I remember being excited about Windows 10 a few years ago because it got people on a modern browser.
https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/why-everyone-should-...
Microsoft needs to jettison more legacy so they can move faster.
https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/why-everyone-should-...
Microsoft needs to jettison more legacy so they can move faster.
Why? For important business software, stability and longevity are good things.
From a commercial point of view, I know my businesses would have happily paid Microsoft for a version of Windows 7 that continued to get updates for security and for compatibility with new hardware but otherwise stayed much the same. Likewise, we'd pay for ongoing support of key business software like Office (and other big name products from other big name brands) if that were available.
Given genuinely beneficial improvements, we'd pay for genuine upgrades as well, on a timetable of our choosing.
However, we have no interest in upgrade treadmills for anything that matters, whether they are pushed via subscription plans or via incompatibility. So, moving faster in this case is directly costing Microsoft revenues.
While my own anecdotal experience is only that, I have to think we're not the only small businesses making the sorts of decisions we're making for the reasons that we're making them.
Microsoft would have significantly more freedom of action if they didn't repeatedly run roughshod over their users' personal agency over their devices.
Move faster to where?
Can you name me one IDE that has more features, fewer bugs and better profitability than Visual Studio?
I respect that Microsoft are not at the top of all fields they're involved in (search, mobile, etc...), but they aren't exactly struggling to stay competitive with every product they create.
Rather, that the goals of pretty much everyone in the software business are features, fewest bugs possible, and most profit possible.
I'm not even sure I agree with the great-grandparent post that MSFT needs to jettison legacy. Frankly, I don't know enough about their numbers to have an informed opinion. My point was that it seems pretty clear what the poster meant by "move faster". So the question "to what?" isn't all that helpful.
To be honest, I find that strange. Moving faster without setting goals about what you're moving faster for (other than profit) seems like a good recipe for dilution of focus. A company requires focus in order to maximise efficiency. Building up spare capacity just to buy time to run around like headless chickens seems like a wasted opportunity, from a business perspective.
If you are Microsoft, jettisoning legacy means jettisoning customers.
The only reason why eventually I switched to Chrome was Chromecast. Other than that Edge + uBlock Origin was doing everything any modern browsers do.