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Comment by jmuguy | Hacker News Reader

They're not abandoning Windows or the ecosystem. This is just the end of it as the tip of the spear/driving force for MS strategy. Nadella is (rightly, imo) focusing more on o365 and Azure.

One of the points the article makes is that Ballmer's MS would do things like not release Office for iOS because that would potentially eat into Windows marketshare. That no longer will happen. MS sees its more important to get o365 everywhere they can.

From my perspective, switching small businesses over to Exchange Online and other o365 services - The future is bright for MS in that space. These SMBs we've switched over have gone from using a version of Office they purchased forever ago and an old Exchange license to paying 50-100 a month for Office 365.

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I agree that getting Office to run on Android and iOS is a bright future, but that doesn't mean you put Windows in the corner with "some other stuff". Maybe there are too many people on it and they've gotten too comfortable? Spin it out into a company with half the staff and let it soak up its own sun.

The problem with Windows is operating systems are a commodity. You shouldn't care about it. You are about opening your documents on your desktop and phone - you don't even care what program opens the documents.

Mac OSX, Linux+desktop (any of several), IOS, and Android are all operating systems that can do everything you need of an OS, except MAYBE run windows programs.

Which is to say Windows as a separate company probably cannot make it long term.

If that were true, Linux on the desktop would have already won and this decision wouldn't be controversial. I think what's preventing this is that making a productive desktop operating system is more difficult than we think.

No. Linux on the desktop has some specific list of pros/cons. Windows can be better by enough, even if inertia is the only advantage.

Isn't that my argument?

You seem to be arguing that is enough to make windows not a commodity.

The desktop matters less and less.

The only computer I own at home (other than ipad/iphone) is a Chromebook. But I lease a cheap VPS that lets me do "computer stuff" otherwise.

Not at all; if you want to consume a lot and create a little then your thesis is right, but the desktop is king for creators. There are a slew of very mature Windows only software out there serving many fields of endeavour for which there are no competitors in either FOSS or other OSs.

> There are a slew of very mature Windows only software out there serving many fields of endeavour for which there are no competitors in either FOSS or other OSs.

Can you list some? That sort of software is my favorite genre and I'm always interested to hear about different ones.

Apologies for the delay in replying. I use MS Project and an add-on called SSI Tools daily, both essential for CPM based project management. Also MS Outlook plus Clear Context for PIM and communications functionality. There's also MindManager which is a highly functional mind mapper plus a couple of plug ins for it.

Eh. Creator software comes in two tiers. Dilettante tier (e.g. lower-end Photoshop) is actively ditching desktop altogether, while higher-end (think of Color, the motion picture colorizing system) either run on Macs or on such dedicated machines that they might run Wintel but are not "desktops" anymore.

(Then there's scientific software -- Stata and Matlab and that stuff. But ten years ago Matlab, like gagh, was best served in higher-end minicomputers and now everything is Python and can be ran on a cheap VPS or on AWS.)

Besides the sheer gobsmacking convenience, there's also the fact that it's way more fun for bean-counters to have higher OPEX in exchange of lower CAPEX. It really kicks the llama's ass.

Are you kidding? I'd be ecstatic to go purchase a new boxed copy of Windows 11 Pro 2018, so long as it was basically Windows 7 shell with Windows 10 kernel and security updates, no UWP/Cortana/store/telemetry addons, and settings that stay set.

I'd even buy the Windows 12 Pro 2021 version when the time came for fundamental internals shifting like wider WSL access.

You might but no one else would. Most people use the OS that came with their computer until it dies.

You might but no one else would.

I would. An update to Windows 7 that worked well with modern hardware and had modern security updates but otherwise ignored almost everything Microsoft have done in more recent versions would be a significant improvement on anything currently available for those of us who value stability and security over bells and whistles.

I would and have. My last PC was built with Vista. I bought 7 when it came out and then 8. I'm far from the usual user though. My point was that regular people will not.

> Windows as a separate company probably cannot make it long term.

That is surely overstating it, at least for definitions of "long" meaning <= 20 years. If you assume that Windows is more or less "done" their engineering expenses could be low, and revenue significant, merely serving the corporate and various niche (gaming, etc) markets which are still heavily bound to Windows. Their market share is declining in some niches (such as CAD) and maybe even overall (to OS X), but negative revenue and market share growth does not necessarily mean quick extinction. Some dinosaurs take decades to bleed out.

Not saying that you are wrong, but iOS office was in development long before Ballmer left, so never isn’t as true as “not soon enough.”

> Nadella is (rightly, imo) focusing more on o365 and Azure.

Windows is a perfect example of no focus at all. Maybe this makes sense for a true mainstream OS.

To be honest, I wonder if Azure, Exchange online or Office 365 can really be their future. Why not use AWS, Scaleway or a local service. It's cheaper and better.

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