Comment by 300bps | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 300bps | Hacker News Reader

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WinXP is still the dominant Enterprise Operating system (crazy I know).

Source? Everything I see states that Windows 7 is the dominant Windows operating system in the Enterprise.

HTC had some of the most badass, feature-packed phones ever, and the Operating system killed them. It's just a pile of bloat, the same way WinPhone7 and WinPhone8 appear to be.

This is just silly. You bring up Windows Mobile 4.0, then 6.0. Then you lump Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 in with them. Tell me - which WP8 phone have you owned? Because you're replying to a thread I started in which I said everything before WP8 stunk. So if you haven't used WP8, there isn't much point to your comment.

I won't even dignify the surface with commentary. It was an unmitigated disaster that everyone saw coming.

Surface Pro is doing well. Surface RT is what is not doing well - as you said, it's a solution looking for a problem.

There's a lot of empty instances in Azure land.

Where do you get these stats?

and it's not lost on me that he came from $MSFT

And it's not lost on me that you use a 90s-era style anti-Microsoft inclusion of a $ when mentioning them. Do you at least realize how biased you are or do you lack introspection?

You think Windows is great. I don't.

You think you can tell me my comment is worthless despite the many years I've spent deeply entrenched in Microsoft culture. The past has relevance.

Well is relative with respect to the Surface Pro, but I won't waste my keystrokes attacking its sales figures.

As I mentioned in another comment I've got a lot of folks who run big stuff on Azure and I can tell you that almost all of their instance time is comped. Take that for what it's worth, I don't run in Azure and don't plan to run in Azure, but I can appreciate your comments here.

The $MSFT comes from StockTweets. I'm not biased, I am a student of the industry. If you ask me to critique Apple, I'd have a number of things to say. Microsoft isn't all negative, they still make a ton of money, but calling the Kettle black isn't a crime. WP8 is not a dominant operating system. Azure is not a dominant cloud infrastructure. Surface is not a dominant tablet.

We can debate semantics, but we can both agree that Microsoft has a lot of work to do. I believe it's in the product, and, if I understand you correctly, you believe it's in the branding/marketing. Chances are we're both partially correct.

Does that make sense?

> WP8 is not a dominant operating system. Azure is not a dominant cloud infrastructure. Surface is not a dominant tablet.

The closest claim that was made to any of these was that WP8, Azure, and Surface Pro are "viable offerings" in their markets. Not that they're dominant. You even give an example of "folks who run big stuff on Azure" -- how is that not proof that Azure at least provides competition in the cloud services market?

It's a monopoly game with a power-law distribution. If you're not playing for first place, eventually Amazon's Zero margin business will subsume all of the smaller players.

I articulated this point in a blog post for our site[0] in which I describe a phenomenon I call Bezos' Law. Essentially, the cost of cloud computing in general (currently driven by AWS) is cut in half roughly every 18 months. This is like Moore's law, except it's driven by market conditions instead of technical innovation. The endgame of Bezos' Law is 0, but everyone else will get out well before then (once it ceases being a profitable business). Since AWS will be the largest player in cloud infrastructure, it will eventually shift from being a profit center for other organizations and will become a cost center. After that it becomes a matter of time.

IMHO, this is also the plan for Amazon's Commerce business long-term and is why the market provides them with such a ridiculous P/E ratio.

So does Azure provide competition? Maybe. I think most of the people on Azure are on there because Microsoft is comping the time (pure conjecture based on the kinds of numbers they put forward). The endgame, from my perspective, is that everyone gets choked out by Amazon with time unless someone upends them, and that's why I think the position of "providing competition" isn't going to materially move the needle for a company like Microsoft. Not now and not long term. They've called Azure a billion dollar business, but only when counting comped hours.

Lots of conjecture, I definitely put myself out there for some flaming, but that's how you learn whether your positions can stand on their own merits. Let me know what your thoughts are :).

To be clear, in spite of everything I've said today, I am long-term bullish on Microsoft. I just think Ballmer isn't making smart decisions right now.

[0]http://blog.2600hz.com/post/55614383443/bezos-law

> You even give an example of "folks who run big stuff on Azure" -- how is that not proof that Azure at least provides competition in the cloud services market?

Well, it offers competition in a niche; it's largely price-competitive with AWS for Windows instances, but not for other OSes.

He said Windows 7 was the dominant Enterprise Windows operating system, not 8. And this is correct, 7 is the domant enterprise windows deployment, XP having been recently retired in most Fortune 500 companies. Ask around any IT dept and you'll learn this first hand.

> As I mentioned in another comment I've got a lot of folks who run big stuff on Azure and I can tell you that almost all of their instance time is comped.

That has been my impression, yep. I know a few people using it, but I don't think any of them are actually paying for it.

Source? Everything I see states that Windows 7 is the dominant Windows operating system in the Enterprise.

Try looking at reports not authored by the Microsoft marketing department.

Surface Pro is doing well.

Seriously. Whatever they're paying you, is it worth your dignity?

My corporate laptop was WinXP, scheduled for upgrade to Win7 in 2015, until I made a stink and got Win7. WinXP is dominant where I work, anecdote of one plus the corp.

> Everything I see states that Windows 7 is the dominant Windows operating system in the Enterprise.

That seems improbable. Windows 7 only passed Windows XP in global usage under a year ago, and while reliable figures are hard to come by, most polls show in the region of 60% XP usage for the enterprise sector.

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