cooldeal

Comparison fail.

What Google's been saying from 3 years while dragging it's feet is that Windows Phone does not have enough users to make an app for, but now their claim is that so many people are using the Microsoft Youtube App for Windows Phone that it's hurting the content creators. Huh? Why can't they monetize them by making an app and show twice as many ads in it just to spite WP users? No, they won't. They want to disadvantage Windows Phone compared to Android. Vimeo has had a Windows Phone app from a long time, and Google' can't afford to make one? And you believe them?

Why don't they come out with the real reason then, like Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Skype, do about closing down things and eat up the bad press? Why beat around the bush and play delay tactics and hide behind facts? Oh, they want to protect their clean image of being "open" and "do no evil". This is a ploy by Microsoft to force Google to tell the public exactly why they refuse to make a Youtube app and even ban Microsoft from doing so.

How can Windows Phone have so few users that use YouTube that it's not worth monetizing and have so many users that use Microsoft's new app that it's hurting Google and content creator revenue? Why not agree to allow MS to show Google ads and make money since they don't have to spend the money to create the app but can take the profits?

Ugh, and someone else states that XMPP will be disabled for users who chose to upgrade to hangouts.

Why this utter confusion over a simple thing after a whole three hour keynote yesterday and today no one seems to have a clue? Communication fail, if you ask me.

Color me skeptical, but there was similar confusion when SMS search stopped working suddenly,and then people realized Google killed it. XMPP support may stay, but I am not going to bet more than 2 bucks on it.

The company with half the top Phds and best engineers in the world and billions in profit every quarter is unable to create an open extension to XMPP to accomplish those and fallback gracefully if it's not supported? You really believe that?

You could assemble a team of 30 random HN posters and they would be able to do that.

So, I think they could do it, if and only if they wanted to. But they didn't and they themselves said it was because they didn't want to be open.

>I, for one, in all my working years have never met a Linux company that was interested in switching to .NET, but I met many that wanted it the other way around if they could only justify the upfront investment to convert the proprietary application stack.

Which regions did you work at?

I believe the conversation would gone like this:

Microsoft Legal: No way! We may get sued and lose!

Microsoft Strategy: Okay, I see, how much will we lose?

Microsoft Legal: Maybe 2 Billion in damages, maybe 5 Billion with a big B in the worst case.

Microsoft Strategy: Okay, Finance Department how much cash do we have?

Microsoft Finance: 75B billion cash in our bank account.

Microsoft Strategy to Dev Division: Okay, make the YouTube app, oh and by the way stick a download button in there too.

You don't need to buy them: http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/default.aspx

Prime example: Stackoverflow/StackExchange is built on the Microsoft stack.

From Google's About page: "Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Last time when Google was intentionally blocking Google maps and then deprecated ActiveSync on Windows Phone someone posted this funny line(which seems quite true given how much of the world's crowdsourced video content is on YouTube):

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, except on Windows Phone".

Also, HN's post about Microsoft's reply is getting heavily flaggged as well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5715889

You're right, Microsoft PR sucks.

Google PR on the other hand, is extremely good, they have lots of people believing they're all about "do no evil" and "open" while laughing all the way to the bank.

Great, another .NET is dying post voted up on HN. Didn't we have one of those just this morning?

Meanwhile, in the real world, Microsoft posted these earnings:

"Server & Tools business reported $5.04 billion of revenue, up 11% from last year"

Inspite of competing products like Linux, Apache, Eclipse, Ruby, Java being given away for free, people are willing to pay for Windows Server, Visual Studio and IIS.

Does anyone have real data related to ".NET is dying" other than idle conjecture, short sighted "frog in the well" anectodes which sound like they're written and voted up by people sipping on a latte on a Macbook in a Starbucks in Silicon Valley?

Like the number of jobs posted? They seem to increasing every day.

Sigh, some people here just love these '.NET is dying' posts, perhaps some with a vested interest to scare startups from using it.

Again, any hard data will be appreciated that shows .NET is dying instead of the same paragraph upon paragraph of opinion and no links, references or data, we have enough HN comments of that already.

Non-non-conspiratorial explanation: Google fans are flagging other stories like this on so that Google I/O get the maximum exposure. :)

Edit: I thought the smiley at the end would show I was joking?

From Google's About page:

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Last time when Google was intentionally blocking Google maps and then deprecated ActiveSync on Windows Phone someone suggested Google should updated it to the following:(which seems quite true given how much of the world's crowdsourced video content is on YouTube):

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, except on Windows Phone".

Also, I see this post being flagged a lot, stay classy, Google fans on HN.

And I would assume getting banned from the API is also a completely automated process.

https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/getting-started#quo...

The issue that triggers that problem is that Google refuses to either give them access to the YouTube API like it does for iOS and Android or makes a WP app itself.

How do they update the app if Google doesn't give them access to the API? They need to kill it and millions of Windows Phone users will be left with no legal YouTube app.

Also, if you're referring to the comments on WPCentral, of course, it's "Windows Phone Central" where obviously fans and users of Windows Phone who got frustrated for years with the lack of a quality YouTube app on their phone hang out.

Edit: [[[ This story is getting heavily flagged as well.

http://i.imgur.com/LiUSpCy.png

Looks like the Google fans, employees and shareholders on HN with good karma can't let this story break on the day of Google I/O? And people accuse Microsoft of astroturfing! What is this then?

If PG does not want to stop this blatant and continuous moderator abuse, he might as well declare HN a Google and Linux fiefdom so that the rest of us using other platforms and who can think for ourselves and are not Microsoft haters can stay away. ]]]

Posted this story earlier and it got flagged off the front page.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5714520

Reposting my comment here:

This is the latest in a long saga. From a post from Microsoft in 2011:

First, in 2006 Google acquired YouTube—and since then it has put in place a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it for their search results. Without proper access to YouTube, Bing and other search engines cannot stand with Google on an equal footing in returning search results with links to YouTube videos and that, of course, drives more users away from competitors and to Google.

Second, in 2010 and again more recently, Google blocked Microsoft’s new Windows Phones from operating properly with YouTube. Google has enabled its own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video categories, find favorites, see ratings, and so forth in the rich user interfaces offered by those phones. It’s done the same thing for the iPhones offered by Apple, which doesn’t offer a competing search service.

Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2...

Google's "lack of marketshare" reason seems to be a bit lacking to me. Windows 8 sold 100 million and they still don't make any apps for it.

In contrast, Yahoo Mail which is barely making any money by manages to make a nice one.

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/yahoo-mail/f90f3...

And Vimeo has apps for both WP and Win8.

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/vimeo/ff8dadc8-8...

http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/vimeo/6608d199-0...

The issue is that Google has refusing to give Microsoft access to the Youtube API for close to three years

See my comment in the other post.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5714520

Latest in a long saga.

From a post from Microsoft in 2011:

First, in 2006 Google acquired YouTube—and since then it has put in place a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it for their search results. Without proper access to YouTube, Bing and other search engines cannot stand with Google on an equal footing in returning search results with links to YouTube videos and that, of course, drives more users away from competitors and to Google.

Second, in 2010 and again more recently, Google blocked Microsoft’s new Windows Phones from operating properly with YouTube. Google has enabled its own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video categories, find favorites, see ratings, and so forth in the rich user interfaces offered by those phones. It’s done the same thing for the iPhones offered by Apple, which doesn’t offer a competing search service.

Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2...

Compared to what? Proprietary corporate CRUD code? How about comparing to BSD, Hurd, Haiku, Mach etc.?

Edit: This article has better details. http://gcn.com/blogs/pulse/2013/05/linux-leads-in-open-sourc...

"The finding is based on an analysis by the Coverity Scan Service, which for more than seven years analyzed 850 million lines of code from more than 300 open-source projects, including those written in Linux, PHP and Apache."

"In general, Coverity found the average quality of open-source software was virtually equal to that of proprietary software. Open-source projects showed an average defect density of .69, the study found, a dead heat with the .68 for proprietary code developed by enterprise customers of the service.

Although the average rates of defects in the two types of code are nearly identical, researchers did find a difference in quality trends based on the size of the development project.

For instance, as proprietary software coding projects passed 1 million lines of code, defect density dropped from .98 to .66, a sign that software quality rises in proprietary projects of that size.

That trend reversed itself in the cost of open-source code, researchers found. Open source projects between 500,000 and 1 million lines of code had a defect density of .44, which grew to .75 when those projects went over the 1 million line mark."

You mean I could get paid for what I do for free?! I didn't know that, damn!

If there is such a team on HN, they're doing quite a shitty job by the looks of it. Even a review of the Surface is routinely flagged off the front page for daring to be on the same page as a new Chromebook announcement.

Reminds me of this HN post.

"New Skype malware spreading at 2,000 clicks per hour to mine Bitcoins" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5502028

One of the choice top HN comments:

"Why does Skype even have any clickable links in it at all if Microsoft can't be bothered to keep the obvious malware out?"

Another comment:

"Re the conclusion: to protect yourself, don't run an OS that will silently install software just because you clicked on a blue link in a program published by the OS vendor. Steve Ballmer should be jailed as an accessory for allowing this."

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

>I don't see why a city government migrating form one proprietary software vendor to another is considered newsworthy. I would be more impressed by something like, "City of Boston drops Microsoft for local hosting provider running free software".

That is because, for some, it's less about promoting software freedom and more about taking Microsoft down. That's why we have SJVN on the ZDNet "Open Source" blog promoting Chromebooks and Google Docs which are less "free" than Windows and MS Office because of being completely locked down and being tied to Google's Cloud.

For a even better example, see Ubuntu's Bug #1.

As usual, Linus has pithy insight.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/07/linus-...

Reference:

State University of New York moves 465,000 students over to Microsoft’s Cloud

http://www.winrumors.com/state-university-of-new-york-moves-...

>And the primary purpose of Exchange Server is transfer gobs and gobs of money from unsuspecting organizations to Microsoft.

Apple's and Microsoft's business transactions(except for Bing) are upfront. You pay us this much money and you get this service. Google's is a more subtle "use this free service and we'll track your behavior and try to profit off it, if not we'll kill it".

>All of this could be so much more cost-efficient at scale. GMail may be a privacy concern, organizations' insistence on hosting their own email is maddeningly, mind-bogglingly wasteful considering they could get the same functionality for a few hundred bucks a year.

There are thousands of companies that host Exchange for you. Or you have Office 365.

>Someone needs to make a real open-source competitor to Exchange so people who insist on hosting their own stuff can at least stop throwing away money that could employ people on Exchange licenses.

Why should "someone" else waste a huge amount of their time and effort on something that you think should be done and given away for free?

>Of the deals, 23 were won by Google and 10 by Microsoft."

Nice try Google(?!)

That is a pretty bad comparison without the sizes of the user base of each deal.

"The other cities that use Google Apps are tiny: Orlando, Pittsburgh, etc ..

In public education, the big ones also use Office 365. The entire State University of New York (700,000) use MS Office.

It is true more Federal agencies that use Google Apps -- but the big ones use Office 365. For example, the Dept of Interior (80,000) uses Google Apps, but the Dept of VA (600,000) uses Office 365.

For example, Google supplies email system for tiny Orlando with 3,000 employees

You may therefore be right that "Google Apps is winning its share of government deals". You may say that Google Apps clients include Orlando and Pittsburg. But how do you compare those 2 tiny cities with New York and Chicago??"

Also, not sure why people are cheering on the migration from Office which is primary used for local files to a cloud service where your account and documents are at the complete mercy of the cloud provider.

And yet, Office revenues are up 7% in the last quarter and Google's revenues from Apps/Docs/Email is still only a few percent. The government is a lot bigger than a few departments.

Doesn't matter if it's a crime or not according to the constitution. Apple can ban any app for no reason whatsoever.

If they've banned an Android magazine app(publishing which is quite legal), I don't see how reverse engineering being or not being a crime matters at all. This is what Palladium and DRM brings us.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/26/apple-bans-android-ma...

>can spot the BS and back peddling in the MS press releases

Perhaps you mean backpedaling?

>Uh, no. I'm a developer and overall power user, so please spare me the "you were using it wrong" comments.

Speak for yourself, I am a power user too and it took all of ten minutes to get used to Windows 8.

Even a 3 year old kid doesn't seem to have trouble. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d...

Windows + I is a good shortcut to get you directly to #3.

Reference? StatCounter data seems to show the opposite of what you're stating.