Frankly, it doesn't matter whether it was Sinofsky or MS driving the change, it happened and now the real question will be where the change leads.
The comments from Ballmer wanting more integration with xbox makes sense on one level (one part of the consumer side) and is completely crazy for the enterprise side. I feel bad for MS - they've found themselves forced into a corner after all these years because of their business model that allowed such a wide ranging degree of product fragmentation (both hardware and software related). They're finally at that point where they have to shut off the spigot to such a broad user base (XP) and both hardware and software limitations are going to make a lot of people really unhappy.
Apple went through this when they stopped supporting PowerPC based Macs, but their numbers were so much lower. I can't imagine the headache a MS call center tech has to put up with, especially with those die-in-the-wool old-school windows users who just can't figure out how to move forward away from the "start" command.
On the enterprise side, they'll see the same reluctance to move forward because they've already got millions of tech people who have "figured out how to get around the system bugs" in XP and will have to do more work in implementing a new system.
I wish them luck, because they're going to need it.
I think Gates is afraid of Ballmer. Ballmer can be a little intimidating to someone like Bill. Bill is a little passive and Ballmer is VERY aggressive. Plus, I don't know if Sinofsky has the CEO attitude Microsoft wants.
I guess maybe Bill like Ballmer's Monkee dance routine.
History suggests that Gates has not been afraid of Ballmer in the past and that hasn't changed. The two have had a few well publicized "debates". Gates is no shrinking violet himself.
Sinofsky's end could be tied to the fact Windows 8 is not doing well, without a start menu it's difficult for MS users to begin they're work. They way Microsoft operates, I'm sure some scapegoat was sacrificed for Vista's failure as well.
We don't know whether Forstall's ouster was sudden or not but we do know in the official press release Apple never thanked Forstall for his time with the company. This is all the press release said: "Apple also announced that Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim." Leads me to believe Forstall is not leaving on good terms and this "advisor" position is to keep some other company from poaching him (non compete clauses are illegal in California).
Well, Forstall is still a Senior Advisor to Tim Cook, whereas Sinofsky left and I don't know if he will still be used as an advisor.
I wouldn't assume that he is actually advising Tim Cook on anything. If Forstall is actually "in the building" he is likely only the senior monitor of the water cooler.
Does Microsoft have to copy everything Apple does?
I think they were hoping the headlines would include something like, "Microsoft, who just released super-awesome Windows 8 which everyone should totally upgrade to."
I want to replace a Windows computer with a newer one, it runs a particular piece of equipment, and they're all Windows 8 now. To downgrade to Windows 7, you need Pro, I think it's an extra $70 above what a lot of computers offer, so I have to pay to downgrade to an older version.
If you have a place Fry's Electronics near you, you can obtain a left over OEM version of 7 by buying something small like a case fan and then you qualify as a computer builder thus allowing the OEM version at a discount. I think there are some online retailers who also use that workaround, maybe New Egg or Tiger Direct.
Out of Windows total market share of XP, 7, and Vista users, only a certain portion of those people are going to switch to WIndows 8. If they don't switch, they are POTENTIALLY OS X users. XP users will be forced soon to decide what they are going to do because Microsoft is about to cut Windows XP support. When they do this, that means, no more drivers, no more bug fixes, no more enhancements, no more security updates. Basically NO MORE XP.
What's their choice? Windows 7, Windows 8 or OS X. Some of those people WILL switch to OS X. How many of them will switch? I don't know, but I'm sure Apple will eventually find out. There are still several hundred million XP boxes that will get switched to OS X within the next year is my guess.
Windows 7, same thing. Some will switch to OS X and some will eventually switch to Windows 8 or they might have to wait 3 years to see what Windows 9 is.
What's Windows 9? Who knows. I'm sure they'll make their announcement in the next year or two as to what WIndows 9 will be. Maybe Windows 7 renamed. OR a completely new GUI to REALLY piss people off.
I don't think end of support for XP means any significant bump in the adoption of post-XP operating systems. It's not as if an XP machine is suddenly going to stop functioning. I support a lot of systems - many of which are old enough that nothing higher than XP makes sense - including some that are not even connected to the internet. Would I like to replace these all with Macs or at least newer Windows, sure, but the nature of the customers is such that budget constraints do not allow it. If I cannot reload and properly update XP on a system that had a dead hard drive etc then that is perhaps a reason to begin eliminating XP, but not as a proactive program of replacement but rather through attrition.
Lack of updates for Drivers from MS may also be a non-issue - since I try to get most of my drivers from the OEM website whenever possible - or from sites like driverguide or cnet if necessary. The main thing would be the 200 or so updates from MS from the base media that I have available when reloading some old system that didn't come with restore media - or had a restore partition on the now failed hard drive - and or with no backup to restore from. Then again, many of my XP systems are not critical enough to even warrant a backup.
I wish I'd known that. I've been honoring one for the last five years which expires next month. I would have liked to stick it to those guys as they shorted me $2,000 which is why we parted ways. Just enough to piss you off and not enough to bother suing for.
Not in the slightest. It's a problem with all articles when they're moved from their own pages to the forum. There's a character translation error for apostrophes, quotes, m-dashes (which we can't even type ourselves), and even semicolons, I think. No idea why, but whatever; I just fix them.
You're saying you don't sometimes see errant question marks in article threads on the forum? I've edited this one away already.
I want to replace a Windows computer with a newer one, it runs a particular piece of equipment, and they're all Windows 8 now. To downgrade to Windows 7, you need Pro, I think it's an extra $70 above what a lot of computers offer, so I have to pay to downgrade to an older version.
The fact that Microsoft allows a new PC the ability to downgrade to Windows 7 shows a spectacular lack of confidence in their decision to move toward Windows 8. When Apple makes a decision, there's almost always no going back. Previous hardware support is cut off , and new Macs are tuned to take full advantage of the new OS, with no backward compromises. THAT'S confidence. And much of that is to ensure the user experience is what Aple intends it to be. Can you imagine trying to run Windows 8 with its active live tiles on a PC even a year old?
I got my entire family to switch to OS X by getting them to buy Macs on which they could run Windows during the day, and then play with OS X nights and weekends. The only holdout was a relative that wanted to run a 10 year old peice of software that had non-standard mouse implementation, so that she couldn't operate it in the manner she learned. Once Apple introduced newer Macs with multi-touch gestures that supported any touchpad configuration poor software required, this was no longer an issue, but by that time, she had learned how to use the much more intuitive and consitent Apple software alternative.
MS has spoon-fed their customers for so many years, that with such sweeping changes, they're going to need a lot of luck keeping them with so many alternatives available. It's so sad they think they are competing with Apple, when in reality they are competing against Google, and themselves.
All the stupid ? random ?? punctuation that appear in articles is making them hard ? to read ?!"
Not on my system. Everything looks fine. The trouble is on your end my friend.
I'm getting a lot of ? also when the stories first appear. I'm pretty sure Tallest goes in and fixes them.Likely the difference is between the forum doctype and charset parameters and the home page doctype.
Not in the slightest. It's a problem with all articles when they're moved from their own pages to the forum. There's a character translation error for apostrophes, quotes, m-dashes (which we can't even type ourselves), and even semicolons, I think. No idea why, but whatever; I just fix them.
You're saying you don't sometimes see errant question marks in article threads on the forum? I've edited this one away already.
Sorry I repeated the same info before seeing yours. If you notice the charset is UTF-8 on the forum with <doctype= html> whereas on the original story they have a full transitional doctype and no character set. In order to fix the problem the two systems should match. If you do want to use those characters that don't currently work you need to use the Unicode or HTML Entities for those characters.
The fact that Ballmer is still around makes me wonder if Gates even cares about Microsoft anymore. Seems like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is his one and only priority.
I just can't see how he thinks Ballmer is taking the company down the right road.
I wish I'd known that. I've been honoring one for the last five years which expires next month. I would have liked to stick it to those guys as they shorted me $2,000 which is why we parted ways. Just enough to piss you off and not enough to bother suing for.
FWIW, my boss informed me that if he fired me (here in Europe), the non-compete clause was automatically void. I like my boss for his entirely honest perspectives on life ^^
Here's wishing both Sinofsky and Forstall all the best. They're both talented individuals who have contributed quite a lot to my modern "computing device" experience. Who knows, maybe they'll form a new company together. That'd be interesting!
Comments
Frankly, it doesn't matter whether it was Sinofsky or MS driving the change, it happened and now the real question will be where the change leads.
The comments from Ballmer wanting more integration with xbox makes sense on one level (one part of the consumer side) and is completely crazy for the enterprise side. I feel bad for MS - they've found themselves forced into a corner after all these years because of their business model that allowed such a wide ranging degree of product fragmentation (both hardware and software related). They're finally at that point where they have to shut off the spigot to such a broad user base (XP) and both hardware and software limitations are going to make a lot of people really unhappy.
Apple went through this when they stopped supporting PowerPC based Macs, but their numbers were so much lower. I can't imagine the headache a MS call center tech has to put up with, especially with those die-in-the-wool old-school windows users who just can't figure out how to move forward away from the "start" command.
On the enterprise side, they'll see the same reluctance to move forward because they've already got millions of tech people who have "figured out how to get around the system bugs" in XP and will have to do more work in implementing a new system.
I wish them luck, because they're going to need it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
I think Gates is afraid of Ballmer. Ballmer can be a little intimidating to someone like Bill. Bill is a little passive and Ballmer is VERY aggressive. Plus, I don't know if Sinofsky has the CEO attitude Microsoft wants.
I guess maybe Bill like Ballmer's Monkee dance routine.
History suggests that Gates has not been afraid of Ballmer in the past and that hasn't changed. The two have had a few well publicized "debates". Gates is no shrinking violet himself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
Well, Forstall is still a Senior Advisor to Tim Cook, whereas Sinofsky left and I don't know if he will still be used as an advisor.
I wouldn't assume that he is actually advising Tim Cook on anything. If Forstall is actually "in the building" he is likely only the senior monitor of the water cooler.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
Does Microsoft have to copy everything Apple does?
I think they were hoping the headlines would include something like, "Microsoft, who just released super-awesome Windows 8 which everyone should totally upgrade to."
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
I want to replace a Windows computer with a newer one, it runs a particular piece of equipment, and they're all Windows 8 now. To downgrade to Windows 7, you need Pro, I think it's an extra $70 above what a lot of computers offer, so I have to pay to downgrade to an older version.
If you have a place Fry's Electronics near you, you can obtain a left over OEM version of 7 by buying something small like a case fan and then you qualify as a computer builder thus allowing the OEM version at a discount. I think there are some online retailers who also use that workaround, maybe New Egg or Tiger Direct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by drblank
Here's what people need to REALIZE.
Out of Windows total market share of XP, 7, and Vista users, only a certain portion of those people are going to switch to WIndows 8. If they don't switch, they are POTENTIALLY OS X users. XP users will be forced soon to decide what they are going to do because Microsoft is about to cut Windows XP support. When they do this, that means, no more drivers, no more bug fixes, no more enhancements, no more security updates. Basically NO MORE XP.
What's their choice? Windows 7, Windows 8 or OS X. Some of those people WILL switch to OS X. How many of them will switch? I don't know, but I'm sure Apple will eventually find out. There are still several hundred million XP boxes that will get switched to OS X within the next year is my guess.
Windows 7, same thing. Some will switch to OS X and some will eventually switch to Windows 8 or they might have to wait 3 years to see what Windows 9 is.
What's Windows 9? Who knows. I'm sure they'll make their announcement in the next year or two as to what WIndows 9 will be. Maybe Windows 7 renamed. OR a completely new GUI to REALLY piss people off.
I don't think end of support for XP means any significant bump in the adoption of post-XP operating systems. It's not as if an XP machine is suddenly going to stop functioning. I support a lot of systems - many of which are old enough that nothing higher than XP makes sense - including some that are not even connected to the internet. Would I like to replace these all with Macs or at least newer Windows, sure, but the nature of the customers is such that budget constraints do not allow it. If I cannot reload and properly update XP on a system that had a dead hard drive etc then that is perhaps a reason to begin eliminating XP, but not as a proactive program of replacement but rather through attrition.
Lack of updates for Drivers from MS may also be a non-issue - since I try to get most of my drivers from the OEM website whenever possible - or from sites like driverguide or cnet if necessary. The main thing would be the 200 or so updates from MS from the base media that I have available when reloading some old system that didn't come with restore media - or had a restore partition on the now failed hard drive - and or with no backup to restore from. Then again, many of my XP systems are not critical enough to even warrant a backup.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Right_said_fred
All the stupid ? random ?? punctuation that appear in articles is making them hard ? to read ?!"
Not on my system. Everything looks fine. The trouble is on your end my friend.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogifan
(non compete clauses are illegal in California).
I wish I'd known that. I've been honoring one for the last five years which expires next month. I would have liked to stick it to those guys as they shorted me $2,000 which is why we parted ways. Just enough to piss you off and not enough to bother suing for.
Originally Posted by lkrupp
The trouble is on your end my friend.
Not in the slightest. It's a problem with all articles when they're moved from their own pages to the forum. There's a character translation error for apostrophes, quotes, m-dashes (which we can't even type ourselves), and even semicolons, I think. No idea why, but whatever; I just fix them.
You're saying you don't sometimes see errant question marks in article threads on the forum? I've edited this one away already.
I got my entire family to switch to OS X by getting them to buy Macs on which they could run Windows during the day, and then play with OS X nights and weekends. The only holdout was a relative that wanted to run a 10 year old peice of software that had non-standard mouse implementation, so that she couldn't operate it in the manner she learned. Once Apple introduced newer Macs with multi-touch gestures that supported any touchpad configuration poor software required, this was no longer an issue, but by that time, she had learned how to use the much more intuitive and consitent Apple software alternative.
MS has spoon-fed their customers for so many years, that with such sweeping changes, they're going to need a lot of luck keeping them with so many alternatives available. It's so sad they think they are competing with Apple, when in reality they are competing against Google, and themselves.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slurpy
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland
They don't know if the Forstall decision was last minute.
Don't you know? When enough shitty blogs repeat an assumption based on he-said she-said bullshit, it becomes a matter of 'fact'. Journalism is dead.
Yeah... I saw Shiller passing a note to Federici in Gym class...
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
Quote:
Originally Posted by Right_said_fred
All the stupid ? random ?? punctuation that appear in articles is making them hard ? to read ?!"
Not on my system. Everything looks fine. The trouble is on your end my friend.
I'm getting a lot of ? also when the stories first appear. I'm pretty sure Tallest goes in and fixes them.Likely the difference is between the forum doctype and charset parameters and the home page doctype.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Originally Posted by lkrupp
The trouble is on your end my friend.
Not in the slightest. It's a problem with all articles when they're moved from their own pages to the forum. There's a character translation error for apostrophes, quotes, m-dashes (which we can't even type ourselves), and even semicolons, I think. No idea why, but whatever; I just fix them.
You're saying you don't sometimes see errant question marks in article threads on the forum? I've edited this one away already.
Sorry I repeated the same info before seeing yours. If you notice the charset is UTF-8 on the forum with <doctype= html> whereas on the original story they have a full transitional doctype and no character set. In order to fix the problem the two systems should match. If you do want to use those characters that don't currently work you need to use the Unicode or HTML Entities for those characters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by extremeskater
The fact that Ballmer is still around makes me wonder if Gates even cares about Microsoft anymore. Seems like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is his one and only priority.
I just can't see how he thinks Ballmer is taking the company down the right road.
#next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }Since much of Bill's money is still in MS stock, he has to care, even if he only really cares about the foundation...
#next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
that one time.... at band camp....
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
I wish I'd known that. I've been honoring one for the last five years which expires next month. I would have liked to stick it to those guys as they shorted me $2,000 which is why we parted ways. Just enough to piss you off and not enough to bother suing for.
FWIW, my boss informed me that if he fired me (here in Europe), the non-compete clause was automatically void. I like my boss for his entirely honest perspectives on life ^^
Quote:
Originally Posted by tribalogical
Here's wishing both Sinofsky and Forstall all the best. They're both talented individuals who have contributed quite a lot to my modern "computing device" experience. Who knows, maybe they'll form a new company together. That'd be interesting!
Call it NEXT or something?