4 ms·

Does this mean that old microsoft is back? We all know that edge is a thing because it's being tied into windows as the default browser for opening links in a

Does this mean that old microsoft is back? We all know that edge is a thing because it's being tied into windows as the default browser for opening links in a way thats hard to permanently disable, so it's basically the behavior they got fined over with IE back in the old days.

csydas 3y ago
>Does this mean that old microsoft is back? It never left. > edge is a thing I'm not sure anyone, even Microsoft, really knows why Edge is a thing even; Microsoft already basically has lock-in for some time on consumer computing because of Windows; MacOS, iOS, and Android have their strong competitive pieces of the marketshare by competing on either controlling the entire stack (Apple) or on price and ubiquity (Android), so I'm not sure why the browser wars of all things is a hill that Microsoft is insistent on planting its flag upon. It's not like Internet Explorer had been relevant for any significant time, and even when it was dominant, it was only so because there weren't any other options and home computers were still new; there wasn't much weight to the browser decision except for people who were invested in such arguments -- everyone else just wanted to see what the Web was and didn't really care how they got there as long as it worked. As I get it, Chrome was useful for Google because Google already had all that other data from Search, and Chrome just helped ingest more data and add a platform as a gateway to all of other Google's services; Microsoft doesn't really have anything to usher users into. Even Apple hasn't really bothered with this with Safari, which remains fairly simple in terms of integrations and services, and instead uses the entire Mac stack to get people onto its services from any number of given points So I really don't know why there is so much focus on Edge from Microsoft; with the Bing Chat, I guess they saw a spot where Google was floundering and took a stab at making Edge + Bing a daily thing, but I'm not sure that it's grabbing people like Microsoft hoped it would; that Google is having similar traction issues with Bard makes me think that the AI integration is premature and not the savior either company hopes it will be. The Moat Memo about Google and OpenAI was quite candid assessment of why Google and OpenAI were going about LLMs incorrectly; I think it's not a leap of logic to group Microsoft along with them, as the same concerns from the memo apply to Microsoft; FOSS models and projects are doing far more with less resources than any of the aforementioned companies. So I really don't get why Microsoft wants Edge to be a thing and why it's trying to make it part of everyone's lives without anything particularly nice. Decisions like the article are something I'd expect to come once everyone's already locked in, not when Microsoft is still clawing for market share. There aren't any "wow-ing" elements to anything you get from Edge, and it's quite lacking compared to other browsers. The things you do get with Edge that other browsers don't have are things that no one really wants; I don't think people like the forcefulness from Microsoft about Edge and at best people tolerate Microsoft's behaviors, I don't think anyone actually wants most of them. Maybe it's just that because they have nothing to lose, Microsoft is willing to go hard with very aggressive ideas since at best it works and makes them some money, at worst they continue to have no adoption. The failures will be forgotten by an audience with short memory spans who instead just look for the next thing to get dramatic over, so I guess there's not really a downside to what Microsoft does, but man, it has to be an expensive gamble that I just can't see the pay off on.
- Stranger43 3y ago
  To me it's kind of obvious that Edge exists to promote bing/msn/homail i.e. it's there because without a way to push windows/Office users to those sites/services MS web presence is going to be basically nothing.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  > I'm not sure anyone, even Microsoft, really knows why Edge is a thing even On Windows there are still a lot of applications that rely on an browser engine they can embed into the application. That used to be MSHTML, but is now being moved to the Edge-based WebView2[1]. [1]: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview...
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  Microsoft has a whole suite of SaaS products they wish to usher us into: Outlook, OneDrive, Office365, and all the rest. Especially with Office, they expect users to abandon locally-installed apps in favor of the cloud apps, which are necessarily delivered via a good, solid web browser.
  - csydas 3y ago
    but they already did. you can get to all of these without Microsoft needing to invest in Edge, and they did without Microsoft having to invest in Edge. They also invested in clients for all of those, and linking it all up in azure. Microsoft still has gobs of cash as s result of those services. Edge isn't necessary for any of it.
is_true 3y ago
[flagged]

csydas 3y ago

>Does this mean that old microsoft is back? It never left. > edge is a thing I'm not sure anyone, even Microsoft, really knows why Edge is a thing even; Microsoft already basically has lock-in for some time on consumer computing because of Windows; MacOS, iOS, and Android have their strong competitive pieces of the marketshare by competing on either controlling the entire stack (Apple) or on price and ubiquity (Android), so I'm not sure why the browser wars of all things is a hill that Microsoft is insistent on planting its flag upon. It's not like Internet Explorer had been relevant for any significant time, and even when it was dominant, it was only so because there weren't any other options and home computers were still new; there wasn't much weight to the browser decision except for people who were invested in such arguments -- everyone else just wanted to see what the Web was and didn't really care how they got there as long as it worked. As I get it, Chrome was useful for Google because Google already had all that other data from Search, and Chrome just helped ingest more data and add a platform as a gateway to all of other Google's services; Microsoft doesn't really have anything to usher users into. Even Apple hasn't really bothered with this with Safari, which remains fairly simple in terms of integrations and services, and instead uses the entire Mac stack to get people onto its services from any number of given points So I really don't know why there is so much focus on Edge from Microsoft; with the Bing Chat, I guess they saw a spot where Google was floundering and took a stab at making Edge + Bing a daily thing, but I'm not sure that it's grabbing people like Microsoft hoped it would; that Google is having similar traction issues with Bard makes me think that the AI integration is premature and not the savior either company hopes it will be. The Moat Memo about Google and OpenAI was quite candid assessment of why Google and OpenAI were going about LLMs incorrectly; I think it's not a leap of logic to group Microsoft along with them, as the same concerns from the memo apply to Microsoft; FOSS models and projects are doing far more with less resources than any of the aforementioned companies. So I really don't get why Microsoft wants Edge to be a thing and why it's trying to make it part of everyone's lives without anything particularly nice. Decisions like the article are something I'd expect to come once everyone's already locked in, not when Microsoft is still clawing for market share. There aren't any "wow-ing" elements to anything you get from Edge, and it's quite lacking compared to other browsers. The things you do get with Edge that other browsers don't have are things that no one really wants; I don't think people like the forcefulness from Microsoft about Edge and at best people tolerate Microsoft's behaviors, I don't think anyone actually wants most of them. Maybe it's just that because they have nothing to lose, Microsoft is willing to go hard with very aggressive ideas since at best it works and makes them some money, at worst they continue to have no adoption. The failures will be forgotten by an audience with short memory spans who instead just look for the next thing to get dramatic over, so I guess there's not really a downside to what Microsoft does, but man, it has to be an expensive gamble that I just can't see the pay off on.

Stranger43 3y ago
To me it's kind of obvious that Edge exists to promote bing/msn/homail i.e. it's there because without a way to push windows/Office users to those sites/services MS web presence is going to be basically nothing.
magicalhippo 3y ago
> I'm not sure anyone, even Microsoft, really knows why Edge is a thing even On Windows there are still a lot of applications that rely on an browser engine they can embed into the application. That used to be MSHTML, but is now being moved to the Edge-based WebView2[1]. [1]: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/ https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview...
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Microsoft has a whole suite of SaaS products they wish to usher us into: Outlook, OneDrive, Office365, and all the rest. Especially with Office, they expect users to abandon locally-installed apps in favor of the cloud apps, which are necessarily delivered via a good, solid web browser.
- csydas 3y ago
  but they already did. you can get to all of these without Microsoft needing to invest in Edge, and they did without Microsoft having to invest in Edge. They also invested in clients for all of those, and linking it all up in azure. Microsoft still has gobs of cash as s result of those services. Edge isn't necessary for any of it.

is_true 3y ago

[flagged]