4 ms·
Agreed - it's good to be cautious - but, Microsoft's approach toward E/E/E was rational (if slightly evil), when they were trying to control the platform. But
by ghshephard 11y ago
Agreed - it's good to be cautious - but, Microsoft's approach toward E/E/E was rational (if slightly evil), when they were trying to control the platform.
But now, they are trying to control the service/data, in which case the cloud-API (theirs, preferably) is what they want everyone to buy into. In that model, they deploy completely proprietary service interfaces (similar to what Amazon does with AWS, stripe with their API, etc..) - but at the same time, they want to have 100% support of all platforms - particularly in the mobile world where they have round-off presence.
Net-Net, It's entirely rational for a profit-maximizing Microsoft (of 2016, at least) to play nice with all alternative client platforms. I believe Satya Nadella's Microsoft is going to be a very difference animal than the Balmer/Gates Microsoft.
I guess we'll see over the next 5 years, but it looks positive so far.
- Piskvorrr 11y agoOh, we're already seeing ahemSkypeahem. Is that not MS? Is that not Linux? Is that not seriously user-hostile? (Ohbutthat'ssomethingcompletelydifferent. Right?)
- tallanvor 11y agoNot really. I'd say it's more that Skype on Linux isn't a priority for them. They have it on Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS... And if you think it's user-hostile for MS to not continue development of Skype on Linux, don't you have to agree that Instagram, Snapchat, and all the other app developers that don't release apps for Windows Phone are user-hostile as well?
- Piskvorrr 11y agoThere's a difference between "let's not start a port of Y at all" and "start degrading experience on an existing port of Z." (See? "MS is completely pro-Linux (where completely excludes anything that contradicts this, leading to a nice circular definition)" - that's as no-true-scotsman as you can get)
- wmccullough 11y agoYou are very clearly grabbing at straws here. This isn't some nefarious tinfoil hat plot. I honestly suspect their focus is truly being spent elsewhere.
- Piskvorrr 11y agoI must admit that an absence of a plot is more probable than presence of one.
- Paradigma11 11y agoConsidering how inept the development of Skype was during the last years on any platform i find it completely unplausible that there is any nefarious intent to this.
- srikz 11y agoThe desktop (win32) Skype app is pretty crappy even on a surface pro 3 and a lot of features are still missing in their UWA apps. For something as important (for microsoft) as Skype the software is bad.
- ghshephard 11y agoSkype works fine on IOS, Mac, Windows(obv), and Android as well. The number of people who run linux on their desktop is probably on the same order as those who run BlackBerry - neither one of which has enough market presence to make it worth writing/maintaining apps for them. I'm pretty sure Skype isn't available from MS on OpenBSD either. (And, honestly, pretty soon, I wouldn't be shocked if Windows Phone doesn't get the same care and attention that IOS does).