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How can a company this big fail so hard in what one would consider their main* product still baffles me. *Yes, they probably make more revenue in Azure or Offi
by xswhiskey 8mo ago
How can a company this big fail so hard in what one would consider their main* product still baffles me.
*Yes, they probably make more revenue in Azure or Office365 licenses but at least when I think “Microsoft” I immediately think Windows.
- Rohansi 8mo agoI always see articles like this and have never had it happen to me. It's definitely something that affects specific hardware and/or software combinations instead of just poor QA.
- eviks 8mo agoWhy does it matter (from the company's ability to fail perspective) what you immediately think of? (yeah, Windows isn't their main product, quick search says it's 10% revenue vs 40% for servers, 22% office, and 9% gaming, so wouldn't that decline be relevant in explaining why it's neglected and fail?)
- ThunderSizzle 8mo agoIf you aren't running Windows, you probably aren't using Office. Half the reason for Office is Exchange, and half the reason is the integration of Exchange with Active Directory. Without any of that, does Office make sense anymore compared to something like GSuite?
- eviks 8mo agoOk, so it's an important dependency, but the fact that it's a small product line can still explain the neglect. For example, is it baffling that companies don't invest time/money in open source libraries they use even though those might be important for their main products?
- jimnotgym 8mo agoCorrect. IT departments want Active Directory. Create a user, apportion a 365 licence and boom, they have email, Teams, OneDrive etc. Add them to some groups and they have all the files they need. Excel is better than Sheets in ways which are important for 0.01% of users, but that is all.
- NetMageSCW 8mo agoI think Excel is better in Sheets in ways that are important for a lot more users, but it isn’t the same ways for each user.
- jimnotgym 8mo agoAlso, which I should have said, is for that small group, the missing Sheets features are a show-stopper, not just an annoyance
- stackskipton 8mo agoYea. Even if you are all MacOS shop, Office has Desktop Applications that run on MacOS. I find so many companies that use GSuite still buy Office licenses for select employees. There is plenty of places that will just go all in 365 for that reason alone.
- Marsymars 8mo agoI’m mostly not running Windows, but I dislike web apps, so GSuite is out. I could use Numbers, but I need cloud file storage that works on Android, and Office 365 vs Google One are roughly the same price for the storage I need, so I don’t see any particular reason to put the effort in to migrate from Excel/OneDrive to Numbers/Google Drive.
- OkayPhysicist 8mo agoWindows for personal computers and Office are the only products that make Microsoft relevant. No one on god's green earth is choosing Windows Server on its own merits: They're picking it for software compatibility reasons stemming from software being written on, and exclusively targeting, Windows Desktop. Hell, most of the office suite is chosen because it's easier to buy more stuff from somebody you're already buying stuff from than to find someone new. No one has ever chosen Teams as the best product in its space. Very few products Microsoft sells would be worth buying by themselves. They exclusively make mediocre products that are merely the default choice once you've been hoodwinked into buying into Windows or XBOX. If the break Windows, all the money disappears.
- BizarroLand 8mo agoWindows server compared to any linux server os is extraordinarily inferior in every regard except for the AD Domain services interface, which is a leftover from probably Windows NT that they haven't screwed with in the interim so it still functions.
- sgjohnson 8mo agoThe funniest part about Windows Server licensing that I find is the requirement to have CALs (Client Access Licenses) - $5/mo a pop for each device using _any_ service provided by the Windows Server. You run your Windows Server as a DHCP server? That's $5/mo for the clients to get a DHCP lease. Of course, one CAL covers all services for the entire client, but it's still funny to me.
- layer8 8mo agoI think you’re missing Active Directory, that’s a major reason why corporations stick with Windows.
- Akronymus 8mo agoBecause they no longer see windows as anything more than a delivery platform for their subscription services, IMO
- mossTechnician 8mo agoYou're entirely right, but they need to maintain Windows in order to promote those services. The OS and their various applications have a symbiotic relationship where they prioritize each other. If Microsoft discontinued Windows and switched to just providing web apps, the competition would be a lot stiffer.
- Akronymus 8mo ago"maintain" meaning keeping it somewhat workable or actually improving it? ATM windows still has enough of a moat that they can comfortably do the former.
- mossTechnician 8mo agoI believe Microsoft can skate for a long time with just bug fixes and security updates. It makes the drop in Windows' quality all the more baffling.
- this_user 8mo agoThey literally tried that strategy with Internet Explorer 6 a long time ago where they didn't really update it for years, only doing the bare minimum. The result was a downward spiral in market share that they were unable to stop once they started trying again, ultimately resulting in IE effectively becoming obsolete.
- debugnik 8mo agoBecause browsers are one of the very few components that actually need to catch up to the rest of the world, but they've already outsourced most of that work to Chromium.
- 8mo ago
- lloydatkinson 8mo agoRealistically it's because a good chunk of their work is outsourced abroad who then in turn outsource their thinking to ChatGPT.
- gonzo41 8mo agoI was thinking about this very thing today. Personally, I see the Windows OS as a core competency of Microsoft. If the OS is bad, then the company is being run badly. In the same as when you go to a fine restaurant and the kitchen have the polished pots and pans you can see, generally things are going to be great. Its the attention to detail, If those small details are right, then the whole meal will be good. And currently the whole meal is crap with windows.
- pjc50 8mo agoThere's no realistic competition because the amount of work to switch your OS ecosystem, especially for businesses, is huge. So the product doesn't have to be good, you can just slam ads in the Start menu or whatever.
- spogbiper 8mo agoThe business version of Windows doesn't have ads in the start menu. That's the consumer/home version. The "Pro" flavors of Windows are quite a bit more pleasant and I don't think there is any downside even on a home computer.
- jamesfinlayson 8mo agoYes it wasn't until recently that I understood why people ran Windows Server as their home operating system.
- yuters 8mo agoAt one point the product is getting so bad that the cost of switching becomes a real consideration. It seems that every other year I hear about businesses and governments making the move.
- dmichulke 8mo agoIf you're good enough at killing lighthouse projects you can defer that. https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Munich-Plans-to-Ditch-Linux-and-Go-Back-to-Windows https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Munich-Plans-to-D...
- yuters 8mo agoWeird that they've decided to switch to Linux in 2004 when Windows XP was great.
- themafia 8mo agoMonopolies destroy everything. This isn't a binary it's a spectrum. You don't even need total control of the market, just extreme dominance of it, to see this effect begin.
- bell-cot 8mo agoAsk anyone who was a power user of dBase or Lotus 1-2-3 back in the '80's.
- direwolf20 8mo agoBecause they know everyone who's still using Windows has no choices to switch to. They won't use Linux or Mac.
- BizarroLand 8mo agoNo, they have choices, but many people just want to turn on their computer, watch a few videos, read some emails, pay some bills and then go do something else. Those people won't fuss with installing linux and getting rid of Microsoft even though Windows is doing nothing for them that Linux cannot do just as easily. If there are people in your life that do not use computers to make money or play video games or edit photos and videos but they do use computers, swap them to linux and let them get on with their lives.
- direwolf20 8mo agoThose people don't even have Windows–compatible computers. They have phones and tablets.
- BizarroLand 8mo agoThe 60+ crowd is either entirely phone dependent or use computers for things that Linux would do as well or better than Windows does
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- bingb0ng 8mo agoThe largest Microsoft subscription account is the United States federal government. Windows/office/whatever else for every federal employee pays the company enough to continue development and offer it to the masses. I’m certain that the ability to collect habitual data on users is valuable to both Microsoft and the powers that be, for advertising and criminal investigation. The only thing that surprises me is the lack of any additional cost to end users. It’s almost as if the majority shareholder is Blackrock.