4 ms·

Every website you use -- especially every Google and Facebook site -- is doing data-driven development where security and UI updates are made on a continuous ba

• Silhouette 10y ago
  Every website you use -- especially every Google and Facebook site -- is doing data-driven development where security and UI updates are made on a continuous basis. That doesn't make it a good thing, though. Getting to our usual dashboard now takes about half a minute on Google Analytics instead of about two seconds, thanks to their latest UI update. Facebook have lost a small fortune in advertising revenue from my businesses because of all the times that they've changed their management pages so they simply didn't work when we were going to run ads. So are a lot of other programs, including browsers. And with my professional web development hat on, "evergreen" browsers that update every six weeks are among the worst things that have ever happened to the industry. It's the same culture that also brings us a new JS framework every five minutes and a new half-baked, non-standardised CSS feature every ten. None of this is good unless it actually helps people to do more online, and all too often the reverse is true. Welcome to the modern world. Thanks, but I'll keep my old school systems where things like stability and reliability matter more than this week's shiny new UI chrome. That's why we still run Win7, we run Linux servers, our web sites and apps only rely on standardised, well-established features, and so on. Try the US Defense Department, Accenture, and Bank of America. Are you seriously claiming that the US DOD and major financial institutions let Microsoft install arbitrary updates and reboot their systems whenever they feel like it? I find that impossible to believe. As I said, Windows 10 Enterprise is essentially a different product.
  • scholia 10y ago
    > Are you seriously claiming that the US DOD and major financial institutions let Microsoft install arbitrary updates and reboot their systems whenever they feel like it? I find that impossible to believe. They are among the organizations moving to Windows 10. In fact, most organizations are moving to Windows 10. DoD-Wide Windows 10 Rapid Deployment to Boost Cybersecurity https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/688721/dod-wide-windows-10-rapid-deployment-to-boost-cybersecurity https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/688721/dod-wide...
    • Silhouette 10y ago
      But the question under discussion wasn't who was moving to Windows 10, it was whether bundling of security and UI updates was the way things were going and whether giving up control over the update process is acceptable to everyone. My argument throughout has been that not everyone is willing to hand over that level of external control of their systems, and that Microsoft recognises this by having a very different upgrade regime for Windows 10 Enterprise.
      • scholia 10y ago
        > whether bundling of security and UI updates was the way things were going Clearly, it is... > and whether giving up control over the update process is acceptable to everyone Clearly, it's not. But the adoption rates for Windows 10 show that it's acceptable to the vast majority of people. > by having a very different upgrade regime for Windows 10 Enterprise Really? How is it "very different".
        • Silhouette 10y ago
          Clearly, it is... It isn't clear at all that bundling security and UI updates is the way things are going. That may be true if you look at very narrow parts of the market, but for example all of our servers and pretty much every piece of software we run on them get separate, individually installable security updates that very deliberately don't change any other functionality (and with extremely high reliability, don't break anything in the process either). But the adoption rates for Windows 10 show that it's acceptable to the vast majority of people. That's still a stretch. Nearly two years after release, even with very aggressive promotion including literally giving it away to home users for one of those years, it looks like Windows 10 still has far less market share than Windows 7. I don't know see you can get to "vast majority of people" from there. As for businesses, large enterprises may be moving towards 10, though I note that the citations you gave earlier were invariably future predictions by analysts rather than actual adoption numbers. However, as I keep saying, large enterprises are getting a version that is very different, because it doesn't suffer from problems like having mandatory updates (or telemetry etc.) that have been widely criticised in other editions. In contrast, and in complete opposition to your earlier claim that most organisations are moving to Windows 10, I mostly work with smaller tech businesses, where approximately none are currently moving to Windows 10 as their standard platform and several are actively looking into alternatives. If that experience is even remotely representative of the wider customer base, the nerfing of the Pro edition is going to hurt Microsoft if they don't fix it before the 2020 deadline. These companies don't have "IT departments" and they don't want "enterprise licensing deals". They want to buy new PCs that they can use to do their work, and for the less technical businesses, they usually want those PCs to be something Bob from Customer Support can set up because he knows a bit about how the office network works and has a list of which software they usually install for new starters. Getting away from all the other hassle is a big part of why cloud-based services are so popular.