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craigsaboe wrote: Am I the only one who keeps seeing these ridiculous articles about Microsoft dying, and reading only blindered screeds about how Microsoft's CONSUMER efforts are an utter failure, and wanting to scream, "LOOK AT THE ENTERPRISE MARKET, YOU MORONS!!!"?
They may not be messing up in the Enterprise market, but I can tell you - as an independent developer they're sure making it easy for me to lock down my tool set and not spend any more money on their stuff. The 2008 level products are about as far as I need go at this point. I develop for the desktop and web and nothing they're showing lately compels me to spend one red cent on upgrading.
-cb
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Just a couple of points.
Microsoft and enterprise: Explain Windows8/8.1, which appears to be consumer-focused, not enterprise-focused. Now, you might reply, most enterprises are going to wait until Windows9 or whatever it is called. But, Windows9 is going to have to pick up where Windows8 left off, and if Windows8 is consumer-focused, how will WIndows9 not be?
True, Azure is an emerging strength for MS, but how much revenue does it generate? As much as Office? As much as Windows?
Second point: Go read "In Search of Stupidity" by Merrill Chapman; observe how supposedly successful companies, with the future laid out before them, can overnight (or over a short period of time) just disappear from the tech landscape. Ask yourself if MS is making the same kind of mistakes.
Nobody really knows if MS will "die". There are many kinds of death besides bankruptcy. MS can dwindle into insignificance, occupying a narrow niche that other companies don't care about. MS could be purchased and subsumed into another company, to name only two of them.
Again, nobody knows. But, if MS continues to make blunders in the consumer market, and consumers are notoriously fickle and unpredictable, then MS is in definite jeopardy. Don't forget it was consumers who launched the original personal computer business back in the 80's. Consumers stampeded and business followed. Maybe consumers will do it again in the 10's.
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All these people who writes that type of articles are CONSUMERS. They carry their toys with them and they are happy. All they do all the time on their iPads, iPhones, Android, WP devises - Facebook, Twitter, Texting, playing games. They do not realize that so many businesses are heavily relying on Microsoft and its infrastructure.
They do not understand, that many companies still need GIS, ERP systems just simply provide 3G, Wi-Fi for their toys and deliver gas/hydro to simply charge their small devices. There are some system in place ambulance, police and other services rely on. If Microsoft dies (all these Apple/Android fan boys are cheering for) are going to be huge circumstances. Many people are going to loose their jobs, many businesses would struggle to support their services and provide services to their customers. Our GIS, ERP systems are built on MS infrastructure. What happens if MS dies? In our case, approximately 250,000 customers (most of them CONSUMERS) will struggle. Just my thoughts.
SergoT
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It's a new era in computing and in every new era throughout history you will find this radical people who want to the new thing and throw everything else away Microsoft is doing perfectly fine on the all levels.
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Actually, what gets to me most in this context is that the feed provider - e.g., CodeSource, does not filter for source bias. The negative reporting is published from the same sources, day after day after day. The basis for most of the negative claims are sophomoric analyses of consumer mentality, rather than insightful commentary on the competing visions and technologies of Microsoft and its competitors.
Even when technical analysis is provided, it often sniffs around at the edges of the technology, looking for marginal differentiators, rathering that tackling the bigger issues of integration and extensibility.
C'mon, CodeSource: I'm sure that you can do better than this! Spare us the pithy one-liners and do some source validation!
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If you ask me, it's not that their consumer products are not good, cool or slick, is that their PR department and the distribution channels are useless, many of their consumer products are launched either on the US only or in a narrow set of countries, here for example I would have liked to get my hands on a Zune HD, but it never came here officially (I could have got it on Ebay, but the price would have raised significantly), recently, I wanted to change my computer and I was looking to get a Surface Pro, but even now, it's not available officially here.
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I didn't go there above, but you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. Microsoft's PR and Marketing people bear a HUGE amount of responsibility for the failure of Microsoft's consumer hardware offerings. I was the one guy who got an original black Zune 30GB - Xmas gift. Still have it, use it occasionally. It was good hardware, not at all what you'd expect from MS. The HD upgrade made it even nicer - and it had a really slick OS on it, too!
Last month I upgraded my phone - initially picked up a Lumia 920. I thought it was a GREAT phone. I had been using an iP4 and an Atrix 3G, and between the three I can honestly say that I strongly prefer WP8 over iOS and Android. That said, before the week was up I went back and traded for an iP5. I did so for a combination of reasons, but they can all be boiled down to this: I have a lot more faith in Apple continuing to execute its "vision" than I do in Microsoft executing it's own.
They frankly suck at marketing to the consumer. The Surface ads were their worst yet. Short of having Lindsay Lohan go around promoting Surface 2, I don't know where else they'd go from here. Who knows where they would be, had someone competent actually run that marketing dept?
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If your point is that the Microsoft Corporation, as a business, is doing fine, then I agree with you. Afterall they are the 5th largest corporation (measured by capitalization). And yes, their business is mostly the enterprise side. However...
Apple came from nowhere to become the SECOND largest corporation - so no one should think that the consumer side isn't relevant.
MS has got the enterprise side sown up, for sure. However every corp needs to GROW to survive, and MSFT is struggling to GROW. It appears that they want now to shore up their mobile and consumer devices side of things - can you blame them?
Not only is MSFT struggling to gorw, they're also struggling with entry into the Mobile Space and with Developer and Consumer Mindshare - and mind share is so very important. It's what propelled Apple into #2 position (behind Exxon Oil).
So when you hear/read that MSFT is yesterday's news and their offerings are being ignored and hated, what you are witnessing is peoples' sentiment - and this is a clue about Mindshare.
These days a tech firm can fall in as little as 5 years. It may have taken 20 years to kill Motorola, or 10 years to kill Nokia, but the horizon is shorter today and Microsoft has to do everything they can to grab Mindshare in order to secure their future.
I still believe that with their enormous enterprise position and almost bottomless bags of cash that they will get over the current problems with their Win8 tablet sales - even if that picture is hard to see in the near term - but so far I see absolutely NO progress with Mindshare. People routinely mock Microsoft and their products. On Sept 10th when Apple had their showing of new phones I was looking through Flipboard and I couldn't help but be aghast that EVERY SINGLE tech story was about Apple and their new phones. Now THAT'S Marketing power, my friends, and without Mindshare that's not possible.
I think Microsoft's products are good enough (for them to have a good business) but the company absolutely SUCKS at Marketing and Promotion and they should really STUDY Apple in order to get a clue for what to do. And if they really want to increase Mindshare then they need to clue in that people hate them for a REASON. Yeah, Karma's a biotch.
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That doesn't iCount - the new one has an iFingerprint iReader (and it's probably iPatented...  )
If it helps, I have an iFinger that iApple are iWelcome to iTest against?
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This message is manufactured from fully recyclable noughts and ones. To recycle this message, please separate into two tidy piles, and take them to your nearest local recycling centre.
Please note that in some areas noughts are always replaced with zeros by law, and many facilities cannot recycle zeroes - in this case, please bury them in your back garden and water frequently.
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Don't know the point of being offensive.
Grow up.
you've been reported as abusive.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Maximilien wrote: Don't know the point of being offensive.
Grow up.
you've been reported as abusive.
And you've been reported as a knob. You've been here from the beginning, you know the rules, Apple sucks and Jobs did the world a favour by dying.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Too soon?
CPallini wrote: You cannot argue with agile people so just take the extreme approach and shoot him.
:Smile:
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Shelby Robertson wrote: Too soon?
It's never too soon.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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In these times of excessive political correctness it warms my heart to see knobism and a knobist in our midst.
The later part of your post does seem a tad harsh though.
Good on you for sticking up for Griff's iFinger which seems to have poked someone in the iMax.
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
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There There griff, you having a bad day! 
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I had two of them, both died - unknown reasons. Not because of the fingerprint scanner though, that worked while the phone did. 
Scott
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And, though I can't seem to find it now, there was a Windows Mobile device with a fingerprint scanner several years ago.
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True enough, but then most people aren't all that interested in facts ... give'em the BS, it tends to make many people a lot more happy than regular boring facts ...
Something like this[^] or this[^] is high-tech, and in comparison nothing here[^] seems to measure up ...
For ***** sake, we're talking about a mobile phone & and other consumer devices, not rocket science ...
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It's like the "OH MY GOD! THEY'VE GOT FRONT- AND BACK-FACING CAMERAS!" bollocks, a few years ago (when just about every other phone -- including feature phones -- already had them).
And don't forget that apple invented the idea of putting rounded corners on items that you keep in your pocket.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I know one of you is just dying to answer this[^] question.
/ravi
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Are you closing your encoder filestream?
modified 11-Sep-13 13:09pm.
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Hmm.. I see that even.
Ranjan.D
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The using block affects the stream, not the encoder. An encoder doesn't need to be closed.
/ravi
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