This screenshot of Windows Explorer from Windows 8 has been already ridiculed by everybody and his dog. It's looking like Apple and Microsoft, both having 30 years of experience in interface design, reached radically different conclusions.
Reading the article clearly shows that Microsoft's design is driven by data. Apple, on the other hand, seems to employ designers.
Three main concerns are enumerated in the post: WebGL exposes too much sensitive, privileged, or unhardened code to the Web; depends too heavily on third-party code for security; and is too susceptible to denial of service attacks. The first of these is perhaps most significant. Video hardware and video drivers are traditionally only exposed to relatively "trusted" code—programs that the user has explicitly chosen to install. Display drivers are notoriously unstable and buggy, and developers of 3D software have to go to quite some effort to ensure their programs do not use (or misuse) the 3D hardware in such a way as to cause problems.
Microsoft refuses to implement WebGL, giving security as a reason. Interestingly, it's not an issue for every other browser out there and even for Microsoft's very own Silverlight... It's worth to read response of the VP of Technology at Mozilla, Mike Shaver.
About a month before the launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft held an iPhone funeral procession in Redmond. This is not something a confident business does, this is something an arrogant business does — regardless of what company does something like this it is both childish and stupid.
That funeral alone should be a reason for CEO to step down. Especially when you look at such a hubris in a perspective of the last few months, when Windows Phone didn't make any relevant dent in the market.
Microsoft's DNA is: slow release cycles and building "solid" products. To the contrary, Gaurav is notorious for saying, "you ship or you suck", taking the emphasis away from the framework builders. Your promotion was solely dependent on the amount of stuff you ship and the impact you make. (that's not too much news to web startups?) They had weekly release cycles - faster than Google back then. The rule on the ground was if code breaks or does not ship in time, the engineer is held responsible, No - not the test, not the project manager. Engineer should drive everything.
On engineering culture of Bing, back and then. Maybe it's just because the article was written by a former employee, but the message is clear: Bing has lost its vibe.
"It's a culture that actually awards the political assassins," said a software engineer who thought he might be one of the exceptions -- an outsider able to thrive despite moving to Redmond mid-career. He was well aware of Microsoft's reputation for being hostile to those hired into senior positions from the outside but he was flabbergasted just the same when a top exec showed up in his office one day to spell out the facts of life inside Microsoft shortly after he arrived on campus.
"He's standing there telling me, 'I can have your team broken apart any time I want, just remember that,' " he said.
Or why the company that's doing so well is in such a bad shape.
Even before Microsoft made him wealthy, it appeared to people who knew him that Mr. Allen had broader interests than running a software business. David Bunnell, who worked in New Mexico in the 1970s with Messrs. Allen and Gates at the pioneering PC maker Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, better known as MITS, said Mr. Allen was more passionate about music and culture than his business partner.
"He was more interested, in a broader sense, in the world," Mr. Bunnell says. "I think Bill is more single-minded."
Something tells me that THAT is exactly one of the most crucial things that distinguish people like Gates, who were able to create remarkable companies.
For reasons unknown, Microsoft has changed the settings on Hotmail to disable HTTPS for users in several countries including Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence”. I wonder if this rule also applies to Microsoft.
Yes, the banner is fugly - and inaccessible, thanks to the missing alt text – but that's not as much of a problem as where the banner links to: the IE homepage on microsoft.com. Given that everyone using IE6 is, at best, running Windows XP, and given that Microsoft have stated that IE9 won't be available for pre-Vista SP2 OSs, the most recent version of Internet Explorer they could ever hope to upgrade to is IE8.
On downsides of recent Microsoft's campaign to eradicate IE6. To Microsoft credit one must admit, that they're doing their best and it's hard to expect they will link to Firefox or Chrome instead of their own browser, even though it's already obsolete.
Google has sued the US government -- specifically the Department of the Interior, for not seriously considering Google Apps when it put out a Request for Quotation (RFQ) to handle its messaging needs. Specifically, the DOI stated upfront in the RFQ that the solution had to be part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Google is making the argument that this is "unduly restrictive of competition," and it seems like they've got a decent argument there.
I wonder what the results will be but Google certainly has a case here.
“Silverlight is our development platform for Windows Phone,” he said. Silverlight also has some “sweet spots” in media and line-of-business applications, he said.
But when it comes to touting Silverlight as Microsoft’s vehicle for delivering a cross-platform runtime, “our strategy has shifted,” Muglia told me.
Silverlight will continue to be a cross-platform solution, working on a variety of operating system/browser platforms, going forward, he said. “But HTML is the only true cross platform solution for everything, including (Apple’s) iOS platform,” Muglia said.
Few weeks ago I was listening to an interview with an author of browser based audio editor, who decided to implement his project in Silverlight. While he got some valid technical points concerns about HTML5 performance, betting on proprietary technology that depends totally on some company's politics and CTO's mood sounds like a much worse idea. Here's why.
