4 ms·

I’d tend to agree. The difference is probably visibility. Microsoft have for the longest time been hiding in the cushy enterprise segment where customers pay

I’d tend to agree. The difference is probably visibility. Microsoft have for the longest time been hiding in the cushy enterprise segment where customers pay you halt development and kill products. Closed-off products. Perhaps not even a resonable API. Definitely not public facing. I’m kidding about enterprise software, but it’s kind of true.

iainmerrick 7y ago
Windows is “hiding in the cushy enterprise segment”??
- jordanbeiber 7y ago
  Well for sure, when it comes to developer exposure. This point was about “enterprise” software in general and the fact that many a project has been abandoned and put down in this space without much fanfare. Also, many big companies tend to pay a lot of money for software the never actually use, hence “cushy”.
  - iainmerrick 7y ago
    I think you have the wrong end of the stick. Plenty of companies do that, sure, but Microsoft has always been a very, very aggressive mass-market player. Their software is used in enterprise, sure, but it’s by almost every enterprise, not just isolated niches. They’re competitive on prices too (although it’s tough when many of your direct competitors are free). Compare MS Office with something like Maya or AutoCAD, say.
    - jordanbeiber 7y ago
      You might be missing my point a bit. First of all I’m talking developer exposure. Many angry devs have sat in their cubicle swearing at MS & others product teams for changes made or products dropped. These products doesn’t necessarily have the visibility of google services. What I’m further trying to say is that it’s a culture thing. Times are changing and with it the business model of selling standardized crap to clueless, ignorant customers. How quick this change comes for a company is dependent mostly on the inertia of it’s customer base i guess. Businesses are starting realize that you need to take back control of data and process to increase opportunities for innovation as well as speedy delivery. This culture has in ways been pioneered by for example google and others selling/providing services rather than software suites. They have constant change as an inherent property of their organization and this leaks. This is ofc just my take on it. (Digression regarding prices: maya and cad are business drivers. You need to compare them to SAP or possibly the bizdev stuff from MS == not cheap)
      - iainmerrick 7y ago
        There’s probably room for us both to be right, as MS is such a massive company with zillions of products. I’m coming at it mostly as a client-side developer, comparing to platforms like macOS, iOS and Android (and the web!) where things are constantly in flux, with new APIs added and old ones deprecated. Compared to those, Windows and .NET are extremely stable; they add new APIs, sure, but old ones tend to stick around and keep working for a long time (some would argue too long). That’s not to say I like Microsoft platforms and APIs; they tend to be badly-designed, buggy and fragmented. But in my experience at least, old MS APIs keep on working whereas old Google APIs get deprecated and shut down. It’s a very different developer experience, with different upsides and downsides.
        jordanbeiber 7y ago
        Sounds reasonable. There’s many perspectives to be had and I appreciate yours. I’ve spent far too much time in the “enterprise” spectrum of this business and arguably this is were MS for example have made the bulk of it’s fortune. The flux you mention could for many be a “good thing” assuming you can keep pace?

iainmerrick 7y ago

Windows is “hiding in the cushy enterprise segment”??

jordanbeiber 7y ago
Well for sure, when it comes to developer exposure. This point was about “enterprise” software in general and the fact that many a project has been abandoned and put down in this space without much fanfare. Also, many big companies tend to pay a lot of money for software the never actually use, hence “cushy”.
- iainmerrick 7y ago
  I think you have the wrong end of the stick. Plenty of companies do that, sure, but Microsoft has always been a very, very aggressive mass-market player. Their software is used in enterprise, sure, but it’s by almost every enterprise, not just isolated niches. They’re competitive on prices too (although it’s tough when many of your direct competitors are free). Compare MS Office with something like Maya or AutoCAD, say.
  - jordanbeiber 7y ago
    You might be missing my point a bit. First of all I’m talking developer exposure. Many angry devs have sat in their cubicle swearing at MS & others product teams for changes made or products dropped. These products doesn’t necessarily have the visibility of google services. What I’m further trying to say is that it’s a culture thing. Times are changing and with it the business model of selling standardized crap to clueless, ignorant customers. How quick this change comes for a company is dependent mostly on the inertia of it’s customer base i guess. Businesses are starting realize that you need to take back control of data and process to increase opportunities for innovation as well as speedy delivery. This culture has in ways been pioneered by for example google and others selling/providing services rather than software suites. They have constant change as an inherent property of their organization and this leaks. This is ofc just my take on it. (Digression regarding prices: maya and cad are business drivers. You need to compare them to SAP or possibly the bizdev stuff from MS == not cheap)
    - iainmerrick 7y ago
      There’s probably room for us both to be right, as MS is such a massive company with zillions of products. I’m coming at it mostly as a client-side developer, comparing to platforms like macOS, iOS and Android (and the web!) where things are constantly in flux, with new APIs added and old ones deprecated. Compared to those, Windows and .NET are extremely stable; they add new APIs, sure, but old ones tend to stick around and keep working for a long time (some would argue too long). That’s not to say I like Microsoft platforms and APIs; they tend to be badly-designed, buggy and fragmented. But in my experience at least, old MS APIs keep on working whereas old Google APIs get deprecated and shut down. It’s a very different developer experience, with different upsides and downsides.
      - jordanbeiber 7y ago
        Sounds reasonable. There’s many perspectives to be had and I appreciate yours. I’ve spent far too much time in the “enterprise” spectrum of this business and arguably this is were MS for example have made the bulk of it’s fortune. The flux you mention could for many be a “good thing” assuming you can keep pace?