Microsoft tap Phil Spencer to fix the Windows Microsoft Store

The Windows Store has been a wasteland of shit ever since Microsoft first launched it alongside Windows 8. Married to a Universal Windows Platform that never did take off, it has long been a developer- and customer-forsaken place; intended as the channel through which all applications would flow, to both desktop and mobile devices, it's instead become something of an albatross: an awkward, burdensome reminder of Microsoft's monopolistic sins.

This is at least partly why Microsoft rebranded the Store last year; Windows Store had negative connotations for consumers from which they wanted to distance themselves, in much the same way that the Windows 10 name was intended to put more distance between the current Windows version and the wildly unpopular Windows 8. Microsoft only changed the name, though, apparently hoping that a re-brand would be change enough.

Consumers, however, weren't fooled; when they remember to use the new name, it's normally as an afterthought. And, critically, nothing else about the Store was changed; it's still a developer- and customer-forsaken place, where it's both easier and more desirable to search for TV shows than software. This is especially true of games; even when they're running Windows 10, PC gamers use Steam, not Microsoft's terrible storefront, unless they're given no other choice. And Valve is working hard to ensure that they have other choices in most, if not all, cases.

The situation was clearly untenable for Microsoft, and it seems they've finally decided to do something about it: they're tapping the one person in their senior leadership team who seems to understand what consumers want, and to understand that it's important for a business to provide what consumers are asking for, to finally fix the thing. As reported by WCCFTech:

Phil Spencer, previously Head of Xbox at Microsoft, was promoted last year into the Senior Leadership Team where he now reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella as the Executive Vice President of Gaming. Spencer has since suggested that gaming isn’t the proverbial red-headed stepchild at Microsoft anymore, thanks to the importance placed by Nadella himself in this growing market.

We haven’t heard much from him after E3 2018. However, he briefly appeared on yesterday’s Inside Xbox: X018 Special live from Mexico City to make a few statements, the most interesting of which directly addressed the state of Windows 10 gaming on PC.
When asked about what will come next, he expressed the intent to focus on improving the Windows Store (now formally now as Microsoft Store) so that it can be properly tailored towards gamers.

GitHub contributors threaten boycott over ICE

Microsoft's relationship with ICE just became even more of a problem for Redmond.

More than five dozen Github contributors on Thursday signed a letter threatening to abandon the website unless Microsoft canceled its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract.

Microsoft, which acquired GitHub, the internet’s largest source code repository, for $7.5 billion earlier this month, is one of several tech companies facing heat for its work on behalf of ICE as a result of the Trump administration policy of separating families at the U.S. border.

Members of the GitHub community are now demanding Microsoft end its relationship with ICE or, they say, “we will simply take our projects elsewhere.”

“As members of the open source community and free software movement who embrace values of freedom, liberty, openness, sharing, mutual aid, and general human kindness, we are horrified by and strongly object to the Trump administration’s policies of detainment, denaturalization, deportation, and family separation as carried out by ICE,” the authors wrote.

GitHub is all about the open source code that contributors keep there, so an en masse flight to other platforms would essentially destroy the entire value of Microsoft's $7.5 billion purchase, making this no small threat. Microsoft haven't responded yet, but With their own employees applying pressure from inside, too, it's unclear how long Satya Nadella will continue to stick to the corporate line on this one.

Fuller coverage, including the full text of the GitHub contributors' letter, at Gizmodo.

Microsoft claims 600 million active Windows 10 devices

Wanna bet that the new OS market share numbers show almost no movement, when they come out on Friday? Because I'm pretty certain that's our immediate future holds, here.

From GeekWire:

Microsoft’s Windows 10 has reached a new milestone: 600 million active monthly devices.

CEO Satya Nadella referenced the new number for the first time moments ago at the company’s annual shareholders meeting, where he is giving analysts and investors an update on Microsoft’s progress and strategy.

The number is up from the 500 million devices touted by Microsoft earlier this year, but it’s still well short of the company’s original goal of 1 billion Windows 10 devices within two to three years of its 2015 release. The company acknowledged previously that it wouldn’t be able to reach that original goal.

Quick rule of thumb: anything that a CEO says to his company's shareholders is pretty much guaranteed to be mostly bullshit. Sorry, accentuating the positive while downplaying the negatives, if not avoiding those subjects entirely. Satya Nadella is lying with statistics, here.

This 600 million number is no closer to being relevant to anything than the 500 million number that Nadella's been quoting until five minutes ago. It includes unsold devices; it includes Point of Sale terminals; it includes devices whose users rolled back to Windows 7 and 8; it includes a lot of things that nobody cares about, but that Nadella et al. will try to use in order to build hype for Windows 10, but nothing that an outside observer can actually use to assess the state of Windows 10 play for themselves.

Don't believe the hype. Wait for the data which supports it.

Is Microsoft the next IBM?

It's hard to believe now, but there was a time when IBM was a blue-chip juggernaut in the world of computer technology, and Microsoft merely the plucky start-up that IBM had hired to write a version of the CP/M operating system for IBM's PCs. That became PC DOS, which became MS-DOS, which became Windows... which had, at its peak, 95% of the PC OS market. Microsoft became the tech sector's juggernaut, while IBM slowly faded into the background, focusing on AI technologies like Watson, supplanted by x86 PC OEMs in the PC hardware space.

So, it would be the height of irony for Microsoft, having failed to leverage their desktop PC OS dominance into a viable mobile market position, were to withdraw into its enterprise business, fading into the background and focusing on AI and quantum computing research. But people are increasingly seeing that as the path that Microsoft are on. Yesterday, it was Kareem Anderson at ONMSFT; today, it's Peter Bright at ars technica:

For fans of the platform, the official confirmation that Windows on phones isn't under active development any longer—security bugs will be fixed, but new features and new hardware aren't on the cards—isn't a big surprise. This is merely a sad acknowledgement of what we already knew.

Last week, Microsoft also announced that it was getting out of the music business, signaling another small retreat from the consumer space. It's tempting to shrug and dismiss each of these instances, pointing to Microsoft's continued enterprise strength as evidence that the company's position remains strong.

And certainly, sticking to the enterprise space is a thing that Microsoft could do. Become the next IBM: a stable, dull, multibillion dollar business. But IBM probably doesn't want to be IBM right now—it has had five straight years of falling revenue amid declining relevance of its legacy businesses—and Microsoft probably shouldn't want to be the next IBM, either.

Today, Microsoft is facing similar pressures—Windows, though still critical, isn't as essential to people's lives as it was a decade ago—and risks a similar fate. Dropping consumer ambitions and retreating to the enterprise is a mistake. Microsoft's failure in smartphones is bad for Windows, and it's bad for Microsoft's position in the enterprise as a whole.

I find it interesting to see this becoming the conversation that people are having now, about Microsoft.

Déjà vu, all over again

So, just like last month, when NetMarketShare balked at reporting what their data was clearly telling them, they've once again massaged their stats and reposted them. And, as expected, the result is a slightly smaller swing than their earlier posted stats indicated.

The old version put Windows' overall OS market share at 82.2%, and "Other" (a.k.a. Linux) at 13.04%. The new version looks like this:

This version of the numbers puts Windows at 86.21% overall, with Windows 7 declining to 46.22% (-2.21%), and Windows 10 increasing to 28.65% (+0.66%). Linux, meanwhile, gained 2.15% to finish at 9.99% overall. That 86.21% number is especially interesting; it's almost exactly what NetMarketShare had originally reported as Windows' overall market position in their first version of last month's stats.

While this new analysis of their data shows a smaller swing from Windows to Linux, it still does show a swing from Windows to Linux, and a big one. Especially in light of Satya Nadella's recent remarks, downplaying the importance of Windows to Microsoft, it seems that the Linux Shift is actually a thing. We're not left wondering whether or not it's happening, only how quickly... and, of course, why now?

I fully expect that next month's stats will show a continuation of this same trend. Windows 10's growth is still sluggish; breathless reports that it would overtake Windows 7 in a matter of months are missing the point. Yes, Windows 7's user base appears to be changing operating systems, but they're not migrating to Windows 10 -- they're migrating away from Windows altogether, and trend which Microsoft are already trying to downplay the importance of. We could be months away from a market in which Windows 7, Windows 10, and Linux split the market more-or-less evenly between them.

What impact that might have on the world of desktop computing is impossible to say. Microsoft's Windows has been so dominant on desktops for so long that it's difficult to imagine what the world of desktop PCs will look like when that dominance comes to an end. One thing is becoming increasingly clear, though; Windows' dominance on the desktop is coming to an end, and sooner than anyone ever thought possible.

Once again, I will preserve both of my posts on this topic, in order to preserve NetMarketShare's originally-posted evidence of the nascent Linux Shift as it progresses. I have the feeling that this same sequence of events will play out again in November, and in December, and in January, and at some point, the limitations of regression analysis will simply not be able to mask the evidence of the Shift anymore. How Microsoft's supporters react on that day will be interesting to see.

Linux gains again

Netmarketshare's end-of-September numbers are up, and they're very, very interesting.


The part that Microsoft's apologists will almost certainly latch onto is the pronounced dip in the graph's top trend line. That's Windows 7, losing 2.81% and dropping to 45.62% overall. That is a clear drop, and it marks Windows 7's lowest point in two years, but where things get interesting is with the next trend line down. That's Windows 10, which also lost 2.48%, dropping it to 25.51% overall, Windows 10's lowest point since January (XP and 8.1 also lost share, although neither have much farther to fall, so their declines are below my ±0.5% noise threshold).

So, if both of Windows' most popular versions are losing market share, who's gaining?

MacOS managed a small uptick, gaining 0.52% to hit 4.11% overall, but the big mover is "Other," which picked up 5.20% to land at 13.04% overall. "Other," of course, means "Linux," so that puts Linux's various distros' combined share of the market into double digit territory for the first time ever. Windows 10's share of Windows PCs did increase a bit (to 31.03%, from 28.81%), but Windows 7's share of the Windows-PC market also increased (to 55.49%, from 54.68%), so even excluding Linux from the picture doesn't help Microsoft much.

The news here for Windows is all bad.

Microsoft's OneDrive app runs like @$$ on Windows OS rivals.

Have I mentioned yet, that I kinda love The Reg's tech writers? Because I do.

From The Reg's Iain Thomson:

Ever since Satya Nadella took over the reins at Microsoft, the Windows giant has been talking up how much it loves Linux – but it appears this hasn't trickled down to its OneDrive team.

Plenty of Linux users are up in arms about the performance of the OneDrive web app. They say that when accessing Microsoft's cloudy storage system in a browser on a non-Windows system – such as on Linux or ChromeOS – the service grinds to a barely usable crawl. But when they use a Windows machine on the same internet connection, speedy access resumes.

Crucially, when they change their browser's user-agent string – a snippet of text the browser sends to websites describing itself – to Internet Explorer or Edge, magically their OneDrive access speeds up to normal on their non-Windows PCs.

In other words, Microsoft's OneDrive web app slows down seemingly deliberately when it appears you're using Linux or some other Windows rival. This has been going on for months, and complaints flared up again this week after netizens decided enough is enough.

"Microsoft has been pulling this stuff for the last 30 years and won't stop any time soon," huffed one penguinista on Tuesday. "If you commit to using their products, expect to be jerked around if you try to do anything other than live in their expensive walled garden."

We asked Microsoft for comment, but the software giant didn't want to talk about it. If we're being charitable to Redmond, we'd say this is a case of Hanlon's Razor: never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Yeah, once again, I don't think that Hanlon's Razor applies: Microsoft does this shit so often, and so consistently, that it can't simply be incompetence. Don't get me wrong, a company that large almost certainly employs at least a few idiots, but for this idiocy to keep happening in every aspect of their business, it has to intentional, and it has to be systemic. Once is an accident, and twice is a coincidence, but we're well past the point of this being one or two isolated incidents; this is a well-established Microsoft pattern.

It is cool to know what that malice/stupidity saying is called, though: Hanlon's Razor. Thanks, Iain!

Now, full disclosure: I don't use OneDrive, so this issue isn't affecting me. My objection here is not a personal one. This is a matter of principle. Microsoft have been working very hard to give the impression that they're big on Linux, and gaining some decent PR in the process, but it's bullshit. When Forbes opined that "Microsoft has decided that the operating system is no longer an important battleground, and that it’s more important to gain market share in cloud (Azure and Office 365) than it is to put energy into battling Linux for application market share," they were mistaken. Microsoft is all about forcing users onto Windows 10, right now, to establish the walled garden ecosystem on which they're clearly relying heavily for their future.

Microsoft really have bet the farm on this strategy. They really don't have a plan B. And their mounting desperation is becoming increasingly obvious, too. This is systemic; they really are doing this, and they really don't care how much damage they do to their own brand and reputation in the process, but they really haven't left themselves any other options. They need the ad revenue. They need their cut of Windows 10 Store sales. They've given too much away, at this point, and don't have any way to walk that back. At least, not one that Satya Nadella can see, or one that he'll sign off on.

GG, Satya Nadella. GG.

The week's bad and ugly in Windows 10 (and the good in other OSes).

I'd mentioned MS's new bit of advertising bullshit in passing yesterday, but its badness really deserves a closer look. Fortunately, PC Mag have us covered:

Microsoft really wants you to use its software products as well as running Windows 10, and that includes the Edge browser. But it can't stop you choosing to use an alternative web browser. However, if you opt to use Chrome, then expect to start seeing adverts right on your Windows desktop.

As Myce reports, if you have Chrome installed and the icon present on the Windows Taskbar, chances are you're going to start seeing a pop-up advert appear [...] suggesting you install Microsoft's Personal Shopping Assistant Chrome extension. Microsoft touts it as "Your smart shopping cart across the web."

Opting to install the extension results in Microsoft monitoring which products you've searched for and viewed while using Chrome, and then offering to compare those products to find the best price. There's also alerts when prices change, and the ability to track products across all your devices. Of course, Microsoft will make money if you opt to purchase any products using the Assistant.

[...]

Reviews of the extension, as you've probably guessed, are not great. Users refer to it as "spam" and "adware," and there's multiple calls for Microsoft to stop advertising it on Windows 10. "The assistant is poorly designed and implemented" and "Spammed by Microsoft to install. Doesn't really do much to assist in my shopping" sum up the kind of feedback Microsoft is generating.

This is a move that I've come to regard as classic Microsoft: rather than making something actually good, that people would actually want to use, MS have banged out a piece of crap that even they have no confidence in, and are now abusing their control over the OS to push it on users in the most aggressive and intrusive way possible. It's bullshit, of exactly the kind that inspired nearly half of all PC users to stay with Windows 7 rather than be subjected to this sort of nonsense.

Worse yet, it's coming at exactly the time when MS are also fucking up their sales pitch to desperately-needed Enterprise customers. From Digital Journal:

This week, Microsoft publicly claimed its own Windows 7 operating system is "long-outdated" and based on insecure security models. The statement has been criticised by security experts as the OS is still three years away from the end of support.

Microsoft posted a lengthy piece to its German newsroom in which it said an "early goodbye" to Windows 7. It suggested the aging platform cannot support the "increased security requirements" of modern devices and internet users, advising customers upgrade to Windows 10 for increased protection.

[...]

Its post has been criticised by security experts though. According to people in the industry, there is no reason to migrate away from Windows 7 today, interpreting the company's claims as an effort to increase Windows 10's adoption. Some experts suggested Windows 10 is actually less secure than Windows 7.

German Windows expert Günter Born published a response to Microsoft's article on his blog that explains the company's flawed logic. Born cited a recent study from Carnegie Mellon's CERT division that presents in great detail evidence showing Windows 10 is less secure than Windows 7 in some situations.

Windows 7 with Microsoft's EMET security software offers better protection than Windows 10 without, according to the study. In its enterprise marketing materials, Microsoft implies Windows 10 does not need EMET. Last year, it announced EMET will be discontinued on July 31, 2018, to the protest of many users.

[...]

Born also noted that Windows 10 isn't what many business customers want. Microsoft's focus on attracting new users and appealing to consumers has led to feature bloat that isn't desirable on enterprise systems.

"Machines with Windows XP and then Windows 7 have been a solid foundation for my SoHo business," said Born. "Windows 10 isn’t what I need as a SoHo business user. It’s focused on things Microsoft’s marketing identified as 'good for the company’s revenue.'"

Again, a now-classic Microsoft move, obviously prioritizing their own interests over their users' to the point of actually making Windows 10 less attractive as a platform, all at exactly the same moment when their own interests rely heavily on Windows users migrating to the Win10 en masse. GG, Microsoft. GG.

Maybe that's why I'm starting to see articles like this one from Paul Thurrott:

With Microsoft looking at new ways of monetizing Windows 10—in many cases, with ever-aggressive advertising in the product itself—I’m getting a lot of questions about alternatives. And while the case for moving off Windows 10 on PCs is not clear, I feel the frustration too.

In fact, I spend a lot more time than you may realize exploring those alternatives. This week alone, I’ve done work on macOS, using my MacBook Air, and I’ve installed the latest versions of Ubuntu and Mint Linux. In other recent weeks, I’ve spent time with a surprisingly high-quality Acer Chromebook as well.

I do this with no sense of joy. And to be clear I still find Windows 10 to be the obvious winner when I evaluate what it is that I’m looking for personally. And that’s true regardless of my job: Were I to suddenly hit the lottery, I’d keep using Windows 10 myself. I mean, I’d probably buy a really expensive Surface PC. But I would stick with Windows 10.

This isn’t the case on phone, of course, nor is it true on tablets. On these form factors, Windows 10 is either unusable (phone) or pointless because of the lack of ecosystem support (tablet). Phones and tablets, though, are more clear-cut: You should choose iPhone or Android on phone (I prefer iPhone), and iPad if you want a tablet. (I am not aware of a single decent Android tablet, which I still find curious.)

His list, oddly, places the wildly unpopular (and no longer available) Windows 8.1 at the very top, followed at #2 by the much more popular Windows 7; MacOS sits at #3, which probably isn't much of an option for most users given that you'd need to buy an overpriced Mac PC to get it; the much more affordable Chromebook clocks in at #4. 

The most affordable option, Linux, is last on Thurrott's list at #5. Linux will run on any PC you own, of course, and is completely free, but it doesn't natively run Windows apps, and its bewildering assortment of distributions/versions, and its learning curve, are clearly hurting it. Linux developers clearly need to start doing a better job of working together to "sell" their platform to new users, but Mint looks like one of the simplest available options. 

Thurrott's list isn't interesting as much for its recommendations, however, as for the fact that it exists at all. Thurrott likes Windows 10, remember, something that he mentions more than once in the article, but has been fielding so many inquiries from readers wanting off the Microsoft hamster wheel that he felt compelled to compile a list of recommendations. When even Windows 10's fans are talking about alternatives to the OS, it's probably not a good sign for Redmond.

In a couple of weeks, we'll get the first OS Market Share numbers of the new year. Thanks to Microsoft's hamfisted ineptitude, I'm expecting them to look almost exactly the same as the last numbers of last year: with Windows 7 still wildly popular among PC users, and Windows 10 growing very little, if at all. Satya Nadella's team truly need to re-think their approach, here, if only for Microsoft's own sake, and there are some hints of awareness on their part about how badly the ham-fistedness is hurting them.

Still, I'm predicting very little actual change in their tactics until closer to the end of the year, when Windows 10 still won't have taken off with Enterprise users in a way that even Nadella can't ignore anymore. Whether Nadella is actually capable of overseeing that kind of a tactical, and possibly even strategic, shift, and whether Microsoft's board of directors will be willing to let him try, are yet to be seen. Nadella's bet heavily on Windows 10, and it's not a stretch to say that his own success is heavily tied to the success of the platform; if the platform fails to thrive, Nadella's days as head of Microsoft may be numbered.

Microsoft switch from sticks to carrots

Having spent most of two weeks attempting to terrify Windows 7 users into switching to Windows 10, Microsoft are now falling back on the one tactic that has actually worked to inspire people to make that switch: they're giving it away again. Sorta.

From eWeek:

Businesses that missed out on Microsoft's free Windows 10 upgrade offer now have a second chance, provided they subscribe to Windows via the software giant's Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partner program.

Microsoft announced the impending availability of the Windows 10 operating system as a subscription service during the Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Toronto on July 12. In September, the companies and its partners began offering Windows 10 Enterprise E3 licenses for $7 per user per month.

Now, as an added perk, Microsoft is enabling those customers to upgrade their Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs at no extra cost. The offer extends to users with Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5 subscriptions as well as Secure Productive Enterprise E3 and E5 plans.

[...] 

Once older Windows machines are upgraded to Window 10, the OS is theirs to keep, said Nic Fillingham, small business product manager at Microsoft Windows Marketing.

"The Windows 10 upgrade licenses issued as part of this process are perpetual and associated with the device. This means the license will not expire or be revoked if the customer chooses to end their Windows cloud subscription in the CSP program," he wrote in a Jan. 19 blog post.

Microsoft's earlier scaremongering was probably aimed at Enterprise customers, who have (so far, anyway) been in no rush to switch to Windows 10. MS's corporate strategy really needed them to switch, and to pay for the privilege; in the absence of those two things happening, however, MS have apparently decided that they'll settle for one of two.

The problem is MS resorted to scaremongering first, and then attempted to sweeten the deal. Normally, the carrot is dangled in plain view before one begins tactlessly brandishing the stick, but MS have done these things in reverse order, and possibly further undermined trust in Windows products in the process. MS spent years trying to convince us that Win7 was safe as houses, remember, before suddenly announcing that Win7 was critically flawed in ways that they hadn't previously disclosed... and then announcing that they're giving it away again.

Oh, and they're adding more adverts to the OS, too, in the upcoming Creators Update. Gotta make money, somehow, I guess. They're apparently not going to make any by selling copies of Windows 10.

We'll see in upcoming months whether either the scaremongering or this renewed giveaway succeeds in pushing/pulling Enterprise users to Win10, when all previous attempts to appeal to them have failed, but one thing is clear: weak expressions of remorse notwithstanding, Microsoft's ham-handed ways are still very much a thing, and will be for the foreseeable future. This is just who MS are, now, and apparently who they'll continue to be, at least for as long as Satya Nadella is running the show.

Satya Nadella makes hilarious claims about Windows 10's open-ness

Seriously, you can't make this shit up.

From ZDNet:

When Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he asked what the company's place in the world is, and how it could make the biggest contribution.

What he kept coming back to was that the company builds things that empower people to build their own things. When he looked at Microsoft, he saw software that could be a force to "democratize and empower people."

Nadella articulated what that vision means for the future of Azure, Windows, Office, Cortana, Linkedin, and more during his keynote address--on a telepresence link--at Gartner Symposium ITxpo 2016 in Orlando on Tuesday.

In conversation with Gartner analysts that featured lots of Nadella's usual well-crafted, nuanced statements, he also boldly declared:

"Windows is the most open platform there is."

Really? Windows? Not Linux, or FreeBSD, which are both open source and both free-as-in-speech and free-as-in-beer?

Sure, the Windows platform overall, from Windows 95 to Windows 7, has been open in the sense that anybody who wanted to write Windows software could do so -- Microsoft didn't have the ability to vet every piece of Windows software before it was released, and so didn't try to control what developers did or didn't sell for use on the platform. 

By Windows 8, though, Microsoft was already working hard to change all of that. Win8 was extremely unpopular, in no small part because it turned peoples' desktops into iOS-style App Stores, which Microsoft curated, all while taking a cut of all proceeds -- the very definition of a "walled garden," in other words, which is exactly the opposite of open. Windows 10, with its Universal Windows Platform and Windows Store bullshit baked right in, is significantly worse, not better.

The trend has clearly been going in the wrong direction for years... which is why Nadella is making this ridiculous claim to a roomful of Gartner analysts in the first place. It's damage control.

But wait! It gets better worse:

The other topic where Microsoft's approach to data privacy came up was Cortana, the company's AI-powered virtual assistant that is competing in an increasingly crowded field that includes players such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, and IBM Watson.
Nadella highlighted several key principles in Microsoft's approach to privacy on Cortana:

• Whatever data we have, we have to keep it secure
• Provide transparency (users know what Cortana knows about them and can control it)
• Be compliant with regulations

That last seems to be a reference to CNIL's regulatory action, to which Microsoft is required to make an official response in the very near future. ZDNet's bullet points kinda gloss over what Nadella actually said about Cortana, though, which is a shame because it's amazeballs.

IDG's Good Gear Guide has the goods:

Cortana will operate on "four pillars," which include keeping data secure, as well transparency, meaning that users will "know exact what Cortana knows," said Nadella. There is also an ability to turn off data access. The fourth pillar is to be compliant with regulations, he said.

I've highlighted the missing pillar (i.e. the one ZDNet chose not to mention at all): the ability for users to turn off Microsoft's data access. This is especially noteworthy in today's context, since Windows 10 Home users currently can't do this. At all. Does this mean that the ability to turn off Telemetry and Cortana, and have Windows Update respect those decisions and leave the shit turned off, will be coming to Windows 10 in the near future? Because it's sure as fuck not in there now.

This is the very heart of consumers' current lack of trust where Microsoft is concerned. Nadella's team have been harvesting users' data, disregarding and resetting users' privacy settings, and forcing Cortana (and Bing!) down users' throats for months now, and now Nadella has the shitting nerve to claim that transparency and the ability to turn off data access are now "pillars" of all the Microsoft does? Seriously?

Even compliance with regulations is only something that Microsoft is doing belatedly and grudgingly, after being on the receiving end of regulatory action -- it's not something they did proactively, on principle.

When I read that quote, I was so nonplussed that I didn't really know how to respond, beyond "Fuck you, Microsoft." That's still where I am with this. 

Fuck you, Microsoft, and fuck you, Satya Nadella. After this past year, you don't get to claim that your compliance with regulations is some sort of principled stance you're taking for the sake of Windows openness as a platform, especially when everything else about Windows 10 is aimed directly at a monopolistic, walled garden, iOS App Store experience, with you as the corrupt gate-keepers, creaming your percentage off the top of every software sale to every Windows 10 user from this point forward.

Did I mention that I'm rooting for Microsoft to fail at that? Because I am. Even if I hadn't been before, I definitely would have been today, after reading about the latest bullshit to come out the mouth of Satya Nadella on the subject.

#FuckYouMicrosoft #FuckYouSatyaNadella #MonopolisticBullshit #ThatsNotWhatOpenMeans #Unreal

"Microsoft Delivers Yet Another Broken Windows 10 Update"

I tried to come up with my own pithy title for this post, but the headline from this Thurrott.com article really speaks for itself:

This week, Microsoft pushed out another cumulative update and reports of installation problems are widespread. While I don’t know how many users are impacted, based on comments sent to me, it’s certainly widespread enough that this is well beyond an isolated issue.

The update that is causing the problem, KB3194496, is not installing correctly for users. The update, when it does fail, is causing some machines to restart, often multiple times, as Windows 10 attempts to remove the failed update. Worse, after a restart, the file will attempt to install again resulting in the loop of failed install, reboot, re-install and failure again.

[...]

Microsoft is pushing the idea that you should always patch your machine on the day the update is released as they often release security patches that fix vulnerabilities. But, until the company can get a handle on their quality control issues, such as the Anniversary update breaking millions of webcams, it feels like every time you run Windows update you are rolling the dice.

That's not the only problem with KB3194496, either. From Windows Report:

Microsoft recently pushed KB3194496 to the general public, bringing a series of important bug fixes. We expected this cumulative update to become available on Patch Tuesday, but it appears Microsoft considered the update was stable enough to be rolled out to all Windows 10 users.

Maybe it would have been better if Microsoft had waited a bit longer. In this manner, the company would have had the chance to gather thorough user feedback and patch eventual issues. As a quick reminder, update KB3194496 was pushed to the Windows 10 public channel just one day after it had become available for Release Preview and Slow Ring Insiders.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps due to Microsoft’s haste, cumulative update KB3194496 brings issues of its own. Users have reported KB3194496 is breaking mouse and keyboard functionality. More specifically, they can’t use the mouse and the keyboard buttons don’t respond.

Really, what does one even say, at this point? "Microsoft, get your shit together?" "Redmond, pull your heads out of your asses?" "See you in court, Mr. Nadella?" Is there actually a limit to the number of times that Microsoft can fuck up in basically the same way, or do they plan to keep this up indefinitely?

Questions abound; answers do not appear to be forthcoming. Have I mentioned today, just how glad I am to have refused to "upgrade" to Windows 10?

Tomorrow is the first of the month, which is when I'll find out if NetMarketShare post the new desktop OS market share numbers on the 1st of every month, or just the 1st weekday of each month, but all reports point to Windows 10 adoption slowing sharply (what with Microsoft not giving it away quite so freely, anymore), and Win10 Pro and Enterprise versions being slow to take off, also. I'm no prophet, but I feel like I'm on safe ground in predicting that Windows 10's market will, once again, not have increased dramatically over August's number. Given what a mess the product is, right now, why would anyone want to switch, who doesn't have to?

Good job, Microsoft. Well done, you.

How to lie with statistics: Microsoft edition

Having just announced that they'll fall short of their 1B by 2018 target for Windows 10, Microsoft are now changing their chosen metric, so that their failure will look less like failure.

At least, that's my read on the latest pronouncement from Satya Nadella, as reported by Business Insider:

Microsoft was recently forced to delay its ambitious goal of getting 1 billion devices onto Windows 10 within the next two years, after its collapsing phone business made that an unrealistic milestone.

Instead, CEO Satya Nadella announced Tuesday during the company's quarterly earnings callthat Microsoft will change the way it reports the number of Windows 10 installations (currently at over 350 million), reflecting a shift in how it thinks about the operating system.

"We changed how we will assess progress," Nadella says.

Now, instead of the irregular updates on Windows 10 growth we've been gotten for the last year, mainly at Microsoft conferences and events, Nadella says Microsoft will share monthly active users on the operating system "regularly."

Notably, instead of installations, Microsoft is now tracking monthly active users of Windows 10 — the same kind of metric used to track services like Google's Gmail, which has a billion monthly active users.

And what does "regularly" mean? Who knows? With Windows 10 rapidly approaching its first birthday, maybe it'll become just another line item on the quarterly earnings report.

I guess this means that Nadella & co. have no intention of ever commenting on when they expect to eventually hit that 1B installed target, huh?

No, Microsoft's legal troubles are not the result of a Google-led conspiracy

Here's to Windows Report, still lowering the journalistic bar by carrying water for Microsoft:

The tech giant recently lost a Windows 10 upgrade lawsuit and had to pay $10,000 in damages after its upgrade tricks caused a businesswoman to almost lose her business.

NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and his team are actively investigating a new Windows 10 forced upgrade case and are gathering evidence and user complaints against Microsoft’s unfair upgrade tactics. The lawmen have been helped by the Rockland County Times newspaper, which forwarded them a series of Windows 10 upgrade complaints.

NY state is not the only state actively investigating user accusations against Microsoft’s Windows 10 upgrade methods as other states are also beginning to actively pursue cases against Microsoft on their residents’ behalf.

This wave of lawsuits against Microsoft has even convinced some of the company’s fans to conclude that these events are being orchestrated by Microsoft’s competition. Google has never hidden its intention of stealing 80% of Microsoft’s business client pool, and many Windows users fear the search engine giant has recently raised the stakes.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

GWX changes denounced as PR ploy

Microsoft was anxious to put #upgradegate behind them, but apparently it's not going to be that simple.

From Computerworld:

Commenters have scoffed at Microsoft's backtracking from a widely-criticized practice to trick users into upgrading to Windows 10, arguing that it was nothing more than a public relations ploy employed when the free upgrade was just weeks from expiring.

"People have been complaining about GWX [Get Windows 10] since last October. To finally admit there's a problem 1 month before the end of the promotion (and it'll be another week before everyone has this update) is really sad," wrote someone identified as Rossco1337 on a Reddit thread Wednesday.

[...]

"[Microsoft] probably [did this] so that years from now, the vague memory will be, 'Microsoft was a bit pushy, but in the end they backed off and gave people choice,'" added illithidbane in the same discussion thread. "They want it to have been pushy for as long as possible, get as many upgrades as possible, but end on a 'high' note."

They do have a point, but I have the feeling that there's a little more to Microsoft's latest move than simple PR.

Microsoft changes the deal... again

From Forbes:

In a new preview build (14371) of the massive Windows 10 Anniversary Update coming later this summer, Microsoft has revealed it will change how free upgrade licences are handled – and it raises serious questions.

What the company unveiled is the Windows 10 ‘Activation Troubleshooter’ and, in short, it ties Windows 10 licences (‘digital entitlements’ as Microsoft dubs them) to users’ Microsoft accounts for the first time.

[...]

On the surface this is a great idea.

Upgrading PC components has famously been a nightmare for Windows owners as past a certain threshold the operating system can think it’s a new machine and demand you pay again to register it. This shouldn’t happen now there’s the Activation Troubleshooter.

Unfortunately, however, that’s not all there is to it.

Of course it isn't. We are talking about Microsoft, after all.

Windows 10 users can now beg Android developers for apps

From Neowin:

Insiders have been able to sync Android notifications with their PCs since build 14356 was released, but today, a Reddit user discovered that when a notification syncs, you can now request the app for Windows 10.

Obviously, the idea is to promote the Windows Store to the Android developer. Perhaps if the developer knows that users of their app are also using Windows 10, they may develop for the platform.

The button will bring you over to WinStore Requests page, where you'll be able to plead your case.

Alrighty then...

Satya? Sorry, Mr. Nadella? Can we talk? Just for a sec?

I know that I've been really, really critical of pretty much everything that you've done recently, but this? This is just pathetic.

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.