[variablebinary]

Originally Posted by Pyramid-3

It's MS's nature. They spend hundreds of millions hyping something and then when it doesn't crush everything in 4 weeks they stop improving it. Like Win6.1 Win6.5 Zune Bing for 4.

4 weeks?

Interesting.

Zune was introduced in 2006 and discontinued in late 2011.

6.1 was intro'ed in 2008 and 6.5 was into'ed in 2010 with support being cut off for both fully in 2012. There was an update from 6.1 to 6.5 for many devices as well. Android orphans more phones a year than Windows 6.1 and 6.5 did in its entire run.

Bing is still up and running and not being abandoned by any means.

Google has a far worse track record for abandoning projects. Microsoft ranks better on this subject.

Sent from my iPad3 using SU Forum app

[slick69]

I can vouch for the feeling that they just stop improving things.

WM6.5 was a slight repaint of WM6.1 (remember that there were many more touchable improvements in HTC's version of WM for their phones than in WM proper) and WM6.1 itself was a repaint of WM5, which only had some "under-the-hood" improvements from WM2003 SE.

WP7 hasn't improved much since it first came out. Mango had some tangible improvements but ever since Windows 8 plans were announced, its been coasting. Tango's major claim to fame is that it uses a different tombstoning algorithm to enable PW7 on 256MB devices. Note that these low-end devices still have to also have the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, albeit a different version. Oh, and it lets carriers & OEMs install 40 apps on the phone, the initial limit was 4.

Oh, and remember IE6 and Windows XP? And Windows is their key moneymaker.

It doesn't help customer confidence when the general feeling is that they just stop improving.

[gopher_otis]

I think Vista was a significant improvement over XP and 7 is an extreme improvement over Vista. I haven't even tried 8 yet, but I've played around with the Lumia and it's pretty cool. I even have a theme for it on my iPhone. I'm going to start keeping a close eye on Windows Phones as they might be a great alternative to the iPhone while avoiding Android.

 Sent via Forum Runner on my redsn0w iOS 5.1 iPhone 4 

[BZap49]

Originally Posted by slick69

Oh, and remember IE6 and Windows XP? And Windows is their key moneymaker.

I omitted the rest of your post because it was mostly opinion, and I can't really fault you for having an opinion. But you can't seriously expect a company to keep developing a software platform that's been replaced by another platform several times over. IE6 isn't developed anymore because the latest release is IE9. Windows XP isn't developed anymore because the latest release is Windows 7 (actually, Windows 8 builds have been released). That's like blaming Google for not working on Eclair anymore, or blaming Apple for not working on iOS 2.0 anymore. Microsoft supported XP for a decade. They're still supporting Vista, and they'll support 7 for years to come. As much as Vista sucked under the hood, it was a GUI improvement over XP, and 7 was a major improvement in all areas. Just because they don't improve things under the XP name doesn't mean that Windows has not improved. Same with IE.

[slick69]

Originally Posted by BZap49

I omitted the rest of your post because it was mostly opinion, and I can't really fault you for having an opinion. But you can't seriously expect a company to keep developing a software platform that's been replaced by another platform several times over. IE6 isn't developed anymore because the latest release is IE9. Windows XP isn't developed anymore because the latest release is Windows 7 (actually, Windows 8 builds have been released). That's like blaming Google for not working on Eclair anymore, or blaming Apple for not working on iOS 2.0 anymore. Microsoft supported XP for a decade. They're still supporting Vista, and they'll support 7 for years to come. As much as Vista sucked under the hood, it was a GUI improvement over XP, and 7 was a major improvement in all areas. Just because they don't improve things under the XP name doesn't mean that Windows has not improved. Same with IE.

My point was that MS let Windows XP and IE6 fester for way too long while they ignored the market and coasted. It was only after a long time of coasting that they developed IE7 and Windows Vista/7 and that was when other products were threatening their hegemony, and in the case of IE and Mozilla/Chrome, pretty much decimating MS's marketshare.

MS let WM fester for way too long and then when the iPhone and then Android came along, they were caught flat-footed. Steve Ballmer pretty much needs to resign as CEO and let someone else take over so that he can manage the gritty nuts and bolts of the business side, where MS does actually develop good products that people want to use.

[Pyramid-3]

Regardless. MS touted features in XP 12 years ago that have YET to be developed. Like virtual FS and real journaling FS. MS's response has always been to overpromise and then when it's clear 99% of they just said was BS they fracture their own product into numerous subversions which make arbitrary and useless distinctions, as long as what you actually want and need is the most expensive subversion or close to it. Then the trees start to diverge wildly sometimes abandoning whole branches and MS strides in like a savior to 'rescue' us from this chaos they themselves created by announcing another Great Leap Forward. And the crank turns and the same gorp comes streaming out.

[BZap49]

Originally Posted by slick69

My point was that MS let Windows XP and IE6 fester for way too long while they ignored the market and coasted. It was only after a long time of coasting that they developed IE7 and Windows Vista/7 and that was when other products were threatening their hegemony, and in the case of IE and Mozilla/Chrome, pretty much decimating MS's marketshare.

MS let WM fester for way too long and then when the iPhone and then Android came along, they were caught flat-footed. Steve Ballmer pretty much needs to resign as CEO and let someone else take over so that he can manage the gritty nuts and bolts of the business side, where MS does actually develop good products that people want to use.

There were some pretty large changes from XP to Vista. If anything, Vista was a rushed product, as a lot of the underlying code was buggy before Service Pack 1 came out. Honestly, I don't even know if I ever even used IE7, since the only time I use IE is when I do a fresh format and I need to download FireFox, so I can't speak about the changes from IE6 to IE7. However, I think the 5 year gap between XP and Vista was not that big a deal considering how much of the OS changed. If you think about how hard it is to develop a phone OS, imagine trying to create a computer OS. I think it's unfair to say they were ignoring the market, because it's not necessarily true. It's not like they could develop an OS overnight.

[rice]

Microsoft is losing close to 2 Billion dollars a year just on Bing. They have money to throw around, I'm glad that The Woz was able to grab some. Microsoft basically makes all their money on Office and Windows. They lose money on damn near everything else. X-box, Zune, Windows Mobile, I think the previous poster was referring to the Kin, a phone discontinued after 48 days. Some people like these products. Some people got them in the discount bin too.
As someone that administers about 25 windows computers, I would never let Microsoft have any control over my phone. I need that thing to work. I don't need an update to break something like so frequently happens on my Windows boxen.

[Pyramid-3]

It's whatever it is. Rest assured that Win8 Phone will die a quiet death in a year when Nokia goes pear-shaped.

[BZap49]

Want to put some money on that?

[Pyramid-3]

Originally Posted by BZap49

Want to put some money on that?

All my MS stock?

[gopher_otis]

Originally Posted by Pyramid-3

It's whatever it is. Rest assured that Win8 Phone will die a quiet death in a year when Nokia goes pear-shaped.

Like this?

[BZap49]

Originally Posted by Pyramid-3

All my MS stock?

Considering the ludicrousness of your prediction, you might as well just transfer it to me now.