Jesus Christ, so the engineering difficulty of running an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CPU ARCHITECTURE just escapes your little mind?? Do you know fucking ANYTHING about software development, or how computers work?? The Xbox 360 uses a completely different CPU architecture than what the Xbox One uses. And explain to me how *not* letting the Xbox One magically makes Microsoft more money?? No?? It's just a fantasy you pulled out of your shithole? Yeah, thought so.

"People don't like constantly updating their software nor seemingly random software changes"

apt-get update.

Now shut up.

This is total anti-Microsoft FUD. You are simply making shit up, and ignoring what the press releases have publicly committed to. It's NOT a subscription model.

I love Slashdot. I just think of it as a satire site, like The Onion. Shit like this post gets marked as "Insightful"?? Hilarious!

Internet Explorer was never "an integral part of my OS kernel". That's just plain ignorance on your part. It was shipped in the box, and MSHTML.DLL was used by the shell (Windows Explorer). That does not make it "part of [the] OS kernel".

Apple is currently in the lead, but that's not the same as "winning". 10 years ago it was inconceivable that Apple would overtake Microsoft. Right now, it seems inconceivable to most people that Microsoft could overtake Apple. But that's exactly what "inconceivable" means -- it means you can't imagine it happening. Apple isn't perfect. And Microsoft isn't nearly as stupid or slow or doomed as your average Slashdotter would like them to be.

You are completely full of shit. Somehow, Microsoft supporting multiple hardware platforms magically becomes Microsoft restricting hardware platforms! It's like you live in bizarro-land.

NT was built on MIPS, then later ported to x86 and other platforms. MIPS failed in the marketplace, so Microsoft *did what customers wanted* and stopped supporting MIPS.

Microsoft ported NT to Alpha, because that looked like the next big platform (in workstations and servers). Alpha was ridiculously expensive, both to buy and to run, and Intel advanced their processor tech enough that Intel matched and then beat Alpha performance. So customers only wanted to x86 machines. So what did EVIL MICROSOFT do? They stopped wasting time on Alpha, because the market wanted x86.

When Intel developed Itanium, which was supposed to be the Next Big Thing, Microsoft supported that 100% in Windows. Microsoft fixed all of its 32-bit-vs-64-bit bugs in Windows and in the main server apps (SQL, etc.), and supported and sold these products on Itanium. How is that restricting choice??

When AMD developed AMD64, Microsoft worked with AMD to port Windows to it. Mind you, Microsoft had to be secretive, because publicly they were still committed to Itanium, and Intel really did not want a competitor. AMD64 would never have reached the market unless Microsoft had ported Windows to run on it. You literally have Microsoft to thank for desktop 64-bit computing -- without Microsoft, AMD never would have had the support to push a new x64 chip design, and Intel would not have been forced to change their own designs to match.

"When Microsoft dominated they pushed developers towards non-cross platform development" God, you're insane. Microsoft pushed non-platform development in the sense that they pushed *THEIR OWN PLATFORM*. What the fuck is wrong with that?? I don't see Linus pushing cross-platform development across Mac, Linux, and Windows -- he pushes development on Linux, and nothing else! What the fuck is wrong with that?

As usual, you're working hard to spin things in the most negative light you can.

ARM is a power-efficient platform, but nothing prevents Intel (or someone else) from producing a power-efficient x86/x64 platform. Even the *current* Surface Pro 3 (which is a full i5 processor) can run for about 8 hours doing a "normal" workload. Reference: http://www.techradar.com/revie...

Intel is going to continue to improve the power efficiency of its processors, either by improving the power of Atom, or by further reducing the power draw on i3 / i5. The current generation of x86 laptops and tablets (including Surface Pro and other laptops made by other laptop manufacturers) *already* have less resources and hardware than a desktop. Which is precisely what you were frothing about. Are you ignorant of this, or just finding some tiny thing to hate on?

Or, you know, they're responding effectively to market realities?

Win RT was a flop. Everyone knows it -- even Microsoft. So they're basically dumping it. That's not a lack of "planning / execution" -- that's paying attention to reality.

I guarantee that if Microsoft continued to support Win RT, you would be saying "Herpity derp, look, Microsoft doesn't see the writing on the wall!! herp herp".

That's not how "prior art" works. An idea is not patentable. A precise description of how to achieve an idea is patentable. William Gibson may have written some great stories about VR, but those stories are not descriptions of how to implement VR. I realize that many patents are terrible patents, and should either never have been granted or should be constricted, but I'm talking about the goal of patent law, not arguing about each individual patent.

Minority Report is another story / fantasy, with some CGI visuals to go along with it. Neither this nor "Virtual Light" describe anything in "immense detail". Immense detail would be source code, VHDL, wiring diagrams, etc.

Phones ARE computers.

Microsoft was not "cool with this". Microsoft is legally prevented from interfering in the software that OEMs (Dell, HP, etc.) install on PCs. The OEMs are responsible for all the crapware, not Microsoft.

Wow. It's almost like they pointed nuclear weapons at the US, or something.

I don't even have a college degree, but I've been working as a software engineer for 20+ years. So what's your point? Also, should open source projects begin requiring college degrees from every submitter? And, let's see your most recent kernel submission, eh?

Oh, so is that why the CEO issued a public apology? And why the founder was put on leave? And why the founder's wife has been ordered never to come into the office again?