Microsoft continues to fund many projects which look like attempts to compete but which are only created to limit the competitions growth. They didn't license their web browser's software to create a revenue stream. They created it to protect their existing revenue streams based on the Windows OS. Their venture into web browsing was to limit Netscape's growth and ultimately eliminate its position in the market. That is just one example of how they 'compete'.

But it is inconceivable to think Microsoft would use the Activision Blizzard purchase for anything but a profit stream because their gaming console platform is doing so poorly. It's inconceivable that there'd be any hope of changing that by acquiring a majority of the game developers and then eliminate or limit game releases on the OTHER console platforms.

Poor Microsoft.

LoB

Where is the money going?

Unnecessary layers of process complexity and upper management/C-level bonuses.

Apparently I don't know how to post links anymore. Here's what it was supposed to say: under the EU's regulatory microscope.

Well, Adobe is trying to purchase Figma but is running into regulatory concerns. Their entire reason for making this free to students is to hopefully drown out the negative attention from it being .

That said, Figma is not intended to be an Adobe replacement. Adobe is attempting to buy it to bring it into the fold so that they have a more robust collaborative UI design toolkit.

The people at One Microsoft Way have been embedding Asure into everything but their office toilets and pushing devs onto it too. For three decades they have leveraged their monopoly on the corporate desktop OS, and to some extent corporate servers to funnel developers their APIs and software stacks. Think about it, Microsoft was third to the game after Amazon and then Google defined the cloud space yet for some reason Microsoft Windows developers jumped to Microsoft's solution?

You're at least 5 years late Google and nothing the DOJ can do will get those developers off of Asure now that they are attached at the hip and throat to it.

LoB

They're called taxes and infrastructure subsidies. The problem here, oversimplified, are twofold:

1. We already paid "Big Telco" billions for infrastructure and they pissed it away.

2. We allow all companies to not pay their fair share and thus the revenues are down.

Governing and taxation are broken.

https://www.reuters.com/techno...

There really isn't any reason at all to link to a site that has a wall when the same information is available elsewhere.

The only way to get me back (and I assume many others):

1. Spez is immediately removed and gets no $ on IPO for breaking just about every ethical rule in the book. He is a piece of shit human not only for this but many other issues over the years.

2. API access is restored and is reasonably priced. They don't get to determine that price; the market does and the market has spoken.

I had no idea Arizona was on the Pacific Ocean and was wondering how they would find "alternative sources" of water. The solution is easy now that they have the Pacific to draw water from. THAT was too easy.

LoB

True dat but I sure do miss CmdrTaco. There were just more articles worth reading on /. back then. Could have been because there were so many new technologies and fights(Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Sun, Corel, Netware, Caldera, etc, etc) and now it's hard to find the stories. Don't know but I don't like /. stories about sites shutting down.

LoB

Ford Sync was WindowsCE based so Ford took it in the shorts for a number of years. Seems Bill Gates got tight with the Ford CEO and wed them to Windows CE and the rest is history. Just like BMW, they got suckered into using a really bad OS and worst, suckered into a long contract. With that kind of history, letting others own some user facing software seems easier. You all should already know of BMW's problems with letting Microsoft software control automobile hardware. It was not pretty but again, they were stuck for years with Microsoft and then they put Linux under the hood. And it probably happened far more times but all under the public radar.

I found this on the interweb by a guy who said he worked on the team which created the Ford Sync system:

The short answer is no. Ford partnered with B-Squared because someone knew someone is the way I understood things. Around the time SYNC was getting to be announced, Bill Gates & Bill Ford were seen in local media (TV news, papers, etc...) riding around in a model-T at Henry Ford Village with the reports being that Microsoft wanted to get into automobiles. Out of this, somehow, B-Squared was chosen (pushed on guys like me) with the comments always being they have a lot of domain expertise in bringing up WindowsCE on embedded platforms.

LoB

Ford made the mistake many others have in thinking Microsoft was a technology company and could make something as reliable as what's required in the automobile. Yes, they partnered with Microsoft, put Windows-CE(also known as WINCE) under their Ford Sync system and it failed terribly. Like others, they signed a multi year contract so it took 5 or more years to get off of that and they eventually put the QNX OS under Ford Sync. They looked at Linux but didn't like that there were no Linux lawyers who'd sign off on taking the blame for any lawsuits. Microsoft wanted to write a bunch of the software on Ford Sync but when Ford's lawyers put the papers infront of them to claim responsibility if their software deployed airbags falsely, etc they said no, no, no, no and no.

From what I heard Ford Sync on QNX and with other design fixes has been far more reliable but they had outsourced most everything and ended up with junk.
Makes sense after those lashings that management would opt for allowing CarPlay and Android Auto to take over.

LoB

hahaha, you thought that this announcement was about making Windows better. And yes, they did say lots of things in the press release about that being the goal but Microsoft really is more of a marketing company than anything else. As you point out, they are really just changing bugs and more likely implementing more bugs. But, this is all in the name of making Windows better so the sales pitch is that Microsoft is working to improve Windows so it's worth lots of money and on top of that they will be able to move funds around departments and hide losses and creating perceptions of progress and general success.

Can you imagine what a CS course on OS design would look like if Windows was used as the template? Ever seen a root ball in a sewer line? Rust won't fix the design but marketing that it will is all that matters.

LoB

But now, you corporate bean counters get to add lots of annual Microsoft software license fees to the ledger.

Where previously client software licenses were associated with the hardware and could be used by 3 different employees if you ran 3 shifts. With this new invention from Microsoft, licensing is per employee and there's no software to install on the Windows based client computer, it's on a server which also has licensing feees associated with it.

Look for the Ads coming soon, "Rent Everything" by Microsoft.

LoB

or Elon just really hates Microsoft's talking paper clip so much he's going to come out with a talking paper clamp for Twitter.

LoB