Someone finally noticed...

 ...and it only took them four days. From Janet Swift, at I Programmer:

NetMarketShare Bows Out

This news item was supposed to be about the latest desktop browser statistics and the fact that during October Edge had experienced an increase in its share. However, more newsworthy is the fact the October is the final month for which NetApplications.com will collect these statistics.

Reporting the way in which Chrome has come to be the dominant the desktop browser, documenting Firefox's decline and, until recently, the failure of Edge to gain a foothold, has been a part of I Programmer's routine fare. So it came as a shock to discover that this months figures are the last, at least for the foreseeable future.

Well done, Janet Swift! As far as I can tell, you and I are the only two people to actually notice that huge banner announcement at the top of their stats page... and their home page... It makes me wonder what all the other chuckleheads are doing. 

Journalism!

Windows 10 is "now" on 700 million devices

Compare this article, from TechRadar:

Microsoft is edging ever closer towards its target of having Windows 10 on over a billion devices across the globe, and the software giant has just confirmed that the OS is now present on over 700 million pieces of hardware.

to this article, also from HotHardware:

Microsoft just announced a new milestone for its Windows 10 operating system: it is now installed on over 700 million active devices worldwide. This is an increase of 100 million from the last time that Microsoft gave a status update back in late November 2017.

The two articles look almost identical, but there's a crucial difference: TechRadar's article was posted today, while HotHardware's article was posted back in June, about a month after TechCrunch posted this article, also citing statistics from Microsoft:

At its Build developer conference, Microsoft today announced that just under 700 million devices now run Windows 10. Almost exactly a year ago, that number stood at 500 million. In addition, the company also today noted that Office 365 now has 135 million monthly active commercial users, up from 120 million last October.

That's right, Microsoft have now "announced" exactly the same Windows 10 adoption milestone on three separate occasions, in three separate months. Which raises the question: Why does anyone still treat Microsoft's self-aggrandizing "statistics" as being even slightly accurate, reliable, or newsworthy?

More specifically, why is TechRadar posting about this? Why are they still talking about Windows 10 hitting the "magic billion" mark, when even Microsoft doesn't mention the embarrassing billion number anymore?

Of course, originally, Microsoft wanted to get Windows 10 on a billion devices in three years post-launch, or around mid-2018, so that didn’t happen (although it fairly quickly became clear that this was an unrealistic target).

Still, hitting 700 million in just over three years isn’t a world away from the magic billion, although Microsoft isn’t making much noise about this achievement, with it flying pretty much under the radar at Ignite.

That Microsoft is lying with statistics, yet again, isn't newsworthy. They do this with some regularity, massaging the definitions of different statistics to suit their needs of the moment, and releasing whatever numbers they please, as many times as they please, in an effort to keep up the appearance of momentum. They're hardly the only publicly-traded company to do this, either; most of them engage in some level of the practice (hint: the moment some company starts talking about their earnings per share, rather than their total revenue, start looking for an opportunity to sell your shares).

But why do tech bloggers, in particular, keep falling for it? In a sphere where the status quo changes constantly, and accurate, up-to-date information is essential, why are journalistic standards so damned low?

That's not merely a rhetorical question; I'd really like to know.

Seeing what they want to see

I know that I've previously said that I was done writing about Windows 10's struggles to take usage share away from Windows 7, and I really don't intend to go back to staring at NetMarketShare's usage graphs every month, but I couldn't help commenting on the commenters this time around.

For the record, this is the graph that we're all talking about, this time around:

And now, the hot takes. First up is betanews:

NetMarketShare reports on the state of the desktop operating system market on the first day of each month. Usually at least. It spent a few days auditing June’s figures last month, which caused a bit of a delay.

There’s no such lag for July’s figures though, which arrive on time and show Windows 10 continuing to cut into Windows 7's dominance. [...] If things continue like this, there’s every chance that Windows 10 will overtake Windows 7 by November.

And then, a second opinion, from WCCFTech:

The latest numbers tracking Windows 10 growth rate are out today, revealing that Windows 7 has lost 0.51% market share over the past month. Marking exactly three years since Microsoft introduced its latest Windows 10 to the world, these stats show that the operating system still has some work to do to stop the dominance of Windows 7.

The July numbers reveal that Windows 10 went up from 35.71 percent to 36.58 percent, which is an increase of 0.87 percentage points. [...] In comparison, Windows 7 went down to 41.23 percent, losing 0.51 percent. This places Windows 7 a little less than 5 percent ahead of Windows 10, which means at least an additional four to six months before the newest Windows OS version gets over Windows 7.

For the record, this is not the first year that Betanews has predicted that Windows 10 (WX) would pass Windows 7 (W7) by November.

Facebook finally launches the Oculus Go. Will it matter?

VR evangelists have been praying for a low-cost, stand-alone VR headset, with no wires and no high-end smartphone, PS4, or PC required. The idea is that turning VR from an expensive peripheral into a more reasonably priced stand-alone device is just what VR needs to become a thing. Well, on the first day of F8, Facebook has answered their prayers by officially launching the Oculus Go.

As reported by TechCrunch:

Oculus Go, Facebook’s cheap and capable standalone VR headset, is now on sale. It costs $199 for the version with 32GB of onboard storage, and $249 for the 64GB variety.

Why: VR headsets where you have to stick your phone in are clumsy and prevent Facebook from controlling the whole experience. Instead of relying on the Samsung Gear headset shell and your iPhone or Android, Facebook gets to dictate everything about the perfect VR rig you can strap on first-timers.

[...]

Oculus wants you to watch TV inside its new Go headset. At first you’ll get Facebook Watch, but expect apps like Netflix and Hulu to arrive eventually.

Why: There just aren’t enough great VR experiences, but perhaps Facebook can get people spending more time in their headsets by creating a virtual big screen for 2D content.

Yeah.... good luck with that. I'm going to stand by my earlier prediction, though: with "just not enough great VR experiences" to drive adoption, it won't matter that FB's new headset is a cheaper stand-alone. It still offers no obvious value to the consumer, which means that its value per dollar of cost is still effectively zero. This is the problem that plagues VR, and the fact that Oculus want you to watch TV in VR, because there's nothing else to do with the Go, eloquently illustrates it.

If this thing sells even as well as Samsung's GearVR, I'll be astonished, given that the hype and excitement around VR has completely dissipated everywhere except in tech media. Look for the Go to sell about as well as the Rift, and for prices to be dropping by X-Mas.

Editorializing

Offered for your consideration, two different headlines about the same story.

Start with this headline from the normally quite sober WCCFTech:

Microsoft Promises, Microsoft Delivers! Windows Installation Time Reduced to 30 Minutes

compare it to Gizmodo UK's headline about the same announcement:

Windows Has a Plan to Make Its Update System a Little Less Garbage

and marvel at the power of editorial direction. The same phenomenon can be seen at work in the articles themselves.

Once could be an accident, twice could be a coincidence...

One of the more troubling recent trends in journalism is that of the pre-existing narrative frame. This occurs when reporters, who are expecting a thing to happen, and waiting to report on the thing as it happens, ignore evidence that contradicts that pre-formed narrative. They don't report what's actually happening, as it's happening; instead, they cherry-pick from the available stats and factoids, telling only the stories that they were already planning to tell.

We see this a lot in political reporting; false equivalencies, false dichotomies, and pre-conceived narratives that exclude important-but-contradictory facts are all rampant "in the beltline." It's one of the reasons why public confidence in mainstream news reporting is at historic lows; it's one of the reasons why political reporters and pundits have spent the last year constantly being blindsided by actual developments in politics. People were more comfortable getting their news from The Daily Show than from their daily newspaper because Jon Stewart didn't do this; Last Week Tonight wins Peabody awards because John Oliver doesn't do this.

The phenomenon isn't limited to political reporting, either. It happens in tech reporting, too. When MSPowerUser was reporting on this month's OS market share trends, they did it explicitly:

This month Netmarketshare’s data appears to have an error, claiming a 5% increase in Linux market share in one month, so I think it can be safely ignored.

Never mind that this was the 2nd month in which this shift was visible; never mind that Satya Nadella is already trying to get out ahead of the Shift, downplaying the importance of Windows to Microsoft. MSPowerUser's writer, like many tech media writers, had spent months waiting to tell the story in which Windows 10 finally surged in the marketplace to overtake Windows 7, and so he cherry-picked the stats which seemed to finally be telling that story, while explicitly ignoring stats that didn't fit.

ZDNet is doing it, too. Unable to completely ignore the undeniable trend in the data, they've instead taken issue with the source, NetMarketShare, in this recent piece:

There have been numerous stories that the Linux desktop has more than doubled from its usual 1.5 to 3 percent marketshare to 5 percent. These reports have been based on NetMarketShare's desktop operating system analysis, which showed Linux leaping from 2.5 percent in July, to almost 5 percent in September. But unfortunately for Linux fans, it's not true.

Neither does it appear to be Google's Chrome OS, which tends to be under-represented in NetMarketShare and StatCounter desktop operating system numbers, being counted as Linux. Mind you, that would be fair, since Chrome OS is based on Linux.

The real explanation is far more mundane. It seems to be merely a mistake. Vince Vizzaccaro, NetMarketShare's executive marketing share of marketing told me, "The Linux share being reported is not correct. We are aware of the issue and are currently looking into it."

Again: ZDNet, confronted with with data that didn't fit their existing narrative, went looking for a rationale that would let them ignore it, rather than reporting on it as it was happening... you know, the way reporters used to.

And the insidious thing is that NetMarketShare have been co-opted by this. Faced with skeptical reporters who refused to use actual facts as the jumping-off point for their reporting, NMS are hard at work, tweaking their statistical models so that their reports can more closely match reporters' expectations.

No, Windows 10 S doesn't "deserve a chance."

Oy, vey.

From Napier Lopez at TNW:

Windows 10 S gets a bad rap, in part, because of Windows RT. That OS could only run touch-friendly ‘Metro’ apps – which further had to be compatible with ARM processors.

There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, but it meant developers had to write completely new apps for an OS they weren’t sure would have any legs. It was a kind of self fulfilling prophecy: Developers didn’t make Windows RT apps because nobody would use Windows RT. Which of course became true, because nobody would make apps for it.

Windows 10 S, on the other hand, has the crucial difference that it can run most of the old-school apps – known as Win32 programs – you’re already using. At a basic level, all developers have to do is repackage the apps to make them available on the Windows Store.

Wow, that sounds really great! Just one little problem... it's mostly bullshit.

Windows 10 S only runs programs that have been installed from the Windows Store, and the Win32 programs that you're already using cannot be installed from the Windows Store. The developers of those programs might choose to use the Project Centennial Desktop App Bridge (PCDAB) to port those programs over to the Windows Store, so that you can purchase them again through Microsoft, with Microsoft taking a cut of the proceeds, but it is developers who must do this; consumers cannot PCDAB their own apps. Unless and until that happens, the software "you're already using" simply will not work with Microsoft's gimped OS.

This is the defining quality of Windows 10 S. It is the thing which sets it apart from vanilla Windows 10, and from every other iteration of Windows.... except for Windows RT, of course. Which means that Win10 S's bad rap is entirely deserved, for the simple reason that it really is Windows RT Redux. The only difference is that Microsoft is using security-based scare tactics to sell 10 S, instead of relying on the short-lived "touch" fad that was the driving force behind Windows RT... and Windows 8, which was its fuller-featured cousin.

Yet again, I find myself unsure whether this is a falsehood (i.e. the result of simple ignorance or incompetence), or a lie (i.e. the result of intentional deception). Either way, though, Mr. Lopez should be ashamed of himself. This is not hair-splitting; it is quite literally the most important thing that a consumer will want to consider, when weighing the decision to buy (or not to buy) a machine with Windows 10 S installed, and TNW couldn't be bothered to get it right. Excelsior!

I can hardly wait to see how many other lazy, ignorant hacks pick up this piece of apologist tripe, and run it verbatim, without bothering to check any of its facts.

Massive layoffs are really not normal. Really.

A couple of days ago, I blogged about Microsoft's imminent wave of layoffs. I was particularly nonplussed with the way that a lot of the coverage was unfolding; everyone seemed anxious to portray Redmond's fourth massive restructuring effort in four years as somehow normal, the sort of thing that successful companies do all the time. But I couldn't recall a single instance of a successful company laying off thousands of employees as part of a massive restructuring effort, let alone a company that had laid off thousands of employees in the each of the preceding three years, and was looking set to add significantly to that total in year four.

And make no mistake, although it may not be the worst of them, this is the fourth year of massive layoffs at Microsoft. They cut 18,000 jobs in 2014, an event which CNN Money described as "by far the largest round of layoffs in the company's history." They followed that by cutting 7,800 more jobs in 2015, a year in which they also took a US$7.6 billion “impairment charge” related to their acquisition of Nokia, and restructuring charges of over US$750M. 2,800 more jobs were cut in 2016, as they continued to wind down their Nokia business.

As companies tend to do, when delivering bad news, Microsoft softened the blow on many of these announcements by touting some kind of success; their cloud services division saw 3% growth in 2016, for example. They've carefully avoided talking about the overall health of the company, and their share price hasn't suffered too much, at least so far. But there's no way around the steadily mounting numbers, here, as Microsoft's massive structuring becomes an annual event.

That 2014 CNN Money article gives some context for this:

Though Microsoft is laying off a massive number of employees, it doesn't come close to the biggest job cuts in corporate history. IBM (IBM, Tech30) cut 60,000 jobs in 1993 as part of a massive restructuring of the tech giant. During the Great Recession, Citigroup (C) slashed 75,000 jobs between 2008 and early 2009. And Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Tech30) laid off 27,000 employees in 2012.

At 28,600, the cumulative layoff total Microsoft's annual restructuring has has now surpassed Hewlett-Packard's 27,000 layoffs from 2012. But, while the numbers are slowly mounting, there is one clear difference between Microsoft's layoffs and the other examples cited by CNN Money: all of the other examples were one-time events. Only Microsoft seems to have turned this kind of restructuring into the way they start every fiscal year.

Don't believe me? Check for yourself. Google "massive layoffs -Microsoft," and see what you get.

Tech reporting is too negative lately, according to tech reporter (just not his own reporting).

From Wayne Williams at BetaNews:

I like to think that while I do certainly criticize technology products and technology companies for any failings -- Microsoft forcing Windows 10 on to customers against their will last year, for example -- I’m fair. I still get as excited about a new phone, or a new version of Windows, as I did in the past, and I don't deliberately look for negatives. The same is true for all other BetaNews writers.

However, a new study finds that tech reporting is generally more pessimistic now than in the past, and for two very different reasons.

The new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), and based on textual analysis of 250 articles from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post from 1986 to 2013, highlights how the tone of tech reporting has shifted in the past 20 years.

In general, the ITIF found that in the 1980s and 1990s, coverage of technology was largely positive, but this changed from the mid-1990s to 2013, when more negative reports covering the downside of technology, its failure to live up to its promises, and potential ill effects, started to appear.

All righty then... Where to start..?

Perhaps I should start with the fact that tech coverage in the '80s and '90s included both the very beginnings of the personal computer as a thing, and the entire arc of the dot-com bubble? Yes, PCs were very exciting when they were shiny and new, rather than being ubiquitous and banal, and people were very excited about the potential of dot-coms before anybody knew anything about how dot-coms were actually going to work, but I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that the bursting of the dot-com bubble, which triggered a recession, revealed that shady accounting and auditing practices had fuelled the bubble itself, and wiped out five trillion dollars in investors' pension funds and life savings, may be part of the reason why responsible journalists are little more cautious these days when reporting on the latest bit of hype from Silicon Valley. Just saying.

Then there's the tidbit that the ITIF is a pro-technology think tank, funded by (among others) Cisco, Google, eBay, and IBM? That it was established to "promote government support for innovation in many forms," i.e. to convince lawmakers that technology is the solution to every problem? Or that the report was compiled by sampling articles from only three publications (none of them specific to technology), and searching for the words  “technology,” “worry,” “concern,” “progress,” or “potential?” Because that was their methology.

Or perhaps we should talk about the self-congratulatory tone of Williams' piece, praising his (and his BetaNews colleagues') fairness, while complaining that other reporters "have less time and fewer resources to dig deep into technology issues," while being incentivized to "pursue alarmist stories that generate clicks" in a way that borders on "technophobic." Because anyone must be technophobic to say e.g. that VR is a shit product that costs way too much considering that it's not useful for anything much, I guess?

Also, BetaNews apparently have more resources, and fairer journalists, than The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and/or The Washington Post. Not kidding; those are the three publications whose articles ITIF scanned for their analysis. Apparently those scrubs just don't know, but don't worry! BetaNews is here to set them straight. Seriously, what the actual fuck?

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. Williams, after all, wasn't exactly making those claims directly. He was just quoting Daniel Castro, ITIF’s vice president and the report’s co-author, in a way that implied that BetaNews was journalistically superior to the NYT, the WSJ, and/or the Post. Because that's what you're doing, when you talk up your own fairness, and then quote a think tank spokesman saying that the rest of the new media is understaffed, underfunded, ethically compromised, and technophobic, to boot.

[Sigh.]

Our Information Age way of life has many features that seem quite positive, and the technology to which we have access has done a lot to transform the way we live. Self-driving autos, for example, could reduce the annual driver-error carnage on our roads by tens of thousands of human lives per year, in the U.S. alone. But the effects of that technology are not invariably positive, and it's not technophobic or unfair to accurately report when poorly-regulated corporations, or their devices, fail to meet expectations, erode our privacy, undermine our democracy, or even put us in danger. 

The rule of thumb here is pretty simple: unpleasant news isn't necessarily erroneous, and reporting inconvenient truths is perhaps the most essential role of journalism. Many tech writers basically repeat press release copy, often word-for-word, with very little by way of fact-checking or analysis; it's not so much journalism as it is stenography. Williams is better than many at calling out the bullshit, but that's not saying much when you consider how low the bar has been lately.

I've been pretty critical of tech writers in the past, something which, honestly, is becoming increasingly awkward as my intended-to-be-about-gaming blog has come to be dominated by my writings on Windows 10, VR, and other tech-specific issues. Awkward or not, though, there's no way around the fact that I did the minimum work of checking Wikipedia to learn about the source of this report, and skimmed the report itself to see what their methodology actually was... two things which Williams apparently didn't do.

As luck would have it, Idea Channel has a pretty decent video this week on a related topic, which I highly recommend:

Yes, technology does have its uses; it just pays to be skeptical about some of the claims of tech companies, is all, and those of their lobby groups and think tanks... or any self-congratulatory tech writers you may come across who are too busy patting themselves on the back to do the actual fact-checking which is indispensable to effective journalism. 

I'm not a journalist. I'm not trained as one, and I don't work as one; this blog is done entirely in my spare time, any isn't monetized in any way. But if you are a journalist, and you're still being out-done by an amateur like me when it comes to basic journalistic integrity... then I'm sorry, but you're doing it wrong.

#nohype