Why Steve Ballmer Is Ruining Microsoft

[spaceelf]

I think what he was getting at was that Windows developers feel somewhat lost at the moment and Microsoft aren't answering their questions, which is bad for the developers. That said, I can't agree or disagree with that statement as I'm not a developer and so don't know how much support Microsoft are providing at this time.

Me neither, but my friend is making an XNA game and he's rather annoyed about it. He tells me changing the code around won't even take all that long if he knew what he should be targeting.

I'm guessing everything will be built around WinRT in the future given all the platforms they've stopped developing recently, but that's still just a guess.

[Salutary7]

Me neither, but my friend is making an XNA game and he's rather annoyed about it. He tells me changing the code around won't even take all that long if he knew what he should be targeting.

I'm guessing everything will be built around WinRT in the future given all the platforms they've stopped developing recently, but that's still just a guess.

It must be extremely frustrating for some start ups for that reason. Look at Bastion, one of the greatest XNA games ever. Games like that don't come quickly or cheaply, but where is the studio supposed to move to for a new game? Perhaps they just have to move on to a new framework.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

I like windows and Microsoft but I truly believe Linux like Ubuntu will be the future not now but in time. Look how far Linux has come over the last 10 years. And Microsoft has really done nothing at all same outdated kernel and registry lol registry . Times are changing fast. My Linux pc looks and performs 900000 times better then windiws 8 could ever dream of.

I'm running core I 7 with 8gigs ram and intelHD4000 graphics . I play games on all 3 consoles .

sorry, how far has Linux come, exactly? :laugh:

i mean, Linux's market share continues to be like .5% year-after-year. The average person has NO clue what Linux is.

[vcfan]

Host: "Windows monopoly"

Stopped right there

[gameboy1977]

when I see that video that they want Steve Ballmer as CEO gets out of Microsoft someday, do you know what do I mean?

[Nick H. Supervisor]

when I see that video that they want Steve Ballmer out of Microsoft someday, do you know what do I mean?

I know what they mean, although they don't list their reasons all too well in the video.

But do I know what you mean? I can't be sure. Do you agree that they should remove Ballmer? If so, why?

[gameboy1977]

I am not sure, but I cannot hear thier voice. they don't have english subtitle. I see some words on the video. I like Microsoft products like Windows XP and 7 for games.

[notchinese]

Balmer is indeed ruining microsoft, windows RT is a disaster, it is missing so much functionality over win8. Win8 is a disaster, it forces you to use metro which is very unproductive compared to win7 for me due to the need for so many mouse clicks for simple tasks. Surface has sold around 400,000 units i read which is a flop. office 2013 has a default solid white colour everywhere which is a nightmare and most users don't know that they can change the colour to shades of black.

Office 2013 should have never shipped as white, office rt and windows rt should have been delayed until they had the full functionality of win8. Win8 should never have made metro mandatory and should have been delayed as it is very buggy and many of the applications on the start screen don't work as people want, you can't change the default photo viewer on the metro app for example, there's tons of other similar problems too.

Steve ballmer clearly doesn't realise that these things are hated, he isn't the right man to be CEO for those reasons.

Linux won't take off until there is a commercial competitor to adobe creative suite released for linux either by adobe themselves or by another company.

Windows 8 does not force you to use metro.

Office 2013 is the best office by miles.

You can change the default photo viewer to any application that supports viewing photos.

[Growled Member]

I keep hoping that Ballmer will ruin Microsoft but so far they keep making money and hanging it there. Darn it. :p

[remixedcat]

I still think Sinofsky would have been my pick for CEO. He did a great job of getting MS back on track. I really liked windows 7 and I really love windows 8 and the new direction MS is going. They have made so many improvements to the server division as well. Server 2012 is amazing. The enhancements put in both W8 and S2012 are awesome. People hated on him becuase he was labelled as a "control freak" however that personality was much needed at MS becuase MS was starting to slack off and you can even tell by going to each division's website that looked and felt like a different company made it and it was a mess! Sinofsky brought it all together and MS is stronger becuase Sinofsky had his **** together and got MS back on track.

Everyone hates people like him for no reason when people like him are desperatly needed in a world were people are slackers, and not giving a damn about quality and control. I really wish they kept him at Microsoft.

[Growled Member]

Everyone hates people like him for no reason when people like him are desperatly needed in a world were people are slackers, and not giving a damn about quality and control. I really wish they kept him at Microsoft.

I think Ballmer got rid of him because he was the one person who had a legit shot at taking Ballmer's job. The other reasons were just excuses.

[remixedcat]

I think Ballmer got rid of him because he was the one person who had a legit shot at taking Ballmer's job. The other reasons were just excuses.

And Sinofsky would be doing a way better job then Ballmer!

[Andre S. Veteran]

As I said on another forum, what MS is failing at right now is giving people clear direction on what they're doing.

http://ventspace.wor...-on-directxxna/

The way they basically just let XNA die without telling anybody was absolutely terrible and I believe it is one of their greatest mistakes for the new Windows 8 and Windows 8 Phone platforms. They just spent the last decade telling developers that C++ is a legacy technology and Windows developers should use .NET; XNA was the .NET-friendly framework to make games for all their platforms. Now they release these new platforms and don't give developers any easy way of making games in .NET; we're back to a COM-based API (DirectX) that can only be called by C++ code, and all the C++ hype ("Going Native") is sending the wrong message to .NET developers. I bet there would twice as many games for Windows 8 (Store) if they had updated XNA to work on it.

That said, I think the most fundamental issue with Microsoft's mobile platforms now is that it's just late to the party. Windows 8 could be twice as good as iOS in every respect, it still would only have a 100th of the applications, and no one would buy it because of that, and it's a vicious circle because developers won't spend money on supporting a platform that no else is supporting.

[spaceelf]

The way they basically just let XNA die without telling anybody was absolutely terrible and I believe it is one of their greatest mistakes for the new Windows 8 and Windows 8 Phone platforms. They just spent the last decade telling developers that C++ is a legacy technology and Windows developers should use .NET; XNA was the .NET-friendly framework to make games for all their platforms. Now they release these new platforms and don't give developers any easy way of making games in .NET; we're back to a COM-based API (DirectX) that can only be called by C++ code, and all the C++ hype ("Going Native") is sending the wrong message to .NET developers. I bet there would twice as many games for Windows 8 (Store) if they had updated XNA to work on it.

You can use C# for WinRT apps, and they use dx11 and have some of the former XNA API as well as I understand it. It actually cleaned up most of my concerns about .NETs inadequacy

It seems more like they wanted to merge all their various tech into one runtime instead of just having 5,000 different optional targets with vastly different capabilities as before.

[Andre S. Veteran]

You can use C# for WinRT apps, and they use dx11 and have some of the former XNA API as well as I understand it.

DirectX11 is a COM-based, C++ API like all versions of DirectX before it. I'm not aware of any official managed framework or wrapper on top of it that is supported for Windows Store apps. Shawn Hargreaves made a bunch of XNA-like helper classes, but those are also for C++, and all the managed wrappers and frameworks that I know (SlimDX, SharpDX, MonoGame, etc) are community projects. C++ is the only language ever mentionned in official documentation when it comes to games and DirectX for Windows Store.

[DeadEndAccount]

The biggest problem is that in the case of Windows they really need to stop dicking around and make a decision to kill off win32, replace it with WinRT that allows the writing of desktop and metro applications. They then need to get all their own divisions in line - no use lecturing third parties when each division can't even abide by their user interface guidelines and having consistency between the different software titles they make. Most importantly they need to put out a coherent vision - not this scatter gun approach but a vision on how everything can fit together which once again Microsoft seem to be like Sun Microsystems in their inability to bring together their products and deliver it in a cohesive way for customers be they end users or in the enterprise.

[spaceelf]

DirectX11 is a COM-based, C++ API like all versions of DirectX before it. I'm not aware of any official managed framework or wrapper on top of it that is supported for Windows Store apps. Shawn Hargreaves made a bunch of XNA-like helper classes, but those are also for C++, and all the managed wrappers and frameworks that I know (SlimDX, SharpDX, MonoGame, etc) are community projects. C++ is the only language ever mentionned in official documentation when it comes to games and DirectX for Windows Store.

I see your point. Some people have managed to make it work though apparently http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/532582/DirectXplusandplusWinRTpluscontinued

I believe it still uses it to display either way, but I didn't realize it wasn't exposed directly.

The biggest problem is that in the case of Windows they really need to stop dicking around and make a decision to kill off win32, replace it with WinRT that allows the writing of desktop and metro applications. They then need to get all their own divisions in line - no use lecturing third parties when each division can't even abide by their user interface guidelines and having consistency between the different software titles they make. Most importantly they need to put out a coherent vision - not this scatter gun approach but a vision on how everything can fit together which once again Microsoft seem to be like Sun Microsystems in their inability to bring together their products and deliver it in a cohesive way for customers be they end users or in the enterprise.

That's kind of like suggesting .net 1.0 should've had all the features of .net 4.5. They had to start somewhere. Whether or not what you suggest will actually happen I couldn't say.

[DeadEndAccount]

That's kind of like suggesting .net 1.0 should've had all the features of .net 4.5. They had to start somewhere. Whether or not what you suggest will actually happen I couldn't say.

There is a difference - Microsoft had road maps outlining where .NET was heading and as a developer you knew that if you started planning today that a feature not present in 1.0 would eventually be in there. Where is the road map for WinRT? that is what developers need - a road map for WinRT, where does win32 fit into the equation, where is the desktop going to be - legacy or are we talking about coexistence but Windows 9 will provide the refinement required to bring together a closer relationship between the 'Modern' and 'Traditional Desktop' world.

[medhunter]

I do't know why he is running , May be he is talking it for a walk

MS is on the turn point now.The experiment with windows 8 is of unpredictable outcome.