Microsoft Killing Off Zune, Windows Live Brands?

Great by Billly+Gates · 2012-02-24 07:34 · Score: 2

So now we have that annoying Bing Bar in desktop mode and the annoying family safety program that slows your computer down even if you do not use it

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Re:Great by masternerdguy · 2012-02-24 07:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

You know real nerds can just disable unwanted services.

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Re:Great by Ouchie · 2012-02-24 07:46 · Score: 2

You still have the ability to configure the windows install. In Windows 7 it is in the add/remove programs you have a link that says turn windows features on or off. I'm in the middle of something right now and don't want to reboot to 8, otherwise I'd see if they moved it. I would figure that Billy Gates would know this, maybe you could ask Stevie Balmer.

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"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most." ~Ozzy Osborne
Re:Great by Grishnakh · 2012-02-24 08:15 · Score: 3, Funny

I don't see the problem. If you like Windows, you should be happy to pay $200-500 for a fully-featured copy that allows you to control the installation and not have it loaded with crapware from Norton et al.
If you don't like that, I suggest you look into alternatives. Personally, I think MS's prices are much too low, and that they should jack up their prices.
Re:Great by Grishnakh · 2012-02-24 08:51 · Score: 3, Informative

You didn't pay for a "Windows" license, you paid for a license for a version of Windows that is configured in one particular way and loaded down with a bunch of shitware. What you're doing is like buying a Chevy Aveo (with a big discount in exchange for having ads pasted to the side of the car) and then complaining that you didn't get a Corvette.
Macs are more expensive partially because they're not loaded with shitware. The shitware makes a big difference in price; that's how the mfgrs are able to sell you a laptop with Windows for less than the same laptop with Linux (which itself is free): your cost is being subsidized by all the pre-loaded shitware. By being forced to spend $300 or whatever for a fully-featured Windows license, you're only being forced to realize the true cost of the software. Of course, the preloaded Windows versions also frequently have various limitations that the higher-cost versions don't, hence the "Starter" edition which only lets you run 3 programs at a time, etc.
Comparing a shitware-loaded OEM Windows version to a Mac is apples and oranges. If the version of Windows you want ends up making your system cost as much as a Mac, then that shows that Windows isn't, in reality, any cheaper, it only appears that way when you use crippled versions and/or various vendor marketing deals that subsidize the cost.
Re:Great by ChatHuant · 2012-02-24 09:51 · Score: 4, Informative

If you mean windows starter edition you can run as many programs at once as you want. check your facts before posting.
I did:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/04/21/1356245/windows-7-starter-edition-3-apps-only

No, you didn't. You're just spreading FUD. See here.
Re:Great by crutchy · 2012-02-24 11:39 · Score: 3, Informative

pffft... you idiot. "real" nerds avoid anything microsoft like the plague and use linux, and have little idea what all the hype is about.
Re:Great by hairyfeet · 2012-02-24 14:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

Actually one of the few smart things they are doing with Win 8 is they are FINALLY gonna have services that start when they are called and stop when they are no longer needed, most likely because the sweaty monkey still thinks he can sell a WinPhone and WinTab so if you don't set any family settings the service won't actually be running so no worries there.
What IS a huge worry is how a company with THAT many engineers can't see the giant screaming FAIL in 50 foot letters! I mean first they tried to jam the Windows desktop metaphor onto phones, complete with teeny tiny start button even though its a completely different form factor and when that fails miserably what do they do? they go "Herp derp i know, we'll stick the Windows tablet UI on the desktop!" which shows that anyone with common sense has done left that company for Google> I mean HOW many desktops and laptops were sold with touch enabled screens this year? MAYBE .03% of the entire market? hell take out Kiosks and POS machines and that number is probably something like 0.001% of the world PC market. So what fucking moron thinks jamming a touch focused UI on something WITHOUT A TOUCHSCREEN is a brilliant idea? Anyone? Beuller?
The ONLY thing I can think of that makes sense is the engineers have frankly gotten sick of Ballmer's Apple fetish and bullshit and are letting him have everything he wants in the hopes he'll flame so badly that even being Bill's little buddy won't save his sweaty ass. I can imagine them going "Sure Mr Ballmer (snicker) having a cell phone UI on the desktop IS a brilliant idea (chokes back a laugh) and yes sir i bet this will finally make us a "cool and hip" company like Apple (rushes to hang up phone before they bust out laughing)". But hey, don't take my word for what a big heaping of fail Win 8 is, try it yourself for free! The Consumer preview is being released to the world at the end of the month, this is the "90% complete" version so what you see is what is gonna be crapped all over desktops and laptops this Oct...well until the OEMs have a screaming shitfit as their sales plummet and they demand downgrade rights to Win 7 like they did with Vista and XP.
To me though the sad part isn't win 8 being a giant failwhale because Win 7 is supported until 2020 and hopefully Ballmer will be shitcanned by then, no what is sad to me is first with Vista and now 100 times more powerful with the combo of Win 8, the death of XP, and everyone practically living on the net Linux has been given all these great gifts. its like the competition is giving them a 250 meter head start on the 300 meter dash and what does the devs do? Do they announce a distro with ten years of support and a rock solid foundation, built upon a "It works and will consistently continue to work" philosopy? Nope first they gut the entire soundsystem for an unstable mess and then if that didn't set them back far enough they trash the two biggest DEs for a buggy blingfest that set everything back a good 5+ years with regards to stability! Its like someone went back in time with the design of the iPad and tried to hand it to the Linux devs only to have them go " Naaaaah, we're betting it all on the Foleo baby!". So instead of just taking that huge lead and waltzing across the finish line so they can finally give us a true "third way" over apple and MSFT they promptly shoot themselves in the foot and then plop down in the middle of a field to write a script in long PHP codes that makes the CLI answer them with "You are so cool master"...sigh.
As much as I can't believe i'm agreeing with that linTroll Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols all these new UIs just suck, like REALLY hard. Its like all the devs of the world just lost their damned minds when iPhone came out and then lined up to horribly fuck up their offerings in the hopes they could somehow "capture the magic" of the iShiny. It reminds me of the old Python upper class twits bit, these devs probably couldn't even shoot themselves correctly.

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Re:Great by hairyfeet · 2012-02-24 22:07 · Score: 2

Actually it IS that bad a gamble because they were FINALLY getting businesses to start replacing XP boxes for Win 7, what do you think is gonna happen when they see that failwhale bling bling consumer oriented crap? they are gonna go "How many months does XP have left? Yeah lets wait because that sucks". That is the whole point behind having 10 years of support, they should have stuck with a 5 year release model as that gave businesses time to test and rollout. at 3 years that is simply too soon for some 10,000 seat corp to get all their apps tested and deployed.
As for consumers so far i have showed the dev preview to over 200 average folks, your Suzy the checkout girl and Brian the backhoe operator types and you know what i found? they HATE it, not just dislike but hate it with a passion! The closest i got to an "endorsement" was this exchange..."My, that's a pretty looking cell phone screen, is that Android? I heard that its nice...what do you mean Windows? Windows what? Well that's just stupid! Why would I want a cell phone on my computer?" and from Ms Pipkin comes wisdom. Everyone can see that's not built for desktops, its a cell phone! It looks like a cell phone, acts like a cell phone, hell even the product shill for yahoo whose answer to everything is "Buy it! Buy it now! you should really buy it!" said this of Windows 8 "Uhhh..you should wait until you get something with a touchscreen before switching" which for that shill might as well be "My eyes! The goggles they do nothing!".
Mark my words, Win 8 is gonna make Vista look like Win95, hell it may even put the WinME and MS Bob jokes to rest. the ONLY way I can see it not bombing is if they sell it to consumers at $50 a copy and OEMs for less than $25, and they give the OEMs and consumers a ballot screen that lets them choose UI on first run so the ones that don't have tablets (99.9998% of those that will be running this turkey) can pick the "Get the fuck out of here metro" button and just have Win 7 with a square start button. never underestimate the comfort zone of the consumer, you change too much too fast and you WILL get a backlash. But again don't take my word for it, you have a dual core or better, right? Consumer preview is free for all on Feb 29th, so fire up a VM and give it a run. I've tried the first one and frankly the level of fail is beyond scary and into 'WTF are they thinking?" territory.

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Back to the classics by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-24 07:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

I miss the minimalistic approach of Windows 7 where it came with barely anything, Windows 8 is starting to turn back into Vista but with a horrible UI.

Re:Back to the classics by sed+quid+in+infernos · 2012-02-24 08:11 · Score: 3, Informative

What's to defend? The price has gone up. MS stock is traded in relatively high volume. Therefore, a significant portion of the market (read, "a lot of people") think that denis-The-menace's assessment about the future of Microsoft is wrong. The reason why lots of people think MS's stock is worth 20% more now isn't relevant to the question of whether lots of people do, in fact, think that way.
Re:Back to the classics by demachina · 2012-02-24 08:55 · Score: 4, Informative

All stocks are up this year, Microsoft's it just up a little more than the average. Stocks and commodities are going up because central banks the world over are printing staggering quantities of money. Central bank balance sheets are where money is created out of thin air and turned over to banks who then leverage it anywhere from 11X to 50X creating a tidal wave of inceasingly worthless dollars, euros, yuan, and pounds.
Stocks and commodities are going up to counteract the decline of the paper currencies they are denominated in. The actual valuation of the companies hasn't changed that much but their value in dollars and euros soars as the real value of these fiat currencies plunge as more and more are printed (they are not actually printed they are electronically conjured from thin air with a stroke of a key on a computer).
The DOW rally from 6,660 to 12,000 was driven almost entirely by the Federal Reserve flooding the worlds banks with dollars which they mostly plowed back in to stocks and commodities.
The huge rally in the stock market so far this year started on the day the ECB gifted European banks with 500 billion in newly created Euros in exchange for their increasingly worthless PIIGS bonds, in a program called LTRO. The ECB is scheduled to do another round of this at the end of this month that could equal that or go as high as 1 Trillion Euros. The ECB had a German President opposed to printing money in 2011, but he was replaced with an Italian who immediately opened the spigots to save Italy's bonds from collapse. It did miracles for Italy's bonds and stock markets the world over. Its also fueling a new round of inflation in oil and assorted other commodities.

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I guess this means by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-24 07:41 · Score: 5, Funny

we shouldn't expect mobile products from MS with names like "Zune Messiah" or "Children of Zune" either.

Re:I guess this means by dkleinsc · 2012-02-24 07:59 · Score: 2

There was a Zune mess alright, but no Zune Messiah.

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Re:I guess this means by Chemisor · 2012-02-24 08:14 · Score: 2

No, but I hear they're working on a new eReader, codenamed "Chapterhouse Zune"

How can anyone invest themselves in MS? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-24 07:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

How can anyone invest themselves in any Microsoft product when they change branding/strategy/support so much? Even if a product manages to stay around over 3-5 years, they give it an overhaul and change the way it works so people have to get used to it all over again. .Net, Live!, PlaysForSure, Zune, Silverlight, among many others, and they also drop support for older file formats and push half-assed standards over established certified ones.

Re:How can anyone invest themselves in MS? by Grishnakh · 2012-02-24 08:54 · Score: 3, Interesting

KDE4 can be set up almost exactly like KDE3.
You don't like the scrolling start menu? You like the old classic KDE3 menu? Simple: right-click on the K menu icon, select option #2: "Switch to Classic Style Menu". Presto! You now have a KDE3 menu.
You don't like Dolphin? You prefer the old Konqueror for file browsing? Simple: run Konqueror. It's still there; no one's forcing you to use Dolphin. You can even set it to be the default file manager (I'm not exactly sure how offhand).
KDE is the same as it's always been: loaded to the gills with configuration options. If you don't like the defaults, you're free to change them. Spend a half-hour going through all the menu options in System Settings when you first install it, and leave it like that for years.

Killed? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-24 07:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

There's a difference between killing and rebranding. Aside from the Zune hardware I don't see a single thing I would consider "killed" by Microsoft. And I'd even accept that idea that the Zune isn't being killed but instead reintroduced in a slightly more integrated format.

Zoon? by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-02-24 07:47 · Score: 5, Funny

Microsoft Killing Off Zune

The what?

Let us take a moment of silence... by Kenja · 2012-02-24 07:49 · Score: 5, Funny

and think of how boned the Zune lifetime pass owners are.

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Re:Let us take a moment of silence... by Daerath · 2012-02-24 07:56 · Score: 5, Informative

Except they aren't. "although Zune Pass functionality remains"

Re:What about Games for Windows Live? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-02-24 07:50 · Score: 2, Funny

For the good of all mankind, they should really just replace 'Games for Windows Live' with a link to Steam...

Re:Ding Ding the witch is dead! by DeathFromSomewhere · 2012-02-24 07:51 · Score: 4, Informative

I wonder if Windows 8 will have an emulation layer for x86 on the ARM.

Nope.

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An Ode to Zune by Golgafrinchan · 2012-02-24 07:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

It makes me sad every time Microsoft does something to distance itself from the Zune brand.

I own 2 Zunes. I've been using them to listen to music at work nearly every day for the past 3 years. I've found them to be very high-quality pieces of hardware. I'm not a huge fan of the Zune software, but I don't think it's any worse than iTunes. Yet most of the time when I tell co-workers that I listen to music on a Zune, I have to endure ridicule for not using an Apple product. I have even heard from ex-MS colleagues that by-and-large, MS employees don't think very highly of the Zune.

What gives? Did I totally miss the boat on this and the Zune actually sucks? Am I just destined to be forever uncool by being associated with a failed MS product? I just never understood the hate, and somehow it seems to be worse now than ever. And now MS is apparently trying to distance itself from Zune as much as possible.

Keep your chin up, Zune. You still have a few fans out there.

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Re:An Ode to Zune by chispito · 2012-02-24 08:04 · Score: 2

The brown Zune 30 was a really good looking in person. People snickered and sneered, but when you actually saw it, it was pretty nice looking.

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Re:An Ode to Zune by Babbster · 2012-02-24 08:07 · Score: 3, Interesting

You're not the only one. I like my Zune and use the Zune Pass. I like the Zune's interface a lot better than that of the iPod Touch and wish they would have tried harder to compete instead of abandoning it. Maybe Microsoft will make me happy and release a phone-free Windows Phone.
Re:An Ode to Zune by PatPending · 2012-02-24 08:14 · Score: 2

What can brown do for anybody?
Plenty; for one thing it can get you into the Advertising Walk of Fame:
United Parcel Service Inc.'s slogan "What Can Brown Do For You" has delivered a major award.
Source

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Good Idea by milbournosphere · 2012-02-24 07:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Zune's biggest problem was horrible branding. I've used one a couple of times and it was a solid device. But the marketing agent who decided making a 'squirt' service available on a device available in poo-brown was a good idea doomed the device and was hopefully fired. Frankly, I'm surprised the name lasted even longer than the device. Killing a bad brand name like that is a wise decision.

Re:Good Idea by UnknowingFool · 2012-02-24 08:34 · Score: 2

The initial branding and marketing were horrible. Watching the Zune commercials you had no idea what it was or what it was for. But that wasn't the only problem. The Zune was better than the iPod for a short time. But then Apple released the iPod Touch and moved the goal posts. With iOS, the iPod Touch was a portable computing device that you could listen to/buy media, surf the web, write email, and later run tons of apps. Zune never developed that ecosystem and was always behind.

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Re:Good Idea by coinreturn · 2012-02-24 08:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

Anyone who is still buying a device separate from their phone to listen to music needs to have their head examined.
No. Some of us don't see the need for a smart phone. I get a new shiny basic phone free from Verizon every two years.

Re:Finally! by medv4380 · 2012-02-24 08:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm shocked myself. I had assumed that it was already dead, and thus MS didn't need to kill anything.

Re:Finally! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-02-24 08:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

Doing this in light of the fact that iTunes was already free, used by millions, and was more mature and "better" than Zune is rather psychopathic. But it is Microsoft, and I expect nothing less than Evil from them.

I find iTunes UX to be quite annoying whereas I enjoy using the Zune interface. I'm not a Microsoft fan-boy, I just like having a Music UX that doesn't make me want to pull my hair out.

Parse Error by SuperKendall · 2012-02-24 08:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

and think of how boned the Zune lifetime pass owners are.

They didn't say YOUR lifetime.

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Re:Ding Ding the witch is dead! by Grishnakh · 2012-02-24 08:23 · Score: 2

to the point where you even wonder if products were made by the same company

They weren't. For one thing, many or most of their products are actually acquisitions from other companies: Powerpoint, Excel, etc. were all from acquisitions. Secondly, internally, MS operates as a bunch of smaller competing companies, with various department heads constantly backstabbing each other rather than working together. It's amazing they get anything done in that environment.

Re:Finally! by SethJohnson · 2012-02-24 08:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Here's some food for thought regarding your interest in understanding why companies develop products that are destined to fail.

When these CEOs have to meet with shareholders and the board of directors, they have to face questions about what the company is doing in response to the success other companies are having with a certain product. There is intense pressure on them to have an answer.

This is why Microsoft has things like their storefronts. So Ballmer can tell the shareholders they're doing a 'me-too' in response to the Apple store success. It's also why HP bought Palm and released the TouchPad. It's why motorola released the Xoom. It's why RIM released the PlayBook.

Seth

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Re:None of them do the same thing by vux984 · 2012-02-24 08:37 · Score: 4, Informative

Apple changes things at pretty much the same rate...

iTools - Originally launched as a free collection of internet services for users of Mac OS
Then "relaunched" in 2002 as a paid subscription as ".Mac"
Then "relaunched" again in 2008 as "MobileMe"
which it discontinued offering, and will kill in 2012 entirely
as it herds everyone over to its newly launched "iCloud"

I'd say Apple is pretty much exactly the same thing.

Re:None of them do the same thing by Ihmhi · 2012-02-24 08:45 · Score: 5, Insightful

Apple changes things at pretty much the same rate...

Exactly! Remember when they completely shut down iTunes 5 years ago?

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Re:Ding Ding the witch is dead! by gstoddart · 2012-02-24 08:58 · Score: 2

Secondly, internally, MS operates as a bunch of smaller competing companies, with various department heads constantly backstabbing each other rather than working together. It's amazing they get anything done in that environment.

I've worked for companies far smaller than Microsoft that have the exact same corporate culture.

Many years ago, one of the companies I worked for had grown through acquisitions. With each new one, the VP of R&D for the newest became VP of R&D for the entire company ... and then proceeded to axe products and technologies that weren't from his company. It made for a whole lot of people trying to undo several years of development work that had already been sold to clients and had installed user bases. But, since their company made hammers, they couldn't see why anybody would be making wrenches. Even if a hammer was completely unsuited for huge sections of our business.

From our perspective, it made for some very Dilbert-esque moments as you had to explain to someone that we actually do need to keep these products unless we planned on getting sued.

I suspect that level of inter-departmental dysfunction isn't uncommon. Especially in tech or any company that grew through acquisition.

Corporations can be very stupid that way.

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Re:Ding Ding the witch is dead! by Grishnakh · 2012-02-24 09:18 · Score: 2

Wow, that's weird and rather hard to comprehend honestly. I've worked at two large tech companies, Intel and Freescale, and neither of them operated like this at all.

Intel had its problems (I was there during the whole P4/RAMBUS debacle, when AMD was beating us in performance and cost, and don't forget the whole Itanic thing), but I don't remember any kind of outright in-fighting like that. The decisions about what strategy would be pursued, which products would be developed and which would be shelved, all came from the very top. Not all these decisions were great, mind you (P4/Netburst, RAMBUS, Itanic, crappy keyboards/mice/cameras), but the company even at 100k employees at the time did more or less operate as a single unit. Once they got rid of Craig and replaced him with Otellini, ditched Netburst and some of the other extraneous stuff they had been trying unsuccessfully to expand into, they did fine.

Freescale was very poorly managed when I was there, but again, I didn't see any infighting, just decisions being handed down from the very top, including very bad decisions to axe development teams to save money right after products were brought out and customers all signed on, only to find the products were loaded with bugs and there was no one to fix them because the development team had been axed.

In both cases, the success or failure of the company was due to the people at the very top, not due to any kind of infighting that I could see. Of course, with any organization with one person (and a few helpers) at the top making all the big decisions, things aren't going to work very well if that guy is a moron, but giving more authority to lower-level people and letting them fight amongst themselves isn't a solution for that, it's even worse.

Personally, if I were in a situation like you describe above where you need to explain to some clueless VP that you have to keep a product or else be sued, I wouldn't bother to tell him that, I'd just go right along with his dumb plans. Then I'd immediately start looking for a new job and watch the fireworks and laugh. A company that dumb deserves to be sued into the ground.

Re:Changed names but not discarded by vux984 · 2012-02-24 12:05 · Score: 2

like SIlverlight and WinFS and Windows Live and so on.

WinFS meet OpenDoc
Zune meet Xserve ...

Apple's list might not be as long... but any tech companies past is littered with projects that got dropped after failing to gain enough momentum or after hitting technical or other obstacles...

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Microsoft Killing Off Zune, Windows Live Brands?

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