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I don't think they care about Windows that much any more. They even dissolved the team and it's now a part of Azure team / Office team.

by Quiark 7y ago

hestefisk 7y ago
“Don’t care” is probably a stretch. There is still a ton of corporates who pay MS license feee for Windows. It’s still a huge part of core revenue, but future long term. revenue streams will come from services and new platforms.
- mr_toad 7y ago
  I think those corporations care more about ADS and all the user management infrastructure than they do about Windows desktop. If they could manage Linux desktops with group policy settings they wouldn’t need Windows at all.
  - cwyers 7y ago
    All it takes is one application that's Windows-only and a lot of places are locked in. And maybe it's an app that isn't made anymore, or maybe it's an internal line-of-business app with no ready off-the-shelf replacement.
    - kelnos 7y ago
      That wouldn't necessarily be a problem, though. They wouldn't kill the Win32/Win64 APIs or anything else that people tend to write Windows applications to, they would just replace NT with Linux and adapt the Windows APIs to run on Linux (basically WINE, but presumably Microsoft could do a more complete/compatible job due to all the institutional knowledge they have). Some apps still wouldn't work, like anything that calls NT APIs, but they could make that work with a compatibility layer until they're ported. I agree that this seems a bit unlikely, though. But who knows where their priorities may lie in the future?
      - cwyers 7y ago
        Okay, flip it around -- how many places are using a piece of hardware that doesn't have a proper Linux driver? How many people are still using laptops where Linux has problems with sleep/hibernate? And where do the benefits of using the Linux kernel come from?
        kelnos 7y ago
        I'm not disagreeing with this at all. Merely addressing the point made about what most apps are written using.
      - wbl 7y ago
        NT was the best part!
    - hestefisk 7y ago
      A significant amount of businesses worldwide are still run on Excel sheets and Access databases on SMB fileshares. Combine that with an insane amount of VBA code and you have something it is very hard to justify why you should spend time and money porting or virtualising when you can just keep it running on Windows. I work with very large banks and insurers and see this everywhere. Justify effort / cost / risk / benefits of that vs investing in new customer / ‘digital’ stuff that will actually sell more.

I don't think they care about Windows that much any more. They even dissolved the team and it's now a part of Azure team / Office team.

by Quiark 7y ago

I don't think they care about Windows that much any more. They even dissolved the team and it's now a part of Azure team / Office team.

hestefisk 7y ago

“Don’t care” is probably a stretch. There is still a ton of corporates who pay MS license feee for Windows. It’s still a huge part of core revenue, but future long term. revenue streams will come from services and new platforms.

mr_toad 7y ago
I think those corporations care more about ADS and all the user management infrastructure than they do about Windows desktop. If they could manage Linux desktops with group policy settings they wouldn’t need Windows at all.
- cwyers 7y ago
  All it takes is one application that's Windows-only and a lot of places are locked in. And maybe it's an app that isn't made anymore, or maybe it's an internal line-of-business app with no ready off-the-shelf replacement.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    That wouldn't necessarily be a problem, though. They wouldn't kill the Win32/Win64 APIs or anything else that people tend to write Windows applications to, they would just replace NT with Linux and adapt the Windows APIs to run on Linux (basically WINE, but presumably Microsoft could do a more complete/compatible job due to all the institutional knowledge they have). Some apps still wouldn't work, like anything that calls NT APIs, but they could make that work with a compatibility layer until they're ported. I agree that this seems a bit unlikely, though. But who knows where their priorities may lie in the future?
    - cwyers 7y ago
      Okay, flip it around -- how many places are using a piece of hardware that doesn't have a proper Linux driver? How many people are still using laptops where Linux has problems with sleep/hibernate? And where do the benefits of using the Linux kernel come from?
      - kelnos 7y ago
        I'm not disagreeing with this at all. Merely addressing the point made about what most apps are written using.
    - wbl 7y ago
      NT was the best part!
  - hestefisk 7y ago
    A significant amount of businesses worldwide are still run on Excel sheets and Access databases on SMB fileshares. Combine that with an insane amount of VBA code and you have something it is very hard to justify why you should spend time and money porting or virtualising when you can just keep it running on Windows. I work with very large banks and insurers and see this everywhere. Justify effort / cost / risk / benefits of that vs investing in new customer / ‘digital’ stuff that will actually sell more.