Microsoft Is Dying!0!0110!
-
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying, and reading only blindered screeds about how Microsoft's CONSUMER efforts are an utter failure, and wanting to scream, "LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE MARKET, YOU MORONS!!!"? Do these people have any clue how much the SMB market has invested in Microsoft's enterprise stuff, and CONTINUES to invest in their product set? And not only on the infrastructure side, i.e. Office/Sharepoint/Exchange - the platform's development stack as well! When many, many companies rely on your server OS running your web development stack backed by your relational database offering, to drive big, long-life-cycle LOB and web-facing applications, you are DOING PRETTY WELL. Every business offering they make, they have legit competitors, no question. But no one can question that they are putting a TON of resources into improving those offerings, especially on the web side, where they have dumped a lot of time and effort into making ASP.Net a much better, more competitive offering. I really like Linux, and completely understand why it has the mindshare among the startup-type crowd. And Google is offering a compelling Office + Exchange alternative, especially for smaller setups. And SQL Server's got "NoSQL" on it's tail. But in all these cases, Microsoft is the Top Dog - and those competitors have had enough time to mature that it seems to me Microsoft still has the edge and the position of strength. I personally have worked off numerous platforms, but keep coming back to .Net because it's where the overall developer demand is, and where a lot of innovation is still taking place. Somebody with a bigger voice than me, PLEASE tell these Apple/Android idiots that whether or not Microsoft is loudly and publicly pushing "Consumer" over "Enterprise", AT LEAST GET YOUR ARGUMENTS RIGHT. Microsoft will die when somebody (or somebodies) takes away that ENTERPRISE play, NOT when they make a subpar tablet and can't sell it!!! And all kids should get off my lawn. Thank you.
-
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying, and reading only blindered screeds about how Microsoft's CONSUMER efforts are an utter failure, and wanting to scream, "LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE MARKET, YOU MORONS!!!"? Do these people have any clue how much the SMB market has invested in Microsoft's enterprise stuff, and CONTINUES to invest in their product set? And not only on the infrastructure side, i.e. Office/Sharepoint/Exchange - the platform's development stack as well! When many, many companies rely on your server OS running your web development stack backed by your relational database offering, to drive big, long-life-cycle LOB and web-facing applications, you are DOING PRETTY WELL. Every business offering they make, they have legit competitors, no question. But no one can question that they are putting a TON of resources into improving those offerings, especially on the web side, where they have dumped a lot of time and effort into making ASP.Net a much better, more competitive offering. I really like Linux, and completely understand why it has the mindshare among the startup-type crowd. And Google is offering a compelling Office + Exchange alternative, especially for smaller setups. And SQL Server's got "NoSQL" on it's tail. But in all these cases, Microsoft is the Top Dog - and those competitors have had enough time to mature that it seems to me Microsoft still has the edge and the position of strength. I personally have worked off numerous platforms, but keep coming back to .Net because it's where the overall developer demand is, and where a lot of innovation is still taking place. Somebody with a bigger voice than me, PLEASE tell these Apple/Android idiots that whether or not Microsoft is loudly and publicly pushing "Consumer" over "Enterprise", AT LEAST GET YOUR ARGUMENTS RIGHT. Microsoft will die when somebody (or somebodies) takes away that ENTERPRISE play, NOT when they make a subpar tablet and can't sell it!!! And all kids should get off my lawn. Thank you.
Microsoft couldn't give a shit about a. Enterprise Market b. Developers. As a Microsoft Developer for over 20 years, I'm afraid to say I developing for Android and looking at other frameworks. I now own an Android Phone I now use Ubuntu for my media Player I'm buying a Sony Play Station Had a good time with Microsoft and their excellent development tools, but its time to move on Microsoft don't care any more.
Software Kinetics - Dependable Software news
-
Microsoft couldn't give a shit about a. Enterprise Market b. Developers. As a Microsoft Developer for over 20 years, I'm afraid to say I developing for Android and looking at other frameworks. I now own an Android Phone I now use Ubuntu for my media Player I'm buying a Sony Play Station Had a good time with Microsoft and their excellent development tools, but its time to move on Microsoft don't care any more.
Software Kinetics - Dependable Software news
I don't feel that's true though... I look at Azure, the newer features and more rapid release cycle for Visual Studio + Windows Server + SQL Server, and I believe they DO realize that they need to continually develop their enterprise product stack. They just can't seem to keep themselves from competing in areas they a) have strong competitors in, and b) often have no real experience in (shout-out to Zune, Bing, Danger - props to Xbox for being a general exception). Those examples you cite are all those same CONSUMER market products they are showing a good deal of ineptitude in building a market presence with. It's not surprising you're not using a WP8 phone or a Zune, and Xbox and Playstation are both established enough it's a tossup as to which a gamer might prefer.
-
I don't feel that's true though... I look at Azure, the newer features and more rapid release cycle for Visual Studio + Windows Server + SQL Server, and I believe they DO realize that they need to continually develop their enterprise product stack. They just can't seem to keep themselves from competing in areas they a) have strong competitors in, and b) often have no real experience in (shout-out to Zune, Bing, Danger - props to Xbox for being a general exception). Those examples you cite are all those same CONSUMER market products they are showing a good deal of ineptitude in building a market presence with. It's not surprising you're not using a WP8 phone or a Zune, and Xbox and Playstation are both established enough it's a tossup as to which a gamer might prefer.
Its true. Microsoft is not cool and you wont see many people using a Microsoft device in your local coffee shop but a huge amount of the technology and infrastructure that underpins our daily lives is powered by Microsoft and I don't see any appetite at all for the big enterprise projects currently using Microsoft to move to other technology stacks. I read somewhere that maybe we would one day see the enterprise part of Microsoft devolved away from the consumer side. If that ever happened it feels to me like the enterprise part would be far the stronger company.
-
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying, and reading only blindered screeds about how Microsoft's CONSUMER efforts are an utter failure, and wanting to scream, "LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE MARKET, YOU MORONS!!!"? Do these people have any clue how much the SMB market has invested in Microsoft's enterprise stuff, and CONTINUES to invest in their product set? And not only on the infrastructure side, i.e. Office/Sharepoint/Exchange - the platform's development stack as well! When many, many companies rely on your server OS running your web development stack backed by your relational database offering, to drive big, long-life-cycle LOB and web-facing applications, you are DOING PRETTY WELL. Every business offering they make, they have legit competitors, no question. But no one can question that they are putting a TON of resources into improving those offerings, especially on the web side, where they have dumped a lot of time and effort into making ASP.Net a much better, more competitive offering. I really like Linux, and completely understand why it has the mindshare among the startup-type crowd. And Google is offering a compelling Office + Exchange alternative, especially for smaller setups. And SQL Server's got "NoSQL" on it's tail. But in all these cases, Microsoft is the Top Dog - and those competitors have had enough time to mature that it seems to me Microsoft still has the edge and the position of strength. I personally have worked off numerous platforms, but keep coming back to .Net because it's where the overall developer demand is, and where a lot of innovation is still taking place. Somebody with a bigger voice than me, PLEASE tell these Apple/Android idiots that whether or not Microsoft is loudly and publicly pushing "Consumer" over "Enterprise", AT LEAST GET YOUR ARGUMENTS RIGHT. Microsoft will die when somebody (or somebodies) takes away that ENTERPRISE play, NOT when they make a subpar tablet and can't sell it!!! And all kids should get off my lawn. Thank you.
When I ran my own company I would have loved to have "failed" as bad as Microsoft. As for Enterprise, if you go Microsoft, you need to go all in and then it can be extremely powerful. I would say, though, that Great Plains is a real turkey. Don't know if they fixed it with Microsoft Dynamics GP.
-
I don't feel that's true though... I look at Azure, the newer features and more rapid release cycle for Visual Studio + Windows Server + SQL Server, and I believe they DO realize that they need to continually develop their enterprise product stack. They just can't seem to keep themselves from competing in areas they a) have strong competitors in, and b) often have no real experience in (shout-out to Zune, Bing, Danger - props to Xbox for being a general exception). Those examples you cite are all those same CONSUMER market products they are showing a good deal of ineptitude in building a market presence with. It's not surprising you're not using a WP8 phone or a Zune, and Xbox and Playstation are both established enough it's a tossup as to which a gamer might prefer.
craigsaboe wrote:
Azure, the newer features and more rapid release cycle for Visual Studio + Windows Server + SQL Server,
That is half the damn problem from where I sit. They are speeding up the release cycle by adding features, instead of supporting us developers by fixing the bugs and releasing a service pack. Why? Because we are not important to them, except in the sense that they can charge significant amounts of money for each new version, and not for service packs. Fixing bugs costs money, and adding features makes money. There are faults in VS2010 that were reported and slated for fixing "in the next release of product" in VS2005! Try it: create an abstract base UserControl, and derive a concrete UserControl from it. Then open the designer on the new control - I'd strongly suggest you don't do this on a project you actually like. This was reported in 2003, and I'm pretty sure it'll still be in VS2012...
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre. Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
-
Its true. Microsoft is not cool and you wont see many people using a Microsoft device in your local coffee shop but a huge amount of the technology and infrastructure that underpins our daily lives is powered by Microsoft and I don't see any appetite at all for the big enterprise projects currently using Microsoft to move to other technology stacks. I read somewhere that maybe we would one day see the enterprise part of Microsoft devolved away from the consumer side. If that ever happened it feels to me like the enterprise part would be far the stronger company.
I think it definitely would make sense for them to refocus and cut out/spin off the consumer stuff. It seems as if they've misread the Bring-Your-Own-Device movement within businesses as somehow a threat to their enterprise server offerings - but until Apple starts replacing Microsoft on data center servers, why does it matter what the device being used is? My iPhone and iPad, in Safari or in a native app, have NO IDEA what stack is pushing them content. The consumer has NO idea. So why in the world would Microsoft not push to dominate the server side, and let the consumer brands duke it out over platforms that are often just acting as web clients?? Especially when they have very little leverage in that consumer area anyhow?!
-
craigsaboe wrote:
Azure, the newer features and more rapid release cycle for Visual Studio + Windows Server + SQL Server,
That is half the damn problem from where I sit. They are speeding up the release cycle by adding features, instead of supporting us developers by fixing the bugs and releasing a service pack. Why? Because we are not important to them, except in the sense that they can charge significant amounts of money for each new version, and not for service packs. Fixing bugs costs money, and adding features makes money. There are faults in VS2010 that were reported and slated for fixing "in the next release of product" in VS2005! Try it: create an abstract base UserControl, and derive a concrete UserControl from it. Then open the designer on the new control - I'd strongly suggest you don't do this on a project you actually like. This was reported in 2003, and I'm pretty sure it'll still be in VS2012...
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre. Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
A part of the problem there might be that Web Forms has been tossed to pasture and they probably have no interest in fixing issues with it, especially where the Designer is involved and ASP.Net MVC + related stuff has been really deprecating both. I do agree we'll probably seen an uptick (if there isn't one already) in the bug fix backlog after a release or three in rapid release mode. On the other hand, it's POSSIBLE that a continually-evolving code base, being constantly iterated on, could mean the more rapid inclusion of larger bug fixes rather than patching here or there in between releases. POSSIBLY. Your optimism may vary. :)
-
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying, and reading only blindered screeds about how Microsoft's CONSUMER efforts are an utter failure, and wanting to scream, "LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE MARKET, YOU MORONS!!!"? Do these people have any clue how much the SMB market has invested in Microsoft's enterprise stuff, and CONTINUES to invest in their product set? And not only on the infrastructure side, i.e. Office/Sharepoint/Exchange - the platform's development stack as well! When many, many companies rely on your server OS running your web development stack backed by your relational database offering, to drive big, long-life-cycle LOB and web-facing applications, you are DOING PRETTY WELL. Every business offering they make, they have legit competitors, no question. But no one can question that they are putting a TON of resources into improving those offerings, especially on the web side, where they have dumped a lot of time and effort into making ASP.Net a much better, more competitive offering. I really like Linux, and completely understand why it has the mindshare among the startup-type crowd. And Google is offering a compelling Office + Exchange alternative, especially for smaller setups. And SQL Server's got "NoSQL" on it's tail. But in all these cases, Microsoft is the Top Dog - and those competitors have had enough time to mature that it seems to me Microsoft still has the edge and the position of strength. I personally have worked off numerous platforms, but keep coming back to .Net because it's where the overall developer demand is, and where a lot of innovation is still taking place. Somebody with a bigger voice than me, PLEASE tell these Apple/Android idiots that whether or not Microsoft is loudly and publicly pushing "Consumer" over "Enterprise", AT LEAST GET YOUR ARGUMENTS RIGHT. Microsoft will die when somebody (or somebodies) takes away that ENTERPRISE play, NOT when they make a subpar tablet and can't sell it!!! And all kids should get off my lawn. Thank you.
The journalists write stuff that sells, not stuff that makes sense. Despite many mistakes (and every large tech corporation has tons of mistakes), Microsoft still makes billions in profit each year. It's also none of our business who the new Microsoft CEO will be. There are tons of tech CEOs in the industry whose name I will never know nor care about, and whether or not they do a great job or a terrible job doesn't affect me much. Just because a mob of journalists start giving themselves carpal tunnel by obsessing over one or two CEO's doesn't change things.
-
The journalists write stuff that sells, not stuff that makes sense. Despite many mistakes (and every large tech corporation has tons of mistakes), Microsoft still makes billions in profit each year. It's also none of our business who the new Microsoft CEO will be. There are tons of tech CEOs in the industry whose name I will never know nor care about, and whether or not they do a great job or a terrible job doesn't affect me much. Just because a mob of journalists start giving themselves carpal tunnel by obsessing over one or two CEO's doesn't change things.
You are definitely right, journalists get paid for clicks + views, not intelligence. That said, you deserve rebuke and intellectual dis-assembly when you pass off specious arguments, illogical assumptions and sheer idiocy as rigorous analysis. And what good is a Soapbox, if not a place to express to anyone but your target audience, your displeasure at them or their actions? :) Regarding your views regarding CEOs, I DO think it is a relevant thing to many in IT because skills and talent are often specific to given platforms. Those responsible for said platforms are the ones who will either make said skills/talents worth developing and having, or make them utterly worthless. For me, it's several years of experience developing on the Microsoft stack, and if they run that into the ground, I could end up in the developer demographic who's top skills are now "legacy". It works for some, but I don't know many that thrive on or enjoy classic ASP coding. Despite also developing skills on other platforms with other frameworks, etc., you're still behind the guys in the job market who started on the "winning" stack and now have that much more experience in it than you do. So I think the CEOs DO make a big difference and we should care, at least when we use/rely on/depend on/are skilled on what they're shipping.
-
I think it definitely would make sense for them to refocus and cut out/spin off the consumer stuff. It seems as if they've misread the Bring-Your-Own-Device movement within businesses as somehow a threat to their enterprise server offerings - but until Apple starts replacing Microsoft on data center servers, why does it matter what the device being used is? My iPhone and iPad, in Safari or in a native app, have NO IDEA what stack is pushing them content. The consumer has NO idea. So why in the world would Microsoft not push to dominate the server side, and let the consumer brands duke it out over platforms that are often just acting as web clients?? Especially when they have very little leverage in that consumer area anyhow?!
craigsaboe wrote:
My iPhone and iPad, in Safari or in a native app, have NO IDEA what stack is pushing them content. The consumer has NO idea.
Which doesn't bode well for Apple' strategy, either. The way most of us consume content is on an increasingly irrelevant commodity product, that has little to distinguish it from any other competitor's product - at least in any meaningful way. Which does explain the marketing - "Buy our product, it crashes a little less, is a little more user friendly, is made from slightly better materials and has 20,000 more apps you'll never need - all for twice as much!" is not as effective as "Plastic!" :)
062142174041062102
-
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying, and reading only blindered screeds about how Microsoft's CONSUMER efforts are an utter failure, and wanting to scream, "LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE MARKET, YOU MORONS!!!"? Do these people have any clue how much the SMB market has invested in Microsoft's enterprise stuff, and CONTINUES to invest in their product set? And not only on the infrastructure side, i.e. Office/Sharepoint/Exchange - the platform's development stack as well! When many, many companies rely on your server OS running your web development stack backed by your relational database offering, to drive big, long-life-cycle LOB and web-facing applications, you are DOING PRETTY WELL. Every business offering they make, they have legit competitors, no question. But no one can question that they are putting a TON of resources into improving those offerings, especially on the web side, where they have dumped a lot of time and effort into making ASP.Net a much better, more competitive offering. I really like Linux, and completely understand why it has the mindshare among the startup-type crowd. And Google is offering a compelling Office + Exchange alternative, especially for smaller setups. And SQL Server's got "NoSQL" on it's tail. But in all these cases, Microsoft is the Top Dog - and those competitors have had enough time to mature that it seems to me Microsoft still has the edge and the position of strength. I personally have worked off numerous platforms, but keep coming back to .Net because it's where the overall developer demand is, and where a lot of innovation is still taking place. Somebody with a bigger voice than me, PLEASE tell these Apple/Android idiots that whether or not Microsoft is loudly and publicly pushing "Consumer" over "Enterprise", AT LEAST GET YOUR ARGUMENTS RIGHT. Microsoft will die when somebody (or somebodies) takes away that ENTERPRISE play, NOT when they make a subpar tablet and can't sell it!!! And all kids should get off my lawn. Thank you.
craigsaboe wrote:
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying,
I see all sorts of ridiculous predictions about the future about all sort of things. The only difference between the same things that occurred 30 years ago is that the internet makes it possible for many more people to spout these predictions. The one thing that one can be sure about people that make predictions in writing is that if they are not super rich then one can ignore what they say. After all if they were able to make predictions with even a slight bit of an edge then they could be making money in some sort of investment strategy (versus writing which almost always pays almost nothing.)
-
Microsoft couldn't give a shit about a. Enterprise Market b. Developers. As a Microsoft Developer for over 20 years, I'm afraid to say I developing for Android and looking at other frameworks. I now own an Android Phone I now use Ubuntu for my media Player I'm buying a Sony Play Station Had a good time with Microsoft and their excellent development tools, but its time to move on Microsoft don't care any more.
Software Kinetics - Dependable Software news
NormDroid wrote:
Microsoft couldn't give a sh*t about
a. Enterprise Market
b. Developers.
As a Microsoft Developer for over 20 yearsJust to be clear - are you suggesting that say 15 years ago that they were not focused on sales and markets then and instead were focused on developers? If the answer to that is no, then why have you been doing it for 20 years?
NormDroid wrote:
Had a good time with Microsoft
I program for a living so "good time" doesn't calculate much into technological choices.
-
I think it definitely would make sense for them to refocus and cut out/spin off the consumer stuff. It seems as if they've misread the Bring-Your-Own-Device movement within businesses as somehow a threat to their enterprise server offerings - but until Apple starts replacing Microsoft on data center servers, why does it matter what the device being used is? My iPhone and iPad, in Safari or in a native app, have NO IDEA what stack is pushing them content. The consumer has NO idea. So why in the world would Microsoft not push to dominate the server side, and let the consumer brands duke it out over platforms that are often just acting as web clients?? Especially when they have very little leverage in that consumer area anyhow?!
-
craigsaboe wrote:
Azure, the newer features and more rapid release cycle for Visual Studio + Windows Server + SQL Server,
That is half the damn problem from where I sit. They are speeding up the release cycle by adding features, instead of supporting us developers by fixing the bugs and releasing a service pack. Why? Because we are not important to them, except in the sense that they can charge significant amounts of money for each new version, and not for service packs. Fixing bugs costs money, and adding features makes money. There are faults in VS2010 that were reported and slated for fixing "in the next release of product" in VS2005! Try it: create an abstract base UserControl, and derive a concrete UserControl from it. Then open the designer on the new control - I'd strongly suggest you don't do this on a project you actually like. This was reported in 2003, and I'm pretty sure it'll still be in VS2012...
This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre. Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
-
craigsaboe wrote:
My iPhone and iPad, in Safari or in a native app, have NO IDEA what stack is pushing them content. The consumer has NO idea.
Which doesn't bode well for Apple' strategy, either. The way most of us consume content is on an increasingly irrelevant commodity product, that has little to distinguish it from any other competitor's product - at least in any meaningful way. Which does explain the marketing - "Buy our product, it crashes a little less, is a little more user friendly, is made from slightly better materials and has 20,000 more apps you'll never need - all for twice as much!" is not as effective as "Plastic!" :)
062142174041062102
Absolutely correct. I've run through multiple Androids and iPhones, as well as an iPad and even a Nook Color. I used a Nokia 920 for a week recently too - and in every case, the sole meaningful differentiation between them (ignoring phone functionality) is native applications - not screens or storage or fingerprinting or really even network speed. And at this point, like you said, we're reaching commoditization - an iPhone 3G and iPad 1G run a browser just as well as the newest ones, and unless you need the crappy social eating app that just took off, you're going to be reaching for "Plastic!!!" for your value proposition.
-
craigsaboe wrote:
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying,
I see all sorts of ridiculous predictions about the future about all sort of things. The only difference between the same things that occurred 30 years ago is that the internet makes it possible for many more people to spout these predictions. The one thing that one can be sure about people that make predictions in writing is that if they are not super rich then one can ignore what they say. After all if they were able to make predictions with even a slight bit of an edge then they could be making money in some sort of investment strategy (versus writing which almost always pays almost nothing.)
Very true... and it makes it possible for people, e.g. me, to be subjected to many more of them. :) The problem is when asinine claims become some sort of "inherent truth" or "common knowledge", and anyone trying to sound intelligent spouts off the same thing whenever Apple, Android or Microsoft come up. Some people don't care, some pity the poor idiot, and some people like me react as if we just saw the ratings for "Duck Dynasty".
-
You are definitely right, journalists get paid for clicks + views, not intelligence. That said, you deserve rebuke and intellectual dis-assembly when you pass off specious arguments, illogical assumptions and sheer idiocy as rigorous analysis. And what good is a Soapbox, if not a place to express to anyone but your target audience, your displeasure at them or their actions? :) Regarding your views regarding CEOs, I DO think it is a relevant thing to many in IT because skills and talent are often specific to given platforms. Those responsible for said platforms are the ones who will either make said skills/talents worth developing and having, or make them utterly worthless. For me, it's several years of experience developing on the Microsoft stack, and if they run that into the ground, I could end up in the developer demographic who's top skills are now "legacy". It works for some, but I don't know many that thrive on or enjoy classic ASP coding. Despite also developing skills on other platforms with other frameworks, etc., you're still behind the guys in the job market who started on the "winning" stack and now have that much more experience in it than you do. So I think the CEOs DO make a big difference and we should care, at least when we use/rely on/depend on/are skilled on what they're shipping.
Yes, if a new Microsoft CEO screws up so bad that they run the development tools division to the ground, then I would care a lot. I can work with other languages and technologies, but my .NET skills are what I have the most experience in and what employers care about the most. With that being said, it would take years of horrible decisions (bordering upon malicious sabotage) to kill their development tools division, and I'd have plenty of forewarning if it was happening.
-
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying, and reading only blindered screeds about how Microsoft's CONSUMER efforts are an utter failure, and wanting to scream, "LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE MARKET, YOU MORONS!!!"? Do these people have any clue how much the SMB market has invested in Microsoft's enterprise stuff, and CONTINUES to invest in their product set? And not only on the infrastructure side, i.e. Office/Sharepoint/Exchange - the platform's development stack as well! When many, many companies rely on your server OS running your web development stack backed by your relational database offering, to drive big, long-life-cycle LOB and web-facing applications, you are DOING PRETTY WELL. Every business offering they make, they have legit competitors, no question. But no one can question that they are putting a TON of resources into improving those offerings, especially on the web side, where they have dumped a lot of time and effort into making ASP.Net a much better, more competitive offering. I really like Linux, and completely understand why it has the mindshare among the startup-type crowd. And Google is offering a compelling Office + Exchange alternative, especially for smaller setups. And SQL Server's got "NoSQL" on it's tail. But in all these cases, Microsoft is the Top Dog - and those competitors have had enough time to mature that it seems to me Microsoft still has the edge and the position of strength. I personally have worked off numerous platforms, but keep coming back to .Net because it's where the overall developer demand is, and where a lot of innovation is still taking place. Somebody with a bigger voice than me, PLEASE tell these Apple/Android idiots that whether or not Microsoft is loudly and publicly pushing "Consumer" over "Enterprise", AT LEAST GET YOUR ARGUMENTS RIGHT. Microsoft will die when somebody (or somebodies) takes away that ENTERPRISE play, NOT when they make a subpar tablet and can't sell it!!! And all kids should get off my lawn. Thank you.
:thumbsup: I agree with the (implicit) thesis in your post: MS is not dying. I do think it, like every other major player, is constantly changing and transforming: we, in the peanut-gallery, see the internal, psychodramatic, events, like Sinofsky's abrupt technocide, and Ballmer's death-by-365-cut's slower one, leap-out at us, as both fiction-myth, and reality: seismographs don't register the slow creep of tectonic plates. And, I share your conviction that a solid future for the enterprise side of MS, along with MS Office, and SharePoint, .NET, SQL, etc. ... in some form ... is a good bet. I also think the "cluster" of MS stuff related to gaming including XBox, Kinect (?), DirectX, etc., kind of has a "life of its own." And, the whole Office suite, in my mind, has a strong base that spans enterprise, and consumer, space. The interesting question, to me, is: to what extent can MS, as a whole, as it kind-of is, now, survive without a kind of marketplace synergy between consumer-side status, and enterprise-side status ? I believe I am an active consumer of "news," and I believe to the extent I consciously choose "who" I attend to, I'm not in a passive role, as the use of the word "subjected" in one of the replies on this thread, implies. But, in the arena of the workplace, you may, indeed, be "subjected" to the decisions of others that influence what type of hardware, OS, applications, development stack, etc., you must use. I'm out of that loop, permanently. And, depending on the future of the hardware and software tools you use today ... which may be directly related to you and your family's financial future ... I do understand the vital importance of keeping "up to date." I went through a real struggle about whether to switch my focus from WinForms to WPF a few years ago. The powerful vector-based graphics engine, and great binding facilities in WPF were like siren-songs calling to me, but my experience in trying development was a nest of miseries, and having to touch XAML seemed to me like reverting to making fire with sparks from flints. So, today, I'm glad I didn't switch to WPF, because its future still seems uncertain to me (I'm still waiting for the news that Pete O'Hanlon mentioned was going to break some months ago, about WPF's future). Of course, my personal decision about which MS development tool to use is about as important as a gnat on an elephant in terms of MS's future :). I imagine a herd of elephants stampeding in a confined space, while outside their enclosure pro
-
Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying, and reading only blindered screeds about how Microsoft's CONSUMER efforts are an utter failure, and wanting to scream, "LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE MARKET, YOU MORONS!!!"? Do these people have any clue how much the SMB market has invested in Microsoft's enterprise stuff, and CONTINUES to invest in their product set? And not only on the infrastructure side, i.e. Office/Sharepoint/Exchange - the platform's development stack as well! When many, many companies rely on your server OS running your web development stack backed by your relational database offering, to drive big, long-life-cycle LOB and web-facing applications, you are DOING PRETTY WELL. Every business offering they make, they have legit competitors, no question. But no one can question that they are putting a TON of resources into improving those offerings, especially on the web side, where they have dumped a lot of time and effort into making ASP.Net a much better, more competitive offering. I really like Linux, and completely understand why it has the mindshare among the startup-type crowd. And Google is offering a compelling Office + Exchange alternative, especially for smaller setups. And SQL Server's got "NoSQL" on it's tail. But in all these cases, Microsoft is the Top Dog - and those competitors have had enough time to mature that it seems to me Microsoft still has the edge and the position of strength. I personally have worked off numerous platforms, but keep coming back to .Net because it's where the overall developer demand is, and where a lot of innovation is still taking place. Somebody with a bigger voice than me, PLEASE tell these Apple/Android idiots that whether or not Microsoft is loudly and publicly pushing "Consumer" over "Enterprise", AT LEAST GET YOUR ARGUMENTS RIGHT. Microsoft will die when somebody (or somebodies) takes away that ENTERPRISE play, NOT when they make a subpar tablet and can't sell it!!! And all kids should get off my lawn. Thank you.
It does make me wonder what goes through the (presumably vacant) heads of people who loudly announce "Microsoft's profits are down to umpty-tum billions, this year, so they must be on the verge of bankruptcy!"
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
