7 ms·

> No company would invest a massive amount of money in a duplicate product. I don't mean to be rude, but have you worked at a very large company like Microsoft

> No company would invest a massive amount of money in a duplicate product. I don't mean to be rude, but have you worked at a very large company like Microsoft or Amazon or Google? Redundant products are par for the course because of the byzantine internal politics and funding structures of big companies.

m0xte 7y ago
Big companies like Microsoft and Google like to burn products with little notice too.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  ...and small companies go under or radically morph their products. There's this irrational demand vocal on social media that large corporations keep their products forever.
  - sitkack 7y ago
    Sears is doing it!
- tw04 7y ago
  Google sure, but Microsoft? The company that kept the Zune service alive for 4 years after the product was EOL and with a userbase likely measured in the hundreds of thousands? https://www.wired.com/2015/09/what-to-do-with-your-zune-rip-zune/ https://www.wired.com/2015/09/what-to-do-with-your-zune-rip-... The company who STILL supports 16-bit apps? https://www.groovypost.com/howto/enable-16-bit-application-support-windows-10/ https://www.groovypost.com/howto/enable-16-bit-application-s... Ya... I would hardly say MS is known for killing stuff early - more like they've spent years being ridiculed for carrying baggage forward for decades longer than anyone else. MS might be bad at a lot of things, but I'd hardly say they're known for "burning products with little notice".
  - glenneroo 7y ago
    Then again there is this list of 346 discontinued Microsoft products, some of which had very short lifespans: https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-microsoft-products https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
    - JohnBooty 7y ago
      Yes, I would definitely hate to trust Microsoft with my enterprise software build pipeline because of how they refused to support Microsoft Bob.
      - sebst 7y ago
        Well, probably not because of Bob, but their cloud based offerings have make me wonder about trust. - Business Contact Manager for Outlook, Outlook Customer Manager - Microsoft Invoicing, Listings etc. And these are critical applications for a company. Have a look at Sharepoint which is widely used and has an uncertain future. Or the strategy behind Lync, Skype and now teams. But we'll see. Microsoft has shifted in a good way in the last couple of years but their track record in keeping legacy operating system APIs for decades is not necessarily a good indicator of the stability of their other product lines.
        jannotti 7y ago
        Sharepoint has an uncertain future? I had never heard of it a year ago, but as I got to know the "enterprise" space, it seems every large company is heavily invested in it. What might replace the need to share documents across a company in the MS world?
        tw04 7y ago
        Business Contact manager is still fully supported - it's just not supported on the latest version of outlook. On Outlook 2010 you've got support through the end of 2020. For Outlook 2013 they haven't announced an end-of-support date yet. Microsoft Invoice has transitioned to a cloud-based product, so again, they didn't end support. You might not like the new purchasing model, but that's very much different than them burning the product to the ground. https://einvoice.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?MSIStateKey=f513d8a9-6ca5-4f6e-bdc0-3d80eb741308 https://einvoice.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?MSIStateKey=f513... Sharepoint is the backend for onedrive for business, and fully integrated in to Teams. What on earth would make you think it's going away?
- kerng 7y ago
  That is true for Google, but certainly not for Microsoft. Microsoft's support for legacy software is pretty amazing actually.
  - m0xte 7y ago
    It's terrible. AppFabric, WCF, WWF, windows phone. I could go on for hours...
    - merb 7y ago
      WCF is still supported and a lot of stuff works on .net core 3.x and more is coming in 5.x. webforms on the other hand... (which should die a more faster death)
pknopf 7y ago
See this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22872556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22872556

m0xte 7y ago

Big companies like Microsoft and Google like to burn products with little notice too.

koheripbal 7y ago
...and small companies go under or radically morph their products. There's this irrational demand vocal on social media that large corporations keep their products forever.
- sitkack 7y ago
  Sears is doing it!
tw04 7y ago
Google sure, but Microsoft? The company that kept the Zune service alive for 4 years after the product was EOL and with a userbase likely measured in the hundreds of thousands? https://www.wired.com/2015/09/what-to-do-with-your-zune-rip-zune/ https://www.wired.com/2015/09/what-to-do-with-your-zune-rip-... The company who STILL supports 16-bit apps? https://www.groovypost.com/howto/enable-16-bit-application-support-windows-10/ https://www.groovypost.com/howto/enable-16-bit-application-s... Ya... I would hardly say MS is known for killing stuff early - more like they've spent years being ridiculed for carrying baggage forward for decades longer than anyone else. MS might be bad at a lot of things, but I'd hardly say they're known for "burning products with little notice".
- glenneroo 7y ago
  Then again there is this list of 346 discontinued Microsoft products, some of which had very short lifespans: https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-microsoft-products https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
  - JohnBooty 7y ago
    Yes, I would definitely hate to trust Microsoft with my enterprise software build pipeline because of how they refused to support Microsoft Bob.
    - sebst 7y ago
      Well, probably not because of Bob, but their cloud based offerings have make me wonder about trust. - Business Contact Manager for Outlook, Outlook Customer Manager - Microsoft Invoicing, Listings etc. And these are critical applications for a company. Have a look at Sharepoint which is widely used and has an uncertain future. Or the strategy behind Lync, Skype and now teams. But we'll see. Microsoft has shifted in a good way in the last couple of years but their track record in keeping legacy operating system APIs for decades is not necessarily a good indicator of the stability of their other product lines.
      - jannotti 7y ago
        Sharepoint has an uncertain future? I had never heard of it a year ago, but as I got to know the "enterprise" space, it seems every large company is heavily invested in it. What might replace the need to share documents across a company in the MS world?
      - tw04 7y ago
        Business Contact manager is still fully supported - it's just not supported on the latest version of outlook. On Outlook 2010 you've got support through the end of 2020. For Outlook 2013 they haven't announced an end-of-support date yet. Microsoft Invoice has transitioned to a cloud-based product, so again, they didn't end support. You might not like the new purchasing model, but that's very much different than them burning the product to the ground. https://einvoice.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?MSIStateKey=f513d8a9-6ca5-4f6e-bdc0-3d80eb741308 https://einvoice.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?MSIStateKey=f513... Sharepoint is the backend for onedrive for business, and fully integrated in to Teams. What on earth would make you think it's going away?
kerng 7y ago
That is true for Google, but certainly not for Microsoft. Microsoft's support for legacy software is pretty amazing actually.
- m0xte 7y ago
  It's terrible. AppFabric, WCF, WWF, windows phone. I could go on for hours...
  - merb 7y ago
    WCF is still supported and a lot of stuff works on .net core 3.x and more is coming in 5.x. webforms on the other hand... (which should die a more faster death)

pknopf 7y ago

See this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22872556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22872556