Please wait...
So I was wandering through a mall today, and I noticed that the Microsoft Store is an *exact* copy of the Apple Store.
Except for one difference:
The Apple Store actually had customers in it.
Microsoft must be losing tons of money on those stores. They're so desperate to become a hip consumer brand, but their consumer products are utter crap that nobody wants.
They've got a new CEO whose name isn't Gates or Ballmer. If he wants to turn the company around he should discontinue the phones and tablets, sell off the xBox division (which is still losing money btw), close the stores, and focus on making their productivity titles available on platforms people actually *use*.
The reason they group all of that crap into one business unit is so they can pretend to show a profit. That revenue includes the $2,000,000,000 they bring in each year by extorting Android device makers with junk patents.
Well, Microsoft has a bit of a problem.
They have this operating system to support that doesn't really require much by way of updates (as people's reluctance to move away from XP shows) but still costs them money to maintain. They desparately want to move into some other market that has growth, but don't really have the credibility to pull it off as their past gaffs have shown. Culturally, I suspect they're still resting on the laurels of their past achievements (Office and OSes, if you want to call those achievements... I suppose fiscally they are), so they aren't really thinking well about innovation.
So, yeah. I guess they try to enter a market, flail, then try something else. They have the money to coast for a good while doing that kind of thing, but eventually they need to pull their head out of their ass and do something useful for consumers.
So, yeah. I guess they try to enter a market, flail, then try
something else. They have the money to coast for a good while doing
that kind of thing, but eventually they need to pull their head out of
their ass and do something useful for consumers.
I've been waiting for them to do that for roughly the past 38 years...
"The day Microsoft makes something that *doesn't* suck will be the day they start making vacuum cleaners."
"The day Microsoft makes something that *doesn't* suck will be the day
they start making vacuum cleaners."
<laughs>
I also saw the looks we were getting from some of the teenagers there, who couldn't quite figure out why my 14-year-old was carrying around a teddy bear.
A funny thing I noticed is that "used" Win7 and Office2010 licenses become so cheap, that it beats the risk of pirating one. Of course MS does not like that, but nobody likes their Win8 and 365 shyte.
And the hotlines for getting a downgrade activation code for a Win8 key, in order to actually make use of a computer instead smashing it with a hammer are so bizarre, it seems they directly connect you into some Philip K. Dick novel.
Hate to Apple bash here, but dang, my dad insists that if my mom gets a smartphone, she should get an iPhone.
1. She has an iPad and iPod Touch and hates the file-transfer/iTunes system - she's much more comfortable with a normal file-transfer system, where you transfer your music, docs, etc by filename into folders
2. She is technically inclined
3. You pay like 2x as much for the same power as in an Android...
The thing is that my dad barely knows how to use a computer or an iPad, and won't touch her Symbian phone (Nokia 5800, which was actually a very good phone for its era)
Everyone who has talked to them about it and knows my mom says Android.
But my dad wants "the set"
Annoying.
The thought that my mom now owns an android smart phone the size of a weapon of mass destruction makes me sick. Somebody advised her to buy it, but nobody told her how to use it. Guess who has to connect it to her computer, guess who has to tell her the basics. Guess who is shocked by the price for her mobile plan, guess who can not believe that they got her a t-mobile phone preloaded with crapware for which you would have needed the cpu power of all the 1990s supercomputers combined.
My mom is the user for which mac minis and iphones were developed. She should get a restraining order from any major file browser in the world.
Guess who recently deleted most of the photos stored on her computer because "they are already in the image gallery program". This is the reason why iPhoto hides the images in one big folder, why the iTunes library is "hidden" in the depth of your Music folder.
I am convinced that 95% of all computer users should never have to mess around with files.
My mom's been a computer user since 1983.
She's used Dos commands, Unix, the whole bit.
She used Type-it-All on our TRS-80, and even did some rudimentary programming.
She does more with her Nokia 5800 than most people do with their iPhones.
In her case, Android is a good option.
Yeah, my former boss and I noted that people who were uncomfortable around computers should use iPhones. Those phones are made for those guys. Don't worry about that man behind the curtain... that sort of thing.
But for the rest of us, the Android is the better phone. Very flexible, and you can do damned near anything you might care to do with it.
Did anyone see, the IEEE honored Gary Kildall last week, for his achievements?
http://news.cs.washington.edu/2014/01/25/ieee-to-honor-uw-cse-alumnus-gary-kildall-with-milestone/
Check outthe facebook page also. :) 
I should add:
(if your curious about what's on the paper tape? :) )
"Legacy of Gary Kildall - Event April 25, 2014"
(photo and quote from above facebook page)
"Gary Kildall’s gift to the world of personal computing was
celebrated yesterday when President-Elect Howard Michel of
the IEEE cut the punched paper tape to unveil a plaque
commemorating “The CP/M Microcomputer Operating System – 1974.”
Close to 150 friends, family, IEEE officers, Asilomar
Microcomputer Workshop participants, NPS personnel, DRI alumni,
and local citizens and dignitaries braved the stormy skies of
appropriately Seattle and “Navy” weather to dedicate this
important Milestone in computing history. The message on the tape,
"This may have been one of the most exciting days of my life,
except of course when I visited Niagara Falls one day," was a
favorite expression of Gary's."