I'm starting to think that Microsoft really burned their OneDrive bridges...

Spotted on MSPowerUser:

Windows 10 users finally have a cloud storage option which offers actual privacy

[...]

Cloud storage is great and increasingly essential, as we move to PCs with small SSD storage and multiple mobile devices with even less.

Unfortunately, these usually come with very stringent terms of service which mean companies are free to snoop on the content of these online drives and explicitly forbid uploading items which may raise copyright or obscenity concerns.

Fortunately for Windows users, there is one company which has always thumbed their nose at both of those community standards, and they have now released a UWP app for Windows 10 users on phone and PC to try out.

Currently, in alpha, the MEGA Privacy app is a secure cloud storage service that gives you 50 GB free storage space. Unlike other cloud storage providers, your data is encrypted and decrypted by your client devices only and never by the company itself, which means they never know what your online archive contains.

Yes, you're reading that correctly: that's Kim Dotcom's MEGA, being touted as a better option than OneDrive, because privacy. That's the same Kim Dotcom who's been fighting extradition from New Zealand to the U.S. for years, and who founded MEGA because his previous cloud storage venture, MegaUpload, is totally frozen on dead servers, preventing data from being accessed by those who legally own it; that's the legal legacy of the man who founded MEGA, which is now being touted as a preferred alternative to OneDrive, because Microsoft has fucked up the privacy file that badly in Windows 10.

Ouch.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Creators Update, which was supposed to help jump-start Windows 10's stalled adoption among consumers and businesses alike, is still garnering headlines exclusively for its bugs and rollout delays, making it only slightly less of a disaster than the Anniversary Update... by which I mean that it took over a week for the issues to become the exclusive public focus of all the coverage, rather than being the focus from day one. All this is happening with only one more day to go before we get to see what sort of an impact the CU is actually having on those aforementioned adoption rates. 

Ouch, again.

Oh, and Microsoft's bid to take over Apple's position as a consumer electronics juggernaut, selling not only the software but also the hardware to consumers who would then become captives to its walled garden Windows 10 ecosystem? That's hit a snag, too, with sales of Surface tablets dropping as better, cheaper alternatives start to take over the marketplace, and Microsoft trying to handwave off dropping sales numbers as the result of "product end-of-lifecycle dynamics." Yes, having neglected the mobile market until after iOS and Android had divvied up all the territory, and having then neglected Windows Phone to death, they're now apparently neglecting their Surface division. The Surface line was the one thing Microsoft had going that looked last year like an unqualified success, but even Surface is now also starting to decline, as nimbler competitors push Microsoft out of the hardware market without selling enough units to really bolster Windows 10's adoption rates, more broadly.

Triple ouch, I guess?

There's no particular mystery about the Windows 10 strategy; it's pretty obvious what Microsoft need to happen, here, for their long-term plans to continue being viable. I do have to wonder, though, if anyone's actually assessing their progress towards those strategic goals, and starting to wonder if maybe their current tactics were unwisely chosen. Because they seem to be all over the fucking place, tactically, unable to maintain any kind of focus or messaging tone for any length of time at all. Every time they take a baby step in a positive direction, they follow it with a month of fuck-ups and missed opportunities, blindly sticking to a play-book that doesn't seem to be working, really. 

Microsoft are big enough, and have a large enough lead in the desktop OS market, that they can afford to absorb the associated costs of these missteps for a while yet, but I have to wonder how much longer they can keep it up before their shareholders start to catch on? It's one thing for Satya Nadella to want to take Microsoft in a bold, new direction, but it's another thing entirely for them to alienate their customers, to the point where Kim fucking Dotcom looks like better option, by insisting on an array of consumer-unfriendly practices that keep coming back to bite them over and over and over again. All of these lingering issues, these unforced errors, seem to be keeping them off-balance, unable to talk and their chew gum simultaneously, while consumers (and, thus far, enterprises) continue using what we know works, rather than becoming part of Windows 10's highly experimental way of doing things.

Is Windows-as-a-Service even viable, given Windows' complexity and the range of hardware that it's already running on? I'm not the only person who's asking that question, and the evidence in favour is far from conclusive. So far, Microsoft has rolled out exactly two major updates to Windows 10, both disastrously, but they're still committed to rolling out two such updates a year, every year, for the rest of time. How is that going to work? And if they can't even deliver on that part of the Window 10 package reliably, how in hell are they planning to win back the hearts and minds of consumers who are choosing MEGA over OneDrive because they don't trust Microsoft anymore?

We're just hours away from NetMarketShare's end-of-April snapshot of the PC OS market place; I'm not expecting Windows 10 to have made any significant gains at all (significant, remember, meaning greater then the margin of error of the report itself, which I've been guesstimating at +/- 0.05%). So, my question is, exactly how long does Windows 10's adoption have to stay flatlined before Mr. Nadella will admit that his chosen strategy, or at least his chosen tactics, were chosen unwisely? Or, failing that, how long can he retain the confidence of Microsoft's shareholders, while the glorious Windows 10 future remains maddenly out of reach?

PC sales up slightly... because of Chromebooks?

This is a surprise on a couple of levels. From The Verge:

Microsoft might have more reason to be scared of Chromebooks these days. While the software giant was spooked by Google’s low-cost laptops three years ago, they’ve mostly only been selling well to schools. That appears to have changed over the past year. Chromebooks outsold Macs for the first time in the US last year, and now they appear to be contributing to overall PC market growth.

IDC claims the PC market is “up slightly,” recording its first growth in five years. It’s a tiny growth of just 0.6 percent, but it’s a flattening of the market that Microsoft and its PC maker partners have been looking for after years of decline. While percentage growth looks good on paper, it doesn’t always tell the whole story.

Over at Gartner, another market research firm that tracks PC sales, the story is a little different. Gartner claims PC shipments declined 2.4 percent in the recent quarter. There’s a good reason for the disparity between IDC and Gartner’s figures, and it involves Chromebooks. IDC's data includes Chromebooks and excludes Windows tablets, even machines with a detachable keyboard like the Surface Pro. Gartner counts Windows-based tablets as PCs and excludes Chromebooks or any non-Windows-based tablets.

Considering that 2-in-1's like the Surface were being touted as a sales success not that long ago, it's something of a surprise that adding their sales numbers to those of desktop and laptop PCs isn't enough to reverse the PC sales slump; apparently 2-in-1's are only selling well when compared to standalone tablets, which continue to slip.

It's also a surprise that Chromebook sales are suddenly booming, in spite of the fact that almost nobody in the tech press has paid Chromebooks any significant amount of attention until five minutes ago -- Gartner still refuses to track them as PCs. I'll admit to being quietly surprised to learn, a few months ago, that Chromebooks were winning the education market, and I'm gobsmacked to learn that they're now catching on with businesses, too, according to The Verge piece:

Without IDC providing the exact split of Chromebooks sold vs. Windows- and macOS-based machines, it’s impossible to know exactly how well Google’s low-cost laptops are selling. However, IDC also claims that Chromebooks are doing well with businesses. The US commercial PC market “came out strong mostly backed by growth of Chromebooks,” says IDC. Gartner has no opinion on Chromebooks as the company refuses to track them as PCs.

It does help make sense of Microsoft's recent move to this low-cost computer market with their new Windows 10 "Cloudbook," however. From VentureBeat:

In a few weeks, at its education-oriented software and hardware event in New York, Microsoft could unveil a sub-premium laptop — something more robust than a Surface but not as fancy as a Surface Book.

And rather than run good old Windows 10, the new product could run something called Windows 10 Cloud, which reportedly will only be able to run apps that you can find in the Windows Store, unless you change a certain preference in Settings.

The idea is that this will keep your device more secure. However, that does mean you won’t be able to use certain apps that aren’t in the Store — like Steam — on a Windows 10 Cloud device, such as the rumored CloudBook.

This concept might sound familiar. You may be reminded of the original Surface tablet running Windows RT, for which Microsoft ultimately took a $900 million write-down. Older Windows apps wouldn’t work on the thing.

This is perhaps the least surprising part of this developing Chromebook vs. Cloudbook death-match: that Microsoft has learned nothing from the failure of Windows RT, and is still trying to find a way to monopolize software distribution on some segment of the PC market, even if it means undercutting the single biggest competitive advantage that PCs have. 

In the red corner, we have Google's Chromebook, which is thriving in spite of a complete absence of hype, apparently because Google has made a better mousetrap: a good-enough product at a low-enough price point that provides education and business users with enough tools to get their jobs done, all without coming laden with a ton of anti-consumer, monopolistic bullshit.

And in the blue corner, we have Microsoft's Cloudbook, which is apparently a retread of the failed Surface RT, complete with a crippled OS that blocks the use of the huge library of Windows software which forms the reason that most Windows users use Windows for, locking it instead to the broken Windows Store that Microsoft still can't convince developers to develop for, or users to use (although they are planning to add Steam-style refunds, so there's that). 

Fight! And may the best 'book win.

Damn, that's some faint praise

Damning with faint praise, i.e. saying apparently complimentary things which are so marginally positive as to add up to no compliment at all, or even serve as thinly-veiled criticism, has become something of a lost art in today's hype-fuelled Internet culture. Everything seems to be either "The Best" or "The Worst" lately, with positions in the middle being left largely vacant.

Perhaps that's partly why I found this piece, from Reuters via Fortune, so oddly satisfying:

Microsoft Just Added This Free Creative Update to Windows 10

Gamers might be pleased.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced a free update to its Windows operating system that lets users take photos and edit content in three dimensions, in a bid to raise excitement for its declining computing business.

Ouch.

Other favourite recent headlines include this one, from Stuff:

Microsoft’s finally done something cool with Windows 10

Windows 10 announcements haven’t traditionally made tech fans drool with desire in the past, but Microsoft has managed to tease our saliva glands into action with its latest Windows 10 Creator’s Update announcement.

although that may say more about the terrible year that Microsoft's just had, rather than anything in particular about their event yesterday. Microsoft has hyped their "success" with Windows 10 to a ridiculous extent, but the truth is clearly otherwise, as demonstrated by pieces like this one, from Business Insider:

For Microsoft Windows, it's do or die

Microsoft is set to unveil a bunch of new hardware on Wednesday, with the star attraction likely to be a new Surface PC to compete with Apple's all-in-one iMac.

Microsoft is billing this event as the future of Windows 10. That's not surprising: The reason Microsoft got into the Surface business in the first place was to push Windows forward into a touchscreen future, whether PC manufacturers wanted it or not.
But we're fast approaching a moment in time where Microsoft is going to have to do more than introduce new kinds of PCs if it wants Windows, first introduced in 1985, to stay relevant for the next three decades.

The PC industry is shrinking and Windows is increasingly irrelevant in a mobile world ruled by Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Even worse, Microsoft's own attempts to break into the smartphone realm have landed with a resounding "thud," exacerbating the slow decline of the Windows business (fortunately for Microsoft, its cloud and productivity businesses are exploding, propelling the company's stock to new highs).

It's gotten to the point where some, like Infoworld Editor-in-Chief Eric Knorr, have openly wondered whether it would be best if Microsoft put Windows out to pasture now, rather than let it bleed out slowly over the next few years as the world passes it on by.

Don't believe me yet? How about this piece, from Computerworld:

Windows: When no growth is an improvement

Revenue from OS flat in Q3, but evaporation of phone business again drags More Personal Computing group under

Microsoft yesterday said that revenue in the September quarter for the More Personal Computing group was down 2%, the second consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines and the fifth contraction in the last six quarters.

Windows revenue, which accounts for the bulk of More Personal Computing's (MPC) total, was flat. But that was an improvement over the prior quarter, when sales of the operating system were down 4%.

It's reached a point where the actual stuff being announced by Microsoft has become almost secondary; Microsoft has made such a mess of their core business, missing the boat on mobile completely while annoying or alienating desktop and laptop users, trying and failing to push its newest OS onto so many PCs that its previous failures could be forgotten. Make no mistake, there is actual announced stuff in most of the articles I've linked to (all of which are worth a read, BTW, so please do click through and give them some love), it's just that none of it feels all that hype-worthy.

I'm still looking through the list of actually announced things from yesterday, but so far it all looks like stuff I have no interest in:

• the $3000 (and up!) all-in-one Studio Surface (which, Gizmodo be damned, absolutely isn't going to kill PCs as we know them, any more than tablets killed PCs as we know them, for reasons I've already gone into at length); 
• the Surface Dial, a gimmicky interface thingy which only users of $3000 (and up!) Studio Surface all-in-ones will even be slightly interested in; 
• a bunch of 3D creative apps (which might be useful for creators that aren't already using other tools for that, but won't mean much to those that are already creating in 3D because there are other tools for that); 
• a bunch of VR and AR hardware, and more HoloLens stuff (which also won't mean much, either, for reasons I've already gone into at length); 
• the Beam game-streaming app, which totally isn't going to supplant any of the tools that Twitch streamers are already using; 
• the ability for gamers to make their own tournaments for Windows 10 apps, which means nothing when Steam is the #1 platform for games distribution; 
• better audio support, which is nice but why wasn't it already in there? 

So... yeah. Lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing, which none of which even begins to win back the trust and goodwill of Windows users that Microsoft has spent the last year squandering.

Yes, the Studio Surface is very pretty, but at $3000 for the bare-bones version, and $5000 for something which can actually match the gaming performance of my 3-year-old rig, I won't be buying one. The prospect of $300 VR headsets for PC (made by third parties, details TBD, i.e. vaporware) will mean nothing if they don't solve VR's other problems first. The ability to paint in 3D is neat, but with so many other options out there, it's not exactly a "killer app" for Windows 10. It's nice that they're finally fixing Windows 10's audio support, but why is that newsworthy? Why is any of this newsworthy?

No wonder the coverage is full of "faint praise."

Weird non-hype for Microsoft's next event

From ars technica:

Microsoft has confirmed when its anticipated New York City event is going to take place—on October 26 at 10am Eastern, the company is going to deliver some kind of announcement.

It appears this may not be the event we were expecting or hoping for. The invitation puts the focus on Windows 10—it shows a very literal picture of a window—and we're hearing from sources familiar with the company's plans that the focus will be Windows 10 and the next evolutions of the operating system. We'll likely learn what Microsoft is bringing to both OEM hardware and to the HoloLens and Xbox One, but we do not anticipate a wide array of new hardware.

As such, anyone hoping to see the next iteration of the Surface Pro, Surface Book, or Band later this month is probably going to be disappointed. We expect it's still too early to see more of Project Scorpio, the next generation Xbox that will be released next year. Anyone hoping to see a Surface Phone is also going to be disappointed (not just at this event, but in general).

OK, I know that I'm normally really, really antagonistic when media outlets hype basically information-free stories that amount to regurgitated PR copy, but the tone of this is just so weirdly apathetic that I have to wonder if that attitude isn't starting to spread, like a virus of some kind.

I mean, "the company is going to deliver some kind of announcement?" Or, "Anyone hoping to see a Surface Phone is also going to be disappointed (not just at this event, but in general)?" Ouch.

Microsoft's heavy-handed approach to forcing Windows 10 on users, with all of its privacy issues and technical problems, would appear to have resulted in enough negative PR to basically kill interest in anything related to the OS itself. If they have new hardware to show? Surface Pro, Surface Book, Surface Phone, or new XBox? Watch the hype fly off the chain. But if they want to talk about their flagship product, on which the company's entire future is riding? Yawn. 

Microsoft have earned every bit of this apathy, and then some, but it's still weird (and weirdly satisfying) to see it actually starting to happen. I guess we'll have to wait until Oct. 26th to learn if they have anything like a plan to start earning back the trust, goodwill, and interest of the customers that they've clearly alienated. 

Your move, Microsoft.

BOGO? Microsoft is now giving XBOnes away

How badly did Microsoft's XBox One fare in this console generation? Badly enough that students can now get one free if they buy a Surface Pro 4.

From The Verge:

Microsoft is tempting students to buy a Surface Pro 4 this week with a new promotion running at its retail stores in the US. The software maker is taking $300 off when students buy a Surface Pro 4 and Xbox One. "So basically a free Xbox One with the purchase of a Surface Pro 4," says Terry Myerson, head of Windows and devices at Microsoft, in an interview with The Verge. The deal goes live today and will run until August 14th.

[...]

I asked Myerson if there were any plans for a Windows 10 October update, like there are for the Xbox One, that would typically accompany new devices. "Increasingly as we go out into the fall, it's a natural time for us to focus on new devices from our partners and from Microsoft," explains Myerson. "The Xbox One S will be shipping, but also many new devices will be available from HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, Microsoft, and others." That sounds like a hint that new Microsoft devices could be launching this year, but if anything it could be a refresh of Microsoft's Band wearable or the rumoured Xbox TV devices that didn't arrive at E3.

Ouch.

Windows Phone continues failing to be a thing

One of the other big strategic goals behind Universal Windows Platform, and a big part of the reason why Microsoft is pushing Windows 10 way too hard (ad revenue is another), was to make it easier to develop apps for Windows Phone, by making every Univeral Windows Application work on every Windows 10 device. 

Microsoft's mobile offering simply can't make inroads into a saturated mobile marketplace where everyone already has either an iPhone or an Android, and nobody apart from a few Fenestraphiles (Windows-lovers; from fenestra, window, and philia, fondness; like it?) ever bought a Windows phone. The platform has a "chicken and egg" problem -- with no users, the platform gets no apps made; but with no apps, the platform can't attract new users, let alone lure away users of the other, app-rich mobile ecosystems.

Even the Surface, which was actually ahead of the curve in terms of tablets (convertible laptop/tablet form-factors are the only ones still selling, and the Surface was the first of those to market) is being outsold by Apple's iPad Pro, which Microsoft beat to market by three full years. The most-used OS in the world actually isn't Windows anymore; it's Android, which is only found on smartphones. Only on desktops and laptops does Windows still reign supreme.

Choice is Microsoft's enemy here. Choice has made Android the #1 OS on earth, and seen Windows frozen out of the mobile space completely... even the part of it that they ventured into first. The peril of consumers' choices, and the fact that increasingly mobile, platform-independent consumers are increasingly and overwhelming not choosing Windows... well, apparently that just isn't to be borne. Hence UWP. Hence Windows 10.

(UWP isn't unique to Windows 10, of course; UWP was also a big part of Windows 8... which didn't end well. In fact, Windows 8 is so unpopular that Microsoft skipped over 9 when numbering the next version of their OS; Windows 9 just didn't have enough separation from Windows 8 in terms of brand identity.)

And thus, the desperate gamble: If Microsoft can convince coerce enough desktop and laptop Windows users to adopt Windows 10, the core of which is Univeral Windows Platform, then they have a built-in user base of Windows Store customers; and if every Windows 10 program is also a Universal Windows Application, which can run on any Windows device, their phones included, then they can build a base of captive consumers who will be invested in the Windows Phone ecosystem by default, rather than having to rely on consumers' choices.

It's just a step above underpants gnome logic:

• Phase 1. Switch everyone to Windows 10.
• Phase 2: ...
• Phase 3: Profit!

So... Microsoft... How's that working out for you?

Microsoft has dragged its mobile phone business for long enough with poor results, so the company is reportedly letting go of manufacturing feature phones.

Microsoft and Nokia struck a deal in 2014 and the terms of acquisition read that the Windows developer owns full rights for the Nokia brand for smartphones until 2024. Now, Microsoft looks into licensing the Nokia brand to Foxconn.

The decision purportedly comes due to the unexpected bleak results for the first quarter of 2016, when Microsoft managed to sell a mere 15 million handsets.

The [translated] report from VTech claims that the company aims to discontinue the Microsoft Mobile business, which fans know as the department behind the building of Lumia handsets. The Lumia smartphone business will reportely [sic] join the Surface line. This sounds as bad as it seems for Microsoft's employees, a part of which expect to get the boot during the restructuring. About 50 percent of the Microsoft Mobile members will be looking for new jobs, the report notes.

Oh. That well, huh?

At this point, I'd just like to mention that Steve Ballmer told you so:

Steve Ballmer may not be running Microsoft anymore, but the former CEO of the company clearly has some opinions on its current Windows 10 app strategy. Ballmer believes that the universal app platform that Microsoft is currently following is not the way to go, and that the company should consider having Windows Phones run Android apps.

Nadella may just want to listen to him. Especially since it's looking more and more like he was right.