And my next computer and phone might be ....

Mac / Apple / iPhone / iPad

more and more i am less and less interested in what microsoft is doing when it comes to the desktop / tablet and phone.

this comes after decades of using and selling and developing with Microsoft software.

I have a gut feeling that windows 8 just may be the "Straw the broke the camels back" so to speak.

I am still holding out some hope but more and more it seems like all i hear about Microsoft is bad news....  Sad.

Yeah! You go girl! Show'em!

But seriously? Is this something to announce to the interwebs? I Have a MacBook Pro, an Asus Zenbook, a Samsung Focus, an iPad, a Nook (1st gen) and an iPhone unlocked for travelling.

Moral of the story? You are not your OS, you are not your platform, you are not your favourite programming language. Choose what suits your needs at the moment and forget about religious wars.

7 hours ago, figuerres wrote

Mac / Apple / iPhone / iPad

... 

Yay... chulk one up for POSIX vs Win32, dmr is probably smiling up there

But i'm really puzzled. In your post, and silmilar posts by others (which to my untrained eye look multiplying, e.g. this), I never, but never saw even once a call to Microsoft to open up its (arguablly) greatest technology. No, not Win32... I'm talking about the Java clone. It's as if you guys are stuck in the 2000's, that is that open-source is the enemy. As I see it today, its Microsoft's ONLY WAY OUT.

BTW, By openning up I mean locking up its attack dogs from its litigation depratment. I mean a vast plegde to not sue anyone about DOTNET ever!

EDITED

@figuerres: I have moved on, but will be lead by the market as to whether I continue with Windows 8, as the clearest mistakes with it have been in not having a compelling story for their hundreds of millions of existing customers and developers. Windows 8 should have been two separate events

1) Build showcasing a new desktop OS, with significant updates to their existing platform

2) Build showcasing a new OS that can now run on a tablet, with development resources available for those that want to take advantage of that platform.

We are now at the place when Silverlight, WPF and Windows developers are apathetic. Why on earth would I want to invest anymore in your platform, when you keep chopping and changing?

This is pretty much the same argument I had several months ago, where MSFT shareholders said "wait, Microsoft will amaze you!". As I keep saying, apart from the workplace, Microsoft do not exist. Had they been loyal to decade (loyal) old developers like me, and the original poster, I am certain things would be different.

7 hours ago, fanbaby wrote

*snip*

Yay... chulk one up for POSIX vs Win32, dmr is probably smiling up there

But i'm really puzzled. In your post, and silmilar posts by others (which to my untrained eye look multiplying, e.g. this), I never, but never saw even once a call to Microsoft to open up its (arguablly) greatest technology. No, not Win32... I'm talking about the Java clone. It's as if you guys are stuck in the 2000's, that is that open-source is the enemy. As I see it today, its Microsoft's ONLY WAY OUT.

Open Source and .Net

What I said has zero to do with that.

to be frank I would love to see a fully suppoerted open .net that was on a par with the 4.0 / 4.5 dot net.

I said Mac/ Apple not becuase i like closed but because overall I think they are better in several things than the swarm of linuxes out there,  while Google does seem to be almost taking over the future of Linux at the moment.

heck one thing i see is that we really have two OS cores in the world today:

NT Like ( Microsoft stuff )

UNIX LIke  (Mac OS, LInux based stuff )

i have not yet spent any real time with the iOS internals to say if they belong in the UNIX like group so i set that aside for now.

when I started in this there were many very different OS's out there but now we seem to be down to 2.

14 hours ago, PaoloM wrote

Yeah! You go girl! Show'em!

But seriously? Is this something to announce to the interwebs? I Have a MacBook Pro, an Asus Zenbook, a Samsung Focus, an iPad, a Nook (1st gen) and an iPhone unlocked for travelling.

Moral of the story? You are not your OS, you are not your platform, you are not your favourite programming language. Choose what suits your needs at the moment and forget about religious wars.

the moral of the story :   Microsoft is losing.

not that my thoughts on this are of prime interest to Microsoft, I know that i am not important to the big picture at MS HQ.

the point is that my concerns and my actions seem to be happening with many other developers and IT folks all over the world.  

and as for "Is this something to announce to the interwebs"  well I have been here for a good long while and i was posting this to "My friends on C9"  not to say Facebook.

the point was to see if there might be any usefull chat about our thoughts on how things are changing, about what we might see happening with Microsoft and the pressure that the others like Google and Apple are creating for Microsoft to ither get with it or lose more marketshare.

3 hours ago, vesuvius wrote

@figuerres: I have moved on, but will be lead by the market as to whether I continue with Windows 8, as the clearest mistakes with it have been in not having a compelling story for their hundreds of millions of existing customers and developers. Windows 8 should have been two separate events

1) Build showcasing a new desktop OS, with significant updates to their existing platform

2) Build showcasing a new OS that can now run on a tablet, with development resources available for those that want to take advantage of that platform.

We are now at the place when Silverlight, WPF and Windows developers are apathetic. Why on earth would I want to invest anymore in your platform, when you keep chopping and changing?

This is pretty much the same argument I had several months ago, where MSFT shareholders said "wait, Microsoft will amaze you!". As I keep saying, apart from the workplace, Microsoft do not exist. Had they been loyal to decade (loyal) old developers like me, and the original poster, I am certain things would be different.

EXACTLY!

and one more thing:   the whole CES thing, I really think that was just STUPID!!!

i mean to make a point to annonuce to the press and to the world that you are not going to be at a show ???   seems like it was made to make Microsoft look bad, like they wanted to make negative press ???

I think BUILD was horrible with what it did.  

and i seem to recall Sinofky saying "windows 8 no compromise"   but from what i can see it's a giant pile of them all over the place!

unless the upcoming beta has huge changes in how it works i suspect this new windows will be another Windows Me  or possibly the "Bob" of windows OS releases....

WIndows Bob -  that's it.....   I recall when i was at a meeting at the MS Redwood City office and they had a closet full of "BOB"  boxes and they told us joking that if we wanted some software we had to also take a BOB so they could report back that they got rid of them....

It's definitely worth expanding your horizons. Good luck.

@figuerres, got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

As a non-developer, here's what I'm seeing.

I think what's happening with Windows Phone is interesting and it's not like they're abandoning WP7 and 7.1 (7.5), they're just moving in a direction so that tablets and phones don't end up being 2 completely different things with OSes that have nothing in common.
A can see that programmers are getting confused with all the new stuff that's being announced, but again, it's not like all your skills will become useless or that you won't still be able to use the tools you currently use.
As for non-touch devices. I haven't seen anything that looks amazing in Windows 8 that would make me want to install it. Win7 is without a doubt the best MS OS I've ever used and only now are large organizations starting to install it so they're not going to be using Win8 any time soon.

They'd better start showing off why someone who uses a desktop system with a mouse, keyboard and 2 monitors would want Win8.

I understand why anyone might be frustrated with MS, especially Silverlight devs like myself.  But as has already been said, MS are just reacting to the marketplace at the same time as attempting to put together a cohesive long term strategy around Windows 8. 

The move from Silverlight to WinRT is not a major one for developers and being in a position to write large chunks for code for Windows 8, Phone 8 and everything inbetween is probably going to be a good place to be.

IMO MS has become the underdog which is always a good place to come out fighting from! 

@fanbaby: If you think Mac OS applications are any more "Posix" than Win32 ones, you're seriously kidding yourself. Have you ever even looked at Cocoa?

As to Open Sourcing anything, the 90s called to let you know cross-platform anything that's not HTML is a dead idea. Did you not get the memo? Rich clients favour platform-specific designs and libraries.

The only thing I hope to see is an advertisement of windows phone on bus stop and roadside boards somewhere in downtown LA for like 3 years without stop. That's my experience with ads from direct competitors.

7 hours ago, Minh wrote

@figuerres, got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?

no this has been building for quite a while. 

I am not on a pi55'ed of rant here, this is the result of multiple blunders i have watched MS make in multiple places over several years

like the gap from the first gen win mo phones to 7.  and the mess called KIN.

the mistakes in handling silverlight and wpf and windows vista.

and many many other things like that....

and the folks who keep leaving MS

and the goofy / goonish balmer on stage

and the numbers of folks who are not buying microsoft

and on ....

3 hours ago, Ian2 wrote

I understand why anyone might be frustrated with MS, especially Silverlight devs like myself.  But as has already been said, MS are just reacting to the marketplace at the same time as attempting to put together a cohesive long term strategy around Windows 8. 

The move from Silverlight to WinRT is not a major one for developers and being in a position to write large chunks for code for Windows 8, Phone 8 and everything inbetween is probably going to be a good place to be.

IMO MS has become the underdog which is always a good place to come out fighting from! 

Ian:  this is also a part of the problem: they are "reacting"   but i can not see any sign of a long term plan ,  if you operate based on reaction to the other guys then you are doomed to lose.

*IF* they could show some folks a good plan to take back a real lead then they might be able to play the "Rocky Balboa" Underdog card and get credit for that.

but right now i see only Rocky and Bullwinkle - ok for a cartoon not so good for a business plan.

@figuerres:

what do you see when you look at apple as a company and what they have to offer? Nothing but roses and double rainbow or?

1 hour ago, AndyC wrote

@fanbaby: If you think Mac OS applications are any more "Posix" than Win32 ones, you're seriously kidding yourself. Have you ever even looked at Cocoa?

As to Open Sourcing anything, the 90s called to let you know cross-platform anything that's not HTML is a dead idea. Did you not get the memo? Rich clients favour platform-specific designs and libraries.

Mac OS X implements the POSIX specifications and is in fact a certified UNIX.