to SPECIFICALLY go looking for those crap brands when you buy a peripheral.
      He knows that too.

      linux would have a better share of the market

      That's not at all about technical proficiency.
      It's about the clause M$ puts into its contracts with retailers:
      **Mustn't harm the brand** or some such.
      Displaying a Linux box beside a BSoD, reboot-reboot-reboot Windoze box will definitely make a box running M$'s junk look inferior.
      Can't have that.

      Bulk licensing with whitebox builders has long been the stranglehold M$ had.
      Places like Brazil and Reunion (island off Madagascar) are examples of breaking the old paradigm.
      Chromeboxes running a spin of Linux kicked pre-installed Windoze's ass last Christmas.

      M$ also has a deal with hardware manufacturers that if you want your drivers included in the newest Windoze version, you have to hold back any Linux drivers for 6 months after a new Windoze version comes out.
      This is all under NDA, of course, so those vendors can't discuss it with you.

      ...and, of course, with a LTS distro like a RedHat derivative or an Ubuntu LTS derivative you get years and years before his claim kicks in (again, with the purposely-selected crappy brands).

      -- gewg_

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by sjames on Thursday July 23 2015, @12:53PM

    by sjames (2882) on Thursday July 23 2015, @12:53PM (#212640) Journal

    Over the weekend, I transplanted a hard drive from a 7 year old PC into a brand new one (the cheapest decent one available at Fry's) and then just turned it on. It came right up. I didn't need the CLI or the GUI to do that. It didn't even call me a thief and make me beg a random drone over the phone to please let me use it

    As for the old PC, at one time I installed Windows 2003 on it (it came with Vista), but that installation was like pulling teeth because Windows couldn't detect the network interface. I had to boot a Linux rescue disk to find out what the nic was. Then after an hour or two, I found a Windows driver for it on the manufacturer's website. It took me a few tries to find the right link to download because the site was in Chinese. Then I had to use my Android phone to schlep the driver over to Windows to install it. BTW, the rescue disk saw the nic and had an appropriate driver. So, I would say that Windows failed the Hairyfeet challenge.

    What was that about Linux and drivers?

    BTW, businesses are advised to not bother trying to put Windows 10 on their Windows 2007 machines as it will cost more in time to make it work than a new pre-installed PC would cost.

    But, out of curiosity, why would you need to insist on not using the CLI in Linux after the initial install? It's not Linux's fault Windows has a crippled and useless CLI. If the challenge was against Mac, would you disallow using the right mouse button in Windows?

    • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday July 28 2015, @07:07AM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday July 28 2015, @07:07AM (#214736) Journal

      Then step right up and take the challenge! The great thing is it removes ALL DOUBT, doesn't rely on anecdotes (if we wanna play the anecdote game I've not had a single Windows driver break on my own system since I switched from WinME to Win2K) and I've even stacked the deck in your favor! NO printers, NO high end graphics cards, NO camera support, NO weird hardware, in fact YOU sir get to pick the hardware and YOU get to pick the distro!

      And yet here it is, 8 years since I released the challenge and not a single person has managed to pass it yet I can take YOUR CHOICE, Win2K, XP, Vista, or Windows 7 and go from RTM to current (which in the case of 2K is a decade and XP is 14 fricking years) and all the drivers that worked at the start will still be working at the end yet you are gonna defend an OS that can't even manage 5 years? Less than half the typical Windows support cycle while not having to support ANY of the major gotchas like phones and printers?

      I'm sorry but that is fucking sad. Don't you deserve better? Don't you think after 22 years Linux should be able to do what Windows did in 2000? I even wrote an article in 2008 for a Linux mag on what needed to be fixed to finally bring Linux mainstream, how many of those things have come to be in 7 years? NONE, its still the exact.same.mess. that it was when I wrote the article!

      Things ONLY get better when we DEMAND better, otherwise why should they change? It worked for Windows users, they demanded better than Windows Mist8ke and got Windows 10 for free no less, so why is the Linux community so willing to take a broken OS? If you truly believe the OS is good? Please prove me wrong, the ball is in your court. But I'm betting you won't because you can't, because the Linux driver model is from 1993 and just as made of fail as it was when it came out.

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.