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, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 31 2018, @02:27AM (12 children)
In other words, MS has figured out that most people with PCs really are better served, for what stupid petty BS they do, by a walled-garden cell phone. There's little money to be made in the consumer market as it is now, so they want to follow the trend (I am calling this now: Windows As A Service a la Office 365...) and shift to more profitable ways of doing business.
The much-ballyhooed Year of the Linux Desktop may, therefore, be sometime in the early 2020s, although by then I would think many people would have ditched general purpose computers for phones and tablets.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Virindi on Saturday March 31 2018, @03:04AM (6 children)
More "decided" than "figured out". The PC (and thus Windows) exodus is as much a result of Microsoft constantly making the PC experience worse as anything. It was their own attitude that hastened their demise.
They destroyed a market they had a lock on. Now apparently they want to bet their future on whatever is trendy today. Greaaat.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:09AM (2 children)
But of course. That market had no potential to grow the way the "consumable" devices could.
Where's the profit in producing yet another version of Windows/Office every 3 years if the consumers stick with the previous version from 10?
And if you don't produce anything new every 3 years, what's your business then?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Apparition on Saturday March 31 2018, @06:40AM (1 child)
Their business is selling Windows 10, Office, OneDrive, and Azure subscriptions to businesses and government agencies. Oh, and XBox Live subscriptions to gamers. What's better for the company? Selling new versions of Windows and Office every three years, or selling monthly subscriptions at $10, $20, or $30 per user?
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:19AM
Selling family plan Windows rentals *cough* subscriptions *cough* with each feature being an in app purchase+rental per device. Devices can be user locked to require transfer fees (possibly marketed as a cloud data transfer service). Working from home can be restricted + rented via forcing cloud storage via Office365 then requiring access licenses per device.
Looks like a neat racket. Adobe loves it so far. Of course, for the photography I do they've fostered a quickly growing market of alternatives which is great.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hamsterdan on Saturday March 31 2018, @08:18PM (1 child)
iOS and Android killed the home computer market. I'd say 98% of people could get by with just a tablet. Win 8's trainwreck interface didn't help, but tablets killed the home PC market
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Virindi on Saturday March 31 2018, @08:55PM
Yes, and I think the reputation of PCs of being insecure, hard to use, bloaty, and annoying is a big part of the success of tablets.
Look at what people were using just before tablets: netbooks that had a stripped down set of hardware and Windows (MS went out of their way to kill off any Linux netbook attempts). Because of the nature of Windows, these devices had way too little in the way of hardware for the software that came on them. Thus, they were slow and generally a bad experience.
MS has been trying to sell tablets with Windows on them since the 1990s, including a large push to make them in a similar hardware era to the dawn of the smartphone (they called it the "UMPC"). The problem was the same as always: crap software caused the hardware requirements to be out of control, resulting in a clunky product with short battery life.
Tablet versions of Windows have existed for pretty much every version since Win3.1.
The same problems apply to the various iterations of a Microsoft smartphone. They have been making them since the 1990s (Windows CE...). However, "mobile Windows" devices have always cost more and been less capable than the competition. The more recent (last 10 years) Windows Phone attempts have been particularly bad; every new version was a complete reboot, the builtin software barely worked, and the hardware was clunky.
MS drove people away from their own stuff.
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Sunday April 01 2018, @12:00PM
Has there really been a PC exodus? I'm skeptical of such claims. The PC market has slowed down, I think, because advancements in hardware performance have slowed to a crawl, meaning people have moved to a longer upgrade cycle. Microsoft still seems to have a nice, solid desktop OS monopoly, especially in business, where the majority of the PC business exists.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @01:31PM (2 children)
If it means anything, my mother and one of her co workers have asked me when they're forced to go to Windows 10, they want to install Linux because Windows has become such a POS. They don't even care if there might be problems, having someone help them out, or fix things when they break is better than dealing with the constantly broken mess of Windows 8.1/10.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:49PM (1 child)
It's not like users themselves demand much. e.g. most users would be satisfied with a Windows XP that supported more than 4GB of RAM (thanks to browsers and webpages that take lots of RAM). And for most users Windows 7 kinda served that purpose. But instead we have really retarded stuff like the Metro UI and the Windows 10 _enforced_ near "bricking" updates.
Meanwhile the other strange thing is whenever Microsoft makes their OS crap the "mainstream" Desktop Linux bunch seem to try to make their stuff crappier. There's a window of opportunity for the Desktop Linux bunch to gain significant share by making something that's much better but they will probably shoot themselves in both feet time and time again. "WONTFIX", "WORKSFORME". No, systemd is not much better, it's a near useless change that won't really help normal desktop users much.
There are actually interesting problems for Desktop OSes to solve. More interesting than how to make a Desktop Computer as crappy and restrictive to use as a tablet. Or making them boot a few seconds faster (which could probably have been done without something like systemd.
For example, Virtual and Augmented Reality hardware is going to become more affordable and accessible. Just an obvious feature/problem for an OS - imagine having access to as many screens you want which are as big as you want - limited to the CPU and RAM of your computer. So how can a Desktop OS best augment normal people to be able to do even more? To paraphrase the Perl saying - make easy things easy and hard things viable.
Nvidia, Intel and AMD would be happy to sell the hardware capable of that and more.
But instead Microsoft wants to make our Desktop Computers into tablets. Instead of augmenting people they want to put restrictions and leashes on us. Why the FUCK would I want something like that? Yes my smartphone is convenient for when I have to be on the go but it is so difficult to do more advanced stuff on it.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday April 03 2018, @04:47AM
Actually, systemd does make it better (although the init system and service manager are invisible to the average user). Sane event handling is impossible under sysvinit/initscripts or openrc: USBs being plugged in and removed, bluetooth audio devices being paired and removed, wireless networks connecting and disconnecting.
Of course, it's up to the distros to actually package that up correctly, and they haven't finished doing a thorough job yet.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Saturday March 31 2018, @01:50PM
There's little money to be made in the consumer market as it is now, so they want to follow the trend (I am calling this now: Windows As A Service a la Office 365...) and shift to more profitable ways of doing business.
I think Windows for PCs and Xbox and the failed Windows Phone mostly exist as enablers for Microsoft's business income. My kids' schools are loaded with Windows laptops. One of my sons and several of my brothers and most of their friends game together on Windows PCs. We don't have an Xbox, but a lot of my kids' friends have one. I think even if all of those make no profit for Microsoft, they lead typical end users to be most comfortable with Windows at work. So if the company has to spend 30 billion dollars a year on consumer computing to facilitate their 70 billion dollars a year of business revenue, it's a worthwhile investment. I don't know what the actual cost vs. return is, I made that example up. That strategy works for Microsoft, it ensures that consumers finishing high school or college or even older adults that went back to school come out of their education program accustomed to using Microsoft products.
Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled Microsoft screwed the pooch on mobile operating systems and I think that error will kill them eventually. But I genuinely think we're ten or twenty years away from it having a serious impact. They have their hooks into everything, and it will take a long time for Android, ChromeOS, and similar to chip away at it.
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Sunday April 01 2018, @11:56AM
Stupid petty BS? That seems pretty harshly judgmental...
People have been "calling" Windows-as-a-service for years now. This is nothing new...
Chromebooks run Linux and could be considered a desktop (especially as more and more of them are capable of running Android applications). They're crazy popular at elementary, middle, and high schools. So perhaps Linux-on-the-desktop is already here, and gaining momentum.
(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?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 31 2018, @07:06AM
Make that 999,999,999: my Acer Aspire E 15 runs windows 8.1 with Never10 [grc.com].
That Microsoft's headquarters isn't in Silicon Valley I expect leads them to be out of touch with the state of the industry.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @08:40AM (1 child)
I have not willingly used Windoze since Win95. The OS is a plague, a pestilence, a pox upon the computing scene. They are a vector of infection and malware, a path to survellience by at least Russian Government Official Spy Agencies. Anyone who still uses Micro$oft is an enemy to humanity, a threat to anyone else on the internet, and Azure is more the case and Microsoft AI? Seriously, AI where there was no "I" to begin with? I puked, physically vomited, when they had Gates on "Big Bang Theory". I mean, these guys are supposed to be PhDs in physics, and the writers pretend they might possibly worship some fucking college drop-out and total tech failure like Bill Gates? Oh, Merde! Shiny Crapola! God Save Us From the Wrath of the PHBs! I give up.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 31 2018, @04:38PM
Not Artificial Intelligence. [wikipedia.org] Artificial Intelligence. [wikipedia.org]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @05:38PM (2 children)
Windows 7 is ok.
Windows 10 is such a piece of shit Apple Macs look like a good option.
The fix isn’t to downsize the windows team you incompetent Indian fuck.
Windows will continue to be a joke while this fucker is in charge.
Congratulations Nadella, you fucked the pooch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 31 2018, @10:43PM
He has a green card, so you should properly refer to him as an incompetent Indo-American fuck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 02 2018, @07:38PM
no, he just knows windows already died. it's just taking the carcass a while to rot. they've been parading it around like weekend at bernie's but the jig is up.