Shutting down a free service that you didn't have to buy into, fine whatever. It still sucks but at least you didn't invest in a platform.
But if you are going to make a physical device you cannot treat it like you treat everything else.
Everybody remembers the old saying, "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".
Well, there should be a reciprocal saying: "Anybody who ever buys google should be fired".
If the lesson here is "caveat emptor", then the real lesson is this: don't buy google.
IBM never cut us off, was happy to certify stuff to work with them and so on.
There seemed to be a general understanding of "people are running their business off of this stuff so we need to make it work".
Google? Naw they'll just quit development and hit the light switch who knows when. Hard stop.
I think this is the part that Microsoft gets, at a deep level, and Google doesn't (or, more likely, doesn't care)
This is the downside of relying on someone else’s cloud software: ultimately if it’s not your code and not your computer, its fate is out of your hands. I think its healthy that our industry is finally coming to understand that.
Google has SLAs and service contracts that they are contractually bound to. They technically can turn off their services any day, but they won't, for the same reason that they won't liquidate all their assets into cash and drop it out of a helicopter - because it'd be extremely financially stupid.
This comment makes no sense because it's discussing something that is extremely unlikely to happen - far, far less likely than a service failure caused by self-hosting.
I'll grant, Google has SLAs on some of their products (like Firebase). But trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback. Wave, Inbox, Reader, etc. I still remember - with horror - that time google suddenly announced they were massively increasing GCP (Google Apps?) pricing without warning anyone beforehand.
Is there a prediction market for the life expectancy of google products? Some things will probably be around more or less indefinitely: Docs, Gmail, etc. But the base rate for "this google product, service or API will still be available in 1 year" is probably somewhere between 1% and 10%. I'd consider any "all in" strategy on a lot of google's tech to be a serious business risk for that reason. Especially if losing that bet means you need to rearchitect your entire application.
Say what you will about Apple, they play the long game.
And it isn't like this is the first hardware that Google has abandoned, but they turn it into ewaste since it's tied to the cloud.
Google sucks, but I think you’re blowing this out of proportion.
And it's time wasted; the SWE working on the Jamboard may prefer to work on higher impact projects;
The PO as well.
For example, an hypothetical PO @ Google may have this possibility to launch a new product instead (e.g. deprecating the Pixel 7);
- New launch = promotion.
- Promotion = better salary.
- Better salary = happy wife.
- Happy wife = happy life.
Indeed, shutdowning Jamboard was the right solution from his perspective.
It's all about alignement of incentives.
They won’t though, unfortunately.
So open sourcing just jamboard specific code and nothing else even if possible wouldn’t build or be really useful.
> So open sourcing just jamboard specific code and nothing else even if possible wouldn’t build or be really useful.
Oh, it definitely wouldn't build. But you'd be surprised how resourceful opensource developers can be when they have a clear scope & clear spec to work towards. This sort of work is akin to making the world's simplest emulator for a video game console - except you only need to get "one game" to run, and you have its source code and you can change the code as much as you like. Its fun, satisfying work.
Obviously you're rolling the dice on whether or not anyone from the community would step up and do that work on your behalf. But the alternative is killing your product entirely. The opensourced wave died because we didn't grow an opensource community who understood & wanted to maintain the codebase. Looking back, we might have done a better job of that if we didn't do all the work ourselves to make it usable first.
Mind you, I have no idea how the community at large would react to google releasing broken source code. They might complain even more than the service just going dark. But I can still dream.
Honestly, what is really stopping it from being supported? Can they unlock it so a secondary market can load OSS onto it and keep it going for the next 10-15 years?
https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA34763/which-skype-enabled...
First this is just yet another bad mark against Google that should be used to discourage buying into any hardware platform from Google of this nature. The single exception I would give is the Pixel line since even if they discontinue Pixel, Android is still there.
But they are treating hardware like they do their other software. Because this hardware is tightly tied to the cloud instead of shutting it down, they should be putting it in maintenance mode. No new features and you can't buy hardware anymore. But continue to keep it up for a longer period of time for those that spent money with you.
Great this product lasted more than 2 years, we have a record! That doesn't mean that they are not handling the shutdown of this product in a responsible manner.
Google is continuing their track record of how they are handling their pet projects and it is a bad decision to buy into any of them. Particularly if there is hardware involved
If we want this type of technology to actually be useful, it should have a lifetime somewhere near the thing it replaces. Otherwise schools and universities will get burned once and go back to whiteboards. 8 years isn't really acceptable.
You're underlying thesis is correct though, you're not legally required to care about other people when you design or sell products.
We're going down a bad road with obsolescence from "yeah, we only expect your water softener to last 8 years" to "your phone will stop receiving updates after 8 years" to "your device WILL CEASE TO FUNCTION after 8 years". Each step takes away a bit of agency for an individual to decide what obsolete means to them.
I, like many, had an Automatic Labs car adapter that simply stopped working when the company decided to no longer support them, and it still makes me mad every time I think about it.
I understand that a company can't be forced to operate a cloud service forever, I would love to see some requirements that if you're going to shut down a service that will make your hardware stop working that you must also provide software to your users to let them run their own servers or unlock their devices.
More than thirty years ago I inherited my mothers LED display alarm clock, I think it was at least ten years old then. It is still running in my bedroom.
It might well be obsolete but it is in perfect working order, it performs according to its specification, and satisfies my desire for a clock that is always visible.
This company needs better management. It seems like its being run entirely by MBAs with zero vision or guts.
Edit: nvm, my CISO just confirmed me that this apparently “only” affects first generation users. We have the newer Board 65 types that will continue to be supported for the things we use it.
Nobody wanted to use them, and they went completely unused to my knowledge.
During his visit, our CEO made sure to take time with each team to solicit feedback from us. It was something we were looking forward to -- it was a chance to have a face to face open dialogue with him where we could make asks and air our grievances. While we all got the chance to say our piece, our CEO couldn't help but be super excited about Jamboards. He filled the my team's discussion with notes about them and made lots of excited suggestions, which cut into our time with him significantly. He ultimately spoke with every single team at the office about these things and kept asking us to let him know when, not if, we wanted more of them. He never thought to ask if we liked or wanted them.
I understand our CEO's desire to remove friction between Atlanta and SF and New York and all the other offices, but this was such a peculiar choice that none of us (even leadership) were a party to.
The Jamboards ultimately went completely unused and took up entirely too much space in the office corners. They wasted electricity, too.
Google Reader. Never forget.
In fact, just about most 'owned' software that does not depend on the cloud can be run for ever. Especially software that was sold as a perpetual license.
The point is, 'the cloud' for services + software tied to physical hardware is proving over and over to be a dead end, and effectively a mechanism to create ewaste.
Google could publish a docker image of the server software, and update the Jamboard firmware to provide a facility to connect to it. (DNS-SD, DHCP Options, Manual entry, whatever). And then Google has zero ongoing costs, and people who have bought into this ecosystem now have hardware they can continue to use, and we make far less e-waste.
That's because somebody else put in the effort to emulate the pieces requires for DOS. The vendor you bought DOS from is not building your VM software so that you can continue to use DOS.
The stack from boot-to-emulator can be 100% owned + managed by an organization or individual (and in fact, can be 100% OSS, except for whatever binary blobs are needed). Doesn't have to be crafted from bespoke bytes + bits to count. The important piece is that once this is running, there no one else that can prevent it from operating, except the organization or individual managing it (and perhaps dubious legal powers). Replacement hardware can be obtained. Backups can be made. Redundant power can be managed. The software can be re-installed. And if the unaffiliated OSS developers no longer want to maintain the software, the organization or individual can independently decide, if it is worth it to update the OSS themselves if no hardware or environment can run that.
We don't have to get rid of old working hardware. We should prioritize not being wasteful. And we should prioritize empowering hardware owners to decide for themselves how to maintain & manage their hardware, even if they want to go it alone.
What we need is longer minimum warranties for electronics, with support and security fixes for 10+ years.
Microsoft Office still exists, and can still open Word / Excel / etc files from 25+ years ago.
Adobe Photoshop still exists, and can open PSD files created 25+ years ago.
Microsoft Xbox One X still exists, and is backwards compatible with titles from the OG Xbox release, as far back as 22 years ago - https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/backward-compatibility?cat=...
Microsoft Zune (launched 2006) is still supporting and fixing compatibility issues, all the way up through Windows 11 now 17 years post-launch - https://www.pcgamer.com/microsoft-just-fixed-a-zune-compatib...
Warframe (Canadian MMO-lite third-person action video game) still supports every purchased piece of digital content ever sold, on all platforms, from the very first purchase, over the past 10 years. (I believe the same is true for Final Fantasy 14 which launched in the same year, but I'm less familiar with that one)
Vanilla accounts from World of Warcraft (now 19ish years old) still work and function today.
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I don't think anyone expects things to last forever. I think they're just expecting things to last longer than "a few years", and there's no technical reason why we couldn't ensure that.
Zune is dead as well as the store and your other comparisons are disingenuous at best.
Furthermore, you will still be able to use the Jamboard as a whiteboard and connect it to your computer. It will not stop working. These comparisons are just terrible.
The migration between Mojang and Microsoft took several years to complete.
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> Since 2021, millions of Java Edition players have switched over from their old accounts to Microsoft accounts.
> https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/sections/12617909134221
> I don't have access to the email on my Mojang account
> If you do not have access to the email that is used to log in to your Mojang account, you will not be able to complete the migration. You will need to change the email on your account first. For instructions on how to do this, see: https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/360035056531-Ch...
> If you cannot change your Mojang account email, have your transaction ID or gift code available and contact Minecraft support.
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2 years is plenty of time to migrate.
If someone waited until the very last moment to migrate, then that is not a Microsoft issue, but a diligence issue with the user.
Be more diligent with life, and these types of issues just don't occur with any frequency.
Here's a line from my favorite over-the-window plaque: "A lack of preparation on your part does not equal an emergency for me."
Also, this isn't my job to begin with. Suppose I simply didn't play the game for 2 years; I'd deserve to lose my account? If MS wants to migrate people to a new account system, it's definitely their job to do that automatically (or at least not lock existing users out), like with every other online service.
> Be more diligent with life
Please don't talk down to me. Microsoft created the "emergency" here, not that I take a Minecraft account anywhere near this seriously.
Lack of diligence tends to be the case with most of the whining posts.
> Suppose I simply didn't play the game for 2 years; I'd deserve to lose my account?
Yup. It's in the ToS. Most companies reserve the right to shut down services with no notice. At least MS provided you with 2 years of notice. MS also provided multiple solutions for persons without access to their old email, account information, or receipt.
And yes, every service's ToS says they can legally terminate at any time, just as Google kills all their chat apps periodically; doesn't mean it reflects well on their reputation. Microsoft broke this game for a lot of paid customers, particularly the early adopters.
Most cloud-supported hardware is pretty fragile, but services in general can last much longer. Google's excessive churn with chat/social services is probably what earned their bad reputation. They also screwed up Nest. 8 years is a lot for them.