Microsoft lays off team focused on winning back consumers | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft lays off team focused on winning back consumers

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34 pointsobert13 comments

How are you going to woo “prosumers” with ads in the start menu? Id pay extra not to see ads, which means I’m happy to pay a premium to use an Apple computer. Seems like the team was doomed from the start.

"Hey, here is a quick hover over widget layout showing you your agenda, tasks and your daily flood/wildfire warning. Sounds good, you say? Oh, they'll forcibly open in Edge and here's 294986 stupid "news" articles you don't want and can't turn off. Aren't we great?"

I would have paid extra not to be forced to sign in with a Microsoft account at standard OOBE and Windows 11 Pro is going to eliminate that option later this year.

I think they realized that they are not willing to give up on that sweet quick advertisement cash. Microsoft is on the path to self-destruction due to their greed.

I really can't imagine businesses giving up on Microsoft anytime soon. MS could triple their OS prices for businesses and not lose any customers.

It's happening in various places, just slowly. Offices are moving to macs. Others to dumb terminals connecting to a single server. Enterprise software is moving to hosted offerings accessible via browser. MS is not going away for decades, but they definitely pissed people off and now there are alternatives.

A Theorie i picked up from a YouTuber called Moon is that Microsoft likely soon will hit the market with a working, actually useable, 'metaverse' trough Teams. Which is something a lot of money is waiting for if plaid right.

Facebook is doomed at this point and no other major 'metaverse' project is in sight.

Maybe this actually is their next big thing?

Teams doesn't have functional copy pasting. No company has a worse track record on engaging user experiences.

Sure they might be able to make a thing that is technically "metaverse" whatever that even means, but I sincerely doubt they will get anyone besides their enterprise client base actually using it.

They seem to be able to milk never ending money out of low standard enterprise consumers though so who knows, maybe it will flop by and still make them a ton of money

> Which is something a lot of money is waiting for if plaid right.

I keep seeing this asserted as fact, and yet I've never seen any evidence anyone actually wants this garbage.

Right, they could get lots of money by getting teams to work, then work better than slack, maybe then think of metaanything. There's already a large number of people who will not even try teams due to reputation from others. Thinking MS can innovate from there is silly.

Could you post a link to the video? Is there a good summary of what this "metaverse" is and why it's worth a lot of money?

Highly doubtful. Teams is the biggest pile of crap. My company switched to zoom after we complained endlessly.

I only use windows for gaming these days, if I could get off that too

I'd be so happy. Im beginning to hate Microsoft for shitty software, and the weird Microsoft politics they bring everywhere like Extend embrace extinguish

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