
2015: The year that Microsoft started getting the benefit of the doubt - ingve
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/2015-the-year-that-microsoft-started-getting-the-benefit-of-the-doubt/
======
deanclatworthy
They've done some brilliant things for developers this year, but sadly shipped
a giant spyware operating system at the same time. From what I've read people
are still trying to determine everything it's calling home.

~~~
ifdefdebug
It's easy to run Windows 10 without any calling home at all. Just don't use a
Microsoft account. Just chose custom configurations during setup.

Doesn't a default Android phone also do a lot of calling home? And Apple
phones? Why is it so special when it's Windows?

~~~
frik
> It's easy to run Windows 10 without any calling home at all.

Not true at all! It's impossible, without a hardware firewall. Their kernel
network driver whitelists several microsoft domains and IP address ranges.
What's worse Microsoft back-ported that phone-home crap and ships them as
updates to Windows 7 and 8.x (of course the coincidentally stopped writting
descriptions for their Windows updates). Not even mentioning how they force
end users to upgrade to Windows 10 by displaying Windows 10 ads as popup
dialogs and renaming Windows update buttons to click on the Upgrade button by
accident, etc. It will hurt Microsoft's reputation a lot.

With Android and iOS an end user with a little bit of knowledge (power user)
can deactivate the analytics, cloud sync and error reporting "features" by
changing a handful of settings. Windows 10 resets the privacy settings every
major update (Threshold 2), they go even as far as change the name of exe
files and registry keys. It's not too late to fix Win10 and MS reputation
though, do something in 2016.

~~~
raesene9
Why do you think ordinary users should try to disable all the cloud based
features of their OS? Surely a lot of the features they want (e.g. Google Now,
Siri, Cortana) are based on the OS provider knowing about the users and having
information about them.

If your threat model is that the OS provider is hostile, no amount of changing
of settings will protect you from their actions...

~~~
sroerick
"Our research shows that users WANT these features that require us to
constantly monitor microphones for certain phrases."

Maybe the OS provider should stop being hostile.

~~~
raesene9
I don't think they're being hostile, I think they're providing features they
think people want.

Personally I hate this kind of feature and try to actively avoid products
which have it, however I feel I am in a minority of general consumers in that
feeling.

------
1123581321
I agree with all the examples mentioned in this article, but I think the
beginning of 2014 was the year public opinion started to change. Nadella came
out of the gate strong in early 2014. Just before that, Mike Krahulik's post
about the Surface Pro 2 at the end of 2013 was a turning point for the
perception of the product by people who prefer iOS/Android/Linux.
([http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2013/10/28/surface-
pro...](http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2013/10/28/surface-pro-2))

~~~
martythemaniak
Public opinion changes when mainstream entities (people/organizations)
validate something new. Microsoft has been coming out with good stuff for
several years now, but that opinion has been restricted to a subset of
technophiles. If in 2014 you told someone about tablets and styluses, you'd
either get a dumb look or the standard Jobs like ("you're doing in wrong")

So what happened in 2015? Well, Apple validated (copied) Microsoft's work.
Today you can tell someone about a tablet stylus or keyboard cover and they'll
enthusiastically agree it's good, because did you hear? The iPad has it.

~~~
gotchange
What you're basically describing in your comment is the concept of "cultural
hegemony" [0] popularized by Gramsci in Marxist philosophy but superimposed on
tech context.

Apple clearly acting as the bourgeoisie of the today's tech world where
Microsoft is relegated to the proletarian rank and file and because of that
Apple somewhat gets to dictate what are the accepted social and cultural norms
in the tech world and we the proletariat have to just comply with their edicts
or face some form of "tech ostracism".

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony)

~~~
martythemaniak
It makes sense that this was noticed long ago, although personally I cribbed
it from Krugman's "VSPs".

It's easy to noticed in everyday life though. Most people don't have the
time/energy/incentive/desire/background knowledge/etc to form independent
opinions, so they pick up the opinions of people who speak to their identity.
If you see yourself (and want to be seen as) a "creative type with good
taste", you'll just read DaringFireball and repeat whatever Gruber says. If
you want to be "principled, anti-establishment", you'll crib Stallman, etc,
etc.

------
tsunamifury
Benefit of the doubt is nice, but delivery has been poor to nonexistent.

Microsoft is barely taking back its own declining market of non-phones --
while making a wild bet on augmented reality.

I feel like the media wants to paint a comeback story a la Apple a lot more
than one actually exists.

~~~
valarauca1
>I feel like the media wants to paint a comeback story a la Apple a lot more
than one actually exists.

In terms of an Apple come back story that's blatantly false. Microsoft was
never in dire financial straights since practically the mid-80's.

The _Benefit of the Doubt_ is more because of their attitude to the OSS
community. For nearly its entire life Micro$oft has been seen as the prime
enemy of the OSS community, a role which it willingly and almost happily
embraced.

Today Microsoft has open sources it main .NET runtime. Opening up C#/F# 2
great languages. Its opening the JS Engine in Edge. Compared to Gates/Balmer
area Microsoft it very much feels like a different company.

~~~
meagain20000
I would not happily return to them. In fact, I see no reason why. To me, they
are still in their same embrace, extend, extinguish mode only that now their
cycle is a lot longer. It could even be that nadella really thinks that he
will always be in the embrace and extend phase. My gut feeling is that as soon
as it becomes hugely beneficial to them somebody within the company will
advocate for the extinguish phase. Don't trust Microsoft. It is in their DNA
to screw you.

~~~
sz4kerto
"Don't trust Microsoft. It is in their DNA to screw you."

Companies don't have a DNA. Humans do. Companies change as employees come and
go, as the environment changes, etc. Don't antropomorphize them.

Companies act in their financial interest. Very rarely not, but mostly yes. I
don't know why is it so hard to accept that.

~~~
sangnoir
> Companies don't have a DNA

What then is this "company culture" I hear about all time on HN? Also, what
percentage of employees have changed at Microsoft since the "old" Microsoft -
60, 75, 90%?

If companies don't have DNA/culture/behavioral momentum and can change at the
drop of a pin, it implies all the work that has been done can be undone by
Nadella's successor in short order.

------
frik
Microsoft actions were ambivalent in 2015.

On the one side the open sourced quite a few code bases, though very strategic
ones but non of the high profile old cash cows. Azure is doing well.

On the other site, XBoxOne and WinPhone10 had a lack luster sales far behind
their competitors (half of PS4 sales; less than 3% of mobile market). Win10's
inbuilt privacy issues aren't funny - a showstopper and it will hurts their
reputation. Fix that in 2016! [http://www.ibtimes.com/ps4-vs-xbox-one-sony-
has-sold-302-mil...](http://www.ibtimes.com/ps4-vs-xbox-one-sony-has-
sold-302-million-playstation-4-consoles-nearly-double-2199807) and
[http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-
share.jsp](http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp)

------
ChuckMcM
I would agree that they've made some great moves to stay relevant. I was one
of those sold on the promise of the Surface Book hardware, my daughter opted
for a Surface Pro 4. Mostly around the drawing experience but also the
continued ability to carry around your own media rather than having to be
tethered to the Internet for everything. It would be an interesting exercise
if Microsoft opened up everything you needed to know to put Linux on the
hardware. Not sure they are comfortable doing that yet.

Operating systems and "phoning home" and the whole privacy thing is an
interesting battlefield. I could never imagine Microsoft standing up to the
Department of Justice like Tim Cook has. I also can't imagine Apple making iOS
available on anyone's hardware but their own. So that leaves making the
hardware available for someone else's OS.

I suspect there is a small market for a phone tether solution which suppresses
all of the privacy leaking information from the network stream. Perhaps the
Silent Circle folks will consider that a feature in a future release. But for
now its really hard to plug that leak. So many apps on iOS, Windows, or
Android leak stuff left and right. Whether its maps, or Waze, or location
based games, or the Uber client to tell Uber where you are to get picked up.
No to mention IMSI catchers and just general phone company douchebaggery like
injecting an ID on every http request. I don't think that battle is lost, only
that the depth of it is immense and any one player is probably not going to
swing it one way or another.

From a company perspective though I think Microsoft has made some very
positive steps and I hope the market rewards them for that.

------
oldnan
Microsoft's 2015 reminds me of Sun's 2004 - open sourcing software in a
desperate attempt to remain relevant as Linux grows. In truth Microsoft hasn't
open sourced Office, Windows, SQL Server etc. which they make money from, but
only bits which they think might save them from irrelevance amongst developers
in the era of Linux and the cloud. As much as MS made a song and dance about
open source the vast majority of MS profits are still from proprietary
software.

~~~
ifdefdebug
I don't think their open sourcing is some kind of desperate attempt. They open
sourced .NET understanding that developer tools and languages have to be open
source nowadays, if they want adoption.

~~~
frik
Without developers Microsoft tools and platform will shrink a lot and fast. It
was basically their only chance to open source the new dotNet core. And try
everything incl. their TypeScript tactics on JavaScript to get developers back
into their development tool eco system - and to lock-in them into their tool-
sets and platforms.

Most devs beside enterprise IT departments use open source languages for web
deveopment. NodeJS/Java/PHP/Ruby/Python/Go are very popular and only a tiny
fraction (11%) runs on Windows servers with dotNet or Mono.
[http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2015/11/16/november-2015-w...](http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2015/11/16/november-2015-web-
server-survey.html)

~~~
UK-AL
Hows that compiled though? Most iis installisations don't send idenditifying
information.

I know if you nmap our website which uses iis it returns as something else
because of our load balancer.

------
georgeecollins
One thing that struck me about this article is that they said that if the
Surface Book had been introduced by Samsung no one would have paid attention.
Intuitively this seems correct, but I wonder what exactly Samsung has done to
be thought of so little. I used to have the first Galaxy Note. In the era of
the iPhone 4s, it was a cool phone.

Samsung has the ability to create amazing hardware. What could Samsung do to
make itself interesting to a technically sophisticated audience?

~~~
CaptSpify
IMO: stop trying to break into the software world. I tend to like Samsung's
hardware, but all the software they put on things really turns me off.

------
ruraltechnocrat
The problem with Microsoft hasn't been that they've never been able to inspire
excitement with a product (remember currier:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Courier),
or Kinect) but rather their execution on those products.

Only half of Apple's genius is their design, the other half is their
incredible execution machine, in large part thanks to the work that Tim Cook
did. Microsoft used to have an incredible execution machine, with mediocre
design. Now they are struggling with both.

Microsoft has gotten a lot better in design, particularly in the hardware
space, but the questions is:

Does Microsoft have the needed DNA to align their incredible resources/brain
power around a small set of products that will really make a difference for
them?

Despite hololens and the surface products, this remains very unproven for me.

~~~
stupidcar
While I don't think Steve Jobs necessarily deserves the near-deification he's
received posthumously, I do think that Apple benefited from having someone who
was able and willing to push through particular design decisions no matter how
difficult they were to achieve or whether they stepped on senior people's
toes. I get the impression that, within Microsoft, the best interests of new
and innovative products always came a distant third behind the vagaries of
internal politics, and the desire of the Windows and Office teams to protect
their turf.

I also think the success of their desktop monopoly in the 1990s and early
2000s caused Microsoft make the classic mistake of forgetting what business
they were really in. They stopped thinking they were in the technology
business, and started thinking they were in the PC business. Other devices and
products like smartphones and tablets were OK, but only so long as they
respected the PC's place as the centre of the computing universe. The idea
that a new type of device and OS might eventually supplant the PC and Windows
as the dominant consumer computing platform was heresy.

------
TrevorJ
Or, when it comes to privacy the year MS _stopped_ getting the benefit of the
doubt.

------
puranjay
Well that's nice and all, but all these years later, I still don't know how to
buy a Surface in India. Buying Windows is still a royal mess (the local
eCommerce stores have wildly different pricing for different variants, which
is again different from the local MS store, which is different from the US
store).

MS might be making cool products, but it sure as hell isn't keen on making
them easy to buy.

~~~
tcube
Maybe because it will only be launched in January 2016 in India.

[http://www.windowscentral.com/surface-pro-4-slated-launch-
in...](http://www.windowscentral.com/surface-pro-4-slated-launch-india-first-
week-january-67999)

~~~
puranjay
Which is exactly my point. What's the point of making consumers wait that
long?

------
wturner
2016: The year one switches to Ubuntu due to the slow, chunky over engineered
mess and automatic updates of Windows that screw up workflows and interrupt
video conference meetings where money is on the line.

------
forgotAgain
Seems to me they got the benefit of the hype not the doubt.

I personally don't know anyone who has committed their future to the Windows
Universal App platform. If developers aren't all in on a platform then that
platform will never see the applications that propel it to a leadership
position.

------
mtgx
2015: the year Microsoft built Windows completely around law enforcement's
wishlist.

[https://theintercept.com/2015/12/28/recently-bought-a-
window...](https://theintercept.com/2015/12/28/recently-bought-a-windows-
computer-microsoft-probably-has-your-encryption-key/)

You can use the most encrypted and anonymous apps you want, but if Microsoft
can silently send you updates to your OS, can see what you're typing and send
it to its servers (to "improve your experience", of course), and gives the US
government access to its discovered zero-days months before it starts fixing
them, then it's all kind of pointless.

------
rileymat1
My recollection might be failing me. But I do not remember the level of
excitement described in the article for the Original iPhone. I remember it for
the next iPhone (3G/2), but not the initial.

------
amenod
Remember the tablets, how they were supposed to be "the next big thing"?
Remember who was pushing them? That's right - it was Bill Gates. Long before
Steve Jobs. Except their product sucked big time because it was built on
Windows XP and you had to use a pen with it. And was slow. And expensive. And
marketed the wrong way.

The same will happen here. The technology and society are simply not ready yet
- someone will lead us there, but it won't be Microsoft. They never were
inovators, they were always just businessmen. And no, you can't change the
company any more than you can change a person. Has IBM changed? (well, I hear
the ties are optional now ;) Apple? Sony? Google? Facebook? Yahoo? The shades
change, but the color remains the same.

(full disclosure: yes, I am biased - I had to live under torture that is known
as Internet Explorer for too many years... may it rest in peace, along with
all its reincarnations)

</rant>

------
reality_czech
I hope Ars Technica got paid well for this P.R. piece.

I don't see why anyone would give Microsoft the "benefit of the doubt" since
they are probably the most consumer-hostile of the big tech companies (even
Google is merely indifferent, not actually hostile.) The Win10 spyware, the
always-on Xbone camera, the (later reversed) decision to ban used games on
XBone, the list goes on...

On the other hand, I trust that HoloLens will be around for a while since it
is a vanity project for them and they have literally billions of dollars to
burn on it. Similar to Google Glass and Facebook's virtual reality thing that
they acquired.

------
amelius
They already had a lot of cred with me because of their research, which is
publicly available at research.microsoft.com. Contrast this with, say, Apple,
which created some open source projects, but not much more.

~~~
sangnoir
Apple is more of a _forker /adopter_ of open source projects rather than a
creator. It's not better or worse: just an observation on a number of their
open source projects.

------
anonbanker
Meanwhile, I've had more "holy crap get me away from Microsoft!" linux
installs this year than any other before.

Calculate Linux KDE and Linux Mint Debian Edition are the installs of choice,
btw. :)

------
nice_byte
> introduced a new approach to delivering and updating the operating system

It's not a new idea at all. Rolling release linux distros have been doing that
for a long time.

------
jv0010
It's an unsettling feeling with Microsoft ever since the rise of mobile
devices and cloud based systems. Nonetheless the company deserves a lot of
respect for setting the foundation of a lot of under the hood tech it has
paved the way with.

Microsoft can't monetise in multiple ways from singular products the way other
companies can nowdays. I think most general users use mocrosofts core products
as a platform to connect with other companies to monetise. The push with win10
to connect with the Microsoft store was a good move IMO.

