HalloweenDocument12

Over the years I've heard that not only could Gates code, he was actually top shelf. Here's an old Register article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/15/could_bill_gates_write_code/ Yeah, Register is a rag. But there's also the matter of it taking 30 years to beat a sorting algorithm he invented: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancake_sorting Most "real" programmers would probably be satisfied having to their name just one of the credible tales that surrounded Gates. I say he's legit, even if his coding career was short.

Maybe "60 million" is Microsoft's default answer to everything: http://newyork.newsday.com/business/technology/microsoft-outlook-com-gains-60m-users-some-from-gmail-1.4671107 I guess next month we'll hear about Windows Phone gaining 60 million users since October.

That stuck out to me, too. It's been about 43 days: http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3852252/microsoft-windows-8-60-million-licenses The implications of this are pretty extreme. This means that every channel is oversupplied: OEM, system builder, retail, etc. and that Windows 8 is not a success on ANY front if they cannot move any incremental quantity in a month and a half. Is Microsoft allowed to sell to itself to generate this number, i.e. from the "Windows Team" to the "Distribution Team", or are these licenses literally sitting around at the likes of Dell, Newegg, and Best Buy? If the latter is true retailers must be freaking out. Commodities like Windows are supposed to move quickly, not sitting around tying up cash. Another possibility is that Microsoft accepted returns and, while technically true, the 60 million number is misleading. EDIT: http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/oh-come-microsoft-60-million-copies-of-windows-8-210442

Do people still use Messenger? I'm not sure how it got popular in the first place since the market was already flooded with ICQ, AIM, and Yahoo! Messenger, all of which were arguably more functional than Messenger. I don't get the objections, though. What's wrong with Skype specifically? I know it's not specifically designed for text chat but is it that bad? Or is he objecting to the fact that calls are hosted from the PC rather than a central server? In all his ranting Thurrott never clearly defined his position.

The amount of memory commonly installed was the worst part. 128 MB was just becoming the standard, and 64 was the budget option. That's a pathetic amount of memory for XP but it was a lot for Windows 98. K-6s were still around and not all of them used SDRAM or they had some hybrid system of SDRAM and EDO. Most people with 256 MB or more RAM were building their own. I remember being mystified at how slowly PC specs rose to meet demand during this period. What we should have seen was a jump in RAM spec from 64-128 to 256-512 but instead it increased at the same pace as if a dramatic change in computer operation didn't happen. RAM was cheap back then, too. Even the "premium" computers cheaped out on RAM. It was very strange.

It's funny you mentioned TV. When I mentioned that a $125 price hike may be enough to collapse the PC market, I could hear the objection, if not here but elsewhere, that people pay that every month so they'd be willing to pay that for a computer, too. Well, like you said, due to economic factors, I think people are starting to wise up over the value (or lack thereof) of TV. And this is independent of the upcoming MLB renewal, which may spike rates to levels simply unaffordable to the average household.

You'd need a heavy downturn for a doubling in price. I think anything more than 25% across the board would be enough to kill the market. That's around a $125 increase for the average computer. Above this point I'd expect a snowball effect of people moving to tablets out of necessity given the enormous price disparity. The alternative would be an increase in value, i.e. computers designed to last more than twice as long at double the price. Consumers generally don't buy into this mentality as they'd rather pay less up front, but it has worked for the automobile industry.

Say goodbye to cheap computers or low-end computers? Is the target audience of your post (this site) buying cheap computers? Personally, I find believable erosion at the low end because there is a high amount of crossover with tablets but that crossover disappears as computers used for more specialized tasks get pricier. Tablets are generally lower in price so expect them to win the low-end market. Most business professionals, artists, and gamers aren't using the $350 Saturday morning special laptop from Walmart. Prices may still rise even at the mid and high ends but we already have the upper bound set and it's what Apple charges, so if prices do go up, they will be between what we have now and what Apple charges, all other things being equal (hardware specs, materials, etc.) Some people are of the opinion that computers are unrealistically cheap and have been for years, and we're seeing the results via OEMs considering leaving the market. This can actually be a good thing, even though prices rise. I'm thinking of the RAM market "crash" of 2001 where weaker vendors with lower quality products left a flooded market. Of course, price fixing via cartel was involved here, too, so it's not the purest example.

I'm unfamiliar with this model; can someone elaborate? I know you get licence keys via MSDN but my perception was the impact of their spread was minimal. This model doesn't sound scalable at all but I may be ignorant. Taking it a bit further, why even bother buying the MSDN subscriptions? Why not just use the KMS activators with the trial edition and call it a day? This idea sounds more scalable to me.

Can you even use old software with 365 or does it need to be rewritten? Does 365 support the calls used by scripts, like "objExcel"?

Easy solution: stop supporting them, and, even better, shrink the support window and take it out of the price (we all remember that the support cost is included in the price, right?). What do these monthly patches contribute anyway? If I rollback to Office 2003 SP3, which came out 5.5 years ago, would I really notice a difference? So we admit that Microsoft breaks functionality between versions, thus adding to the motivation to actively resist upgrading. Protip: breaking the product more often with more releases doesn't reduce support and development costs, it increases them! This is a problem of Microsoft's own making. Stop supporting products for 10 years and stop building said support into the price tag and then we can talk. Part of the selling point of Office used to be its long support window. Take that away but keep the price the same or higher and what's the motivation to buy? I thought Microsoft was supposed to hire the best and the brightest. Even at the basic support level I'd expect to find people who could handle multiple versions of Office. Hell all you really need is Google and some patience for most things. But I know how things are. Microsoft low level support staff is clueless about even the latest version of Office so I don't see how not training people for other versions increases cost. It's becoming alarming that the #1 argument these days is, "You should put up with these regressions because Microsoft makes more money from them." Oh, okay. So when Honda sells me a $30,000 car with no seatbelts, radio, or A/C and puts a 3 cylinder engine in because it's cheaper, I should let them slide because it's easier for them and they make more money.

Does "Steve Jobs Head" post in EVERY topic on Channel 9? I swear he's been there every single time I've been linked for the past five years. Anyway... http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Monopoly-Microsoft-was-more-customer-friendly-than-todays-friendly-Microsoft/7ea74cae5de143ea977aa1660137dd0c This can be done quite easily with account-based licensing and web downloads. Simply stop manufacturing the CDs. No draconian licensing scheme required. Hasn't this guy ever heard of iTunes or Steam?

I liked the first comment: The part about losing mindshare resonates especially. Over the past decade, Office has become something enshrined in the business user's ivory tower, and the "mom & pops" that have it either bummed it off friends or family in IT or their nephews got them a "don't ask" copy. People used to ask for Office whenever they bought a new computer but they're so used to it being a pain that they've given up. Microsoft is really losing a core group of people: "natural evangelists" who push their stuff up into a corporation and to the general public because the product quality is good. The way to get these people is to sell personal licenses on the cheap. That Microsoft is going in the opposite direction shows how out of touch they've become. It's probably too late to get these people back. In fact, I think part of the tablet-mania craze is that the exploratory group of IT users have nowhere else to go. They've even moved on from desktop Linux after 20 years of statistical insignificance. Mac OS is also stale, and over there people are also complaining about the OS becoming dumbed down and moving away from content creation in favor of content consumption, with even the flagship product Final Cut Pro jumping the shark.

[...] Now seriously, who talks like that, unless they are actually on the payroll? What person not on the payroll would be so wrapped up in Microsoft like that? It's so deluded it doesn't even make sense. HP doesn't just sell desktop computers or whatever. Their revenue is $120 billion! "A few more billion" isn't nearly enough to take on a company like this. Microsoft itself pulls in $74 billion by comparison. HP's profitability is down but that doesn't mean you can bully it around. Assets between the two are close enough: $109 billion for HP vs. 121 billion for MSFT. This is like saying ExxonMobil should put Shell Oil out of its misery. Not gonna happen! And since when is blindly following someone around a virtue? I have news for him: it's not "blind", HP did it because it was profitable. Now that it isn't, they're doing something else. Hard concept to grasp, I know. The Boromir quote reveals the kind of person he is. Viewing that act as straight up betrayal is myopic at best. Thurrott seems to be the kind of guy that would put you on his enemies list if you borrowed a pencil and forgot to give it back. Graphite Betrayal: A Tale of a Wooden Friend Disappearing into the Ether.

The discussion on Thurrott's site on launch day was atrocious. One person after another from all over the U.S. posted to say they called every Best Buy and Staples in the state with all of them saying they received zero or one 128 GB Surfaces and/or two or three 64 GB models. One apologist went as far to assume that every big box retailer in the country received 150, the number received by some Microsoft Stores, and proclaimed that Microsoft moved over half a million units the first day. Thurrott himself was fuming at the people who did their due diligence and couldn't find a retailer within a 200 mile range that received more than a handful of the things. It's sad we even need a wealth of articles crying "hoax" to see through this.

Regarding Steam, I posted these thoughts on another forum, with an expletive changed to comply with this site's profanity clause. I left in the word 'tard' because I think its meaning is reasonably understood in this context and can't think of an alternative. 'Fanboy' isn't close enough in my opinion, and I see 'tard' is used elsewhere in this thread.

Thanks, long time reader of this thread. Speculation: were Microsoft to discontinue sales of Windows 7 or put enough barriers in place to make it practically unobtainable, look for a significant rise in piracy. Bootlegging Microsoft stuff will become the new "OK" thing to do, like Napster was in the 90s. This would continue until the end of 7's viability, which could take a number of forms, including corrective behavior by Microsoft. The Verge started a rumor that Windows 8 API will be obsolete as soon as this summer: http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/28/3693368/windows-blue-update-low-cost It's unclear whether or not this change involves more than a recompile. Simple recompilation would ordinarily be a logical default assumption, but given Microsoft's recent behavior one almost needs to assume that it is a radical change.

Backward compatibility in consoles is a tricky thing. Since it is challenging, if not impossible, to be both cutting edge and backward compatible, there are basically only two methods to proceed, both of which have distinct disadvantages: 1. Recreate the hardware "guts" and include them in the new console. This has the disadvantage of significantly increasing unit cost but will be 100% compatible. 2. Build an emulator. Even a high-end PC can't handle accurately emulating any game console from the past 15 years, so what ends up happening is that the emulator is built around the 100 or so most popular games (plus spinoffs that use the same "engine") and for the rest the gamer is in no man's land. Even the "fully supported" games can suffer audio/visual glitches, game-crashing bugs, etc. just like the amateur emulators. Personally, given the reality of the situation, I think most gamers would rather pay less for new the console and hook up the old one. Microsoft's real mistake is not releasing a new console when they released Kinect. The XNA and used games scandals aren't helping, either. Before this console generation, gamers were accustomed to purchasing a new console every 3-5 years but because both Sony and Nintendo suffered their own drawn out decays, Microsoft decided to join in. Lazy.