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Inside Microsoft’s surprise decision to work with Google on its Edge browser
- dfabulich 7y agoThese interviews with MS executives are quite revealing. I was especially shocked to see them on the record bad-mouthing UWP. > Edge is also built on Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP), the company’s previous big push in Windows 8 and Windows 10 to get single universal apps that run across desktops, tablets, phones, Xbox consoles, and devices like the HoloLens. “Our third headwind was UWP. And it’s not that UWP is bad, but UWP is not a 35-year-old mature platform that a ridiculously huge amount of apps have been written to,” explains Belfiore. That meant things like multiple monitor support weren’t always solid for UWP, and the Edge team would have to wait for general UWP improvements. Microsoft had to get Edge back to a real desktop app, available across Windows 7, Mac, and Windows 10. I agree with every word of that, but you could have imagined somebody saying, "let's spend into this; port UWP to Win 7 and Mac and fix the bugs." Instead, Win32 has defeated yet another desktop competitor, as it always does.
- dman 7y agoIf you work for a few large companies you start to notice the pattern of Win32 like code. It should be dead, but it cannot be dead and it will not be dead until the company is dead. Network effects and political power of entrenched players means that they can freeze out any new replacements because the new replacements have to interface with the older entrenched solution.