5 ms·

Speculation here: I wonder if Microsoft sees the fleeting profitability in owning the desktop environment (more competition, shrinking market, higher expectati

by swalsh 13y ago

Speculation here: I wonder if Microsoft sees the fleeting profitability in owning the desktop environment (more competition, shrinking market, higher expectations). So they're trying to apply the same concepts that really helped propel windows as a popular platform (easy to develop for) to their cloud platform (azure) in an attempt to coax their existing user base to start adopting it over other cloud platforms (like google apps) As a windows developer myself, I see this as a great strategy. I've been questioning staying with C# and windows for a few years now... it started with buying a Mac (while running Parallels) and learning several new languages. But I still LIKE C#. So it might be a great transition plan.

lmkg 13y ago
I don't think Microsoft yet sees the demise of desktop as a given, but they are hedging their bets against it. Web, mobile, cloud, &c. are all platforms that are threatening desktop. Microsoft is trying to push into them, not to abandon desktop, but to make sure that they have a foothold regardless of which platform(s) end up dominant in the future. As late entrants into most of these platforms, their strategy is to leverage their existing technical capital as much as possible. So, we're seeing cloud versions of Outlook, Office, and now Visual Studio. I don't think they're trying to move people away from desktop (yet), but they are making their company's fate less tightly bound to desktop.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  I'm wondering if a lot of moving their products to the cloud is to limit or try to stop pirating of their software. Adobe has been successful thus far with their new Creative Cloud platform.
  - omarali 13y ago
    Creative Cloud applications are still regular applications that are installed on your computer and can run offline.
  - marshray 13y ago
    Disclaimer: Not speaking in any official PR capacity here. Just sharing my personal opinions as a guy who has been in a bunch of cross-team meetings. I've been working as a developer in Redmond in "Server & Tools", now called "Server & Cloud", for the better part of a year now. I know for a fact there are teams that work to address piracy, but I personally haven't seen it as a driving force in specific goals. Without wanting to give away key strategy (not that I even know much) Look at how the company is structured and where the revenue comes from. Our division serves primarily enterprise customers. Enterprise customers are totally loving the cloud and are the primary driver of this demand. So we're focused on delivering a first-rate cloud platform (Azure) and first-rate developer tools (e.g. VS 2013 and cross platform Azure libs) to develop for it. It seems to be working, our deployments are growing steadily. Public reports claim that we are deploying semicustom data center capacity in markets that impose some localized requirements. Look at the investment in infrastructure capacity being made here. Such a fundamental shift wouldn't make sense (to me) for the goal of reducing the number of over-deployed licenses, when that could probably instead be addressed with far cheaper (even if annoying) DRM-like solutions. So again, our customers told us they want cloud, so we're going to build them the best darn cloud ever, not forgetting our experience with their particular needs and requirements.
    - deegles 13y ago
      Pretty sure it's "Cloud and Enterprise."
      - marshray 13y ago
        D'oh! I'll have to be sure to get that right if I ever meet Satya.
- tonyedgecombe 13y ago
  I wonder if by hedging their bets they are actually accelerating the demise.
maxerickson 13y ago
It can be as simple as not seeing enough revenue growth on the desktop. They have a lot of pressure to act like a growth company, whether they are or not.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
taude 13y ago
I worked at a couple big enterprise companies where all our installs of Visual Studio and dev tools were hosted on a separate secure network that we had to RDP into to do development. (Company had famous theft of source code). I wonder if there's something to be said for getting web-based dev environments working well enough in a private cloud setting....I could see that as a future. And then the bonus of not even caring which device you access it from.
- kayoone 13y ago
  Virtualized Desktops are getting better, try to use Visual Studio with some form of PCoIP protocol (VmWare View) and you probably wont notice a difference to a real local desktop. Modern virtualization capabilities somehow collide with the webapp approach and i wonder where this will go.

by swalsh 13y ago

lmkg 13y ago

I don't think Microsoft yet sees the demise of desktop as a given, but they are hedging their bets against it. Web, mobile, cloud, &c. are all platforms that are threatening desktop. Microsoft is trying to push into them, not to abandon desktop, but to make sure that they have a foothold regardless of which platform(s) end up dominant in the future. As late entrants into most of these platforms, their strategy is to leverage their existing technical capital as much as possible. So, we're seeing cloud versions of Outlook, Office, and now Visual Studio. I don't think they're trying to move people away from desktop (yet), but they are making their company's fate less tightly bound to desktop.

at-fates-hands 13y ago
I'm wondering if a lot of moving their products to the cloud is to limit or try to stop pirating of their software. Adobe has been successful thus far with their new Creative Cloud platform.
- omarali 13y ago
  Creative Cloud applications are still regular applications that are installed on your computer and can run offline.
- marshray 13y ago
  Disclaimer: Not speaking in any official PR capacity here. Just sharing my personal opinions as a guy who has been in a bunch of cross-team meetings. I've been working as a developer in Redmond in "Server & Tools", now called "Server & Cloud", for the better part of a year now. I know for a fact there are teams that work to address piracy, but I personally haven't seen it as a driving force in specific goals. Without wanting to give away key strategy (not that I even know much) Look at how the company is structured and where the revenue comes from. Our division serves primarily enterprise customers. Enterprise customers are totally loving the cloud and are the primary driver of this demand. So we're focused on delivering a first-rate cloud platform (Azure) and first-rate developer tools (e.g. VS 2013 and cross platform Azure libs) to develop for it. It seems to be working, our deployments are growing steadily. Public reports claim that we are deploying semicustom data center capacity in markets that impose some localized requirements. Look at the investment in infrastructure capacity being made here. Such a fundamental shift wouldn't make sense (to me) for the goal of reducing the number of over-deployed licenses, when that could probably instead be addressed with far cheaper (even if annoying) DRM-like solutions. So again, our customers told us they want cloud, so we're going to build them the best darn cloud ever, not forgetting our experience with their particular needs and requirements.
  - deegles 13y ago
    Pretty sure it's "Cloud and Enterprise."
    - marshray 13y ago
      D'oh! I'll have to be sure to get that right if I ever meet Satya.
tonyedgecombe 13y ago
I wonder if by hedging their bets they are actually accelerating the demise.

maxerickson 13y ago

It can be as simple as not seeing enough revenue growth on the desktop. They have a lot of pressure to act like a growth company, whether they are or not.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

taude 13y ago

I worked at a couple big enterprise companies where all our installs of Visual Studio and dev tools were hosted on a separate secure network that we had to RDP into to do development. (Company had famous theft of source code). I wonder if there's something to be said for getting web-based dev environments working well enough in a private cloud setting....I could see that as a future. And then the bonus of not even caring which device you access it from.

kayoone 13y ago
Virtualized Desktops are getting better, try to use Visual Studio with some form of PCoIP protocol (VmWare View) and you probably wont notice a difference to a real local desktop. Modern virtualization capabilities somehow collide with the webapp approach and i wonder where this will go.