MS Future Decoded conference, or The Empire Strikes Back

Microsoft wants to rid itself of the image as the default option of lazy corporate IT professionals (like me), even though that is still the core business of the horde of partner, customers and devs it brought to Excel. But as we hear from our round tables, less growth is coming from that direction, so the Biz day pushed …

[Steve Davies 3]

Oh dear - two days of Powerpoints

is enough to drive anyone towards a pint at the end of it.

The sad thing is that all those watching those PP tricks will now return to their companies and make everyone else suffer them ad nauseum.

There have been two studies released this week. One about how producticity improved when Email was banned for a week. The second was how much happier people felt when they came off Facebook.

I'd really like to nuke Powerpoints from use for ever.

Then we'd all be a lot happier, wouldn't we?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh dear - two days of Powerpoints

MSFT staffers are all using Sway; it's hip, it's happening, it's cloud-hosted

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: Oh dear - two days of Powerpoints

A couple of pints, try a couple of kegs minimum. Sounds like a good time for "Buzzword Bingo" or being "far from sober".

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again...

Today's release of Windows 10 Threshold 2 has caused the download servers to meltdown under the demand. The download servers for Linux Mint that is!

[Dadmin]

This is why I love El Reg!

"As a tech journo I’ve seen more awful tech ads than any five people reading this"

And I thank you for enduring that! I hate these conferences, and do most other purely technical folks, but I find it very entertaining to hear about the goings on there. I guess I'm really interested in the whole of the computing world, and being able to choose from a variety of different skills and offerings from the open sores community and their corporate counterparts makes it fun to work in. I'm not even a windows admin by trade, though I recently had a go around with a funny little Server 2012Rsomthing VM and a 2008 one too, and remember why I chose the path of the command line and what are now referred to as cloudy dev ops, over a more desktop/gui/patching/praying role. So, thanks for going to that thing and telling us a good story! This new MS has me interested in what they are doing next, rather than hoping for a speedy death to their OS. I used to be a big MS detractor, but then I got the original xbox and found they can do some things cool, as can Apple do some things awkwardly; remember the Newton or the Apple III? It's hard to get a product to be useful, cool, desirable, etc. I guess they are trying to get that feeling back. Good luck!

[Irongut]

Re: This is why I love El Reg!

I wanted to join the open sores community but decided that leprosy was going too far. ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Like a NIN video

Is it just my post-lunch brain or was that a disjointed bunch of phrases that either only vaguely hinted at what you saw or you had to be an insider to understand? I mean, I got the jist of what you were trying to say but it was difficult to read (like a video that has too many cuts in it). Sorry Dominic, but yikes, less all over the place, even if it means going 3 pages.

And, the whole event sounded horrible.

[GregC]

Re: Like a NIN video

And, the whole event sounded horrible.

Well, you may have found it hard to read AC, but I think you got the primary point!

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Like a NIN video

"Sorry Dominic, but yikes, less all over the place, even if it means going 3 pages."

"And, the whole event sounded horrible."

So you're saying the meal was awful and the portions were too small?

[Rick Giles]

Lazy Corporate IT?!?

Just because it's point and click administration, doesn't make us lazy. It makes us victims to the overall "make it simple for the great unwashed" that pervades everything. Even Ubuntu desktop is suffering from that with each new release and it's enough that I really want to go back to Slackware and KDE.

I guess by this definition, the boys in Munich gov. IT aren't lazy then.

[Sebby]

Helping the Blind?

How, exactly. As a blind person I've seen* no suggestion that MS are "helping" much at all; in fact they are woefully behind the competition at this stage--even Google, for heaven's sake. No Windows Mobile accessibility, a free Windows screen reader only available with Office subscriptions (one of the originally commercial ones, naturally), a primitive (but very slowly improving) integrated screen reader that only works with the touch interface, and a 3D headset that's completely theoretical. A great help. :(

* You know what I mean, dammit.

[David Unsworth]

Re: Helping the Blind?

As this article is completely lacking in any detail, I'll fill the gaps for you. It was a white stick with a GPS in it, linked to a pair of headphones. It then told the person about the environment around them, such as "there is a bike rack on your right".

[Sebby]

Re: Helping the Blind?

Aha, thanks.

So, yes, presently commercially unavailable. I can hope, but the biggest challenge is getting enough beacons to make it workable. MS are so far saying that most of the info comes from the cloud, and in fact we are often getting waypoints from other services like 4Square now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Helping the Blind?

I don't see that. I think Microsoft has enough blind people on the payroll already, for a company that requires vision, this is a terrible choice.

-not retinally blind, but blinkered to the point of blindness blind.

[Mark 85]

Meeting and PR like this...

are what they feed to the boards.. and they buy into it. As usual, IT isn't involved and has to clean up the mess on the floor and in the server room... and on the desktops. It does explain a lot about how they sell the upper management types, though.

[a_yank_lurker]

Re: Meeting and PR like this...

PHBs manage by buzzwords and PowerPoint. I have heard PowerPoint presentations are best when one is on a remote call-in for the paid hour+ nap for something that can be done in 10 minutes.

[hplasm]

Chief Storytelling Officer...

That begins to explain some of the problems at MS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Chief Storytelling Officer...

Once upon a time there was a big blue giant, who had no windows in his castle ....

[Drizzt321]

Other Risual video

So, apparently there's another video for Risual, and this one is a lot better. Actually somewhat amusing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NU6ngFwQtM

[nijam]

> “Cool” is something that MS now understands it needs to win back.

What? Win *back*? When was MS ever cool?