Bonum Certa Men Certa

Eye on Microsoft: Failures on the Desktop, Server, Console, and Mobile

There are heaps of material covering this particular broad topic, but included below are only news articles. The first one is the essay "Windows Vista: The OS About Nothing," which talks about the latest Vista advertisement (last mentioned 2 days ago).



Microsoft's new Windows ad, featuring Jerry Seinfeld, is outdated and not very funny -- but it's highly revealing of all that's wrong out there in Redmond.

The background: Windows is losing market share to Apple's Mac OS and even Linux. And Vista, the latest version, has been a big fat dud. Businesses have shunned it outright, and many consumers find it unintuitive and difficult to use.


Pamela Jones wrote in Groklaw: "I'm absolutely serious that this video of Steve Ballmer being interviewed by Guy Kawasaki at Microsft's MIX08 conference in Las Vegas about Vista makes a much better ad for it than the Seinfeld shoe store ad, for my money. What makes it is the input from Kawasaki, who provides the antifluff that results in a more complete answer at the end of the video."

Here it is as an Ogg Theora file and embedded Flash. We'll refrain from commenting on the behaviour of Microsoft's CEO.

Ogg Theora





Mr. Ballmer claims that Windows Vista is the most secure operating system, but the illusion of security in Vista is quickly wearing off as the software does not stand up to expectations and new critical flaws emerge that do not even affect Vista's predecessors. This may mean that Vista and Server 2008 are even less secure than their predecessors. It agrees with everything that a recent study argued. Here is the latest new example:

Microsoft announces another critical Tuesday times four

The Windows Media Player update is rated critical for WMP 11 on Windows XP, Vista and Server 2008 (including the x64 versions). It is not applicable to Windows 2000, Server 2003 or Server 2008 for Itanium-based systems.


Recent articles on this subject include:



Failure at a software level might be recoverable (not that it justifies sloppiness), but what happens when defective hardware burns houses down, arguably kills a baby, and ultimately turns out to have a failure rate of sixty-eight percent?

In-depth exposé reveals Microsoft’s Xbox 360 failure rate was 68%



The dreaded high failure rate issue with the Xbox 360, otherwise known as the Red Ring of Death, has received some in-depth coverage. We are talking about some serious coverage here with insider interviews with the original engineers that worked on the Xbox 360 all the way up to the high ranks of Microsoft.

[...]

Microsoft’s attitude of “release now and patch later” with the Xbox 360 has ended up costing billions of dollars as well as leaving many gamers angry. It is also speculated the reason for Microsoft’s decline in worldwide sales is directly attributed to the Red Ring of Death issue.


This is also covered here, but the figures remain negotiable.

Report: Xbox 360 Failure Rate Was as High as 68%



Dean Takahashi has published an incredible report that finally goes into great detail on Microsoft's RROD hardware saga.


Microsoft has already lost about $7 billion on its XBox business.

Another lesser-known failure is Windows Mobile, which is discussed in this new post.

Yesterday's Microsoft Watch had an incisive article about Microsoft's failure to compete in the mobile phone marketplace.

[...]

What do you bet that Microsoft comes up with a new "improved" release of XP Home that has features deliberately designed to block Chrome? This is, after all, what they did against Netscape in 1996, with Windows NT Workstation allowing no more than 10 TCP/IP connections so that it couldn't be used with Netscape web servers.

But this kind of backward-looking, defensive competition doesn't do more than buy you time. Yes, Microsoft killed Netscape, but they missed the deeper, stronger competition that would come from true web applications like Google. The future is not like the past, and any strategy that is designed to protect the past will eventually fail.


Related to this:



The real effect of the losses may remain a mystery, but for how long? Is exploiting competitors (milking them for money) all that's left?

Microsoft ZUN

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
 
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Mysterious Friend and "Eight by Eight"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
Apple: Social Justice or Social Nationalism?
Remember to buy Apple, folks
Links 14/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Sophos, Chatbots Failing Very Badly, "DOGE as a National Cyberattack"
Links for the day
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: gwit and Restart
Links for the day
Links 13/02/2025: Algorithm Bots and 'Teleport' Breakthrough
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representatives Confront the President Who Says 'F--king' in Front of Female Workers Over Measurable Discrimination Against Female Colleagues
Central Staff Committee versus Lukashenko's sponsor
IBM Layoffs in 'RTO' Clothing Reported by Thomas Claburn
This "hey hi" (AI) nonsense is just a go-to excuse that IBM and GAFAM (and many others) use
Still Waiting for the EU to Abolish the Illegal and Unconstitutional Court Linked to EPO Corruption and Lobbyism by the Patent Litigation Industry
Sadly, all the blogs that used to talk about those issues have been infiltrated and then completely hijacked by the very perpetrators of the illegality
Social Engineering of the Free Software Movement is a Corporate Takeover With Code of Conduct (CoC) to Drive Out or Expel Dissent
Richard Stallman (RMS) covered "cancel culture"
Links 13/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google (Disguised as "Buyouts"), Telecoms Price Hikes as Collusion/Price-Fixing
Links for the day
[Video] Richard Stallman Questions and Answers Session in Google's YouTube or Invidious
From last night
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: Broken Watches and Naming Types
Links for the day
Corrupt Bill Gates Worming His Way Into Richard Stallman Videos in Google's YouTube
Reputation laundering riding other people's names?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Links 12/02/2025: Crytek Layoffs, Security Holes, and Giving Ukraine to Russia
Links for the day
Relaying GAFAM Talking Points and Lies Using GAFAM LLMs, or Slop Pasted in by Brittany Day
linuxsecurity.com is relaying slop, i.e. misinformation
Photos From This Evening's Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman in Torino, Maybe a Video Soon
The talk that Dr. Richard Stallman gave today (a few hours ago) was recorded and streamed
IlSoftware.it Covers Richard Stallman's Visit to Give Talks in Italy
The publication is in Italian, the talk was in English
Macho Patent Office
At the EPO there's always room for women in top roles
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: "Bream Gives Me Hiccups", Making Chinese Tea, and More
Links for the day
This is Why Codeberg Issues an Apology Today
This response was clear and relatively swift
The Register Studies (to Affirm) Reports of IBM Layoffs "at the Finance and Operations business unit"
something about that specific unit
Links 12/02/2025: SSL FUD, DEI Phase-out, Felonies Committed by MElon (Data Breaches)
Links for the day
Italian Media Covers Richard Stallman's English Talk Ahead of Tonight's Public Appearance
article in La Stampa
Destruction and Distortion of Information, Including Facts About Linux (Bonus: This is Destroying the Planet)
All that LLMs have going for them is hype, and moreover media that intentionally misrepresents them and their supposed capabilities
Google Seems to Have Just Killed All Instances of Invidious
YouTube is rapidly becoming just "another Neflix"
Microsoft Skype in a Freefall: About 20% Decrease in Site Traffic in 3 Months (Amid Microsoft Phasing Out Credits)
Microsoft axing more services/features may mean that now they scrape the bottom of the barrel and Skype will simply die, discontinuing service (like ICQ) in a matter of years
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: Depression, Gabbro, WikiTok, and More
Links for the day
Links 12/02/2025: Health, Security, and Monopolies
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol is Increasingly Important to the Net
Gemini Protocol will turn 6 this summer
Former EPO Manager Warns That the Illegal 'Court' for "Unitary Patents" Enables “Law Shopping”
Daniel X. Thomas opposed the very existence of the UPC, which any honest person could recognise was both illegal and unconstitutional
Like GAFAM, the EPO is Passing the Financial Pains to Staff
the EPO is operating illegally at this point
Morale at Microsoft Ruined by the Company Labelling Thousands of Workers 'Low Performers', Sacking Them on the Spot and Denying Them Basic Benefits
people laid off as "low performers" go to social control media to bemoan the label
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 11, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 11, 2025