re Arm, CE, Ballmer, Greek Drama, Windows 8 and clowns/circus/bullies and trolls...
Regarding the comments about ARM and embedded windows. i agree with your point about ARM, and your point re CE. ironically the de evolution of the ARM (brilliant!) chip and OS to keep it simple is the genesis of ARM's success. The power (or power consumption) and complexity of cisc and all the layers of stuff in the os did thwart the adoption, deployment and development of the windows brand on mobile and tablets. But I don't whole heartedly agree that "there can be only one.." (aka android or ios. Arm or intel), though that makes for interesting religious debate and a great one liner for some good sci fi sword fights to the death. The world (universe if you believe in astrophysics) is pluralistic and there is room for many at the table. The same should be true for OSs, but whittle that down to a few (e.g. Ios, android and others, including windows mobile) and you have a more realistic, believable and tolerant view of the balance of the world of computing.
The belief that there is just one chip, one OS, one UI and one programming language is cyclopitic. and maybe that is the crux of the problem. Microsoft's leadership became cycloptic and all other msft leadership became sheep. There were a few Odysseus like players, but ultimate they were cast adrift to sea (someone else mentioned the greek drama so I am just jumping on that same ship) and are probably still adrift and somewhat traumatized by the decade long illiad saga of reporting to Agamemnon (was the cyclops a metaphor for agamemmon's/Greece's obsessions re troy? hmm. Should have paid attention in school...) Oh and on that front let's hope Ballmer's home life does not take a turn for the worse also as then this really would be a greek drama. And please don't take any of this part seriously I am just being silly and trying to parody this part of the topic and make it a bit less histrionic.
Re all the nasty hate speech about ballmer, wtf man? If he is such an easy target and culpable, why be so nasty and throw stones? I thought the uk was showing real foresight and leadership re clipping the wings of internet bullies and trolls and then this.... Yikes how uncivilized for a culture that had the foresight and humanity to employee more people who SAVE lives (NHS) vs on industries that take lives (military industrial complex and "defense") than any other country (relative scale). Chill haters, and drop the vitriol. Be more elegant and civilized in your dissent as if you think about it, you already won... Why disgrace the warriors vanquished legacy? Bad form and bad karma... And that is yet another greek lesson for ya...
Regarding Windows mobile and Windows 8, I dont entirely agree with what others here say about the windows 8 UI and windows mobile. The new UI is not all that bad nor a failure. The integration of pointer and touch is actually very clever and accommodating. It is technology OCM built into the UI. Like a ui on the ui. Like windows into applications, but more accurately a UI into a UI. And I dare to say the synthesis of pointer, gesture, touch and speech is actually quite brilliant, though complex.
Re execution, I think it is less about technology and more about culture. So i totally agree with that position, though the culture is a classic split brain between product dev (good) and sales (bad, ir kinda evil, if you use the webster's definition evil vs oxford's definition. The latter is to religion centric). anyway... Really. Who cares and since we are all geeks who are obviously invested in both this industry and technology. Let focus on a more important topics... How can we start to have fun with this and make some money. or even better, do good and not be evil? There is no joy in being nasty so how can folks benefit from this? Including msft employees, share holders and partners plus customers? Or is it all doom, gloom and apocalyptic revelations?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
