ok, anyway..... Microsoft is doing other things besides making commercials

Ballmer dropping hints about an upcoming Windows Cloud OS
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081003-windows-enters-the-cloud-with-new-microsoft-amazon-services.html

and Zune software may/will be integrated into Windows Mobile 7
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081003-ballmer-zune-software-coming-to-windows-mobile.html

10/3/2008 11:12:54 PM

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/10/video-microsoft.html

Microsoft announces Windows 7 will be given out to attendees at PDC, via an absolutely terrible attempt at humor.

10/8/2008 4:00:25 AM

i'm glad you posted that video before i got to it!
it's embarrassing, and they know it. They tried to sandwich the boy-band video in the middle of another lame self-referential plot line and pretend like the characters were embarrassed by the boy band video. But both ideas are lame....

[Edited on October 8, 2008 at 8:13 AM. Reason : .]

10/8/2008 8:10:19 AM

I dont understand why the vid was SO long, saying the same thing for at least 2min.

10/8/2008 10:04:11 AM

^^^Wow, did they learn nothing in the past 20 years? Seriously WTF.

Windows 386 advert from 1988:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGO2hVA3P58
(skip to 2:10 for the "good" part)

[Edited on October 8, 2008 at 1:24 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2008 1:20:46 PM

they should go back to the beginning...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-8IufkbuD0

[Edited on October 8, 2008 at 6:17 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2008 6:13:42 PM

Just an FYI, Microsoft produces videos like this all the time for internal use.

It's kind of a historical thing to produce super-cheezy internal videos, it's EXTREMELY tongue-in-cheek, and no one takes them seriously at all. But I was really suprised this one was ever released publicly in any way. I thought surely it was leaked, but apparently not.

10/8/2008 7:06:38 PM

Ballmer is exactly like a TWW troll.....
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2008/10/10.7.shtml

10/11/2008 5:59:53 PM

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/10/20/new-apple-ads-target-microsoft-ads

hilarious. i know the ads themselves are lame (going after MS) and they are mocking the wrong intent of the microsoft ads, but they are kinda funny none-the-less.

[Edited on October 20, 2008 at 3:22 PM. Reason : .]

10/20/2008 3:20:34 PM

Windows 7 info ... looking interesting.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081028-first-look-at-windows-7.html

http://gizmodo.com/5069661/windows-7-walkthrough-boot-video-and-impressions

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/28/windows-7-details-galore-interface-tweaks-netbook-builds-medi/

10/28/2008 2:18:15 PM

Pretty impressive stuff.

My favorite part = runs on a 1ghz netbook.

10/28/2008 5:52:11 PM

My favorite part: http://blog.retrosight.com/WindowsMediaCenterInThePDCBuildOfWindows7.aspx
"That H.264 that was postponed from Fiji? It’s in Windows 7."

among others... disappointed about the TV route though, this whole broadcast flagging is pissing me off and the CableCard crap, it's just wrong to give that exclusively to OEM's and nobody else

10/28/2008 6:36:05 PM

The broadcast flagging I completely agree with you on.

The CableCard/QAM/DRM issue really isn't their fault though. The licensing restrictions on all that come from the hardware manufacturers and cable companies/industry lobby. At least with Vista MCE, they basically had two options: Ridiculously restrictive OEM CableCard support or no cablecard support.

I hoping that the lawyers will have sorted this out much better for Win7, but I doubt it. For evidence, try BUYING a pc cable card reader. Can't do it, and technically if you have a PC with one in it, you can't legally resell it separately.

10/28/2008 8:23:39 PM

glad to see native H.264, xvid, divx support the new W7 MC looks awesome!

10/28/2008 9:04:12 PM

^I just hope it's still FAST and they fix all the little hangs and blurps in the current one

VMC is one of my favorite parts of vista!

10/29/2008 2:11:18 PM

Just got an email about this, REALLY cool stuff

https://sessions.microsoftpdc.com/public/timeline.aspx

Every session and keynote has full video you can watch.

Some really interesting ones:

Developing for Microsoft Surface: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC17/
Welcome to Windows 7 Desktop: http://channel9.msdn.com/pdc2008/PC24/

10/29/2008 4:34:33 PM

Microsoft SecondLight: http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/80/

Surface2.0?

10/30/2008 8:08:04 PM

Microsoft placing "I'm a PC" recording booths outside Apple stores
http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/31/microsoft-placing-im-a-pc-recording-booths-outside-apple-stor/

10/31/2008 1:59:23 PM

http://store.microsoft.com

11/14/2008 12:41:31 PM

what is wrong with this company? Is this how they think they can sell software? (software that sounds totally misguided, at that)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGFogwcx-E

1/8/2009 10:50:10 PM

My god, that has got to be a joke.

But it doesn't surprise me - shit rolls downhill, people. While Gates might be a smart guy and an excellent businessman, he is a corny motherfucking dork with a weak, outdated sense of humor. Naturally, he tends to hire people just like him (i.e. Ballmer), who hire other people like them, and so on...marketing is no exception, hence this and other equally bad advertisements over the years.

1/8/2009 10:57:28 PM

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/

one search on google. God you guys get your panties in a wad mighty fast. its just a research project

1/9/2009 2:46:49 AM

^ So I can finally have my own theme music?

1/9/2009 3:02:24 AM

^^ what difference does that make? A lot of projects probably start out in the Research Lab before making it into production. It does look like they're going to commercialize Songsmith, though.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/156667/at_ces_microsoft_introduces_the_unexpected_songwriting_software.html
either way, it still doesn't excuse their ad/marketing department from that horrible commercial.....

1/9/2009 9:07:43 AM

Microsoft is a bloated behemoth. even from my own limited experience, they are saddled with a ridiculous amount of people wasting time and money.

theres talk of massive layoffs coming.

glad im an EE, and i don't have to work in software industry.

1/9/2009 11:45:38 AM

^^Very few research projects make it into production AS the research project.

Feel free to read through the current http://research.microsoft.com/apps/dp/pr/projects.aspx#p=1&ps=36&so=1&sb=&fr=&to=&fd=&td=&rt=&f=a&a=&pn=&pa=&pd=">285 public research projects.

And I love how easy it is to ASSUME that ad/marketing does all of these things. Only BIG BOX products have marketing departments or big advertising budgets. Microsoft (like most large companies) operates in divided divisions that are financially and resource independent.

That "ad video" was probably generated by one of the couple of managers on the product who then went and hired out Microsoft Studios to create it.

^There are NO layoffs. That was rumor from TWO BLOGS, who both almost immediately recanted their posts because they had no sources and no credibility. There are "rumors" of layoffs at Microsoft every time there's a downturn, but in my checking there have only been about a 1000 total "layoffs" in the past 15 years in total, and a large percentage of those were simply reorg's where people were moved to other groups.

1/9/2009 2:10:08 PM

its still a bloated behemoth, saddled by a ridiculous number of people wasting time and money.

Vista is a fucking disaster, one of their most "successful" recent product (XBox) has been hemorrhaging cash since its release, and most of their really creative leadership has long since abandoned ship.

its a nice place to work, now, but if microsoft wants to survive they NEED to lay off a shit ton of people.

1/9/2009 2:45:28 PM

It's one thing to not like the company, it's another to post entirely wrong information.

Vista is the only "disaster" everyone can point to, because the average JOE doesn't even know of 99% of the products Microsoft makes.

Visual Studio and SharePoint are actually the most "successful" recent products, in terms of revenue growth.

Xbox isn't hemorrhaging cash, far from it they are actually finally generating MASSIVE black revenue, and the ROI date for the platform will be close to half what the original Xbox was. Xbox Live is a massive monetary and critical success, it has the first real, working, profitable distribution platform for content worldwide (arguably in competition with the iTunes Store).

Microsoft isn't in an issue of survival, more an issue of scale, perception and relevancy.

You say there are massive amounts of people "wasting time and money". I assume you mean in research efforts. History shows us that the amount of resources spent on research and development is directly proportional to the growth, health and long-term survival of companies across ALL industries.

Exploring new ideas is not a waste of money, even if it's an idea that YOU personally don't have value associated with it. Microsoft may be "bloated", but it's not from monetary waste, it's from process waste. And unfortunately when you are one of the biggest entities in your industry, you have to forge your own ground for what works and how to continue to grow and remain healthy. Small companies have tons of history to fall back on, and plenty of direct competition to measure themselves against.

[Edited on January 9, 2009 at 3:35 PM. Reason : .]

1/9/2009 3:29:39 PM

Quote :

"You say there are massive amounts of people "wasting time and money"."

Raymond Chen, the most prolithic MS programmer (after Bill Gates), made a similar point today:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/01/08/9292088.aspx

Quote :

"Not all skill sets are interchangeable. That's why we have concepts like division of labor and specialization. But it appears that not everybody understands this. I was reminded of this topic when I read the reactions to the Microsoft Exchange Team announcing that they had added Xbox and Zune themes to OWA. Many people were shocked, such as Loren, who was furious that "development time" was wasted on something frivolous like new themes when there are so many bugs that need to be fixed. Loren appears to believe that the people who do graphic design and the people who are up to their elbows in the code base fixing bugs and adding features are one and the same, that any time spent building a new visual style is time not spent fixing bugs. Generally speaking, programmers don't do the visual design. I mean, these are people who are lucky if they are wearing matching socks when they come to work, if they even remember to wear socks at all. And you want them to design a color scheme? Visual design is done by people trained in the visual arts, people who know about color wheels and lighting effects, people who can argue for days about whether the spacing between two visual elements should be one point or two, about whether a serif or sans-serif font should be used for a particular screen element. What the programmers do is create the infrastructure for skins and themes, but the actual building of the skin or theme is left to the designers. Once the infrastructure is built, the programmers' work is pretty much done, and they can go back to fixing bugs and adding other features, stuff that keeps Loren happy. Of course, the infrastructure for themes and skins needs to be maintained, but the amount of work spent on maintenance is largely independent of how many themes the designers have come up with. "

1/9/2009 3:49:57 PM

^ so then they should cut some of the designers and hire people who can actually fix crap instead of just making it pretty colored crap?

1/9/2009 3:58:33 PM

^ If Apple has taught us anything it's that pretty sells.

1/9/2009 4:10:30 PM

HAHA very true!

Although I suppose it has to be pretty as most of the people who use them don't really know how they work, or really try to learn in some cases.

[Edited on January 9, 2009 at 4:18 PM. Reason : .]

1/9/2009 4:17:27 PM

There are already more than 100 engineers per designer in Microsoft. Only a fraction of the products Microsoft SELLS ever even get reviewed by a designer, much less have considerable time and thought put into them. Evidence: SONGSMITH. You can take one look at that demo/ad video and be pretty well assured that it was created and developed by software engineers, without a lick of time spent on usability, interaction or visual styling.

Product Design is much more than theme's and styling though, which Raymond Chen neglects in his example.

1/9/2009 6:10:53 PM

http://music.metafilter.com/2943/Runnin-With-The-Songsmith

Quote :

"It's like the opposite of karaoke. Real singer, but your own shitty synth music added! Thank you for making this possible, Microsoft."

Ahahahahaha!

1/14/2009 8:39:11 AM

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/themoment/

This is going to be a great real-world test of Photosynth, since subjects are not going to be static and thousands of cameras of hundreds different types will be used

1/20/2009 9:02:41 AM

yep, should be cool.
Here's a Synth from yesterday http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28661907

1/20/2009 9:16:22 AM

Quote :

"^There are NO layoffs. That was rumor from TWO BLOGS, who both almost immediately recanted their posts because they had no sources and no credibility. There are "rumors" of layoffs at Microsoft every time there's a downturn, but in my checking there have only been about a 1000 total "layoffs" in the past 15 years in total, and a large percentage of those were simply reorg's where people were moved to other groups."

and... 2 weeks later...

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/jan09/01-22fy09Q2earnings.mspx

Quote :

"As part of this plan, Microsoft will eliminate up to 5,000 jobs in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, legal, HR, and IT over the next 18 months, including 1,400 jobs today."

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/22/microsoft-set-to-cut-5000-jobs

i sincerely hope your job is safe Noen

1/22/2009 1:07:39 PM

I hope his job isn't damage control.

because his previous denial of impending layoffs was sort of weak.

1/22/2009 3:34:02 PM

^^My job is definitely safe

^It's less than 1% of the company, and much of it is reorganization more than layoffs (meaning positions cut and people moved), but I was pretty shocked to see 5,000 jobs total cut over the next year and a half. Hopefully the economy will recover enough to keep those people in seats before then.

1/22/2009 5:32:06 PM

good to hear.

1%? Even if high estimates of 90,000 were true, it's closer to 5%, not as bad as other companies, but not something to shrug off either.

1/22/2009 5:41:55 PM

^Sorry I was referring to the immediate 1,400 jobs cut/moved. MS is/was well over 100,000 employees. Also, a not-insignificant number of those who get laid off will likely return to the company as vendors/contractors in other areas.

1/22/2009 7:47:48 PM

Quote :

"much of it is reorganization more than layoffs "

call it what you want, it's jobs lost

1/22/2009 7:49:10 PM

^That's true. I guess I just look for the silver lining... compared to all the other announcements of 20,30,40% workforce layoffs, this is a comparative drop in the bucket (thankfully)

1/22/2009 8:18:34 PM

errrr did ie8 go gold today and nobody mentioned it? heh i think that speaks for itself

does anyone use IE by choice still

3/19/2009 9:52:09 PM

hell no. IE is a steaming pile

3/19/2009 9:56:49 PM

^^ haha i saw it mentioned in a couple places online today and second guessed it cus i have seen ZERO talk about it even being close to RTM lately. i'm not gonna even bother installing it. i've probably spent less than an hour cumulative using IE7 haha

[Edited on March 19, 2009 at 10:02 PM. Reason : .]

3/19/2009 10:01:48 PM

Until I can build an ad filter list like I can with firefox + adblock plus, I won't touch IE.

3/19/2009 10:12:10 PM

what was the adoption rate for IE7? Does it have almost full penetration already?

What is the rollout strategy for IE8? Is it going to be a forced upgrade? Is it expected to cause all the upgrade headaches that IE6 > 7 did?

3/19/2009 10:15:48 PM

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/03/mix09-internet-explorer-8-released-progress-unmistakable.ars

3/20/2009 12:36:15 AM

too bad they still didn't put any time into getting IE8 to look halfway decent in Windows XP "Classic Theme"..... Just like IE7, it looks like shit

3/21/2009 12:36:09 AM