[HN Gopher] Don't forget Microsoft
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Don't forget Microsoft
Author : SamvitJ
Score : 33 points
Date : 2022-01-30 21:16 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (luttig.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (luttig.substack.com)
| foobarian wrote:
| Can Microsoft please make a Windows phone after all? Both Apple
| and Android ecosystems and hardware together are terrible in
| various ways and don't work well with Windows.
| rr808 wrote:
| Right now due to my lack of self control a lack of apps is a
| bonus. I just need a maps, camera, uber that's about it.
| rafale wrote:
| They did. It was called Windows Phone... It came out too late,
| offered too little.
| drunkpotato wrote:
| It was pretty good. Seemed better than Android at the time.
| I'm not sure why Microsoft didn't put as much oomph into it
| as they did for, say, the Xbox, but if they had it might be a
| major player now.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I had a HTC windows phone and it was not good in my
| experience. The app store was non-existent, the OS forced
| you into using its own social media experiences which were
| half implemented and janky vs. native apps, and the web
| browser was slow and clunky for the era (2010s). The home
| screen was enormously painful with all kinds of different
| sized icons strewn about and blinking, changing, etc.
| randomly--I could never find anything in the same place.
|
| The only good thing I could say is that the settings were
| much simpler and easier to navigate than apple or android
| phones at the time. But that was really more because there
| was far less you could change or do in windows phones.
|
| As far as effort put into it, Microsoft spent years pouring
| money and resources into trying to grow their phone
| platform. Remember they basically invented modern
| smartphones with Windows mobile phones--I was using 'real'
| web browsers on my windows mobile 5 phone as far back as
| 2006, years and years before the iPhone came out. They
| spent billions buying companies like Nokia, trying to get
| more developers on their platform, etc. There were at least
| two or three complete restarts to the whole platform. There
| were internal competitors even from the Xbox/game division
| (remember the Kin?). It just churned and churned and
| churned despite all resources and money thrown at it--all
| of it wasted in the end.
| colmvp wrote:
| How are they terrible?
|
| Having used cellphones since the 90s, my experiences with
| Android/Apple phones have been nothing short of remarkable and
| to be frank, life changing in terms of day-to-day utility.
| salil999 wrote:
| I'm surprised you say the Apple ecosystem is terrible. It's
| arguably the best, most complete and integrated ecosystem out
| there currently.
|
| Of course it's not going to work well with Windows. Apple wants
| you to buy a Mac.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's hard to call the iPhone complete when it makes egregious
| concessions in it's capabilities in the name of "safety"
| (which turns out to be a moot-point anyways, as sufficently
| funded state actors have proven to us over the past few
| months).
| jolux wrote:
| Security is not moot just because state actors can break
| it, that's basically expected.
| rafale wrote:
| "There's a horse in Redmond that always suits up and always runs,
| and will keep running." - Tim "Apple" Cook
| ape4 wrote:
| Microsoft needs a CEO with "Microsoft" as his/her middle name.
| zarriak wrote:
| Great article but please use GAFAM not FAAMG or FAMGA
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Hindsight is 20x20, but Microsoft share price has increased about
| 5 fold in 5 years, while only doubling the 5 years before that.
| It had to play a bit of catch up with other FAANG type companies.
| blip54321 wrote:
| I feel like the elephant in the room is culture.
|
| * Facebook seems to be a bunch of smart people working on pet
| projects. Monopoly profits drive a political empire where people
| at the top think up something random, and it gets built.
|
| * Google has customer contempt. They started with brilliant
| people who were used to being smarter than everyone else. They
| also started in algorithm-driven markets like search and ad-
| words, where everything was statistical and individuals didn't
| matter. They've lost the smarts and the ethics, and they're in a
| bit of a hole. I think they've reached the end of the growth
| line.
|
| * I know nothing about Apple. Too secretive.
|
| * Microsoft has a bunch of cut-throat teams, competing with each
| other. Their technology is middling. However, they're the only
| one of the bunch you'd want to partner with for B2B.
|
| * ... except for Amazon, which is hyper-customer-focused, and has
| a track record of successful forward-looking projects. AWS has
| been rock solid. On the other hand, I'd never want to work there;
| they treat employees like crap. But it somehow works out for
| them.
| ourmandave wrote:
| _Microsoft may have too many internal competing interests to
| recognize that it has become the Azure company, but it should be
| clear by the late 2020s._
|
| Any divisions that yell "Developers!" at events already know
| this. The rest are probably aware.
|
| My only problem is how everything is going to subscription based
| pricing and requires a cloud account.
| powera wrote:
| It's somewhat surprising that Oracle isn't even mentioned in the
| article.
| logshipper wrote:
| This is a good and thorough article. The author got down to brass
| tacks pretty quickly and brings up interesting hypothesis about
| $MSFT.
|
| That said, I do have one gripe:
|
| > To oversimplify Notion to its demographics, it is Office 365
| for people below age 35.
|
| I recognize this is an oversimplification, but even so, it seems
| like a stretch. Notion is a decent product, and I have used it
| for a few small-scale team projects in uni (mainly for Kanban-
| related stuff) - but to call it a replacement for O365 is an
| exaggeration at best.
|
| Yes, you can have pretty, nested documents in Notion and that's
| great, but a tabular database in Notion is by no means a
| replacement for Excel or even Google Sheets. The velocity that is
| afforded by Excel in terms of formulas is unmatched and there's a
| reason it has yet to be unseated as the kingpin of modern
| finance.
|
| Most young people I know use a combination of Discord + Google
| Suite to collaborate. I am aware this is slightly anecdotal, but
| I am also having a hard time imagining myself as a founder and
| then asking my CFO to use Notion to prepare investor pitches.
|
| Source: Am 23 :)
| reilly3000 wrote:
| I think this is a really solid analysis and strategy. I want to
| briefly expound on the data side which is a huge growth area:
| mSFT would do well to SHOW the rank and file analyst and
| developer machine learning in context of their daily work, not
| TELL CEOs about its transformational possibilities. They own the
| world's most popular surface for interacting with data. Why not
| make Azure's machine learning be keystrokes away? Give away
| credits and training, suggest use cases, provide actual value.
| Sell a $0.000000000001/unit cost that makes it safe for anyone to
| try in their daily work. It doesn't need to do much, some cool
| forecasting, predicting the value of the next cell inline, etc
| would be delightful. I'm a but disconnected from their ecosystem
| at this point but I see a window where the can captivate the long
| tail with pragmatic ML and assert their centrality for the coming
| decades.
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