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Microsoft Reports Record Revenue
jones_supa sends this AFP report:
"Microsoft soared to record revenues in the last quarter, confounding Wall Street forecasts on the back of strong demand for Xbox consoles, Surface tablets and Internet cloud services. The U.S.-based technology titan reported net income of $6.56 billion on revenue that hit a record high of $24.52 billion in the quarter that ended December 31. ... Sales of Surface tablets more than doubled from the previous quarter to hit $893 million, and Microsoft sold 7.4 million Xbox videogame consoles, with 3.9 million of those being new-generation Xbox One.
Bing's share of the Internet search market grew to 18.2 percent while its share of the online search ad market grew about a third, according to Microsoft. Meanwhile, money made from selling Windows software to computer makers slid by three percent due to continue soft demand by consumers for personal computers, according to Microsoft."
Imagine what these numbers would be if they actually knew what the fuck they were doing.
Nuff said.
So this means the price of their software is gonna come down... right? :P
Looks like for microsoft to preserve profitability it may have to continue to branch out of its core competency, windows. Perhaps it's following in Apples footsteps in a sense, branching away from personal computing to consumer electronics.
That billion dollar write-off on the Surface tablets doesn't seem so bad now does it...
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I pay you a dollar for every 90 cents you give me !!
Surface COGS: 935 m
Revenue 850 m
Meanwhile, money made from selling Windows software to computer makers slid by three percent due to continue soft demand by consumers for personal computers
Yes, I too have been both softly demanding and loudly demanding a personal computer OS from Microsoft, yet all they want to push is some tablet OS unsuited for business work on a personal computer.
At least they aren't acting surprised about their choice.
That reads almost too much like a sales pitch/shill post.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Nobody wants Windows 8. The Metro UI is crap. The ribbon UI is crap. Microsoft are crap. Bring back program manager!
Hope they don't announce big profit now and come back a few months later with a big charge for something else. Sort of like Bush would not include war costs in regular budget and always ask for emergency appropriations for a war that had been going on for years.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I know, I didn't throw in enough mindless "Micro$hafts" or invoke Clippy enough. I'll try harder next time.
I'm a .NET developer so I'm a Fanboy because nothing else comes close for enterprise development.
The truth, meaning that it's a pretty damn nice product especially the Pro? Or perhaps you have specific criticisms?
The year of the death of the linux desktop :-(
Their heart was in the right place by trying to make one unified interface to help them in the mobile business, but it's just an epic fail.
How can it be right to push for a fundamentally flawed idea?
Circumcision is child abuse.
Too bad you used IE to post this or you would have spelled rumor correctly in the title.
It's always good to hear that the world's largest software firm has a higher revenue than the world's largest advertisement firm.
Regardless of whether it is MS or not.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
We have recently purchased a Surface to test with some LIMS software we use, which currently runs fine on W7. We were told it wouldn't run on 8. It has been discovered that it does in fact run on 8 and runs fine on our Surface. We are going to to test using Surface tablets running 8.1 in our environment. So far so good.
Are we running this on iPads or Android tablets? No.
Why?
Because the software in question, along with pretty much everything else we use is designed to run on either Windows or Linux.
I could draw a conclusion here that Surface tablets will make in roads into the Enterprise for exactly this reason. Yes, yes, I know there are thousands of iPads in Enterprises right now, with all manner of executive and administrative staffers trying to look important at work with their tablet, while busily updating their FB status. However, I feel that because of MS's entrenched position in the Enterprise the Surface is more of a "work" device than an iPad or Android tablet.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
> I'm a .NET developer so I'm a Fanboy because nothing else comes close for enterprise development.
Wow. That's a real head-shaker.
...Steve
I know, I didn't throw in enough mindless "Micro$hafts" or invoke Clippy enough. I'll try harder next time.
I'm a .NET developer so I'm a Fanboy because nothing else comes close for enterprise development.
You're fanboy for the wrong reasons. Microsoft is the classic bully. They take a standard and change it enough to be a pain in the ass for everyone else to integrate with. Then you have to explain to management that MS is doing something a little different that causes problems. Inevitably, a fanboy like yourself will pipe up and say that if everything were Microsoft, we wouldn't have this problem, when in fact because things are Microsoft, we have the problem.
I'm not trying to be a jerk, but my experience is that most people who program using MS tools are clueless. Not because their stupid, but because Microsoft makes all the decisions for them. Web services aren't a good idea until MS came out with the VS Web Service Wizard.
There's a reason Microsoft's address is One Microsoft Way.
Lol, actually Chrome. I'm just retarded is all.
All of the royalties made from the Android phones are what made them rich. Lord knows it's not Microsoft phones or tablets.
One specific criticism is that Microsoft priced the Surface Pro too high and placed too harsh restrictions on users of the regular Surface and other Windows RT devices in general. For example, Windows RT doesn't allow developers to recompile their desktop apps for use with, say, a Surface with the Type Cover connected. Only three desktop apps for RT are allowed: File Explorer, IE, and Office.
Wonderful. Can you tell my why SQL Server 2008 won't install if Windows 8 is using Japanese as the language of the OS? Once you've done this, SQL Server bugs out and refuses to install no matter what hte lanugage is. I would have thought by 2008 MS would have figured out internationalization. I have never seen such a fundimental an issue like this before. I ended up having my whole machine re-imaged on me.
I'm not impressed with how much of my personal time this wasted.
We have recently purchased a Surface to test with some LIMS software we use, which currently runs fine on W7. We were told it wouldn't run on 8. It has been discovered that it does in fact run on 8 and runs fine on our Surface.
Windows 7 supports only the Win32 API; Windows RT 8 and Windows RT 8.1 support only the new WinRT API. It is impossible for one program to run on both Windows 7 PCs and Surface RT unless it is written in an interpreted language and runs in an interpreter available for both platforms. By Surface did you mean Surface Pro, which supports both Win32 and WinRT applications?
Just because someone has a preference you don't agree with doesn't make them a shill.
Not to mention that you're just resorting to an ad hominem attack instead of arguing a legitimate counterpoint.
They would have been able to buy their own country if Windows 8 wasn't such a disaster.
You make a compelling argument, and I find it hard to disagree with you.
I would only point out two broad areas where Microsoft seems to be a little weaker than some of its big competitors: innovation and quality control.
And I'm finding it hard to make a case for innovation. I could argue that they don't come up with new ideas, they borrow ideas that already work for someone else, but that's not really a sin in my book. Who was it that said "good artists borrow from other artists, great artists steal?" I could argue that they won't jump ahead of the curve--won't release new products until they're assured of success, but witness the Zune and Metro. So let's grant them innovation.
The quality control thing is embarrassing. The culture at MS seems to be that the general public is their beta test group. I think they released Vista so that all their other releases would shine by comparison (not really; it was an unintended benefit). I work around half a dozen bugs in MS products on a daily basis. Using their software has trained me not to trust software.
I'm not really sure how many epic fails a great software company gets before we have to call it mediocre. If they didn't have a strangle hold on OEMs and enterprise movers and shakers, I doubt they would have more than a 10% share of the desktop. On the other hand, if they didn't have that strangle hold, they wouldn't have such license to release buggy code. They are victims of their own success.
If you know what the fuck you're doing, the language is only vaguely relevant, with respect to "enterprise apps" (vs "normal apps").
If you choose Japanese, you need to install SQR Server 2008.
A simple example of why this is wrong: Let's say you have a simple Yes/No question to ask. For tablets, the right thing to do is blank out the screen, put the question more-or-less in the middle, with two large icons to poke. For desktops, it's a standard Yes/No dialog box. For phones, you're better off with the question across the top, and then the Yes and No buttons taking up almost the entire screen.
That's 3 different interfaces with 3 different interactions that are easy to pull off because you're interacting with different kinds of objects. Trying to make them all the same is so monumentally and obviously stupid I'm at a loss for why attempting to do so is all the rage in the UI design world (I'm looking at you too, Gnome3 and Unity). My best guess is that UI designers are working feverishly on it because it's one of the few areas of their field where there isn't a pretty clear understanding of what the Right Thing is, and so that's where they can get creative and innovative (and ideally rich if they find a really really good idea and patent it).
Anyone here working in UI design that might be able to explain it better to me?
I am officially gone from
I know, I didn't throw in enough mindless "Micro$hafts" or invoke Clippy enough. I'll try harder next time.
I'm a .NET developer so I'm a Fanboy because nothing else comes close for enterprise development.
Hey man, the .NET stack is awesome, I won't dispute that. But claiming the toolchain or the stack surpasses Java is laughable at this point. Yes, Java and Oracle have some serious problems to address and have drug their feet on several issues, however the stack is amazing, I'd take Maven 3 and Eclipse plus free plugins any day over Visual Studio and NuGet.
There's a reason most really big server stuff out there runs on the Java stack, few people realize how much of the cloud/networking code of ALL the stuff they use is Java. Whether you're playing WOW or LoL to kick back or using almost any of your banking and investment sites, you're certainly benefitting from Java.
They do know what they are doing. The cost of licenses went up by a good chunk of change (think 20% or so.) Because most businesses rely on MS for day to day use, that additional 20% in license revenue definitely didn't hurt revenue gains.
(removes glasses, pinches bridge of nose, wonders why he's been coming to this fucking site every couple days for 20 years now...)
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I find it extremely hard to believe that a company whom has failed on so many fronts can post a "record revenue". Let's face it; Windows Phone, Vista, Metro, Xbox One -- all have been either utter failures or fell seriously short of expected sales. If a company can produce "record revenue" from a year like that, then management has problems bigger than just Ballmer.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
... unless your 'enterprise' (damn, I hate that term) is ... you know ... multi-platform?
ActiveX was not a good idea.
I think he bolt-on days are long gone, Windows is inherently very secure and provides many advanced features that the UNIX guys are finally getting around to (broadly supported/standardized fine grain ACLs beyond 'rwx', for example, or user priveleges).
Microsoft secured Windows pretty well long ago, all that's left now are the very, very hard exploits or exploits in misconfigured systems or in third party software.
If you like Maven try Gradle. Its pretty nice.
Funnily enough, I didn't call him a shill.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Taking in money doesn't necessarily mean anything unless you can actually make money.
Smell something? Hokus! Pokus!
I know, I didn't throw in enough mindless "Micro$hafts" or invoke Clippy enough. I'll try harder next time.
I'm a .NET developer so I'm a Fanboy because nothing else comes close for enterprise development.
I'm a .NET dev too, so I do understand your appreciation of the tools et al. I also have a WinPhone. But I'm not afraid to call MS out when they screw up (I assume you're the same ;)).
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
I don't mean to be a jerk either but frankly most of the people who bash MS in the developer arena don't know what they're talking about. I've done a _lot_ of UNIX development in bash, Perl, C, Java, and other languages. And I've also done a shit-ton of development in .NET. I know what I'm talking about in both arenas. Most UNIX guys don't have the slightest concept of how to develop in or support Windows in a professional environment. It would befuddle them to think you can do more with Powershell than you can with Bash.
The "standards!! embrace extend extiguish!" meme largely came about because of MS's (mis)adventures in trying to corner the web browser market. Generally MS is very good about e.g. web service standards. I support an app that has a .NET web service with Kerberos authentication and a Java CLI that supports single-sign on access to that service via Kerberos. And it all works pretty well because of _standards_. Granted, nothing but Java in the UNIX space has advanced far enough past 2001 to support this sort of scenario, but Java's fine.
And ultimately, developing in a corporation, I don't give a shit about standards beyond what they let me actually get accomplished. It's meaningless unless it gets in my way. If .NET and Jax-WS/Metro didn't play well together, for example, I'd have an issue.
The website of the bank I use just went "Metro". It's a spreading cancer (not just MS) we're stuck with now that all the marketing types think it's cool even if the form of the thing removes to function by hiding the text you actually want to read under some blocky "art".
It's not a viable desktop.
It's a Partridge Family Bus crash.
Calling the poster a shill is the easy way out
Hence why I didn't call him a shill.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
So A, B, C, D and E :)
They have the money, the culture, and the people to write very good software when they don't make otherwise bad decisions (like Metro Everywhere). That's why I bought an Xbox One instead of a PS4, not because I hate Sony but because Microsoft is fundamentally a better software company and I expect more and better features from them.
Good to hear! I take it you are also satisfied with your Zune, PlayForSure music bought in their online store, Kin smartphone, or perhaps Windows Phone 7?
Sorry, you may prefer their stuff, but the reason(s) you list are ridiculous and just factually contradictory to their own behavior. Within the last decade they've thrown several of their own products and customers under the bus.
I would only point out two broad areas where Microsoft seems to be a little weaker than some of its big competitors: innovation and quality control.
Maybe they can hire away Tim Cook from Apple to solve their innovation problem. ;-)
Regarding quality, I guess I'm in the minority in terms of being quite impressed with their quality overall. Sure, they make dumb UI mistakes like Metro, but considering how complex most of their stuff is, I think it works extremely well overall. For example, I think the fact that plug-and-play works as well as it does is a small miracle. It's a wonderful luxury to just plug something in and it magically works. (Which is the main reason I don't use a certain other OS that's quite popular around here...I'm quite happy to pay for something that "just works".)
The embarrassing part, though, is that Microsoft seems to let some little obvious stuff get out the door. For example, I use Visual Studio 2008 and sometimes the buttons don't repaint as needed. That's just obvious. How did they not notice - and fix - that?
Microsoft also has done a fantastic job with backwards compatibility over the years, which I think they recognize as one of the keys to their empire (especially back when they were a monopoly). It's amazing to me that current 64-bit Windows systems will run DOS software written literally decades ago, as well as software written a few years ago for 32-bit systems.
Taking in money doesn't necessarily mean anything unless you can actually make money.
$6.66 billion net. $24.52 billion gross.
Hence why I didn't call him a shill.
Who do you think you're kidding?
They are actually putting some effort in and also slowly changing the culture in the applications that surround their platform and are far worse offenders than MS ever were. So we don't pile on in the hope that they will get on with it and reach what every other multiuser system on the planet was doing with security in the 1990s. Considering the slow moving third party ecosytem around the platform, and that people have only bought the platform because that's what runs their stuff, I don't know if it could be done any quicker without an Apple style risk of a new and incompatible system putting those third parties out to dry.
"That's why I bought an Xbox One instead of a PS4, not because I hate Sony but because Microsoft is fundamentally a better software company and I expect more and better features from them." As long as you don't mind running inferior hardware that can't match the competition, sure. But the truth is the Xbox One is underpowered, ill conceived, and has problems with it's CORE functionality as a media hub. (lack of discrete IR, lack of learning capability, lack of a complete code base that supports common brands (Elite TVs not supported), degraded picture quality using the pass through (run a test pattern, it's not subtle), no DVR support, only 80% accuracy on voice commands, I could go on and on) No, MS DOESNT have superior programmers, nor do they have anyone in the company who understands what customers REALLY want out of a console...or any other consumer electronics product. You sir, bought the wrong console.
No, Java's the only other real contender for modern "enterprise" software (the backend - much of the JS on the client sadly comes from Java libraries). I've spent years writing code in both Java and C#, and these days C# wins hands down.
For years they were leapfrogging one another - whichever language had the most recent major release was a bit better, but not enough to really matter. But Java hit the rocks a few years back and has been sinking ever since. It had stumbled before Oracle, when C# got modern list processing with LINQ and a lambda operator, and Java missed the boat. And with the death of Sun, they never recovered.
The single biggest missing piece for C# right now is the lack of official support for writing Android apps in C#/Visual Studio. There are commercial solutions for that, but without official blessing it lacks the power of "no one has ever been fired for buying IBM". Maybe the new bosses at MS can get wise to that - it's not like they don't make money off of Android sales.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It looks like you are trying to watch TV. Would you like some help with that? :)
^^ THIS!
You're fanboy for the wrong reasons. Microsoft is the classic bully.
Clearly you've never had to work with Oracle (and frankly, Sun was never roses and sunshine either). In a space dominated by C# and Java, MS is the well-behaved nice vendor by comparison.
There's a reason Microsoft's address is One Microsoft Way.
Better than being stuck in One Infinite Loop. I can now say my car can drive an infinite loop in 10 minutes - how's that for high performance?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Hmm...
I have heard from reliable sources that .Net is easier to develop in than Java.
However, Java has a much big set of libraries, is cross platform, and has a very effective Just-in-Time complier (that compiles frequently used code into native machine code based on the current run time profile) that comes free. It also can effectively use large quantities of memory and multiple cores. So in practice, Java is better suited to large enterprise applications than .Net - especially as .Net does not run on Linux which is what most servers use (in fact many more devices run Linux than all other operating systems combined).
So with Java you can develop on Linux, and run the resulting program on far more platforms than .Net can.
So for enterprise development: Java is King, not .Net!
Oh, I agree, I can't believe anyone could be that stupid. Smart is writing a dialog using some library that with the same code looks the right way on each platform. It's so blindingly obvious you wonder how anyone could miss it.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Anybody at the top of it's industry is going to be a bully. Apple is for sure, Android is too but nowhere near what MS and Apple are.
BTW, LOL at the One Microsoft Way comment.
First, "rwx" works for most use cases.
Second, ACLs were in Redhat AS3, which puts it back to 2003.
I'll even concede that Windows is secure now. But, my opinion is that it should be! (given how much it costs). My experience is with Unix.
Pretty much 24/7 people come a-knockin' at SSH. Trying user/password combinations. Quickly (which gets them blackholed) or slowly.
Even my Linux XBMC box gets thousands of attempts a day.
I imagine that Windows gets it worse. Using a small percentage OS that covers the functions I need? Is a good thing. Sure, obscurity isn't security, but I do know how to harden the boxes I deploy. At least to the level needed.
Windows needs to be a whole lot "harder" out of the box. People get it on new computers. I know I do! People with no knowledge or experience in security.
Who want to "download" and gleefully poke holes in the router. At least, until a standard was devised to allow programs I consider untrusted to do the poking for them. Then, to find exploits in those routers... possibly (wearing a black hat) allowing snooping of local traffic, and injection of bad packets. Why not?
Still not going to bother me any, and, no, I don't bother with ACLs in most circumstances. Simply, by the time the ACL would help is far too late anyway.
If I control your router, and your router attached storage, I really don't care about your computer anymore.
Which brings us back to Linux and BSD. And, our aforementioned group that simply deploys with no deeper understanding.
I am very glad that Microsoft has made money. I have a financial interest in them (no, I don't have a stake in Redhat).
Why? Microsoft gets to move a unit of Windows for just about every home PC. (I bought some Acer Veriton 282G units that didn't come with Windows, but, in general, this hold true).
I would prefer that my Fedora/whatever boxes remain somewhat obscure. I would like router vendors to be more open (specifically, support flashing third party firmware without voiding hardware guarantees).
Rant is over. Resume your regular /. read.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Not necessarily.
Years ago, a company had your idea. They had a "personality" module for whatever UI they were trying to deal with. At the time, they had DOS and Mac.
If you were using the DOS version, you might see a message on your screen like this:
Are you sure you want to delete this record? (Yes/No)
On the Mac, you would get a dialog box with "Are you sure you want to delete this record?", two radio buttons labeled "Yes" and "No", and two buttons labeled "OK" and "Cancel"
Did it work? Yup. Was it correct? No.
How much from software patents on Android I wonder?
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, if the women don't get you the whiskey must
Smart is writing a dialog using some library that with the same code looks the right way on each platform.
The trouble with that is that this challenge extends to issues like: On a 2"x3" screen, it's preferable to have more screens with less on them, versus on a tablet or desktop, it's preferable to have fewer screens to go through. So now your library has to be smart enough to do the right thing on each platform, and realize that actually these 5 controls need to be moved onto a second screen, etc.
So it's not just making each piece of the puzzle look right, it's also about making the puzzle as a whole fit with the application and the platform. That's hard, but I don't see a way around actually writing 3 different UIs if you want to support 3 different platforms the Right Way (TM).
I am officially gone from
by that logic.. is apple bad because of their address?
New goal: start a tech company and have the address be 1/0 $company way
=)
Hey my ID is less than one-fourth yours, I think I know how long I've been coming here! :)
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Well, that depends of whether your goal is "great" or "not awful". If you're content with "not awful", you could make this work. QT does an OK job of looking like a native app on each platform is runs on. At least all the UI widgets are the ones you're used to.
Really, with a bit of refinement and well-funded usability testing, I think you could get something pretty good. E.g., for "wizards" (multi-page dialogs), a bit of hinting about what controls really need to be on the same screen would be enough; let the library "cut the scroll" into individual pages.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Wow, enterprise development. I am so jealous. Nothing gets the motivational juices flowing in the morning than the thought of tweaking some enterprise code.
Considering how many "fans" of Windows 8 were eventually found to be working for Microsoft's PR firms, it's a fair assumption. They are still doing it too...see recent news about the whole Machinima debacle. If you AREN'T paid, I have to ask, why so loyal? It truly is a crap product, why so defensive?
and yet, when you dare to criticize their latest crappy offering, you are insulted, told you are using it wrong, too stupid to understand it, or an Apple fanboy. As someone who used to (try to) sell UltimateTV and WebTV, who got burned buying 3 different 360s that failed (and werent covered by MS), who bought into Windows Moble only to watch it die, and who watched as "the first smartphone out of beta" was made obsolete 2 whole months after launching, I am against EVER giving MS my money again. And no, I don't own any Apple crap either! :)
Not in a corporate environment you sure as hell don't!
Classic Shell supports group policy now.
Unless it's native, you don't modify core OS behavior in a corporate environment that's not officially supported.
Officially supported by whom? I was under the impression that Classic Shell was supported by the Classic Shell team, and it used public APIs supported by Microsoft.
Ten million malware writers beg to differ.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
COBOL had a lot of traction with business programming too. Didn't make it pleasant to program in.
The Tao gave birth to machine language. Machine language gave birth to the assembler.
The assembler gave birth to the compiler. Now there are ten thousand languages.
Each language has its purpose, however humble. Each language expresses the Yin and Yang of software. Each language has its place within the Tao.
But do not program in COBOL if you can avoid it
In many ways Java is the new COBOL, not because of language features (though the same fortyCharacterColobesqueVariableNames are common) but because all the same old boring stuff that used to be done in COBOL is now done in Java.
I'm careful to ensure the word "Java" doesn't appear on my resume, not because the language is all that bad (though the lack of modern list processing really gets old), but because I never want to write an inventory database, or a payroll program, or a SCM/CRM/ERP system - or anything with an Oracle DB involved, really.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The one that shocked me was FoxIt Reader's interface. I thought FoxIt was all about taking down the corporate giant (Adobe) with a leaner, smarter, more secure product. Now I feel like I am interacting with a piece of paper. Someone literally stuck a fork in FoxIt -- it is so done.
I come here for the love
You have no idea what Microsoft's culture is like do you? Half of Microsoft's problems are related to it's culture, stack ranking (bottom 20% of workforce gets the boot) destroys morale and actively encourages sabotage and office politics ("I'm sure as hell not gonna be the poor SOB on the bottom of the stack, I'll arrange for Bob's project to go to custard and then HE'LL be the poor SOB on the bottom and out the door!")
Not to say Sony is any better, they are Evil incarnate, but your rosy view of Microsoft's culture, especially considering how infamously corrosive it is, makes me think you are a fanboi.
Well, that's nowhere close to a proper Mac dialog.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Thats just hilarious. Id go so far as to say cute.
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php...
C is still the undisputed king of enterprise, and growing.
Java has about 3x the adoption of C#. Both are declining. C# peaked in 2012 and is plummeting.
Finally there, like C# and .Net, there is a big difference between Java and the JVM. You are right that for many things C# the language is better (though fuck the eco system) then Java. However the JVM is amazing.
Watch out for Scala. Its actually starting to woo C devs.
Supposedly they've been losing sales to OpenOffice and LibreOffice and Windows 8 has not been well received. And suddenly they have a record earnings report.
Something doesn't add up especially since the two product lines (ie, Office and Windows OS) are supposedly their big money makers.
Maybe the accounting guys are trying to give Ballmer a positive send-off.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
Obligatory XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1102/
So, does this mean they sold two tablets this year? :)
char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}";main(){printf(f,34,f,34);}
Considering you get a three figure daily income with a worldwide feature.
Put a cap on market capitalization of NASDAQ companies.
Casteism
Post 1: Microsoft SUX!
/.
Reply: They have [insert some huge number here] percent of the market share for desktops.
Reply: Microsoft SUX! Windows 8 is EPIC FAIL! Windoze fone it SUX too.
Reply: I use visual studio, I like it.
Reply: Microsoft SUX! Visual Studio is for N00BS! You're an idiot! C# is CRAP.
Reply: I work for a [pick one of Fortune 500 company, Medium Sized Company, Small Company] We have MS desktops and servers, plus Linux, and some iOS devices. Each of these platforms has pro's and con's and is applicable to specific problems.
Reply: Microsoft SUX! You're too stupid to live.
There I just saved you a whole bunch of time reading all these posts. Funny, but this thread sounds just like:
Post 1: Global Warming is real and we have ten years to save the planet.
Reply: Uh, we've been hearing that we have 10 years to save the planet for the last 30 years, and it has been getting colder the last 15.
Reply: You're a clueless, unintelligent idiot. 138% of scientists agree that Global Warming is real.
OR A DOZEN OTHER TOPICS DEBATED WEEKLY HERE ON
Murphy was an optimist
I use my Surface everywhere I used to use a laptop and almost everywhere I used an iPad. My mini is still my primary (over priced Kindle). Some of what I use the Surface for when on the road: Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere pro, the pen is great for Photoshop work!!! Visual Studio for work related dev Eclipse (on Windows) for Java work related stuff (jBoss for test deployment) Rubymine for personal projects, deploying to Amazon Ubuntu in a VMWare instance for test deployments What can your tablet do?
Sorry, I have to disagree. I was part of a team that built some of the earliest commercial Java software, a company that was eventually acquired by IBM (guess what happened after that). We built our own extensible app server, there were none available at the time. We wrote the fastest SNMP stack for Solaris in Java and integrated it into our management solution. This stuff was amazing.
After IBM I drifted for a while and then ended up with a company that needed to do some .Net stuff. Hadn't tried it, but found it was quite similar to Java, and what I was used to with Java was there for .Net. Then came .Net 3.5, and four, and whammo, C# and .Net ran WAY past Java. It's sad for me to see how long in the tooth Java is becoming. It's clearly a bad case of a combination of a disinterested owner and development by committee.
The world is moving fast, Java extremely slowly, and some improvements are terrible mistakes. An early example that'll be with us forever, or until Sun says "screw committees" and does it over from scratch, is autoboxing. It was done badly, very, very badly, and I for one has suffered. Many more too.
The main fault is the resistance to changing,the core VM. I don't understand it. It's dumb. If changes make it incompatible, ship the two VMs in one go and run code where it is compatible. Easy.
There are many more issues (where is all the great functional stuff, for example). There are also some serious problems with extremely popular add ons for example. Hibernate is a massive anti-pattern in and of it self, for example.
Good stuff is happening too, of course. I like the Play framework (but static controllers is a great example of premature optimization), but for Java Play is nowhere near .Net MVC. Then of course, you can opt out of Java with Play. That's good. For Play developers, but for Java as a programming language...