back to article Microsoft exec: No 'Plan B' despite mobile stumbles

Should Microsoft's tablet and phone efforts continue to inspire little interest among the buying public, don't expect a radical shift in strategy – according to one senior Redmond exec, the company has no "Plan B". "It's less 'Plan B' than how you execute on the current plan," CFO Peter Klein told investors at Goldman Sachs' …

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  1. frank ly

    They should have gone with Android

    They could have made their own curated and moderated app store and made all the icons larger and square to fill the grid.

    1. Christian Berger

      Or with Windows CE

      Windows CE at least had something of a point. It was at least open to your IT department so they could install programs on it. Currently they are just chasing the IOS and Android crowd, ignoring that those people already buy IOS and Android.

      Windows CE, despite of all its limitations, would have been something businesses already know and trust. The current offerings simply alienate existing customers without bringing in new ones.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Or with Windows CE

        You can install apps on Windows devices too, even WinRT... it's similar to creating bespoke private apps for iOS I guess.

      2. Ragarath

        Re: Or with Windows CE @ Christian Berger

        Are you suggesting that no-one should ever try to enter a market if there are already popular players?

        If this is the case there would be a lot less choice available out there and things would cost a lot more.

        Microsoft, want in and they came up with a different idea. You don't like it, that's fine, others do. If it gets better (let's face it it needs to) more may like it and this will increase competition witch is good for the consumer (us).

        1. GreenOgre
          FAIL

          Re: Or with Windows CE @ Ragarath

          ... except there's nothing new here, just a shrunk down version of the "tablet" they've been punting for 10 years or more. Laptops are laptops, tablets are tablets. It was Microsoft's failure to separate the two that gave Apple their opportunity.

          Go on, buy one. I'm sure it will make a fine conversation piece in years to come.

        2. Charles Manning

          Microsoft is not entering the market

          They've been playing in tablet space since the 1990s.

          They have been playing in the handheld computing space since about 2000 and phone space since about 2006 - twice as long as the iphones etc have been around.

          What they have not been doing is taking the space seriously. For instance the team that works on Windows CE is tiny and always has been.

          Microsoft cannot play the "we're a new player, give us time" card.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doomed

    Doomed I say, doomed!

  3. Eddy Ito

    Sounds familiar

    So they're going to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. Certainly seems like a company defining plan to me.

    1. nematoad
      FAIL

      Re: Sounds familiar

      "We're very focused on continuing the success we have with PCs and taking that to tablets and phones,"

      I agree.

      Or, in other words "It was good enough for my father and grandfather." etc. This is not even a plan A, just hope that the money will keep rolling in as it has done for so many years.

      Complacent? They probably know how to spell it, but not what it means.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Sounds familiar

        "We're very focused on continuing the success we have with PCs and taking that to tablets and phones,"

        The Reuters reporter should have picked up on this and asked, "How do you expect to replicate the desktop's success on tablets and phones when you've butchered the desktop UI so it looks like the tablet and phone UI? It makes no sense whatsoever, all you're going to do is screw up your desktop platform."

      2. GBL Initialiser

        Wait... so are they aren't supposed to sit back, do nothing and be complacent? Odd, I keep hearing complaints that they changed the Windows desktop even though it worked fine and didn't need changing.

        1. GreenOgre
          Facepalm

          @ GBL Initialiser

          Hmmm, I think the point is that re-arranging the user interface IS the same thing they have always done.

          See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rearrange_the_deck_chairs_on_the_Titanic

    2. tony2heads
      FAIL

      Re: Sounds familiar

      Sounds like first world war generals:

      - over the top lads, this time we will really get through the barbed wire and past their trenches

    3. Tom 35

      Re: Sounds familiar

      It's not working... bring me a bigger hammer!

    4. GreenOgre
      Happy

      Re: Sounds familiar

      Isn't it a sign of insanity to repeatedly perform the same action while expecting different results?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sounds familiar

        "Isn't it a sign of insanity to repeatedly perform the same action while expecting different results?"

        And performing the same action while getting different results is the definition of Windows.

  4. solidsoup

    "Drop your product price. Not that big of a deal."

    1. dogged

      Pretty much this. And if RT is the way forward, at least give us a fucking development environment on it.

      I like the idea of convertible laptop but my major use case for a laptop is software design. Not possible on RT as it stands.

      1. h3

        You don't need a dev environment on Windows RT - You can just use use RemoteFX and Terminal Services to connect to a fast box somewhere else.

        (It works just perfect for normal work type apps.)

      2. Richard Plinston

        > I like the idea of convertible laptop

        Surface are not 'convertible laptops'. They are not usable on the lap. The balance is wrong, the angle is too upright, the keyboard junction is floppy and don't even think about giving it a swipe.

        They seem to be called 'Surface' because they require a firm flat surface, such as a desk but not an aircraft tray, to be usable.

        1. dogged
          Thumb Down

          "They are not usable on the lap" - endless youtube videos of people using a surface on their lap say you are wrong.

          Not that this will stop you from continuing to make this claim.

  5. P. Lee

    Do they need to win?

    Or do they just need to have an ARM slab ready in case ARM/thin clients take off on the desktop or in the datacentre?

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      Their entire future depends on this

      A raspberry pi makes fine thin client. Although Windows has been dieting, it is still far too fat for that price or power range. 3 of the top 500 super computers use Windows so the datacentre is not Microsoft's strong point either. Microsoft wanted to be the gate keeper between people and media content, but tablets without Windows do that job at half the price. Games and e-mail are mostly on phones. Microsoft's near monopoly in desktop operating systems means very little now that desktops (with tablets thrown in) are a small proportion of the computing market.

      Microsoft's strong point is Office. They have said for years that their phones integrate well with PC's but that did not make them sell. The boot is being strapped onto another foot now. It is up to Microsoft Office to integrate well with phones. If people plug a keyboard and monitor into a phone to use an office suite they will not be using Microsoft Office. (If Microsoft continue in their current direction, Office will lose it's keyboard interface and be accessible only through touch.)

      Microsoft must either get a near monopoly on phones or release a free version of Office for Android. If they miss this boat, documents will be created in a file format that Microsoft does not control and people will not be locked into the Office cash cow.

      (A good phone user interface ports well to a tablet, so winning in phones is a good first step to the relatively tiny tablet market. Desktop to tablet is a more difficult step. Trying to restrict a desktop to a tablet user interface is insane.)

      1. mmeier

        Re: Their entire future depends on this

        Using Win8 on desktop and tablet-pc since the day it came out (and testet it since MS handed out slates with the dev preview in IIRC 2011). Despite what many claim they have not restricted a desktop to a tablet interface. They have changed the whole UI, dropped the start menu, introduced Modern as a replacement etc. The result requires some learning that is why two groups of actual users (1) are screaming

        Group A: The larger group of "muscle reflex" operating office worker that switched XP, Vista, W7 back to "NT4" mode and does no where to klick to get a certain result

        Group B: The small(er) group that made massiv use of some special features of the Win7 start menu (showing the last used documents) and miss that.

        Like Ecos/Peaceniks both are "screaming minorities" that sound a lot larger than they are. Most users take 30-180min to get the concept behind Win8. Overcoming the "different than grandpa Xerox" meme is the hardest part.

        One can debate details like the removal of Aero (I like the decision) and some feat but the end result is IMHO a system that works well on Desktop AND tablet. It may not be perfect for either but it is a lot better than the alternative. For me it is the chance to reduce the Zoo (Smartphone, Tablet, Desktop) to just one unit(3) - a nice dockable tablet or convertible like Helix or Sony Duo 11 having a unit that always works wether sitting at a desk, in a (crowded) train/plane(2) or even on a fair like CeBit (company presents there )

        (1) Group 3 are Pengu-Boys, Fosstards and Gnuliban that have not used MS since Win 3.11 but simply know it is bad since Osama bin Stallman had a vision about it after too much toe-cheese

        (2) Fold-out desks are rare in german trains and my manly girth is not all that compatible with them anyway :)

        (3) Okay two, the tablet and a small, long-duration mobile phone that is so stupid it makes a nazi skinhead look like Einstein

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Their entire future depends on this

        @Flocke Kroes: " 3 of the top 500 super computers use Windows so the datacentre is not Microsoft's strong point either"

        At least I was able to stop reading there you saved me from having to carry on. You don't know anything about datacentres do you? I'm presuming you've never even been to one.

        1. hewbass
          WTF?

          Re: Their entire future depends on this

          It seems your idea of a data centre is something that runs exchange and serves up files to Windows clients. Other people's experience may differ... When the Windows client machines go away (replaced by tablets and phones and alternative desktops that suddenly make sense now that you have to cater for tablets and phones anyway), then there is not going to be much call for such places.

          If it's actually computing (as in carrying out calculations, like super computers do) we are referring to, then it's not being done (very much) on Windows.

          And by "not very much" I mean less than 1%...

          Render, compute and simulation farms run nearly exclusively on Linux or Unix.

          Standalone desktops running Matlab or some finite element analysis sometimes do run Windows-- but the big jobs go to a compute farm or a super computer.

    2. Richard Plinston

      Re: Do they need to win?

      > just need to have an ARM slab ready

      Microsoft do not need to win, they do need everyone else to lose. They would be quite happy is everyone gave up on tablets and phones and go back to their PC Desktops.

      It seemed to me that WOA/Windows RT was more about threatening OEMs with loss of discounts to stop HP's WebOS and Dell's ARM Servers then it was about actually having ARM machines to sell. Trying to become a pseudo-Apple was just a later rationale.

  6. Blofeld's Cat
    Windows

    No 'Plan B'...

    So that will be: "Plan A SP1" then.

  7. Snapper
    Joke

    Perhaps..

    ..they were relying on other people's stuff 'not working properly' as soon as they introduced Windows?

    Worked in the past.

  8. Mikel
    Thumb Up

    I love this plan

    I hope they stick with it to the bitter end.

    1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: I love this plan

      OK, you made my day.. :)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No problem - all they have to do is hire Eadon as a consultant.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      He's such a whining little so and so, they could offer to pay him £10 million a year and he would turn it down.

  10. bailey86

    There's the Kool-aid...

    "the success we have with PCs"

    To me this shows the MS corporate bubble - they genuinely think that Windows is a success. Commercially, it was a success due to 'right place right time' and various dodgy practices - but technically not so much.

    This means they don't understand that they need to vastly improve the quality of their operating systems.

    Thankfully, now we have some competition happening; Macs, MacOS, iOS, Ubuntu, Android, RIM etc and MS are finding they will have to compete on quality. What we could do with is Novell, Blackberry or someone having a decent crack at the corporate space and provide some real competition. That again would mean that MS would have to compete on quality and Exchange and Sharepoint would improve.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: There's the Kool-aid...

      Of course it's a success. On the PC, Linux STILL isn't a competitor. OSX is FINALLY getting to be one... but neither of these things are down to things like kernel stability, rather how easy it is to get your work done.

      Ironically, OSX seems to be finally getting a serious slice of the pie just as it is starting to become unpopular due to some of the newer features, and as W7 marked a big step forward on MS' part. This illustrates further that the technical differences are not the most important. I might suggest the Linux crowd's focus on the technical side being the more important is one reason WHY they still have no market share, despite their product being very good.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There's the Kool-aid...

        Ironically, OSX seems to be finally getting a serious slice of the pie just as it is starting to become unpopular due to some of the newer features

        Tell me about it. I have a good friend who is thinking about moving his entire office (6 people) to OSX, and he's asked me to have a look. I need to figure out how to give them "Save as" and kill off the versioning stuff (which means they would have to do "Duplicate and then rename the copay as far as I can see, which is stupid). Not that it isn't clever, but it's such a distance away from what they're used to on Windows that it creates change anxiety. *NOT* the best idea ever from Apple.

        Clever stuff is only good if you can explain it to people who are not *quite* that clever. Otherwise, avoid..

        1. Anonymous Coward
          WTF?

          Re: There's the Kool-aid...

          yess.... clearly, one small difference, which only affects a few of the built-in apps. Obviously, people should avoid it like a swarm of bees.

          I suppose if your friend were to ask your advice about a new car, you couldn't possibly recommend him anything other than *your_current_car* because:

          a) it is the best. You are driving it, therefore, it is the best.

          b) all other cars are stupid/complicated/inefficient. For instance, some might have GPS with a BLUE button, rather than a RED one as it is in your car. How will anyone will be able to comprehend this, when clearly RED is the only apt colour for GPS.

          Also, I would shy away from people who regard me as being too stupid to understand how to use a Mac...

        2. Dan 55 Silver badge

          Re: There's the Kool-aid...

          How to give them Save As... here, here, or here.

          Enable ask to keep changes, close windows when quitting app here.

          See also De-IOSise Mountain Lion here.

          It just works!

          Actually when you do all this it's usable again, hopefully they won't go mad and remove these options in 10.9.

          1. OrsonX
            Meh

            Re: De-IOSasize Mountain Lion

            Just done this, my solution, a fresh instal of Snow Leopard.

            It just works.

            It just doesn't feckin work (ML that is).

        3. Gareth Gouldstone
          Happy

          Save As on OS X

          Hold down the Option/Alt key whilst clicking the File menu (or pull down File menu and pres Option/Alt key to get 'Save As'.

          1. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: Save As on OS X

            Hold down the Option/Alt key whilst clicking the File menu (or pull down File menu and pres Option/Alt key to get 'Save As'.

            That still doesn't disable versioning nor does disabling auto save in Preferences > General. I'm not sure why Apple decided that we'd all like versioning enabled if we've also got the choice of Time Machine, but who are we to question the ways of Cupertino.

            Versioning is not even done particularly well on a technical level either, they could have simply used the same method as UDF (;<version>) at the end of the filename in the same directory which would allow you to control versions in Finder (with a slight UI alteration) or the shell.

        4. AndyMulhearn

          Re: There's the Kool-aid...

          The duplicate stuff hasn't made it as far as Office and as far as I can tell is only in stuff like textedit or preview...

          Having said that, It's still a broken paradigm IMHO.

        5. This post has been deleted by its author

        6. GreenOgre
          Facepalm

          Re: OSX versioning stuff @ AC

          Hint:

          "Save a version... " can be used to keep versions.

          It really is a shame how Windows allows users to _do_ things without developing an _understanding_ of what they are doing.

        7. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: There's the Kool-aid...

          six users migrating to OS X? Wow best short them Microsoft shares now. They'll go to the wall for sure

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: There's the Kool-aid...

            If was just these six, not quite :).

            However, it's a trend I see emerging. We even have private banks now doing this.

      2. David Hicks
        Linux

        Re: There's the Kool-aid...

        "I might suggest the Linux crowd's focus on the technical side being the more important is one reason WHY they still have no market share, despite their product being very good."

        You'll find a lot of people in the linux crowd who aren't really interested in market share unless it brings more developers in to develop the system. Not the cheerleaders of course, but the 'it's awesome for me' crowd. And it is awesome for me, I can make computers running linux dance for me in exactly the way I want. That said I wouldn't wish to confuse someone like my mother by changing the way she does things, she has a hard enough time telling apart the AOL client ("the internet" which I'm trying to ween her off) and Firefox ("the Google", because that's the homepage).

        People like her are why MS has a *very* fine line to walk with its interfaces, because if they change things around too much then people like me will get sick of trying to retrain them and just go with linux instead.

        1. Nigel 11
          Happy

          Re: There's the Kool-aid...

          people like me will get sick of trying to retrain them and just go with linux instead.

          There's also Linux-lite, aka OpenOffice / LibreOffice running on a Windows PC. It's probably easier to re-train someone off Office 2003 onto OpenOffice, than it is to re-train them onto Office 2007. And the OO folks seem mercifully free of the desire to inflict new interfaces on their users in order to look cool.

          And of course the price of OO / LO is very competitive indeed.

          1. David Hicks

            Re: There's the Kool-aid...

            "There's also Linux-lite, aka OpenOffice / LibreOffice running on a Windows PC..."

            You think my mother knows how to operate a spreadsheet!?!

            We have a hard enough time with the concept "I'm only available on skype when the computer's on" and the resulting expectation that my computer be left on all the time. Though for some reason the converse doesn't apply (things must be switched OFF! when not in active use).

            She's figured out how to browse and book holidays online well enough though...

      3. bailey86

        Re: There's the Kool-aid...

        "rather how easy it is to get your work done"

        There's that Kool-aid again if you think Windows is the best OS for getting things done. You can get far, far more work done by using Ubuntu or MacOS - they are so much faster.

        A mobile phone sales guy came around our office the other day to check the mobile signal. When he saw my workstation he was genuinely amazed at the speed and responsiveness. Without prompting from me he said that my machine must have huge amounts of RAM installed to be so fast.

        I pointed out that it's a low end HP Elitebook with 4GB RAM - the difference is the OS - in this case Xubuntu.

        And as for usability - I've now installed Ubuntu on a few small office and business PC's for non-techy users and they get along fine with it - i.e. I don't get any 'support' calls.

        Try Ubuntu, or my choice which is Xubunutu, and from the ease of installation onwards I think you'll be amazed.

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: There's the Kool-aid...

          >>There's that Kool-aid again if you think Windows is the best OS for getting things done. You can get far, far more work done by using Ubuntu or MacOS - they are so much faster.

          Please don't spread these kind of lies. I work on a Mac and a PC and there is no perceptible difference in productivity. If the work you're doing is impacted by how fast you PC is running, you need a new PC regardless of OS.

          My Windows PC is 3-4 years old and out of 8 hours a day, I lose maybe 5min waiting for it to keep up with me... far less than I spend on internet forums!

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Pint

          @Bailey

          "There's that Kool-aid again if you think Windows is the best OS for getting things done. You can get far, far more work done by using Ubuntu or MacOS - they are so much faster."

          That heavily depends on what you're doing and how you're doing it. Right now my company is also heavily involved with Windows server maintenance and I can tell from personal experience that although this is easily doable using a Linux desktop (remote desktop connection to a server is no problem) its much quicker when you have a Windows desktop around; preferable one with PowerShell onboard.

          Or what about when you actually need to develop Windows related stuff? Maybe you can get Visual Studio to run on Linux using Wine (most likely best in a virtual machine) but I don't think it'll be the most ideal situation. Especially since VS can be quite resource hungry.

          As such; it depends. I can well see how anyone would benefit much more from using, say, Ubuntu and LibreOffice instead of Windows 7 & MS Office. But that doesn't make it the de-facto solution for everything. There are just as well plenty of scenario's where Windows can be the better tool for the job.

          1. bailey86

            Re: @Bailey

            Thanks so much for confirming my point. If you even consider Visual Studio as a dev environment then you are fully addicted to the Kool-aid.

            As yes - I've worked with both .NET and other environments - and .NET nearly drove me away from IT.

            Not just me - you'll notice that IIS is on a long downward curve - even with corporate types trying hard to insist their company sites are built on it.

            Again, try the alternatives - you'll be amazed.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There's the Kool-aid...

      Look back to the mid 80s and find the alternative WIMP GUI system which ran on IBM PCs (and clones). There was only OS/2 and that was released two years after Windows 1.0.

      Microsoft were in the right place at the right time and they fooled IBM with their bluff about having an OS for them (which they bought off someone quickly when the deal went ahead), but Windows itself was unchallenged for years on x86.

      Other competitors were totally different platforms. Here in the UK only people who were massively business orientated had a PC at home, they were stupidly expensive too. Where as an Amiga or ST was around the £500 mark. Okay, by the time you added all the expansions to make these machines as powerful as a PC you would have spent a fair bit, but we made do with a TV set for a screen etc.

      1. hamsterjam

        Re: There's the Kool-aid...

        Umm...the first GUI I ever used on a DOS PC was called Gem, and it worked a lot better than Windows 1.0 which came about a year later as I recall.

        What happened to it? Apple sued, and that was that...

        1. mmeier

          Re: There's the Kool-aid...

          There was also DesqView (and later DesqView/X) around the same time. And the non-x86 systems where equal or even better than the (mostly) DOS-based units back in the late 1980s/early 90s. It was not until the 386(sx) and 486 that the Windows-units became dominant and not until NT 4 that they ruled. It's simply that Atari and Commodore dropped the ball (Even more the the latter - they had a strong stand in business and education) and ignored the marken (i.e not delivering the Unix-Version of the Atari TT - nice and stable SVID compatible unix for a resonable planned price - got a change to play with it for a few hours at the Atari fair)

          And while Win1.x might have been out before OS/2 the Windows DOS add on did not take hold until 3.1. And that came out after OS/2 2.x. At that time OS/2 was clearly better than the DOS-based Windows (1.0, 2.11, 3.x, 95/98/ME) and equal ton Win NT 3.5. Good, solid stuff but as an article here showed - IBM never managed to get the developers and hardware companies onto the bandwagon. The OS was pricy (VOBIS and/or ESCOM sold it) and the hardware support was so-so.

          1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

            Re: There's the Kool-aid...

            There was also DesqView (and later DesqView/X) around the same time

            Anyone remember DoubleDOS ? :)

      2. nematoad
        Unhappy

        Re: There's the Kool-aid...

        "There was only OS/2 and that was released two years after Windows 1.0."

        You may not have seen it but there was another WIMP OS.

        GEM from Digital Research.

        This came out in about 1985 and was most successful on the Atari ST. However it did run under DOS and I remember using Ventura Publisher on a PC at a training course I went on in about 1992.

        From what I can recall the DOS version was intentionally crippled due to pressure from Apple. Some things never change.

      3. fixit_f
        Thumb Up

        Re: There's the Kool-aid...

        Mid 80's? GEM was pretty good actually, was far ahead of Windows 1 and 2 at the time.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Windows

      @Bailey

      "This means they don't understand that they need to vastly improve the quality of their operating systems."

      I think they do. Just look at, for example, the authorization aspect of Windows XP in comparison to Windows 7. There's a huge difference even though the user only notices this in the form of extra pop-up messages to request permission for changing OS related stuff.

      And although MS sure knows how to create and produce horrible software, never underestimate their abilities to improve on it. Its not always for the best (Metro, or take a look at the "improved" user interface of a vanilla installation of Visual Studio 2012) but often they do manage to come up with some good stuff. Windows 7 vs. Vista for example, SharePoint designer vs. FrontPage, Server 2003 vs. Server 2008.

      Their main problem, as I see it, is that they still retain their arrogance to think they can dictate how users should approach their products. Visual Studio 2012 is a good example and showed them that they were wrong. After protests from hundreds (if not thousands) of developers they actually had to implement hasty changes to the IDE (most likely out of fear that no one would touch it). Even a hasty "theme editor" was eventually released allowing people to turn the interface back to the way it used to be.

      (for those unfamiliar with this: initially they removed all colour from the interface and basically turned it into a bright whitish full-screen window which didn't have any variation between the coding window and the control sections around it whereas VS2010 used to be somewhat dark-blue on the edges with a white coding window).

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe they should rename Windows Phone Windroid. This is in tribute Lindows which was a Linux distro trying to cash in on the Windows name.

  12. Studley
    Joke

    Plan B?

    Pfft, even Blackberry can afford Alicia Keys.

    (Young urban music joke)

  13. K

    a mere 722K-to-900K Surface RT

    And virtually all of these went to Microsoft Employees, Resellers and Partners!

    Microsoft deserve all the success they've had with this... the sooner their current management is booted to the curb, the better!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: a mere 722K-to-900K Surface RT

      The Surface RT was supply-constrained. Actually some Microsoft UK employees were asked if they wouldn't mind waiting for theirs until after Christmas, so that enough could be redirected to Microsoft's UK game studios, Rare and Lionhead.

      Anon because that came from a personal acquaintence and I probably wasn't supposed to know.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If Microsoft wanted to make money in the mobile market it should have sold an office suite and a good exchange mail client on Android and IOS. Then it would have made a killing. As it is, they're just kidding themselves and wasting their money.

    1. Mikel
      Stop

      I see a lot of fantasy posted. Let's dispose of some.

      1. Bill Gates is not ever, Ever, ever, ever coming back to rescue the company. He won this game. He counted coup. He beat the entire world, took all the money, became the richest man and then scooted his chips off the table gently as your retirement fund stepped in to buy them up. Not only did he game us all: he still is winning as he's bleeding the beast as Chairman still and being granted MORE shares even as he sells the ones he already has, and authorizes the company to "repurchase" the shares that he personally is (as puppet master of the Board of Directors) bonusing to himself and then selling. All you folk hoping he will come back for your sake are the same as the investors who actually suggested in a shareholder meeting that he should gift his shares back to the company to get their stock up. You really, really don't understand what is going on here. After he won this game (c. 1987) he set his sights on a new game: philanthropy. The whole point of Microsoft since then has been to fatten the pig for slaughter. And now he's fully engaged in that philanthropy game and won't be back to play with the pig and your petty dollars ever again. He won. Game over. He is playing an entirely different game now, and - alpha geek that he is - racking up an all-time high score at that too, defeating some of the most vile perils ever to ail Men not just in one place at a time, but for all men for all time - and that is far more fullfilling than swelling your 401K.

      2. There will not be Microsoft Office for iPhone, iPad, Android phone, Android Tablet - ever. I'm not sure how to describe this because I've never walked their halls but imagine Office, Windows, and their Server business as boats. Individual technologies are lines in the water that they put down to catch fish: you. The boats work together to herd in the most fish, and once one gets the hook in he holds you still while both of the others get theirs in too. By leveraging cooperation of boats they get the fish to converge for catching and each fish caught by one boat becomes a feast for all three. Silverlight was a hook. Zune was a hook. Plays For Sure was a hook. C#, F#, xaml, OOXML are hooks. These are things they send out to other ecosystems to catch fish, drag them back to their fleet and feast on their flesh. Hooks are made and remade every day to suit the catch sought, and the people who bait these hooks are the master baiters of all time.

      Office is not a hook. It's a boat. It is not flung out into strange waters to catch fish.

      Yes, this analogy sucks.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I see a lot of fantasy posted. Let's dispose of some.

        What are you on about? You seem to have gotten onto one of your boats and floated off into the deep dark sea.

      2. Shagbag
        Thumb Up

        Re: I see a lot of fantasy posted. Let's dispose of some.

        Excellent analysis, but I couldn't decide which quote was the best:

        "being granted MORE shares even as he sells the ones he already has"

        lol. too true. Or:

        "the people who bait these hooks are the master baiters of all time."

        rofl. I take it you had to pause and remember to spell 'bait' and not 'bate'?

        thumbs up, due. :D

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Microsoft isn't Apple...

    Balmer claims in a rather bizar speech that developers are very important for the company and how they feel the need to make it as easy as possible for developers to step in. I agree about the importance and quite frankly I think they're doing a good job with on the desktop segments; I've mentioned this several times before; you can pick up Visual Studio 2012 Express free of charge and you can even use it for commercial usage. If you don't like the COOL NEW MENU INTERFACE you can even still download VS 2012 Express. All free and in comparison to their commercial counterparts also very feature rich.

    I think you shouldn't underestimate what this can do for a platform. Sure; some people will never touch "the evil Microsoft" but others might be persuaded. Either for hobby, small business who knows... Its for a very good reason that we can now download compilers and such for free while we used to pay dearly for them (from Sun to Microsoft).

    However, when it comes to their mobile division then this changes drastically. You can pick up the SDK for free, you can mess around in the emulator all you want but when it comes to messing with your own phone then things become different; you need to cough up $99,-/year before you can unlock yours to access it from within Visual Studio. Just like the market leader Apple does...

    But Microsoft needs to realize that they aren't Apple; instead they're still a nobody on this platform. You won't convince techies that programming for your mobile platform is fun by merely giving them a free emulator. Heck; I think one of the key elements to Androids success is because anyone can program for it. You pick up the phone, you unlock it and you're good to go.

    If Microsoft were smart they'd have chosen an in-between model: allow home developers to obtain a developer unlock for a price which only covers administration costs. I dunno; $10 - $25 / year? That way you'll maintain some control while also making it much more appealing to give the platform a trial run. Also: because you're not "opening the floodgates" you're still maintaining some sort of "business like" status too ("We're carefully monitoring who can access our platform all for security benefits").

    Either you want developers or you want to earn a quick buck; in this day and era you can't have it both ways... Not when you're a nobody that is.

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Microsoft isn't Apple...

      $99/yr to put my software on my phone... sorry no thanks

      Not when it costs me $0 to create an app in eclipse with the android sdk and install it to my phone

    2. dogged

      Re: Microsoft isn't Apple...

      Personally, I reckon a smart move would be to bundle a dev unlock with XBox Live Gold.

      That way you'd get people interested in games able to write and sell code. And games really sell.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    and the Microsoft said: let's copy Apple and prosper

    And they copied Apple and they saw that it was good.

    And then the proud Microsoft said: let's copy Apple but let's make it better, prettier, pricier, so that we show these Apple motherfuckers! And the sheep shall see that our shit is good shit and they shall flock to buy it and make us prosper.

    So the Microsoft copied Apple and made it better, prettier and pricier than the Apple, but the sheep still didn't like it, because despite being better, prettier and pricier - it wasn't Apple. So the Microsoft said: let's, let's build a beautiful garden where the sheep should find green pastures and graze in peace, and as they flock to our walled garden we shear them in peace and prosper.

    And the Microsoft built the beautiful garden with walls as tall as Apple walls, if not taller, but forgot to that grass needs both care and time to grow in order to look juicy and attractive to the sheep And the Apple sheep preferred apples to grass, so they stayed in the Apple garden, and those daring sheep contemplating the Microsoft shit, took a long, hard look into the Microsoft garden and they saw that the grass there is thin, even on the other side of the field, and they saw it was not good, and they chose to graze on the common outside of the Microsoft walled garden.

    And then the Microsoft said: "Plan B? What plan B?"

  17. Hooksie

    Execs in a bubble that needs to be burst

    So anyone who reads any of my posts will know that I am a technology and platform agnostic, that is to say that I don't prefer any particular OS, they all have good points and bad points. But I would dearly love to find one of the execs or the marketing bods that are involved in Surface, Surface Pro and Windows Phone 8 and smack them upside the head. They seemed to think that just because it's Microsoft that people will trust it and buy it. Well, that's balls. For a start most people associate MS products with work or with 'getting stuff done' at home; not with frivolous usage of some tech or some browsing, that's what Apple is for. So let's look at them briefly:

    Surface: Beautiful product, too expensive and with a use case identical to the iPad except with Office on it. But they shat out of it. All they had to do was suck a £100 or $150 per unit price cut over the equivalent Apple product and they could well have had a very big winner on their hands. Instead they went with "we're Microsoft and it's a premium product so we'll charge a premium price". Not the way to get into an established market with another huge player who is dominant. Cut the price, explain the use case better and it has a chance, otherwise it's dead in the water.

    Surface Pro: Again, looks amazing but since you can't actually buy one what is the point?? At least with Apple they have a product launch event then 3 weeks later at most it can be bought all over the world. MS first mentioned this device about 6 months ago and it still hasn't materialised anywhere outside of the US; any questions to the Twitter accounts are met with silence and as such I for one started looking elsewhere. (Asus Transformer Book in case you're wondering, which looks WAY better than surface but is also not available yet :-/ )

    Windows Phone: This is the one that gets me most. I just bought into Windows Phone 8 with the HTC 8X and it's absolutely BRILLIANT. It has some minor flaws and annoyances, OOBE could be tweaked etc but overall the OS is slick, very well integrated to Social Media and has an excellent browser etc. The apps are coming along but there are some glaring ommissions. What MS SHOULD be doing is going to these major vendors like the BBC and Sky (iPlayer and SkyGo) to get Windows Phone 8 versions created, pay for them if need be, and then advertise better. When you see Sky adverts for SkyGo and it says iOS and Android it REALLY HAS TO SAY WINDOWS PHONE TOO. Sorry, had to shout that part. People (as in muggles, not us lot of whiny tech fiends) know FUCK ALL about computers, computing or OS's. All they want to know is does it work and is it shiny. WP8 is definitely shiny and it definitely works but until you start seeing "Windows Phone 8" next to "Available on iOS and the Android Marketplace" this is going nowhere. If they want WP8 to succeed they need to do what they did with Xbox and discount the fuck out of it, make it free to manufacturers and spend time and money with developers. Once there's a user base then fine, it should take care of itself but until there are enough people using it why the hell should developers spend time, money and effort porting their apps across???

  18. briesmith

    Forget All the Noise and Interference this is About MS Mobile - Isn't It?

    I don't see the point of giving all the MS haters yet another forum to get their rocks off by going on about Windows and how crap it is etc. This article is about Microsoft's failure to make a dent in the mobile market with both its tablet and smartphone formats.

    And on that point one can only ask: how do they get it so wrong? Their phone OS is now relatively mature having gone through 3 major releases and it's still very poor. (I write as a committed user.) There is just so much wrong with it, and which has been wrong with it since WP7, that one is left completely puzzled as to what goes on in Redmond.

    The same is true of the tablet - not bought one yet because of the reviews (what possible use is a tablet that only lasts 3 - 4 hours?) - which simply isn't up to the job people want it for. They want instant on, they want holdability, they want battery life and they wan't interconnectivity. None of these things are included.

    Why?

    Is this end of Empire syndrome? Is there now simply so much politicking going on within Redmond, so many competing projects and influences, that nothing ever gets done? Is every innovation doomed to be a series of compromises made to try and keep everyone on board? Is every MS horse fated to be a camel?

    Does MS need to break itself up so that creative energy can get a look in? Personally I think it's their only hope.

    1. mmeier

      Re: Forget All the Noise and Interference this is About MS Mobile - Isn't It?

      S/P is an ultrabook with a stylus-based digitizer. It competes nicely with this units in price, capabilities and endurance and is aimed squarely at that market. It adds additional options (Try using a notebook standing without a table etc. - With an S/P you can) that are nice in a consultant/roadwarrior environment. And it keeps prices for the mid range (Ativ 700, Duo 11, Taichi etc) and low end (Ativ 500, Asus Vivo) "in check" since most customers will say "why pay more for the same" thereby enhancing the chances that those units will compete with ultrabooks. MS cares little wether you buy a Surface or another Win8 penable - as long as you buy one.

      The only units that are and will remain well abouve the S/P in price are the high end units like the T902. Those have always been and will be specialists. Those can do 10h on batterie and deliver enough performance and memory to replace a workstation. They also cost around 2000€ in a sensible (SSD-based) configuration. But the power, the power...

      An endurance of 4-5 hours (more likely for the S/P based on experience with a first gen core-i penable of similar battery power that gets 3-4) is enough for this units. And with 1kg they are light enough to hold and use. Keyboard is only needed for long typing and that needs a stable surface anyway. Note taking, even 10+ pages - use the stylus! MS has the reliable, stable and capabel software for that (unlike Android)

      If one wants more time on battery - go Atom. Even the aging Cedar Trail delivers more computational power for similar, sometimes better, power consumption than an A15 ARM and BayTrail is just around the corner. That gives you 7-10 hours even today, about the same as an<<<the only Android penable (That has no A15). Not build by MS but they run Win8 so MS likely does not care (much)

      I assume with Interconnectivity you mean UMTS or LTE. Well there are units that have that on board. But with the state of LTE grows and an expected lifetime of around 3 years thanks to reliably updates and security patches (unlike say Samsungs Note-series where the N7000 basically is already out of service) I would not want to commit to a build-in modem right now. A MIFI router is cheaper to replace and sits snuggly in the attache case (attached to a honking big battery). Recently switched to an LTE version and my old penable now can use the faster net now.

      If you refer to software - what better than Windows on tablet and desktop? Depending on the unit connecting to the TV is also easy - all current core-i units can do WIDI and receivers are cheap, most Win8 tablets have HDMI out as well. Not that I see good reasons of watching a movie on the tablet while at home - that's what the 42'' TV is for.

      1. Moeluk
        Thumb Up

        Re: @MMEIER Forget All the Noise and Interference this is About MS Mobile - Isn't It?

        Not to be sarcastic, but this very afternoon I suitably balanced and gripped my MacBook Pro in one arm and typed and used the trackpad as I walked over the courtyard to the studio....

        And I am quite possibly the most ill co ordinated stumbling buffoon you are ever likely to meet.

  19. OrsonX

    Plan A

    I think MS are playing the long game on this one.

    A slow start, but when the next Xbox comes out and all the systems are seamlessly integrated, then things might start to look pretty appealing.

    The iToys have already lost their shine. If I was in the market for a new PC or Tablet then I'd be giving Surface some serious consideration.

  20. tempemeaty

    Use the force luke.....then agian, just force it....

    No plan B, just efforts to tweak the ongoing plan to get manufactures to sell what people don't want to buy. LOL.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Plan A is working

    The idea is to get Apple to discount them while they build the HQ under the volcano and get ready to reveal Windows 9, which will run on anything and sell for $5, seamlessly combining desktop and phone metaphors.

  22. Stingy
    Facepalm

    Windows 8 vs. Windows Phone 8

    Windows Phone 7.x and 8 are really quite good; an innovative interface designed from the ground up. OK, as they've changed code base between CE, WP7 and WP8 there have been false starts for developers, but WP8 is now a great basis to build on. In particular, WP8 is ideal for the enterprise where MS rules both desktop and servers.

    The biggest problem is Windows 8. It's a car crash as far as many users and most businesses are concerned. MS have created a UI that pleases nobody, and refused to allow people to turn it off without resorting to third party utilities. The result is that the tarnished 'Windows 8' brand has a negative effect on Windows Phone 8. I honestly believe that if Windows 8 didn't exist, then Windows Phone 8 would be much more popular.

    1. mmeier

      Re: Windows 8 vs. Windows Phone 8

      Give it six more month and the Baytrail and Haswell CPUs with their enhanced performance and lower power. Those will be Win8 systems so people will use them. Once they get over the "it is different" they find the virtues, And the new system has quite a few. MS did a lot of work under the hood, finally killed the last Win2000 drivers and made a UI that is usable on both types of device,

      And for keyboard oriented workes Win8 is a beauty. No mouse required, touch-typists and programmers love it. So far the "give it two hours" test has worked for 90+ percent of the test users privat and company. Had a few who made extensive use of the "recent documents" feature in the start menu that missed something. OTOH that is Service-Pack work. Some miss the Aero effects, A lot had miss-conceptions from Eadon-style "reviews" like the "oooh shutting down is sooooo complex". Pressing the off-button on the box solved that. Telling them it's a feature since late XP got quite a few ooops :)

      Touch is another misconception easily solved with a penable. Pens are part of our culture and simply writing on the tablet is a concept people get in mere minutes. I switch off "touch" on my windows devices since I do not use it and do not like the smears it leaves. That "forces" people to use the pen and so far all have commented "I want one for <enter media consumer device>" and where sad to lern that "capacitive" pens are not the same (I keep one around for an old Iconia A500 device that I use for software testing so I can show them)

  23. AidanCheddar
    FAIL

    Loosing means winning

    Because loosing means winning, right guys?

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