Microsoft COO Kevin Turner refuses to lose

Turner said that Microsoft's ecosystem, which builds Windows devices and mobile apps, is 18 to 24 months behind where he wants it to be, but it is "catching up."

Source: Microsoft COO Kevin Turner refuses to lose | Microsoft - CNET News

COO Kevin Turner finally let slip exactly what they mean by 'devices and services', and the desktop is apparently not included in that.

What he's going to find is not only will they not make inroads with tablet devices with that strategy, but they're more than likely going to cheese off the remaining developers on the PC side along with most of the users. About the only way it would work is if they overhauled mobile apps such that they worked in the same manner as applications, and I don't see them being bright enough to do that.

Literally, it would need to work like a secure application and not the Apple-style app they have now. Being able to background apps and have them continue processing, provide the ability to pass-in information through walled gardens from one app to another with permissions, being able to launch one app from another app, being able to access a shared set of data, etc.

Even with all that.. I wager that companies like Dassault Systems(maker of SolidWorks, pretty much the top product in CAD design and 3D printing) that are extremely heavy into Windows, would freeze their product development to a maximum of Windows 8.x. Nobody is going to put millions of dollars into hardcore applications so that they can then give Microsoft 20-30% of their revenue. Nor do they give a rat's behind if these products work on tablets or not.

They'll port to Mac and Linux and give Microsoft two of these ,,|,, ,,|,, first.

 

[Mystere]

MAKING an app is not the same thing as being told you have to take all your applications and refactor them as an app.

They know their customers are abandoning the desktop. SAP in particularly is seriously moving into mobile apps. They have an entirely new architecture around it. Desktop apps will be around for at least a decade, again, as a virtual subsystem, but it's the customers that will be demanding to run their apps on ARM platforms that will get them to port.

More importantly, you appear to know nothing whatsoever about side loading for enterprise customers. Side loading does not require Microsoft to take a cut of anything, other than the OS itself.

 

[Lee]

To those of you who thank that the app makers, and program designers will not go down the road that Microsoft is looking towards need to read about the Apple Plan (which is in full swing). All of the Programs\Apps that are designed my Apple for the Mac are now only sold through the Apple App Store. Just about all (not saying everyone\everything) programs\apps for the Mac series of computers are now available through the App Store, and Apple get 30% of all monies made.

Now when Apple announced this plan the Mac world went crazy, and said it would never work. But, Apple held to the plan, and as such are doing quite well with it. They are getting their cut and the developers are happy because their apps are being sold (money in their pockets), and not pirated. The not pirated was the was the key to Apple bringing out the App Store. It give the developers of Mac Apps a pirate free place to sell their apps and not worry about losing revenue to those who wanted something for free even though they didn't desire it for free.

This is what MS is now doing, and to developers it will be a good thing in the long run. Adobe is going to the cloud for this very reason; pirating has hurt their bottom line, thus going to the cloud will cut out the pirates.

We can all argue all day long about what is right, and what is wrong with Microsoft's new direction, but it is nothing more then an argument over verbiage. We can all assume we know why or why not Microsoft should take this road they are now traveling down, albeit it is only an assumption on our part.

The only part of this argument that makes sense to me is the idea of apps from the app store being full screen, again, albeit that problem has be taken care by Stardock's (not a big fan) ModernMix; thus that renders the argument that there is no way of using a Microsoft App Store App on the desktop (old style) mute.

. . .just some random thoughts. . .

 

[chrisa]

To those of you who thank that the app makers, and program designers will not go down the road that Microsoft is looking towards need to read about the Apple Plan (which is in full swing). All of the Programs\Apps that are designed my Apple for the Mac are now only sold through the Apple App Store. Just about all (not saying everyone\everything) programs\apps for the Mac series of computers are now available through the App Store, and Apple get 30% of all monies made.

Mac isn't PC. Two problems with your philosophy that such a thing can transfer over:

1) There has never been a deep bench of Macintosh developers. The majority of Macintosh programs are invariably existing ports of Windows products and a far smaller impact on a companies bottom line.

2) Even with moving desktop sales into the App Store, Apple did not force companies to refactor their product to a non-desktop application run-time setup. Its one thing to get people to sell the stuff they've already made in your store, its another thing to tell them they have to spend millions of dollars redeveloping their products in order to sell it in your store.

And Microsoft can't simply force companies to sell their Desktop(or Win32 if you want that terminology) Applications out of the App Store to take a 30% cut without holy hell coming down on them. Thats why they look to force the refactoring to something they can tax.

And to be perfectly honest, I don't see the point in forcing full-blown tens of millions of lines of code applications to be compiled at runtime, regardless of the speed of the computer. It would be like the worlds biggest condom to prevent something that antivirus tools already take care of for the most part. For small, mobile apps.. its fine and can be helpful. For large, full blown programs.. it becomes way too cumbersome as it scales with the size of the product.

 

[Lee]

To those of you who thank that the app makers, and program designers will not go down the road that Microsoft is looking towards need to read about the Apple Plan (which is in full swing). All of the Programs\Apps that are designed my Apple for the Mac are now only sold through the Apple App Store. Just about all (not saying everyone\everything) programs\apps for the Mac series of computers are now available through the App Store, and Apple get 30% of all monies made.

Mac isn't PC. Two problems with your philosophy that such a thing can transfer over:

1) There has never been a deep bench of Macintosh developers. The majority of Macintosh programs are invariably existing ports of Windows products and a far smaller impact on a companies bottom line.

2) Even with moving desktop sales into the App Store, Apple did not force companies to refactor their product to a non-desktop application run-time setup. Its one thing to get people to sell the stuff they've already made in your store, its another thing to tell them they have to spend millions of dollars redeveloping their products in order to sell it in your store.

And Microsoft can't simply force companies to sell their Desktop(or Win32 if you want that terminology) Applications out of the App Store to take a 30% cut without holy hell coming down on them. Thats why they look to force the refactoring to something they can tax.

And to be perfectly honest, I don't see the point in forcing full-blown tens of millions of lines of code applications to be compiled at runtime, regardless of the speed of the computer. It would be like the worlds biggest condom to prevent something that antivirus tools already take care of for the most part. For small, mobile apps.. its fine and can be helpful. For large, full blown programs.. it becomes way too cumbersome as it scales with the size of the product.

I know by reading your posts that you hate to be wrong, but as to whether a Mac is a PC it is; I know I have two of them. One is a 1987 Mac Plus (still works) and the other is a 2009 (late) iMac 27" running Mountain Lion.

As to the rest you will not get me into one of your arguments. . .so have a nice day. . .

 

[chrisa]

I know by reading your posts that you hate to be wrong, but as to whether a Mac is a PC it is; I know I have two of them. One is a 1987 Mac Plus (still works) and the other is a 2009 (late) iMac 27" running Mountain Lion.

Now you're simply getting into semantics. Yes, a Mac is a Personal Computer . I'm also certain you know what I mean when I say Mac isn't PC. But just for you, Macintosh PC isn't a Windows PC. Fair Enough? They're held to different standards and things that may work on one because its small and niche may not work on the other because its mainstream, and not just because they're both Personal Computers.

 

[Lee]

I know by reading your posts that you hate to be wrong, but as to whether a Mac is a PC it is; I know I have two of them. One is a 1987 Mac Plus (still works) and the other is a 2009 (late) iMac 27" running Mountain Lion.

Now you're simply getting into semantics. Yes, a Mac is a Personal Computer . I'm also certain you know what I mean when I say Mac isn't PC. But just for you, Macintosh PC isn't a Windows PC. Fair Enough? They're held to different standards and things that may work on one because its small and niche may not work on the other because its mainstream, and not just because they're both Personal Computers.

Wrong again. My Mac is a Windows PC. With Windows 7 in Boot Camp mode it becomes a Windows PC. Or, if you decide to no longer use the Mac as a Mac Computer then you can run simply as a PC with either Windows (7, 8, or Vista), or whatever flavor of Linux you would like to use (still a Mac).

 

[jimbo45]

Turner said that Microsoft's ecosystem, which builds Windows devices and mobile apps, is 18 to 24 months behind where he wants it to be, but it is "catching up."

Source: Microsoft COO Kevin Turner refuses to lose | Microsoft - CNET News

COO Kevin Turner finally let slip exactly what they mean by 'devices and services', and the desktop is apparently not included in that.

What he's going to find is not only will they not make inroads with tablet devices with that strategy, but they're more than likely going to cheese off the remaining developers on the PC side along with most of the users. About the only way it would work is if they overhauled mobile apps such that they worked in the same manner as applications, and I don't see them being bright enough to do that.

Literally, it would need to work like a secure application and not the Apple-style app they have now. Being able to background apps and have them continue processing, provide the ability to pass-in information through walled gardens from one app to another with permissions, being able to launch one app from another app, being able to access a shared set of data, etc.

Even with all that.. I wager that companies like Dassault Systems(maker of SolidWorks, pretty much the top product in CAD design and 3D printing) that are extremely heavy into Windows, would freeze their product development to a maximum of Windows 8.x. Nobody is going to put millions of dollars into hardcore applications so that they can then give Microsoft 20-30% of their revenue. Nor do they give a rat's behind if these products work on tablets or not.

They'll port to Mac and Linux and give Microsoft two of these ,,|,, ,,|,, first.

Hi there
as a person who deals regularly on the Markets as well as messing around with some technology the FIRST and quite painful lesson I learned VERY QUICKLY INDEED was NEVER EVER to chase losses. (Capital letters intended). You will lose 100% of the time guaranteed.

Sometimes you make a Bad Trade - and as you get more experienced this happens less frequently - but when you do you just have to say to yourself "I hosed that one up -- now time to move on". It's no point even THINKING about it any more or going into the inevitable "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" rigmarole. It's the same with a load of other things - such as you've created a bad product -- just ditch it, grin and bear your losses and start again.

(Some exceptions do require extensive post event analysis - such as for example Aircraft crashes etc but I think we aren't considering those types of events here).

Ms needs to realize it's come up with a Lemon -- and it needs either a total re-think or a complete re-work to fix it --the desktop IS NOT GOING AWAY and there are even signs of a slight revival in the laptop market for Q3/Q4 this year as people discover the limitations of tablets and find they really do need something a bit more suited to their purposes.

In any case those who CANNOT adapt their business plans in the face of overwhelming evidence that the original purpose has gone awry will always loose out.

It's a great pity that the CEO of Ms wasn't in (Lord) Alan Sugar's Boardroom on that very entertaining BBC TV program "The Apprentice" where Lord Sugar points up his finger and says "Your Fired".


If you have time review last weeks program --the Candidate Mr Sugar wanted to win was a Mr Clough -- had extremely good personality, was intelligent, performed all the tasks required in the series decently but totally refused to realize his business model was an absolute joke. - Even Mr Sugar said --I really regret it but I have to fire you. And this was AFTER Mr sugar offered the guy a lifeline by explaining to him that his business model was a joke -- he still refused to budge an inch.

For those that don't know Mr Sugar is one of the UK's richest men who started out with nothing and certainly knows what he is talking about --if you refuse advice from this sort of person you really are both totally stupid and 100% doomed to failure.

The Apprentice Review: Week 11 - Who Is Left After Tonight's Explosive Episode? - Celebrity Gossip, News & Photos, Movie Reviews, Competitions - Entertainmentwise

Those who have access to BBC TV can also watch the whole program via BBC Iplayer or even via some of the usual torrents specialising in TV shows -- for people like me who don't always get access go via any UK proxy --the show is really worth watching at this stage.

It should be mandatory viewing for some people at Ms I think.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[chrisa]

Hi there
as a person who deals regularly on the Markets as well as messing around with some technology the FIRST and quite painful lesson I learned VERY QUICKLY INDEED was NEVER EVER to chase losses. (Capital letters intended). You will lose 100% of the time guaranteed.

I pretty much agree with your assessment and really lay the blame at the feet of one person, Steve Ballmer. He's too much a nickel and dimer while having very little tech savvy. So he tries to bleed current technologies dry, aimlessly tries to scattershot hit the Next Big Thing with R&D, and inevitably ends up trying to fast-follow whatever is making the big bux. Say what you will about Jobs, at his core he had a pretty good feel on what to push(even if it would take a while), and what not to push. Gates had it(but is too busy off saving Africa to care). The Google Guys have it. The jury is still out on Tim Cook.

 

[Vertex]

I pretty much agree with your assessment and really lay the blame at the feet of one person, Steve Ballmer.

Let us not forget that wacko Ballmer alone is not the only one who makes critical decisions done inside Micro$oft. They also have a board of directors that most of us can't name at all that do take part in their decisions but many of us would look at the frontman, Ballmer as the main guy to blame. I'm convinced that the man is nuts and delusional after his statements but why hasn't anybody within M$ who is more sane than he is do something to the drop the weight that is making them sink at the moment? Or maybe the reason is that most of Micro$oft's executive elite is delusional on this direction they wanted to push into and those that do think differently, might have chosen to keep silent than to be burned alive like witches on a stake. I'm sure Microsoft people at ground level acknowledge that this is not going as good as planned but those on the top fail to publicly acknowledge what really goes on and insist on something that right now produce not even remotely close to the best of harvest.

 

[Rickkins]

"Refuses to lose..."...??? That's rich.

 

[Mystere]

Ms needs to realize it's come up with a Lemon -- and it needs either a total re-think or a complete re-work to fix it --the desktop IS NOT GOING AWAY and there are even signs of a slight revival in the laptop market for Q3/Q4 this year as people discover the limitations of tablets and find they really do need something a bit more suited to their purposes.

Apparently, you aren't familiar with Microsoft's track record. You could have made the same arguments about the releases of Windows NT 3.1, .NET 1.0, The Xbox, Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, etc.. etc.. etc.. the list goes on. Microsoft's first few release of any product are always expected to be a "work in progress" and it will eventually get to where it becomes profitable.

Microsoft does, on occasion, cancel projects that it can't find a path to success for, such as the infamous MS Bob, Hailstorm, WinFS, etc...

You simply cannot say any given MS product is a failure based on the first few releases. Microsoft has historically released products with a subset of the entire feature set they intend to bring out. Anyone that buys into the failure hype will have to re-evaluate their stance in a few years.

 

[chrisa]

I pretty much agree with your assessment and really lay the blame at the feet of one person, Steve Ballmer.

Let us not forget that wacko Ballmer alone is not the only one who makes critical decisions done inside Micro$oft. They also have a board of directors that most of us can't name at all that do take part in their decisions but many of us would look at the frontman, Ballmer as the main guy to blame. I'm convinced that the man is nuts and delusional after his statements but why hasn't anybody within M$ who is more sane than he is do something to the drop the weight that is making them sink at the moment? Or maybe the reason is that most of Micro$oft's executive elite is delusional on this direction they wanted to push into and those that do think differently, might have chosen to keep silent than to be burned alive like witches on a stake. I'm sure Microsoft people at ground level acknowledge that this is not going as good as planned but those on the top fail to publicly acknowledge what really goes on and insist on something that right now produce not even remotely close to the best of harvest.

He's IS the one that sets the tone and direction... which with his 'devices and services company' codeword it has now been outed to mean 'COPY APPLE. FAST.'. Copy their Devices. Copy their Services. Nothing Else Matters. Structure us like them so we can make the big bux!

That is Microsoft's Strategy. And its pure, epic fail.

 

[SIW2]

MS are going for the cloud stuff big time. More so than Apple perhaps - not sure what Tim is up to there.

 

[acr731]

He's IS the one that sets the tone and direction... which with his 'devices and services company' codeword it has now been outed to mean 'COPY APPLE. FAST.'. Copy their Devices. Copy their Services. Nothing Else Matters. Structure us like them so we can make the big bux!

That is Microsoft's Strategy. And its pure, epic fail.

I don't understand the strategy either. Microsoft has had a stranglehold on the PC/desktop/server market for many years. We're talking about an enterprise that nets Microsoft billions of dollars in profit each year, and there are few, if any, competitors out there who have even the slightest chance of cutting into even the smallest percentage of those profits. So why the fascination with getting into a new area currently dominated by Apple and Android?

It can be nothing more than greed....

Why not just stick with what you do best and let the other companies do their thing? Microsoft doesn't have a single threat from anyone when it comes to the PC market, so why are they risking destroying what they have dominated for so many years? Is it really that important to them to have a monopoly on the entire electronics market? Its absurd thinking.

Its getting to the point where I really hope Microsoft goes bankrupt within the next 5 years. When greed becomes more important than making quality products for your customers its time for that company to go away.

 

[lehnerus2000]

MS are going for the cloud stuff big time. More so than Apple perhaps - not sure what Tim is up to there.

Maybe the NSA has put the kibosh on that plan.
Why PRISM kills the cloud | Computerworld Blogs
Microsoft kills the enterprise cloud | Computerworld Blogs

 

[jimbo45]

MAKING an app is not the same thing as being told you have to take all your applications and refactor them as an app.

They know their customers are abandoning the desktop. SAP in particularly is seriously moving into mobile apps. They have an entirely new architecture around it. Desktop apps will be around for at least a decade, again, as a virtual subsystem, but it's the customers that will be demanding to run their apps on ARM platforms that will get them to port.

More importantly, you appear to know nothing whatsoever about side loading for enterprise customers. Side loading does not require Microsoft to take a cut of anything, other than the OS itself.

Hi there.

SAP MOBILE APPS still need a BACKEND architecture to support them and of course vast armies of consultants to design and maintain these and the business processes surrounding them. This is of course done on "Classical computers" which are usually laptops while the BACKEND SAP stuff runs on servers of various types. (A Server is still a COMPUTER BTW !!!!!!).

For instance say you are a Service Engineer investigating an electric substation breakdown. OK you go out to the site where the breakdown was reported and you need to create a Malfunction report -- (to "Non engineers" here -- in plain English - an initial inspection report both visually and with some elementary tests as to what looks broken).

OK you take out your tablet etc and connect up to your MOBILE SAP application usually done via a Web application like using a SAP WEB DYNPRO application. (The Mobile application is accessed via a web browser such as IE).

Now the first thing that the poor old Engineer needs is details of the "Asset" (I.e the sub station and possibly all of the component parts). Now this is going to be accessed from some quite LARGE database so it will have to come from another DB system on a backend -- there's no way all this stuff can be stored on the mobile device - and you wouldn't want it to anyway as this is CENTRAL MASTER data which needs to be maintained in ONE place or the whole organisation will just collapse. Just imagine if the breakdown data was ONLY stored on the Engineers tablet / mobile device --- what happens if he had an accident later on in the day before getting back to the office -- and the Engineer might be an Outside third party contracted for inspection and preliminary repair work only. The backend DB systems are usually things like ORACLE or / MSSQL which SAP is licensed to use.

(Even if the MOBILE device could store all the master data it would be crazy to do so -- you'd have to replicate this stuff on EVERY engineer['s device -- say 400 - 500 Engineers - and keep the data totally in sync AT ALL TIMES -- forget it !!! it should be obvious to even a 5 year old that this data only needs to be maintained in ONE central place).

After the Engineer has made his malfunction report this will go via the SAP backend system into all sorts of complex workflows such as scheduling maintenance, procuring parts, some sort of finance such as PO's and eventually payment for work done will be integrated as well via Accounts payable and Accounts receivable. I can't even begin to explain the whole business cycle but SAP systems usually require complex back end Data bases whatever platform the front end is performed on and I can't see all these business cycles running on a Mobile platform -- same with HR -- unless you are say Lord Sugar saying You're Fired - the whole idea of running an entire company's HR system from a mobile device is just patently so totally absurd as to make further discussions here totally BOVINE.

Of course mobile technology has its place but it will be a long long time --if ever before large backend systems disappear (whether local to the business or in the Cloud).

Be very careful when discussing systems like SAP --these can't be picked up and understood via a couple of Google searches -- we are talking here of quite complex business processes - not simple one off transactional stuff.

Another part of the SAP system which requires a HUGE amount of backend processing is the whole BW / BI part too -- this essentially extracts data from all sorts of processes to produce analytical forecasts for mamagement - the data required is much to complex to run in simple "transactional" mode especially on a mobile device although the query can of course be transmitted and returned to the device. If you don't believe this just google SAP BI INFOCUBES. Going further with this discussion is far beyond the scope of the post -- suffice to say by choosing SAP's MOBILE platform to emphasize the decline in back end services was a BAD one whichever way you looked at it.

Mobile platforms are essentially fine for simple fast transactional processes but anything requiring a load of data from various sources and a lot of complex dynamic manipulation need to run on a very different type of architecture - even if the queries can be sent and received from the mobile device. As the query might take minutes or even HOURS to process I think you will get the point.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[chrisa]

Mobile platforms are essentially fine for simple fast transactional processes but anything requiring a load of data from various sources and a lot of complex dynamic manipulation need to run on a very different type of architecture - even if the queries can be sent and received from the mobile device. As the query might take minutes or even HOURS to process I think you will get the point.

I think you got off a bit on a tangent. Assuming they upgraded the ability of the apps to encompass everything you can do out of an executable, then what they would want you to do is keep the same programs, refactor the interface so that its modern with all the touchy stuff... and build apps as needed. If your programs worked off a workstation before, they still do. Nothing in what they're attempting would fundamentally change the workflows.

Basically, they want to go with one interface(modern off the run-time operating system) and have that work for anything from the smallest mobile device to the largest workstation/server.

I wouldn't mind it so much if they'd just keep the desktop, chrome the apps if launched from the desktop, and didn't try to tax 20-30% of the revenue of developers.

The one other very serious consideration is a fear of mine that once everything moves into the 'App Store', that you'll need a full rectal exam to be able to get anything in there. One of the best parts of personal computing is the ability for anyone to make an application if they so desire and distribute it without hassle. That going away would be a dark day indeed.

 

[Mystere]

SAP MOBILE APPS still need a BACKEND architecture to support them and of course vast armies of consultants to design and maintain these and the business processes surrounding them. This is of course done on "Classical computers" which are usually laptops while the BACKEND SAP stuff runs on servers of various types. (A Server is still a COMPUTER BTW !!!!!!).

That's a huge *DUH!*. I'm not sure why you felt the need to go on a long diatribe for something extremely obvious.

You do understand the difference between an API and a User Interface, right?

"Metro" is a UI, WinRT is an API (well, it's a runtime with an API). You can write apps to the WinRT runtime that will run as services. Eventually, this will become the way that all apps are written on the server as well. Today, it's not the case and server apps are largely still Win32.

The reason for this is that WinRT can run on any platform, not just x86/x64.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
The real meaning was that you have to distinguish between quick simple transactional processes and things that are essentially analysis type stuff that requires gathering a large amount of data and massaging it to yield complex results (SOAP) and that mobile devices are only of any use for transactional processing. This means WHATEVER platform you use there will always be a requirement for "Classical computing devices" - so in that sense the Desktop is NOT dead nor is it likely to become so.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[chrisa]

Hi there
The real meaning was that you have to distinguish between quick simple transactional processes and things that are essentially analysis type stuff that requires gathering a large amount of data and massaging it to yield complex results (SOAP) and that mobile devices are only of any use for transactional processing. This means WHATEVER platform you use there will always be a requirement for "Classical computing devices" - so in that sense the Desktop is NOT dead nor is it likely to become so.

Cheers
jimbo

Assuming they go to the trouble of giving apps all the abilities of an executable, then RT would be able to do anything a 'classical computing device' can do. Its simply a change in interface and coding standards at that point. In their thought process, everything essentially becomes the same device, and you simply program all applications in the app environment. The specific device you implement said app on would determine how much storage and power you have.

So your server stuff would be run out of an app(which presumably now has all the capabilities of an executable sometime in the future) refactored as modern, and run on well.. big servers. You could run it on an ARM tablet, but why would you? It simply doesn't have the storage or processing necessary. Mini apps that interface to the server stuff would run primarily off ARM tablets or something small deployed into the field, although they can run on any doodad device that gets invented and simply backends to the server.

This is what they're going after. I think its very naïve to think they can get customers and corporations to come along with this Brave New World(its essentially a full reboot of the entire old school ecosystem, which is insanely expensive no matter how you cut it), but there you have it.

And if they don't leave in the desktop to interface to this, its pretty much dead on arrival. Even with capabilities built-in to modern, they're going to need a bridge because people who are trained with the desktop ways of doing things and are very, very adept at manipulating it, will basically feel like they just had an arm cutoff when trying to do the same thing in Modern. It is like suddenly being told you have to use a Dvorak-style keyboard. Can it be better? Yes. But not for the guy trained on a QWERTY. For him, everything is simply backwards and slow.