7 ms·

>Only losing market share and power has made Microsoft produce software with reasonable quality, flexibility, and interoperability. And that, in my opinion, is

>Only losing market share and power has made Microsoft produce software with reasonable quality, flexibility, and interoperability. And that, in my opinion, is the way it's supposed to work. Vendor's products gettin' ya down? Not being responsive to your needs and lacking in quality? Move elsewhere! Money talks. A good kick in the ass can be a humbling experience, and a good opportunity for the open-minded. It was a long time in coming, but I'm glad to see MS is starting to take some of these lessons to heart. If they keep it up with actions such as these, there's a good chance they'll stand to be rewarded for it.

simoncion 11y ago
> If they keep it up with actions such as these, there's a good chance they'll stand to be rewarded for it. And -quickly enough- they'll go back to being the old MSFT we all knew and loathed from top to bottom, and these olive branches will vanish quicker than a pile of shaved ice on a summer day. For many of us, this isn't our first rodeo. :)
- th0waway 11y ago
  Embrace Extend Extinguish - many of us have seen that happen over the years. MS will not garner my personal support until the release code under the GPL.
- thebaer 11y ago
  At least now we'll have a decent editor we can continue to run ourselves when that happens. :)
- dbattaglia 11y ago
  Honest question: how many people from the embrace-extend-extinguish era are still at Microsoft? Once they are all gone, and the market has shifted several times since then, you would think that era would be over for them. Or, is it just deeply engrained in their corporate culture, which lives in longer than any individual employee? I kind of doubt it but it's interesting to think about.
  - cicero 11y ago
    The computer technology world has changed a lot since then, and I expect that intelligent people at Microsoft know that the old ways won't work again.
    - simoncion 11y ago
      > ...I expect that intelligent people at Microsoft know that the old ways won't work again [because] ... [t]he computer technology world has changed a lot since then ... I'm not nearly as confident as you seem to be. People with purchasing power can still be swayed by FUD. Less-technical bosses are not-infrequently swayed by marketing copy from glossy mags and giveaways from salesman rather than sound technical advice from technical staff. It's abundantly clear that shadowy back-room deals and front-room exclusionary deals based on tremendous price cuts on widgets that have a near-zero unit cost are still tremendously effective. I expect that within five or ten years, after this new crop of programmers have happily been making Microsoft software a critical part of their workflow, Microsoft will return to its traditional MO. As I said earlier, for many of us this isn't our first rodeo, and isn't the first time Microsoft has played the nice guy for a little while. :)
      - nojvek 11y ago
        I disagree. Before the game plan was to keep everyone in windows. Now with iOS and android killing things it's no longer about just windows. Satya's vision is very different from Ballmer. The big money makers are now shifting to Azure. This means if open sourcing tools that didn't make money will attract more Devs to azure. That is very valuable in the long term in business sense. This also gives Microsoft a good rep and gives a broader reach.
        simoncion 11y ago
        > I disagree. Before the game plan was to keep everyone in windows. Three things: 1) That describes a corporate goal, not a set of behaviors used to achieve it. There are many companies out there who also have the goal of "Keep everyone using our software.". Not many of them have utilized such destructive techniques as Microsoft has in pursuit of that goal. 2) Your second sentence would be more correctly spelt "Microsoft's game plan is to keep everyone using Microsoft software, wherever possible.". When you spell it that way, it becomes clear that the big picture actually hasn't changed. Windows was (and remains) a big part of that game plan, but for the past decade or two, it would be hard for an honest observer to make the claim that Microsoft was only interested in keeping folks on Windows. 3) Many of us have seen Microsoft play nice with the wider community. They never play nice for very long. The more cynical old-timers would say that this "play nice" phase is -itself- a part of the EEE strategy.
- DasIch 11y ago
  Why would they go back? That strategy seemed promising in the beginning but clearly it caused massive damage to their reputation and simply doesn't work in the long term.
  - wstrange 11y ago
    I think that strategy reaped them billions, and continues to do so (the Office franchise is still a money printing press).
    - simoncion 11y ago
      Yep. It's abundantly clear that their slimeball strategies worked very well for them for at least twenty years. In the computing industry, twenty years is a very long time. :)
- jevgeni 11y ago
  It's interesting that you don't make assumptions about future "evil" behaviour of their competition.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    Why is it interesting? The topic is Microsoft and Microsoft's past and present behavior. While it is next to impossible to truly consider a topic in a vacuum, it is very common practice to focus on a particular single topic or set of topics when engaging in discussion. This practice tends to promote productive discussion by allowing the conversants to momentarily disregard issues that are largely or completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
    - jevgeni 11y ago
      So, where's the criteria how the subject is constrained? Why are we talking about Microsoft and not the particular responsible Microsoft business division?
      - simoncion 11y ago
        > Why are we talking about Microsoft and not the particular responsible Microsoft business division? Because -as the US DoJ inquiry showed us- Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior has been a strategy that was pursued because of directives from C-level employees. Historically, it hasn't been low-to-mid-level minions spontaneously deciding to do great violence to the computer industry, it has been directives (either express or implied) from the top that caused them to behave in this way.
ms013 11y ago
> > Only losing market share and power has made Microsoft produce software with reasonable quality, flexibility, and interoperability. > And that, in my opinion, is the way it's supposed to work. Vendor's products gettin' ya down? Not being responsive to your needs and lacking in quality? Move elsewhere! Money talks. Exactly. That's what got Apple where they are today as well. Pre-Rhapsody, MacOS was largely a joke in the developer community, but that changed drastically when they ditched the archaic MacOS for the Nextstep derived OSX. When that happened, suddenly there was a reasonable alternative to Windows or the various Unices out there. It seems entirely natural that, like the shift that pushed people towards Apple, we would see similar shifts in other OS's that would entice people to think more broadly than seeing Apple as the dominant desirable dev platform. That seems like a healthy thing with respect to avoiding a stagnant monoculture.

simoncion 11y ago

> If they keep it up with actions such as these, there's a good chance they'll stand to be rewarded for it. And -quickly enough- they'll go back to being the old MSFT we all knew and loathed from top to bottom, and these olive branches will vanish quicker than a pile of shaved ice on a summer day. For many of us, this isn't our first rodeo. :)

th0waway 11y ago
Embrace Extend Extinguish - many of us have seen that happen over the years. MS will not garner my personal support until the release code under the GPL.
thebaer 11y ago
At least now we'll have a decent editor we can continue to run ourselves when that happens. :)
dbattaglia 11y ago
Honest question: how many people from the embrace-extend-extinguish era are still at Microsoft? Once they are all gone, and the market has shifted several times since then, you would think that era would be over for them. Or, is it just deeply engrained in their corporate culture, which lives in longer than any individual employee? I kind of doubt it but it's interesting to think about.
- cicero 11y ago
  The computer technology world has changed a lot since then, and I expect that intelligent people at Microsoft know that the old ways won't work again.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > ...I expect that intelligent people at Microsoft know that the old ways won't work again [because] ... [t]he computer technology world has changed a lot since then ... I'm not nearly as confident as you seem to be. People with purchasing power can still be swayed by FUD. Less-technical bosses are not-infrequently swayed by marketing copy from glossy mags and giveaways from salesman rather than sound technical advice from technical staff. It's abundantly clear that shadowy back-room deals and front-room exclusionary deals based on tremendous price cuts on widgets that have a near-zero unit cost are still tremendously effective. I expect that within five or ten years, after this new crop of programmers have happily been making Microsoft software a critical part of their workflow, Microsoft will return to its traditional MO. As I said earlier, for many of us this isn't our first rodeo, and isn't the first time Microsoft has played the nice guy for a little while. :)
    - nojvek 11y ago
      I disagree. Before the game plan was to keep everyone in windows. Now with iOS and android killing things it's no longer about just windows. Satya's vision is very different from Ballmer. The big money makers are now shifting to Azure. This means if open sourcing tools that didn't make money will attract more Devs to azure. That is very valuable in the long term in business sense. This also gives Microsoft a good rep and gives a broader reach.
      - simoncion 11y ago
        > I disagree. Before the game plan was to keep everyone in windows. Three things: 1) That describes a corporate goal, not a set of behaviors used to achieve it. There are many companies out there who also have the goal of "Keep everyone using our software.". Not many of them have utilized such destructive techniques as Microsoft has in pursuit of that goal. 2) Your second sentence would be more correctly spelt "Microsoft's game plan is to keep everyone using Microsoft software, wherever possible.". When you spell it that way, it becomes clear that the big picture actually hasn't changed. Windows was (and remains) a big part of that game plan, but for the past decade or two, it would be hard for an honest observer to make the claim that Microsoft was only interested in keeping folks on Windows. 3) Many of us have seen Microsoft play nice with the wider community. They never play nice for very long. The more cynical old-timers would say that this "play nice" phase is -itself- a part of the EEE strategy.
DasIch 11y ago
Why would they go back? That strategy seemed promising in the beginning but clearly it caused massive damage to their reputation and simply doesn't work in the long term.
- wstrange 11y ago
  I think that strategy reaped them billions, and continues to do so (the Office franchise is still a money printing press).
  - simoncion 11y ago
    Yep. It's abundantly clear that their slimeball strategies worked very well for them for at least twenty years. In the computing industry, twenty years is a very long time. :)
jevgeni 11y ago
It's interesting that you don't make assumptions about future "evil" behaviour of their competition.
- simoncion 11y ago
  Why is it interesting? The topic is Microsoft and Microsoft's past and present behavior. While it is next to impossible to truly consider a topic in a vacuum, it is very common practice to focus on a particular single topic or set of topics when engaging in discussion. This practice tends to promote productive discussion by allowing the conversants to momentarily disregard issues that are largely or completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
  - jevgeni 11y ago
    So, where's the criteria how the subject is constrained? Why are we talking about Microsoft and not the particular responsible Microsoft business division?
    - simoncion 11y ago
      > Why are we talking about Microsoft and not the particular responsible Microsoft business division? Because -as the US DoJ inquiry showed us- Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior has been a strategy that was pursued because of directives from C-level employees. Historically, it hasn't been low-to-mid-level minions spontaneously deciding to do great violence to the computer industry, it has been directives (either express or implied) from the top that caused them to behave in this way.

ms013 11y ago

> > Only losing market share and power has made Microsoft produce software with reasonable quality, flexibility, and interoperability. > And that, in my opinion, is the way it's supposed to work. Vendor's products gettin' ya down? Not being responsive to your needs and lacking in quality? Move elsewhere! Money talks. Exactly. That's what got Apple where they are today as well. Pre-Rhapsody, MacOS was largely a joke in the developer community, but that changed drastically when they ditched the archaic MacOS for the Nextstep derived OSX. When that happened, suddenly there was a reasonable alternative to Windows or the various Unices out there. It seems entirely natural that, like the shift that pushed people towards Apple, we would see similar shifts in other OS's that would entice people to think more broadly than seeing Apple as the dominant desirable dev platform. That seems like a healthy thing with respect to avoiding a stagnant monoculture.