
Microsoft just sponsored Daring Fireball - mproud
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/04/20/windows-azure-mobile-services
======
latch
My experience with Microsoft is that they still fundamentally don't understand
that everything has changed around them. They believe they are right because
they are Microsoft and poor sales, poor reviews and poor stock performance is
really just an unfair world set against them. What else could it be? We are
Microsoft!

When I tried to engage Microsoft about better supporting indie game developers
on Windows Mobile phone, the sense that I got was that XBox was successful
brand and that adding Xbox-like services to Windows Phone could jeopardize
this brand. How could they offer a free achievement system for indie
developers and still justify charging $50K for similar services on Xbox?
(source: I'm the creator of mogade.com)

You really get the sense that the comical org-chart representation of MS is
accurate:
[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1OeWV6O5BzM/TmjGWNGlO7I/AAAAAAAAAA...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1OeWV6O5BzM/TmjGWNGlO7I/AAAAAAAAAAY/nuTfUZ0E-Q0/s1600/org%2Bcharts.bmp)

How does this relate? I'm not surprised to see that the Azure team is
attempting this whereas the Windows Phone team never did. It's obvious now,
looking back at it, but I should have engaged the Azure team, not the Windows
Phone team, for any truly progressive thoughts on mobile development.

~~~
jmspring
I can't speak to the company or your experience, but I recall MSFT doing a
bunch of outreach a couple of years ago for Windows Phone - free devices, etc.
Large companies often have silos with their own focus - getting one to adopt
the practices of the other may be difficult.

Maybe reengaging or conversing with one of the WP dev evangelists might make
additional progress - maybe not immediately, but establishing a relationship,
comtinual dialogue, and persistence can sometimes help turn a large ship.

~~~
hdra
One problem I had with the WP dev evangelists is that they seems stuck in the
quantity over quality kind of mentality.

I'm pretty sure today it is clear that the number of apps in the store is not
important compared to say, what apps are in the store. but till today, I still
see campaigns by the local WP dev evangelists putting out contest to promote
people submitting as many apps as possible (e.g. giving a prize for submitting
5,10,20,50 apps, etc).

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MaxGabriel
Are people using Azure Mobile Services happy with it? I watched the first
NSScreencast on it, and it just seemed to introduce so much complexity. If I
wanted to manually configure SQL tables, I'd make my own backend. Parse on the
other hand was extremely well documented and required 0 server or database
knowledge.

Edit: Personally I don't find Azure marketing all that interesting, but they
have been doing a great outreach effort. In addition to DF, they've two
sponsored NSScreencasts and the latest iOS dev weekly newsletter.

[http://nsscreencast.com/episodes/59-windows-azure-mobile-
ser...](http://nsscreencast.com/episodes/59-windows-azure-mobile-services)

[http://iosdevweekly.com/issues/90/?utm_source=iOS+Dev+Weekly...](http://iosdevweekly.com/issues/90/?utm_source=iOS+Dev+Weekly&utm_campaign=75c2d6c937-iOS_Dev_Weekly_Issue_90&utm_medium=email)

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jmspring
Surprised? If you look in the iTunes store, MSFT has a number of apps, a
number well reviewed. Much of the commentary after MSFT released numbers last
week was about the diversity of their offerings -- yes Windows and Office are
still the big fish, but diversity can be a good thing.

MS Office for Mac and an investment in Apple when it was in a tough spot show
a history for the company having a broader view than just the Windows
ecosystem (that's not saying, that isn't the _MAIN_ focus).

------
bdcravens
He's advertising their cloud development platform. If it was AWS, not much
different, as the Kindle Fire's a direct competitor to Apple.

Years ago, when the MS hatred was a bit more intense on places like Slashdot,
I amused myself with capturing screenshots of Microsoft ads on their site.
Here's a few from my old blog:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20020929185648/http://www.mr-
bill...](http://web.archive.org/web/20020929185648/http://www.mr-bill.net/)

(Today that's no big deal since ads are served based on your browsing history
if you don't block, but in 2002, I think that was less likely)

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laureny
Gruber must be having a hard time finding sponsors if he decided to accept
money from Microsoft, probably the second company he hates most (the first one
being Google, obviously).

~~~
anextio
I’m not John Gruber, but having read the blog for many years I feel I can
safely say that the guy does not hate Microsoft, nor does he hate Google.

~~~
karlshea
I would have to second this. I can see how one would get that impression if
the only exposure to him is an article or two that gets linked from somewhere
else, but if you read him regularly he posts a lot of very even handed
articles and gives credit where it's due.

~~~
laureny
A lot of his posts are completely underhanded or dripping with sarcasm.

Look at the number of negative news about Google or Android that he reported
and his only comment was "Shocker" or "Android is winning".

------
m_mueller
MS might have figured out that cloud services are a big weakness within the
iOS plattform and that they're in a prime position to get iOS users to use
their offerings.

------
brandynwhite
Looks like someone took today a bit too seriously

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jeffehobbs
Great to see the triumphant return of "Jackass of the Week."

------
hrktb
Microsoft have been a player in the mac ecosystem for long, and most of
people's complaint was that they didn't do enough (no new versions of IE,
Office suite lagging after a while, the windows phone app coming later, etc)

The Core Intuition podcast also got sponsored by azure, and one of the host
was joking "it's as if they thought it out to be used by developpers". If
anything, microsoft will be more than welcomed I think if they put efforts to
have OSX/iOS devices as first class citizens in their platforms.

------
mchiang
At the very least, he was upfront about it.

~~~
Anechoic
DF regularly makes an end-of-week post thanking the RSS feed sponsors, it's
part of the sponsership package: <http://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/>

see: <http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/30/>

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/22/>

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/09/> etc

~~~
baby
8500$/week. Just with his blog. It's just crazy. I don't think there is
another blog out there that earns even half of what Gruber is here. I just
can't understand that.

~~~
EGreg
Wait, how is he able to make $8500 a week from the blog? And how do you know
that?

Wait, he has paid membership too? Membership in what? His blog?

~~~
citricsquid
He has a huge following, he is considered one of the more important voices by
a large number of people and he's been around for a relatively long time:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daring_Fireball>. People trust him, which gives
him commercial value.

~~~
EGreg
But the site hardly has any articles published, just mostly links, and what is
the membership for?

~~~
tricolon
Here are the articles: <http://daringfireball.net/archive/>

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ryanolsonx
We're going to slowly start seeing his posts lean more and more heavily
towards Windows and Windows Phone, while they silently slip him money ;D hahah

------
Xyzodiac
Slow news day?

