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Microsoft Employees Love Their iPhones
portscan writes "There is an entertaining and telling article in the Wall Street Journal about iPhone use by Microsoft employees. Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank and file. The head of Microsoft's mobile division tried to explain it away as employees wanting 'to better understand the competition,' although few believe this. Nowhere does the article mention attempts by the company to understand why the iPhone is more attractive to much of Microsoft's tech-savvy workforce than the company's own products."
I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone. My preciousss. It's pretty and seductive, but it locks me out of stuff. For just about everything, there's an app for that, except for when Apple pulled it. It can do just about everything, but not when Apple or AT&T says it can't, like tethering. But for all it makes me crazy, I still can't seem to pause in the middle of the day without pulling it from its holster and stroking its sleek, responsive, beautiful face for a few minutes.
Damn this stupid phone. I really should throw it back into the depths of Cupertino from whence it came, but you'd probably have to gnaw my hand off to get me to drop it.
John
Can we tag that "duh"? I mean, if anyone knows the quality of MS Mobile phones, it's the people making them. So do they use them?
Well, duh.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Better in some ways than Windows Mobile phones.
This really shouldn't be surprising.
+++ATH0
I remember this same story came out about how a growing number of MS employees were using ipods, and apparently it was frowned upon, so they started switching the white headphones for regular ones. Link: http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2005/02/66460
And I can't think of any employee, at any time, who used a Windows Mobile handset for one second longer than was contractually required. It looks like they're finally getting the idea with the newest version that mobiles are not just small desktops, but all they've done is caught on to what everyone else figured out 10 years ago.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I wonder how many Apple employees use Microsoft Office. Or Microsoft employees search with Google. Why are people so intent on declaring one product the winner that everybody should use? Did it benefit Microsoft to switch Hotmail to MS IIS before IIS was ready to handle a site of that scale? This isn't a failure for Microsoft's phone efforts as much as it is a victory against Microsoft's mono-culture mindset.
It works with Exchange. Microsoft is not going to run a BES. And Android is the one eating their lunch.
So Microsoft says they believe it helps them to understand the competition, but the submitter simply says "nobody believes this" and then faults microsoft for not "trying to understand the competition"? Did people actually stop reading their own submissions?
Fleur de Sel
Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank and file.
Need to practice ducking airborne chairs? There's an app for that!
I don't understand how a company as huge and powerful as Microsoft can't release a good competitor for the iPhone. I have a Zune, and the hardware is quite nice, but the software is horrible and has given me a BSOD on three separate computers (with different versions of Windows).
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
If they do, then there's a real issue there.
If not, it's the employees money to do with what they please. Upper management needs to STFU.
"I'm an old-fashioned type of guy. I worship the Sun and Moon as gods. And fear them."
The Apple culture is about obsession. This goes from creation to use. Despite any flaws the iPhone it has, it feels likes someone actually thought how non-engineers would use it. This is an important factor IMHO, because even with the 'wow' factor, a device will only work if people can find it usable. Too many gadgets, IMHO, are designed by engineers and almost feel like the primary user was an engineer. To many people the "it just works" element is as important as any of the features that the device it may include.
There are other companies who have understood the people factor, but all to often it doesn't feel like it is running through the veins of the companies.
Looking at Microsoft, I feel that they are confused about what it means be user friendly. There are elements of the company who seem to get it, while there are other parts that thinks bells and whistles are what user friendly is about. For me being user friendly is something a little complex, it is that right balance of simplicity and richness of functionality. Hiding features or dumbing down an application is not going to magically solve the problem, if the humans factor is forgotten in the process.
The irony in all this is that Apple spends less on R&D than Microsoft, yet whether it is through focused R&D or some other factor I feel they seem to capture the magic combination better. Maybe there is something to be said of having a company run by a guy who is so obsessive that his passion captivates people, rather than alienating them - yes, I am insinuating that Balmer's passion at developer conferences is more an after thought than something that drives the company in a cohesive way.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Better weaselly PR explanation: "Microsoft employees enjoy the iphone because it is a platform for the exciting apps Microsoft has developed."
Also guys, "News for nerds, stuff that matters"? I think this is two of those words at best. But here I am commenting. Oh sigh...
So do MS think they can copy it or are they just trying to extract all the ip they can. I doubt they will be able to buy Apple which is there normal path to "creating" new technologies.
This is why I am less and less happy about Apple's desire to end jailbreaking.
Opening up the iPhone allows me to be liberated from some of Apple's control-fetish annoyances.
Admittedly nothing that is "a deal breaker", but it does allow you to fix a few issues that just make the iPhone work "better", based upon your (not Jobs') definition of better.
Microsoft has a tech-savvy workforce! It's about time.
That's funny, you'd expect a lot of them would be using that really popular windows mobile phone, you know, the....err....wait, don't tell me...hmmm
MS software does have the better product from an email, business integration, flash software and hardware tech choice side.
On paper MS wins it all, as always.
I guess within MS the staff are really in awe of the closed garden feel.
The idea that one corp can pass/fail apps, remove apps, kill hardware ideas eg tethering and scale total control up to larger devices.
To your average MS worker its like holding their future before bringing the MS real world productivity to a locked down candy gui toy.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I'm not surprised. I have had to call MS tech support. As we wait for the computer to work I ask them what they use at HOME. Many of the Microsoft Windows technicians use Macintosh computers at home and confide that they only work on MS for the money. Imagine that. For the money they sell their souls!?! :) Oops, and there I was getting support for a MS product. I plead insanity.
I don't work in a business directly linked to mobile phones but I do work in the telecoms industry for a company that does produce VoIP clients for mobile phones, as well as business telephony servers.
In my experience, Windows is currently in a decline as an OS for mobile phones, it now all seems to be Blackberry, iPhone, Android & Symbian...
Sure, it may well be that Windows Mobile 7 means it will pick up for Microsoft at some point in the future but presumably a lot of people who work in Microsoft are gadget freaks like the rest of us & want to buy the latest gizmos... that means gizmos that probably don't run Windows Mobile at this moment in time.
I just don't see that there's anything amazing to report here - if anything, MS employees are used to working with locked down operating systems & hardware, therefore iPhone would be second nature to them...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
So, Windows Vista was developed by "engineers" who like the shiny - no, you can't do that - apple phone. Now I get it...
I am actually an iphone developer right now (not exactly my choice, our CEO thought it was a good idea), and I can't see how any real get overpriced fashion accessory.
Don't tell me there are no geek oriented devices, let any decent geek spend an hour with something like the N900, and observe the results! (mainly because, well, yes, it will run linux)
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
I agree. My iPhone would be much less useful to me without jailbreaking, and would limit its usefulness. Besides the points you made, I can do other things thanks to jailbreaking, like:
* Multitask
* Run WiFi only apps over 3G
* Run any non-approved applications I want
* Use multiple ActiveSync accounts (ie Work Exchange and Gmail)
* Use the iPhone as a storage device
Like you said, they might not be dealbreakers, and I understand the reason Apple doesn't want me to do some of them, but jailbreaking would be sorely missed.
It's too bad Apple can't just make a "no warranties, do at your own risk" official jailbreak for advanced users. I'll gladly take the risk, and I'm sure most users wouldn't even be aware of it.
Now your employees can like other phones: Android phones!
The second line should read:
I am actually an iphone developer right now (not exactly my choice, our CEO thought it was a good idea), and I can't see how any real geek would like the overpriced fashion accessory.
PS. To make it clear, I do like the platform as a developer - Obj-C and the sdk are nice and I can do the things Apple will let me nice and fast. My problem is how much it limits me as a user.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
It doesn't really seem like a fair comparison to me. Microsoft doesn't make phones, they make software. This isn't really news at all, just more "We found a trend at Microsoft, lets post a news article about it!" crud. Call me when Microsoft makes a phone that most Microsoft employees refuse to use, then I might consider it newsworthy.
Yes, Apple pays a bit more attention to user-friendliness than Microsoft. Mostly, though, they are paying a lot of attention to a good unboxing experience and fun. Apple also focuses their efforts on specific markets and demographics while Microsoft wants it all.
But people should stop saying that "it just works". Apple products often don't "just work"; just go look at the Apple support forums and do some web searches. Nobody has managed to make computer systems or software of any significant complexity that "just works".
Believe it or not, Microsoft is a pretty tolerant company on the inside. You're not required to drink the kool-aid, and using non-Microosft products and services is not frowned upon. Almost everyone (at least in Redmond) uses Google for search, for instance. A lot of smartphone users use iPhone. Some use Android even (even though corp discounts obviously don't apply to either iPhone or Android plans or phones). It is not uncommon to see a Mac running Mac OS X, even though the corp network doesn't really support it. I haven't seen any Linux use on laptops, but that's probably because ACPI support in Linux sucks ass.
There are folks who proudly drink the Kool-Aid, and refuse to use anything non-Microsoft, of course, but they're in minority.
Having worked elsewhere after Microsoft, I've gained a lot of respect for this aspect of Microsoft corporate culture that I had taken for granted. I think at least someone at Microsoft understands that Microsoft has a lot to learn from the rest of the world, and corporate inbreeding is its worst possible enemy.
Thank you
Christ I can't believe I forgot multi-tasking! I use that everytime I turn my phone on.
That figure equals about 10% of the company's global work force.
is it really that surprising given the iphone's share of the smartphone market is, AFAIK, significantly more than that?
No matter how good Windows Mobile 7 itself may be, the fundamental problem with Windows Mobile 7 is that it is still tied to other Microsoft products, and Microsoft's other products often suck. You just know that if you're going to try to use it Google Apps, Mac, Linux, Firefox, or iTunes, there's going to be tons of problems.
They're probably going to use it to try to push Windows Live, Bing, Bing Maps, Xbox, Zune, Office, and all the other crap they are selling. And while you may use and like some of that, I don't know anybody who really likes everything Microsoft makes.
And Microsoft can't escape that trap. The Mobile division would be fired if they tried to give people what they actually wanted: Gmail, iTunes, Google Maps, PS3, etc.
And the things they have optimized for Windows Mobile 7 are not necessarily the ones I care about. "Bright superflat squares that fill the screen"? A good mobile phone interface is not primarily about the best graphic design, it's about a lot of other things.
I don't think it's possible for Microsoft to produce a good mobile phone given the way the company operates.
Of course, in many ways, Apple is just as proprietary and annoying. But unlike Microsoft, Apple is happy with a few percent market share. And Apple doesn't have as much crap to tie into, so despite Jobs's control-freakishness, the iPhone still ends up being more open.
I haven't seen any Linux use on laptops, but that's probably because ACPI support in Linux sucks ass.
ACPI support in linux is near perfect. It's the ACPI support in the hardware that sucks ass.
In their defense, they are in the midst of overhauling their mobile platform, and Windows Mobile 7 looks like it is going to be very awesome.
It looks interesting, BUT it's not a replacement for Windows Mobile 6.5 - now dubbed Classic. Windows Mobile 7 is more for consumers but business people presumably would be told to continue using Classic.
Although if it has exchange integration that could be enough.
I'm not sure how some of the design choices they made will play out in real life, it will be interesting to see the final product.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Better is better no matter where you work.
For crying out loud when will we focus on improving our own products rather than kicking the competition? Open your eyes!
I contend that for your average ACPI non-expert (99.999% of the population), it seems to be the other way around. I don't care who's wrong, I just want to my laptop to fucking wake up when I open the lid, like it does in Mac OS X and Windows.
It is not uncommon to see a Mac running Mac OS X, even though the corp network doesn't really support it. I haven't seen any Linux use on laptops, but that's probably because ACPI support in Linux sucks ass.
I actually quite liked your post until you threw out this statement - it sounds to me like you started writing the post with the intention of getting a cheap shot at Linux somewhere in it...
Actually, I take this comment as a credit to Linux because had you made this statement five years ago, you'd have said how Linux hardware support on laptops was so bad, particularly for things like WLAN interfaces - so it's quite clear it's come a long way since then.
I've not yet used Vista or Windows 7 so I don't know how good their ACPI support is - but although, in my experience, XP's ACPI support is generally better than on Linux, it still has a long way to go.
If I can throw in an example from the other side of the fence, this very weekend I have been replacing a motherboard in a PC due to a failure, that PC used to dual boot Windows XP and Linux. I went from a Pentium Dual Core mobo to an AMD X2 mobo (it's a cheap and cheerful secondary PC) and the old hard disk booted the old Linux install perfectly fine - all I had to do was recompile the kernel for some new driver options and off it went...
Windows XP, however, blue-screened on boot, even in safe mode, and when I did a fresh install of it, it kept locking up during the installation, rather ironically at the installation screen that says "Your computer will be faster and more reliable". In the end, I ditched the Windows installation completely, Windows was only on there for gaming so now I will see what I can do with Wine.
I fully accept that many people don't want to and never will use Linux, and many of them have very valid reasons for doing so. But picking up on the ACPI issue is, frankly, a petty and trivial point - if you know anything about Linux and plan running it on a laptop, if you've a brain in your head then the first thing you will do is research the hardware support and choose the best supported laptop anyway.
And if by chance ACPI doesn't work then there are other options - for starters, suspend mode is a security issue anyway (as opposed to just turning the thing off) and if lack of ACPI functionality means the battery drains quicker, then there's always the option of buying a second or extended life battery.
By all means voice your opinions about Linux but please do so from a position of knowledge about it, rather than FUD.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Nowhere does the article mention attempts by the company to understand why the iPhone is more attractive to much of Microsoft's tech-savvy workforce than the company's own products.
Most likely, that's because Microsoft doesn't make a phone.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I wonder how many Microsoft employees use Macbooks.
There, fixed it for you.
Another famous example of corporate inbreeding is the taboo against American auto workers driving Japanese cars. I think this taboo had a lot to do with why Detroit lost so much ground to the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. Without the direct, everyday experience of comparing the quality of the cars they were building to those from Honda and Toyota, they just couldn't understand how far behind they really were and what was going to be needed to catch up. The truth is, GM and Ford management should have purchased Japanese cars themselves, given them away by lottery to 10% or 20% of their employees, and required those employees to drive them to work every day!
People need to get over their high-school-loyalty mindset and realize that having at least some employees familiar with the competition's product is critical.
Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
Right. In which case you then go speak to the hardware manufacturers and request they write proper Linux drivers for ACPI, or publish their hardware specs properly so the kernel developers can write the drivers.
By the same logic, it would be perfectly okay for me to call my kid an idiot for not knowing what year the Battle Of Hastings was, even though he's never done anything about it in his history class!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I work for a large consumer products company, and our sector is pretty competitive. If the marketers would come over to IT and see us using competitors products, they'd be pretty pissed. We're all part of one team, and sticking to our products is important to us. I think that's one reason why we're successful. We do have competitors products on our desks / shelves but only to learn from / motivate us to gain more share. I have a hard time using products from our competitors... even in segments that we don't compete in... who wants to give the enemy more ammo?
And just one final point - ACPI probably is a big issue to Windows users because in my experience, corporate Windows laptops suffer very badly from OS rot. So a nice brand new XP laptop that once booted XP in about 30 seconds can, a year or two later, take anything up to 5 minutes to boot - and we all know how corporate IT departments hate their users fiddling with their systems running defragmenters, registry cleaners, etc.
You don't get the same problem on Linux - if it boots now in 30 seconds, it probably will still do so in a year's time.
Therefore, ACPI suspend features are really not as important to Linux users as maybe they are to Windows users - as a Linux user of some 15 years experience, I've never found the need to use suspend in all honesty...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
... you deserve to have your geek license revoked.
-
I side with the loyalty crowd. Be it Apple or Microsoft, support the place that's keeping you in interwebs, flat screen TVs, a nice ride, and an occasional vacation.
Right. In which case you then go speak to the hardware manufacturers and request they write proper Linux drivers for ACPI, or publish their hardware specs properly so the kernel developers can write the drivers.
Countless people went and done that, and what good did it do?
The real solution to his problem - the one that, you know, actually solves his problem, here and now - is the one that he gave himself: use a laptop with OS that can do it with the hardware that exists today. Not chasing unicorns.
By the same logic, it would be perfectly okay for me to call my kid an idiot for not knowing what year the Battle Of Hastings was, even though he's never done anything about it in his history class!
Well, if every single one of his classmates somehow knew that regardless...
Why should they even need to?
I cant fathom why you would think that such a thing is logically a good thing to do.
The problem Apple has is not that it restricts the app store, that is fine as it is Apple's app store. The problem is that Apple restricts the iphone to the app store and the app store only.
Google's way around this was to add an option into Android that permitted the installation of programs from anonymous sources and leave this option disabled by default. Therefore if you liked the kind of walled garden security that application restriction provides then you can have it, but if you wanted freedom it was three clicks away. But this kind of approach requires device level security, which the iphone has little to none of.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Why in the world would you want to run GMail over activesync? IMAP with idle works great for my gmail account.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Believe it or not, Microsoft is a pretty tolerant company on the inside.
They do sound pretty open. Compared to say Coke, who will fire employees for "violating a policy prohibiting slander of Coke products", aka drinking Pepsi or eating at a Pepsi owned fast food chain.
Right. In which case you then go speak to the hardware manufacturers and request they write proper Linux drivers for ACPI, or publish their hardware specs properly so the kernel developers can write the drivers.
It's a circular problem. Linux is not important enough to write drivers for, and the poor driver support for Linux holds it back.
It's certainly not the user's problem. They'll just go to an OS that does what they want. The problem lies with the nature of Linux itself. Who will campaign to manufacturers for better driver support? Who represents Linux?
It's an easy question to answer for OS X and Windows, but pretty murky for Linux.
The end result though is that users either miss out on features, or they choose against Linux.
Therefore, ACPI suspend features are really not as important to Linux users as maybe they are to Windows users - as a Linux user of some 15 years experience, I've never found the need to use suspend in all honesty...
Boot time may be 30 seconds, but what about the time to set up your workspace? Those apps you keep open in the background, or that you had open last time and need now. What about the files you need?
You're there fiddling around for a minute or two, waiting on your system, getting it set up how you had it last time. An OS X user is there in 1-2 seconds. Sure, that's not a lot of time difference in the scheme of things, but why should your OS hold you back like that?
The reason Apple fights jailbreaking is simple: They have realized that their most important asset is their brand, and they will do anything to protect it.
Why does this relate to jailbreaking? Well, remember when all those jailbroken iPhones got rickrolled a few months ago? If you read the media coverage, in most cases the detail got lost that it only concerned jailbroken phones with a badly configured sshd on them. It made Apple look bad because iPhones could be rickrolled. That's the kind of news Apple is fighting, and until you can make certain that those kinds of things do not happen on jailbroken iPhones, Apple will keep fighting it out of fear of bad publicity.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
When's the last time anyone looked at the Ford factories and saw nothing but Fords in the Employee parking lot? Only us techies make a big deal out of this stuff.
we should all buy one because MS developers are so revered around here.
No, it's like calling your kid an idiot if, when asked to research the year of the Battle of Hastings, he writes a letter to the publisher of his favourite history textbook demanding that they email to all customers an errata footnote on the year that the battle of hastings occurred. When there's another free (as in beer -- Microsoft employees can install Windows on their work machines for free, obviously, and this is where the analogy came from) history textbook sitting right beside that has it listed and indexed already. Because he doesn't like the other history textbook.
It's not Linux's fault, per se, but it is Linux's problem. The difference between "Linux doesn't have good ACPI support" and "ACPI hardware doesn't have good Linux support" is pedantic and ultimately irrelevant to anybody not in a position to fix it themselves.
If you aim to make the best, you should be using your own product?
Yet another slashvertisement about how great the fucking iphone is. We get it: Apple=always good, always godlike, Microsoft=stupid, dumb, ham-fisted.
Really, just stop. You're going to get your free iphones from apple marketing just the same.
Linux ACPI support would probably be even better than it is now were it not for Microsoft.
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2010011422570951
I may be on the fringe here, but I like my windows mobile phone..always have.
Windows mobile and the iphone each cater to a different class of user. iPhone undoubtably caters to the larger class, the media-hungry chic consumer. Microsoft to the smaller, corporate minded consumer. For the purpose of comparison we'll call the iphone class, class 1, and the corporate class, class 2. Yes the iPhone has a great UI, no denying that. They're design is sleek and clean. It's beautiful.
Now if microsoft can just add on a UI and app store geared toward class 1 they'd be fine. Personally, i'd be happy if they had 2 UI themes. The first defaulting to class 1 and the 2nd to class 2 and letting me choose between the two with ease.
I don't think they should force themselves to reinvent the wheel here. Look, the iPhone interface works.They have a lot of information on what works. Do that. Forget about the criticism you'll get from making your UI iPhone like, being a copy-cat or whatever.
I'm squarely in class 2 of users. I'm an IT guy. I love running apps in the background. My VPN app is designed for windows mobile. I love tethering, and I actually love the interface. Email on the main screen, check. Calendar there, check. Battery level, check. Remote desktop, ssh, check. Anything that doesn't have those things for me as an IT guy gets chucked.
Next phone, HTC Touch HD2, it's a no-brainer for me. There's no viable alternatives.
On a side note, i was considering an iPad. Love the discounted 3G plan (let's face it, t-mobile and verizon's $60 mobile broadband plans are WAY overpriced).
Love the form factor, size, no physical keyboard, just what i wanted for mobile IT administration. But then, no multitasking, no VPN for me, once again, it gets chucked. The day there's a viable windows based tablet (e.g. HP slate), i'm there.
-Tony
I just bought myself a Nokia N900, very cool device, well integrated Skype and SIP, runs x11vnc, etc.
I basically know what applications I want running on my phone. I don't believe that anyone will ever provide say pdflatex outside the MeeGo/Maemo/Moblin framework.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I commute between Seattle and Redmond on the #545 bus used mostly by Microsoft employees and contractors. Often I notice that most of the passengers are using their cell phones during the bus ride. My guess is that looking around the bus gives me a pretty good sense of what phones are popular on the MS campus. Yes, many many iPhones. More iPhones than Windows Mobile phones. I notice some people have both a Windows Mobile phone and an iPhone. I am starting the see lots of Android phones however. It will be interesting to see what happens when Windows Mobile 7 comes out.
Of course there is lots of non-MS software which is used extensively at Microsoft. Labview, Matlab, and JMP are all used a great deal because there are no real MS equivalents. I've never noticed any non-Office productivity suites being used by my coworkers, but that is probably because Office works well enough, and the latest version is always available for employees.
The first thing I did after leaving the borg in September was buy an iPhone and a Mac Mini (and it runs Win7 sweetly)... I was severly tempted to buy a MacBook Pro as well, but ended up with the Dell e6500 lemon/stinker... Bad choice...
Why in the world would you want to run GMail over activesync? IMAP with idle works great for my gmail account.
Um, because ActiveSync uses real push (via formatted SMS notifications) and IMAP IDLE just requires a constant data connection chewing your battery?
I don't own an iPhone; I thought that was just common knowledge (how EAS worked).
>but that's probably because ACPI support in Linux sucks ass.
What past decade are YOU stuck in? I bought an EEEPC over a year ago, and right off the bat EVERYTHING worked perfectly- suspend, graphics, webcam, sound, multitouch pad, wifi, etc. Then I trashed the included Linux and installed a different Linux. Guess what? Everything worked perfectly AGAIN.
This doesn't mean there are not problematic situations with certain hardware, but I would hardly called it "sucks ass". It think it is pretty damn good. And it is all the better such that it is open, free, and done WITHOUT much assistance from hardware manufacturers.
Just wanted to add info if anyone was interested on how the control messages work:
Source: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124307(EXCHG.65).aspx?ppud=4
Now you see why other smartphone users don't understand the appeal of an iPhone. Change the first few lines of your comment to "My iPhone is much less useful to me than a Blackberry,. Besides the points you made, my Blackberry can do other things, like:" ...and suddenly you see why whenever someone pulls out an iPhone and makes it a point that I look at it, it just makes me confused.
I love WM as a platform. Wouldn't trade it for any other mobile OS currently in existance although many of the others are quite good.
My favorites; Internet connection sharing, no rooting necessary (Ahmm..Andriod if you hope to use anything other than their crappy java implementation), no restrictions on what you can do with your own device and the battery is replacable (Ahmm IPhone). WinCE has a rtos kernel, excellent voice recognition (MUCH better than Andriods), full networking stack VPNs...etc Full BT stack (Some std profiles are STILL missing on the iphone and many Andriod profiles are still buggy) There are a bazillion UI and today screen applets - you get to decide exactly how your device looks. My phone doesn't crash, isn't slow, runs for several days between charges and does not get in my way. Suspect many of the people making empty statements about the WM platform actually have never used it or know very little about it.
I'd understand any company, even Apple or Google, telling road warrior business men types :
You must have a blackberry or nokia for company purposes because the Android or iPhone virtual keyboard encourages short terse emails that disrupt relations with clients and costs sales.
We're all well aware that capitative touch screen keyboards require longer for typing, produce more errors, and worse discourage standard politeness. So you should not use any virtual keyboard for important business emails, period.
I'm pretty sure however that the microsoft employees being discussed are actually developers, not road warrior salesmen. Microsoft has no business asking their engineers to restrict their personal electronics choices.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
And it backfired, because with a more diverse ecosystem it most likely wouldn't have *been* a news story.
[FUCK BETA]
I'm pretty sure the MS employees signed an "Employment Contract", not a "Be Our Customer And Buy All Our Products Contract". Employers will often offer discounts to employees to use their products, but I'm pretty sure for instance that restaurant employees sometimes eat food their head chef didn't cook.
Tell me - what's wrong with just turning the damned thing OFF? I mean, all laptops turn off and on, no matter what OS they are running. Turn it OFF. Simple freaking work-around. And, every time you turn your laptop OFF and ON, dun the hardware manufacturer for proper support.
Jesus H. Christ - *nix users are SUPPOSED to be smarter than the average sheep, or cow, or "consumer", aren't they?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I don't know about "most" linux users - but I have a few apps that are open when I log out and/or shut down. They open quickly when I log back in. Of course, I must stress the "few apps". There's no need to have ten spreadsheets, 4 games, 5 browsers, 3 terminals, and a dozen other apps all open at the same time. I CLOSE the ones I'm finished with, or don't plan on using at startup.
But, even if I had a ton of trash all open on my desktop(s) when I shut down - my *nix boxes will never get to the point that many Windows machines get to, for lack of defragging, cluttered registry, improperly registered DLL's, or misplaced/corrupted files. Notice that I haven't even touched on malware.
My HARDWARE isn't the fastest in the world, and yes, I wait about 90 to 120 seconds at boot up, before my desktop is fully loaded. But, Windows on the same hardware takes just as long when it's NEW. As GP was pointing out, two year old installations of Windows NEVER run as fast as they do new.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
and using non-Microosft products and services is not frowned upon
Shame it's not like that in certain large corporations that went down the microsoft route. Ironic that it's easier to plug an osx laptop in to a microsoft network than a ### network.
This new item wouldn't be an issue in most industries.
If an employee of a certain car producer drives to work with the car of the competitor no one wouldn't even be bothered. It's a fact that this happens.
Tell me - what's wrong with just turning the damned thing OFF? I mean, all laptops turn off and on, no matter what OS they are running. Turn it OFF. Simple freaking work-around. And, every time you turn your laptop OFF and ON, dun the hardware manufacturer for proper support.
Ehmm, yeah. Because when I give a presentation for some of the company bigshots, I really want them having to watch me spend 5 minutes pissing about with a laptop...
Out there in the *real* world, shit has to just work. If it doesn't it can't be used.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
You should hook your "Zune" up to a Mac. And might I say I think it is a bit silly to name your iPod "Zune". Does it have some special meaning?
On and offnote, I wonder what would happen if on your first day at MS, you would bring your Macbook along, listening to an iPod, while talking on the iPhone, and wrote your first email on gmail. :P
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you go to a deaker, all the employees will drive their own brand. And if you got a production plant, the vast majority of the cars will be of the brand produced there. Yes of course there are exceptions, you will see plenty of other cars brands outside the Ferrari plant. But if you work at Ford, you drive ford. And nobody at DAF would consider using anything but DAF trucks for their own company.
Since MS employees are highly likely to get a discount on MS products it is extremely telling that it can't even sell its own dog food to its own employees.
It just doesn't send the right message. You wouldn't think it normal if the vast majority of MS employees used Mac's would you?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
*cough*
What you're saying is, you expect your equipment to make up for your lack of ability to plan ahead.
Your pointless presentation is scheduled for 10:00, so you rush in at 9:55, and launch into your presentation. You couldn't have arrived at 9:45, or even 9:00 to set things up, and PLUG THE STUPID COMPUTER INTO A WALL OUTLET. No, planning ahead, and actually being prepared would be to much of a bother, wouldn't it?
BTW - Linux does "just work". Turn the damned computer on, watch the BIOS go through it's thing for several seconds, watch the splash screen for several more seconds, launch your program, and go. At MOST, you lose three minutes due to the lack of ACPI. Those three minutes are to much to plan for?
You don't deserve to have your fucking presentation seen or heard, if that's true.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
iPhone? What's that? Never heard of it.
I've been too busy playing on my N770, N800, N810 and N900 with unlimited apps.
<laugh class="smug">Hahahahahahaha!</laugh>
- N900 owner
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
junk?
As far as Microsoft is concerned, I interviewed for them last year. Used Google Maps to pull up directions on my iPhone. Many of the employees inside use Google, and I walked by a few cubes where employees were running Linux on their desktops. I was told that I was welcome to use non-Microsoft products to do my job, I just was not allowed to promote non-Microsoft products on a call.
You will find though, that this is not at all unusual in the professional world. You will see GMC employees driving Toyota, Fords and Dodge. You will see AT&T employees with Verizon and Sprint phones. Shoot, at my last company, we worked in advertising, and rarely did our people on that team actually have the client's products. Its unrealistic to think that everyone in your company is going to be using your product before coming to work for you, or to change to your product simply because they are working for you. Even if you offer company discounts, many are happy with their current products / services and do not wish to change, or, in some cases, such as with cell companies, may live outside their employer's coverage area.
Point is, there should be no surprise that people at Microsoft have iPhones, and in fact, I am sure there are people at apple sporting Windows Mobile, Blackberries and Android, and same way with people who work at Google. Its just unrealistic to expect otherwise.
That is crazy! I can sort of see Coke frowning on its employees drinking a stand-alone Pepsi, but some of the Pepsi resteraunts have good food, despite their inferior drink.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I may be atypical here, but for the linux on this Dell Inspiron laptop, sleep works fine, but when I use vista it goes completely AWOL if I stop using the computer for 15 min (I assume it's a power-saving issue).
So maybe it's not just linux with issues.
Yet strangely, 40% of the market is owned by Nokia, whilst Apple have a few per cent of the market. Do you think that 40% are all engineers? And that the non-engineers who want a phone that "just works" are in a minority?
(If it needs to be jailbroken to get basic functionality working, that's not "just works".)
This article is nothing more than a troll non-story, trying to get yet more free publicity for a niche phone company. Whilst Eating Your Own Dog Food can be a useful process, (a) this isn't always a good thing (compare with the Not Invented Here syndrome), especially as making phones isn't Microsoft's main market; (b) that only really applies to what companies use, and doesn't apply to what employees privately own as personal products.
To use a car analogy, it's about as relevant as saying that Microsoft employees love a particular type of car.
Where are all the stories about all the companies where the employees love Nokia phones? Oh right, I forgot, this is Appledot so we only get coverage for the Iphones.
Where are all the stories about the non-Apple products that Apple employees own?
The irony in all this is that Apple spends less on R&D than Microsoft, yet whether it is through focused R&D or some other factor I feel they seem to capture the magic combination better.
By what measure of "better"? Because by market share, or company revenue, they aren't. If you mean "I think they do it better" - well fine, I think that Nokia make much better phones, and anyone else makes better computers.
Therefore, ACPI suspend features are really not as important to Linux users as maybe they are to Windows users
I don't think that's true.
I would be most upset if I couldn't suspend this linux laptop. It only takes a few seconds to return from suspend, but quite a few minutes to boot and start apps.
ACPI works better under Linux than MacOS X for me. Don't understand how apple could screw up something so simple, but if I power off the laptop and close the lid before its completely shut off, it goes to suspend. Next time I open the lid, I'm greeted with a half dead battery, before it remembers that I told it to shut down before I closed the lid, so then it shuts off.
It seems to work properly under linux and even windows.
Current-gen Windows Mobile is a business-oriented device, like Blackberry. Nobody is going to use a Blackberry or WinMo phone as their *personal* phone. High-end and tech-savvy consumers in the U.S. buy iPhone or Android phones, period.
Wait until MS's consumer-oriented product - Windows Phone 7 - comes out, and see if the numbers change.
Even the Microsoft recruiters who came to our school had them. They use them because they work well. One of them told us they'd had conversations with the Windows mobile folks telling them that if they made something worth using they'd switch back.
It's such a bummer to find a restaurant with food you like at reasonable prices, only to discover that they serve pepsi products... even if the food's great, that usually means I don't go back very often (or ever); pepsi products really are pretty terrible compared to coke :)
Isn't the ZUNEphone superior in every way?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
And so do my managers and many co-workers at Microsoft.
Please note that ActiveSync hasn't had to work like this for about 5 years (since Windows Mobile 6). No new phone that uses ActiveSync will use the AUTD method (the SMS method you're talking about).
Now, there is a "constant" data connection between the device and the server. It's very low usage though - just enough to let the server know the device is still alive. Exchange will push the messages to the device as long as it has had a ping from the device within the alloted time frame (an always updating, adjustable time frame that works similar in theory to TCP flow control).
Your pointless presentation is scheduled for 10:00, so you rush in at 9:55, and launch into your presentation. You couldn't have arrived at 9:45, or even 9:00 to set things up, and PLUG THE STUPID COMPUTER INTO A WALL OUTLET. No, planning ahead, and actually being prepared would be to much of a bother, wouldn't it?
BTW - Linux does "just work". Turn the damned computer on, watch the BIOS go through it's thing for several seconds, watch the splash screen for several more seconds, launch your program, and go. At MOST, you lose three minutes due to the lack of ACPI. Those three minutes are to much to plan for?
You don't deserve to have your fucking presentation seen or heard, if that's true.
Ahhhh, I knew I was going to get that reaction. I considered inserting the fact that maybe, just maybe, I was otherwise engaged in the previous hour? Having back to back meetings is unfortunately more common than I'm willing to admit.
So what's your solution, cancel/run out early on the previous meeting to compensate for a laptop that doesn't work properly?
(For the record, if at all possible I tend to have my stuff set up at least enough time in advance to pop out for a quick coffee and smoke before I have to begin. Seeing you foam at the mouth was worth omitting that little detail though.)
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
1. Linux doesn't need an ABI.
2. Drivers need to go in mainline.
3. That code of the driver in mainline needs to be maintained, or it is ejected from the kernel.
4. Instead of continuous maintenance, manufacturers would rather just write a driver once, and be done with it.
5. But, Linux doesn't need an ABI.
Anyway, the viewpoints of the kernel-devs seem pretty clear. On the one hand having manufacturers write drivers for Linux would be a nice thing to have. But Linux will never have an ABI towards drivers. It's not that the kernel devs don't care, they just don't care enough. Or rather, the reasoning is "source or nothing". I'm not saying they are wrong to want source drivers. I'm not saying they are wrong to put roadblocks up for manufacturers that want to deliver binary drivers. I can understand.
Equally true for the manufacturers. On the one hand they would gladly deliver Linux drivers. But they don't want to deliver source drivers, they want to deliver binary blobs. And they want a stable ABI for those binary blobs. Again, I can understand their reasoning. They don't want others to see the source, and they want to deliver just a few binary blobs at most, and have the total Linux x86 spectrum covered.
Anyway, I doubt the Linux driver situation will ever fundamentally improve. Because, in the end, the problem isn't technical, it's philosophical.