alt Hacker NewsThey want to be Apple. Apple sells hardware, services, and takes a huge cut being a software store.
Microsoft sells software. They turned office into a service but it's still software. Nobody really wants to use their store. Their hardware is a cute little side hustle.
Microsoft's strategy for turning into Apple is kneecapping their own software.
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>Their hardware is a cute little side hustle.
It didn't have to be. The same toxic dynamics that compromised their software poisoned their hardware, but they had too many products, or eras of a product, that Just Worked(TM) for it to have been a fluke. Someone knew what they were doing. They were screwed over by competing interests.
Zune people loved their Zunes. Windows Phone 8 people loved their Nokias. I've seen Surface Pro 2s "boot" to the same session for half a decade (that is: put it to sleep, stick it in a drawer for a year, take it out, plug it in, turn it on, all of the same files and folders and apps are open; I've NEVER seen this happen with any other device, they always lose state after enough time unplugged). And it's crazy how badly the Courier/Surface Duo was botched, given the excitement for it. Even newer Surfaces are great for the first year, before all of the compromises and poor engineering decisions make themselves known.
Imagine if it had been managed by someone who actually cared about their users, instead of people who treated them like marks and rubes.
> Nobody really wants to use their store. Their hardware is a cute little side hustle.
*XBox and Microsoft gaming's $23.5b revenue (~10% of MS's total) enter the chat*
You were saying something about not letting facts get in the way of a preferred narrative, I believe?
> Their hardware is a cute little side hustle.
Considering that at this point most Microsoft OEMs are failing, Microsoft should just start building a lot of consumer hardware.
Apple makes more money selling consumer hardware than the entire PC hardware market combined. I'm exaggerating, but only a little. This would have been unimaginable in 1999.