[VIDEO] Treacly snarky. Cloyingly awful. Includes the line “Grandma don’t run out and buy an iPad”. I kid you not.
Microsoft, you can do so much better.
And don’t miss that shot, right at the very end, showing Grandma and our star in the Microsoft Store. They are the only customers at that end of the store. This rang true to me. Do you ever see a shot of an open Apple Store that is not crowded?
Video embedded in main Loop post.
New York Times:
Just a few years ago, Microsoft was seen as a lumbering has-been of the technology world.
It was big and still quite profitable, but the company had lost its luster, failing or trailing in the markets of the future like mobile, search, online advertising and cloud computing. Its stock price languished, inching up 3 percent in the decade through the end of 2012.
It’s a very different story today. Microsoft is running neck and neck with Apple for the title of the world’s most valuable company, both worth more than $850 billion, thanks to a stock price that has climbed 30 percent over the last 12 months.
So what happened?
Interesting analysis. In a nutshell, this is a combination of Satya Nadella’s vision when he came on board in 2014 (dump the old stuff that wasn’t working, hyper focus on the new, like cloud computing) and Apple’s iPhone-sales-centric valuation.
Lots of detail on the re-invention of Microsoft. Terrific read. Wonder if Intel can find this path.
Matthew S. Smith, Digital Trends:
Differences do appear when you dig deeper. Here’s the big one; Windows 10’s dark mode only applies to Universal Windows Platform apps. It doesn’t change older, legacy interfaces. That includes Explorer, Task Manager, and all the old Control Panel menus, some of which still don’t have their function replicated in Windows 10’s Settings Menu.
And:
We must again nitpick Microsoft’s approach, though, for a reason that’s as simple as it is silly. Edge opens an MSN home page by default. It’s a web page, not part of the application interface, so it doesn’t get the dark mode treatment. This also applies to the “blank” page that you can choose to select instead of MSN. You’ll always be greeted with a grayish-white page in Edge, unless you manually change the home page to a website with a dark background.
Safari has no such problem. Its default new tab page, which has a list of featured websites, will change its background to slate gray when dark mode is turned on.
Attention to the tiny details. When done right, it does show.
This is some lovely appreciation. Worth the read. And that first picture!
Microsoft Office blog:
As of the Office 365 for Mac September 2018 update, macOS 10.12 or later is required to update to the new version of the Office client apps for Mac and receive new feature updates.
macOS 10.12 is more commonly known as macOS Sierra. If you don’t want to update to Sierra, you’ll still be able to get support. You just won’t be able to update to the new shiny coming in September.
As part of the upcoming September 2018 update, Office 365 for Mac users on macOS 10.12 or later will receive an update from the Office 2016 for Mac client to Office 2019 for Mac in order to maintain access to new feature releases and updates.
If you use Office, keep this in mind. I’ve always found Microsoft’s penchant for embedding calendar years in a release name an odd branding choice. In a few weeks, you’ll jump from Office 2016 to Office 2019.
No matter, good to know what’s coming.
From the CIRP mobile market share report, updated to reflect the quarter ending June 30th:
“Apple improved in part at Samsung’s expense, whose share of activiations declined relative to both last quarter and last year,” said Mike Levin, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP. “In a quarter without any significant phone launches, Samsung had market share only equal to Apple’s. A year ago, Samsung had a considerably greater share of sales.”
Two interesting points from this report:
Interesting charts. It’s clearly an iOS/Android world. Windows Phone never had a chance.
Microsoft Office blog:
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, Skype for Business, and OneNote will install and run on macOS 10.14 Mojave. No formal support is available for Office when using a beta installation of Mojave, and you may encounter stability issues. Microsoft intends to fully support Office 2016, Office 2019 and Office 365 for Mac on 10.14 Mojave when Apple declares it generally available (GA) for all users.
It’ll run, but no formal support until the official Mojave public release.
Bloomberg:
For Microsoft Corp., acquiring GitHub Inc. would be both a return to the company’s earliest roots and a sharp turnaround from where it was a decade ago.
The software maker has agreed to acquire GitHub, the code-repository company popular with many software developers, and could announce the deal as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with the matter.
Interesting that GitHub would choose this route over going public.
Lots of talk over the weekend over concerns with Microsoft having access to all the world’s source code. Doesn’t concern me. I password protect my private archives and trust GitHub to protect my privacy. I’ve got no reason to think that Microsoft will value that privacy any less.
This deal makes a ton of sense to me. I believe Microsoft have some of the most active and largest GitHub repositories on the planet. They know the value of GitHub, they probably have some solid ideas on tweaks to make it more useful for developers, and it makes good revenue as a business. Seems a smart move.
UPDATE: Here’s the official Microsoft announcement [H/T setteBIT].
Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion in Microsoft stock. Subject to customary closing conditions and completion of regulatory review, the acquisition is expected to close by the end of the calendar year.
Boing Boing:
In 2003 Bill Gates tried to download Microsoft Movie Maker from Microsoft.com. His confusing, frustrating, futile experience prompted him to write a terrifically scorching email to the managers in charge of the project. It starts off pretty mild, with just a hint of the brutally funny sarcasm to come. (“I typed in movie maker. Nothing. So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist? So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.”) It gets better from there.
Here’s a link to a PDF of the actual email exchange. Start at the bottom with Bill’s email, then work your way up.
I feel your pain, Bill.
Bloomberg:
Microsoft Corp. is planning to release a line of lower-cost Surface tablets as soon as the second half of 2018, seeking a hit in a market for cheaper devices that Apple Inc. dominates with the iPad, according to people familiar with the matter.
Microsoft has tried this before. The software giant kicked off its consumer-oriented hardware push in 2012 with the launch of the original Surface RT. At the time, it was priced starting at $499. After the tablets didn’t resonate with consumers and product reviewers, Microsoft pivoted to the more-expensive Surface Pro, a line which has gained steam and likely contributed to demand for a pro-oriented iPad, which Apple launched in 2015.
The Surface RT was the first generation Surface and was hamstrung by performance issues. If Microsoft truly is going to build something to rival the 2018 education iPad and its $329 list price, performance has to be better than their first kick at the can.
I own and regularly use the $329 iPad. It is fast, I’ve never noticed a bit of lag with the Apple Pencil, and the screen is excellent. There’s nothing about the $329 iPad that says budget to me. If Microsoft is going to play at that level, they have to offer a similar experience.
Washington Post:
A California man who built a sizable business out of recycling electronic waste is headed to federal prison for 15 months after a federal appeals court in Miami rejected his claim that the “restore disks” he made to extend the lives of computers had no financial value, instead ruling that he had infringed Microsoft’s products to the tune of $700,000.
I recognize that there are two sides to every story, but this reads to me like this guy is going to jail specifically because judge and jury do not understand the technology.
Before he launched his company, IT Asset Partners, Lundgren lived in China, learning about the stream of e-waste and finding ways to send cheap parts to America to keep electronics running. One of his projects was to manufacture thousands of “restore disks,” usually supplied by computer-makers as a way for users to restore Windows to a hard drive if it crashes or must be wiped. The disks can be used only on a computer that already has a license for the Windows operating system, and the license transfers with the computer for its full life span. But computer owners often lose or throw out the disks, and though the operating system can be downloaded free on a licensed computer, Lundgren realized that many people didn’t feel competent to do that, and were simply throwing out their computers and buying new ones.
Lundgren made 28,000 Windows backup CDs, sold them for 25 cents apiece to computer refurbishers. The disks had no licenses, they could only be used to restore a computer with an existing license.
Key to this is the value of those disks. They determine the level of the crime (if this is even a crime):
Initially, federal prosecutors valued the disks at $299 each, the cost of a brand-new Windows operating system, and Lundgren’s indictment claimed he had cost Microsoft $8.3 million in lost sales. By the time of sentencing, a Microsoft letter to Hurley and a Microsoft expert witness had reduced the value of the disks to $25 apiece, stating that was what Microsoft charged refurbishers for such disks.
BUT:
Glenn Weadock, a former expert witness for the government in its antitrust case against Microsoft, was asked, “In your opinion, without a code, either product key or COA [Certificate of Authenticity], what is the value of these reinstallation disks?”
“Zero or near zero,” Weadock said.
The $25 value is for disks with a product key or COA. The disks Lundgren sold had neither. So with Weadock’s expert testimony, all is good, right?
[U.S. District Judge] Hurley decided Lundgren’s 28,000 restore disks had a value of $700,000, and that dollar amount qualified Lundgren for a 15-month term and a $50,000 fine. The judge said he disregarded Weadock’s testimony. “I don’t think anybody in that courtroom understood what a restore disk was,” Lundgren said.
Two sides to every story, and there is an element of harm to Microsoft, in that they do sell backup disks. But is sending this guy to prison what they were after here? Was this about setting a precedent?
Just one more thing, then I’m gonna’ let you go:
Lundgren, 33, has become a renowned innovator in the field of “e-waste,” using discarded parts to construct things such as an electric car, which far outdistanced a Tesla in a test on one charge. He built the first “electronic hybrid recycling” facility in the United States, which turns discarded cellphones and other electronics into functional devices, slowing the stream of harmful chemicals and metals into landfills and the environment. His California-based company processes more than 41 million pounds of e-waste each year and counts IBM, Motorola and Sprint among its clients.
Something seems wrong about this whole thing.
UPDATE: From this article in a local Washington state paper covering the story:
Lundgren argued that because he never ended up selling any discs, Microsoft did not lose any money. But the federal court found that the discs were worth $25 each and therefore Lundgren infringed on Microsoft’s property by $700,000. In addition, the court found that the discs had labels on them that “falsely said the discs contained authorized copies of copyrighted software,” according to court records.
That last bit did not come up in the Washington Post story.
Tom Warren, The Verge:
Hundreds of Surface Pro 4 owners have been complaining about screen flickering issues on their tablets. A thread over at Microsoft’s support forums shows that the problems have been occurring for more than a year, and most devices affected are out of warranty. Dubbed “Flickergate,” a website to report the issues claims at least 1,600 Surface Pro 4 owners have experienced the screen flickering problems.
And:
Some owners have even started freezing their tablets to stop the screen flickering temporarily. “I get about half an hour’s use out of it after ten minutes in the freezer,” says one owner. Another user posted a video showing how the flickering stops as soon as the Surface Pro 4 is placed in a freezer.
Hardware is hard.
A new version of Microsoft Office 2016 just shipped (release notes here).
What really caught my eye was this tweet from Microsoft’s Erik Schwiebert:
https://twitter.com/Schwieb/status/954037656677072896
As Erik says, that is a massive code realignment. My 2 cents, this is good news for all Mac Office users. The Office experience will now have more consistency across platforms, and there’s more of a chance for new features to make their way to the Mac at the same time as they appear on Windows.
Side note: Office 365 subscriptions give you the opportunity to keep up with the latest version of Office at no extra cost. A license to a specific version of Office does not. When Office 2019 is released (presumably, later this year), Office 2016 users will have to pony up for a new license. Office 365 subscribers will have the opportunity to upgrade as part of their subscription.
The Register:
A fundamental design flaw in Intel’s processor chips has forced a significant redesign of the Linux and Windows kernels to defang the chip-level security bug.
Programmers are scrambling to overhaul the open-source Linux kernel’s virtual memory system. Meanwhile, Microsoft is expected to publicly introduce the necessary changes to its Windows operating system in an upcoming Patch Tuesday: these changes were seeded to beta testers running fast-ring Windows Insider builds in November and December.
And:
Similar operating systems, such as Apple’s 64-bit macOS, will also need to be updated – the flaw is in the Intel x86-64 hardware, and it appears a microcode update can’t address it. It has to be fixed in software at the OS level, or go buy a new processor without the design blunder.
The worst news is that since the issue is in the hardware itself, a software patch of something so deeply rooted in the pipeline will cause a performance hit.
Terrible new for Intel. More spark for Apple to roll their own CPUs.
UPDATE:
Finally, macOS has been patched to counter the chip design blunder since version 10.13.2, according to operating system kernel expert Alex Ionescu.
This piece is interesting, funny, and insightful. He coached his third graders like he ran Microsoft. Fascinating that his players had no idea who he was, beyond being their coach.
First things first, take a look at the video embedded in the main Loop post, a Fox News interview with Bill Gates. Jump to about 11:28 in, where Bill is asked about his “famously tempestuous” relationship with Steve Jobs and the new iPhone.
With that in mind, this is John Gruber, from the linked Daring Fireball post:
I say this with no snark intended: who would have guessed 10 years ago that Bill Gates would be using a personal computing device running a non-Microsoft OS? Or really, an OS that didn’t have “Windows” in the name?
And:
While I’m at it, it occurs to me that Apple is the only company left where all its employees are using only systems made by their own company.
Read the whole post, including the update. Fascinating.
New York Times:
For the past year, the two companies have been coordinating behind the scenes to make Alexa and Cortana communicate with each other. The partnership, which the companies plan to announce early Wednesday, will allow people to summon Cortana using Alexa, and vice versa, by the end of the year.
Important to note that both companies have tried to take on Apple, Google, Samsung, et al, in the smart phone marketplace. And both companies have failed to make a dent. Without a major smartphone partner, not sure this partnership will have much of an impact.
On Friday, we posted news about Consumer Reports very publicly changing their Microsoft Surface opinion to “Not recommended”. From our post:
Take this change with a grain of salt, give the experts a chance to dig through the methodology. But no matter the ultimate resolution, this certainly gives a black eye to Microsoft’s Surface brand.
Over the weekend, I ran across this take from Ben Bajarin (it’s from a subscription-only newsletter, but Ben graciously gave me permission to repost it here):
I want to briefly comment on a consumer reports article that came out yesterday. CR officially does not recommend Microsoft Surface hardware based from their interviews and survey of 91,741 laptop and tablet owners. They claim 25% of Surface owners reported a form of breakage after a few years.
What bothers me most about this is the flawed methodology. Surface sales are not huge, and the installed base is relatively small. So even though CR covered over 91,000 people, there is no way they had what any respectable statistician would consider a representative sample. The fact CR is not further detailing their methodology or telling us how many Surface owners they had is a red flag. Based on some other source data I’ve come across, I’d bet CR had less than 50 people respond who owned a Surface and it was probably more like 30. So 25% of my estimate means five people had an issue with Surface after two years.
The flawed methodology is disingenuous, and sadly Consumer Reports has become a bit of a click-bait outlet. They do this with Apple and now with Microsoft. Media outlets endorsing the CR report and flawed methodology only further affirm that CR can do this in the future. Which means, for all the Apple fans in my Twitter timeline mocking Microsoft and Surface based on this flawed process by CR, this may come back and bite you when CR needs another click-bait headline and targets Apple with their disingenuous agenda and methodology.
Personally, I’m not a fan of Windows, but I am a fan of fairness. When I saw the Consumer Reports flip, something just felt off. Consumer Reports has an outsized reputation, which gives them clout. And, as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility.
If Ben’s take is correct, I’d love to see Consumer Reports either completely reveal their methodology or take the change back and redo their testing in a way that would stand up to public scrutiny.
Consumer Reports:
Consumer Reports is removing its “recommended” designation from four Microsoft laptops and cannot recommend any other Microsoft laptops or tablets because of poor predicted reliability in comparison with most other brands.
To judge reliability, Consumer Reports surveys its subscribers about the products they own and use. New studies conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center estimate that 25 percent of Microsoft laptops and tablets will present their owners with problems by the end of the second year of ownership.
The decision by Consumer Reports applies to Microsoft devices with detachable keyboards, such as the new Surface Pro released in June and the Surface Book, as well as the company’s Surface Laptops with conventional clamshell designs.
Take this change with a grain of salt, give the experts a chance to dig through the methodology. But no matter the ultimate resolution, this certainly gives a black eye to Microsoft’s Surface brand.
Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:
Just back from three weeks in the Country of Good Sin’s heartland, I see Microsoft’s fresh and well-received Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2017 Results. The numbers acknowledge what was already notorious: Windows Phone is dead.
Country of Good Sin? That’s France, though I’d love to know the origin of that particular nickname. Hopefully, some kind reader will enlighten me.
UPDATE: From Jean-Louis:
https://twitter.com/gassee/status/889852346049601536
Moving on:
The gross failure of what once was the most powerful and richest tech company on the planet led to a search for a platform killer. Detectives didn’t think they had to go far to nab a suspect: Android. Microsoft’s Windows Phone was murdered by Google’s smartphone OS. How could Redmond’s money-making software licensing business model survive against a free and open source platform? Case closed.
No so fast.
And:
Microsoft’s smartphone troubles started well before the birth of Android. In a reversal of the famous dictum Victory Has Many Fathers But Defeat Is An Orphan, Windows Phone’s collapse seems to have had many progenitors deeply embedded in the company’s decades-old culture.
This is a great read. Jean-Louis engages in some interesting fiction, speculating on what would happen if Microsoft were to give away Windows Phone, à la Android. Still possible!
Tom Warren, The Verge:
Microsoft is killing off Windows Phone 8.1 support today, more than three years after the company first introduced the update. The end of support marks an end to the Windows Phone era, and the millions of devices still running the operating system.
While most have accepted that the death of Windows Phone occurred more than a year ago, AdDuplex estimates that nearly 80 percent of all Windows-powered phones are still running Windows Phone 7, Windows Phone 8, or Windows Phone 8.1. All of these handsets are now officially unsupported, and only 20 percent of all Windows phones are running the latest Windows 10 Mobile OS.
Reminds me of a funeral parade Microsoft threw for the iPhone, back in the day. Karma, baby.
CNBC:
Microsoft announced a major reorganization on Wednesday that will include thousands of layoffs, largely in sales.
The job cuts amount to less than 10 percent of the company’s total sales force, and about 75 percent of them will be outside the U.S., the company said.
This is not nearly the same thing as the SoundCloud office-closing report.
Microsoft has more than 120,000 employees, and the layoffs are focused on the sales team. Microsoft knows how to make money. This is more of a refocus.
I have long railed against construction that makes phones, tablets, and laptops difficult to repair. But this might be a new low.
As the iFixIt folks make their way through the Microsoft Surface Laptop teardown, it becomes clear that getting inside is no easy task. And these folks are pros at taking things apart. It’s their raison d’etre, their primary gig.
The whole thing turns a bit ugly. Just look at the picture in Step 5. Here’s a quote:
Now that we’ve got a clear look at the plastic, it seems these aren’t reusable clips at all, but weak ultrasonic spot welds that we’ve been busting through. This is definitely not going back together without a roll of duct tape.
Yeesh. I wonder what plan Microsoft has for repairing these units when they start rolling in. Will they simply replace the cover, discard the old?
Mark Gurman and Alex Webb, Bloomberg:
Apple Inc. plans to announce an update to its laptop lineup at an annual conference for app developers in early June, a move that could help offset new competition from Microsoft Corp. as well as declining iPad sales.
Apple is planning three new laptops, according to people familiar with the matter. The MacBook Pro will get a faster Kaby Lake processor from Intel Corp., said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss internal planning. Apple is also working on a new version of the 12-inch MacBook with a faster Intel chip. The company has also considered updating the aging 13-inch MacBook Air with a new processor as sales of the laptop, Apple’s cheapest, remain surprisingly strong, one of the people said.
Not sure why Microsoft is so heavily featured in this article. This makes it sound like Apple is reacting to a threat, as opposed to simply taking advantage of new processors to update the Mac line, spur sales.
Microsoft Blog, on the WannaCrypt ransomeware attack:
The WannaCrypt exploits used in the attack were drawn from the exploits stolen from the National Security Agency, or NSA, in the United States. That theft was publicly reported earlier this year. A month prior, on March 14, Microsoft had released a security update to patch this vulnerability and protect our customers. While this protected newer Windows systems and computers that had enabled Windows Update to apply this latest update, many computers remained unpatched globally. As a result, hospitals, businesses, governments, and computers at homes were affected.
And:
This attack demonstrates the degree to which cybersecurity has become a shared responsibility between tech companies and customers. The fact that so many computers remained vulnerable two months after the release of a patch illustrates this aspect. As cybercriminals become more sophisticated, there is simply no way for customers to protect themselves against threats unless they update their systems.
Amen. This has long been a bugaboo shared by Windows and Android and to a far lesser extent by macOS and iOS. Getting your users to update to the latest OS is a non-trivial problem.
More from Microsoft:
This attack provides yet another example of why the stockpiling of vulnerabilities by governments is such a problem. This is an emerging pattern in 2017. We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the CIA show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world. Repeatedly, exploits in the hands of governments have leaked into the public domain and caused widespread damage. An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen. And this most recent attack represents a completely unintended but disconcerting link between the two most serious forms of cybersecurity threats in the world today – nation-state action and organized criminal action.
This should be a wake up call. But just as the OS installed base is hopelessly fractured, the decision making mechanic behind these exploits is similarly fractured, mainly due to the need for secrecy. What are the chances the NSA, CIA and Microsoft are going to collaborate to work towards a solution?
[H/T John Kordyback]
[VIDEO] The video embedded in the main Loop post was built to showcase Microsoft’s new Windows 10 design language, which will roll out over the coming months. As you watch the video, think motion, depth, and translucency effects. It all flies by fast, so it might take a few viewings to wrap your head around the subtleties.
Not seeing a lot of capability that I don’t already see in iOS, but the trend definitely seems to be more depth, a move away from the completely flat design that had become a hallmark of Windows.
Michael Tsai pulled together some coverage of Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop.
There’s this bit from Bloomberg:
Microsoft has already cracked the professional and creative markets with inventive tablets and a desktop that turns into a virtual drafting table. Now it’s chasing another category many believe is Apple’s to lose: the $1,000 laptop for everyone.
That’s one side of the coin. Me, I found this bit telling:
https://twitter.com/RobJDavey/status/859533318924251136
Click on the image to bring the animated GIF to life. Watch the flex on the screen, note the hand required to keep the screen from pushing over backwards.
John Voorhees, MacStories, shows off the specifics of Microsoft’s just-released support for the MacBook Pro Touch Bar. Currently, that support is only available via Microsoft’s Office Insider beta program, which you can sign up for here.
OS X Daily:
Did you know you can download a Windows 10 disc image free from Microsoft? This is seemingly little known, but yes you can download a complete legitimate Windows 10 ISO without registering or even having a product key, and you can install and run the entirety of Windows 10 using the image too.
I have not done this, but good to know, especially if you want to do a Boot Camp install to run a single application or test. Bookmark and pass along.