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Yeah, Skype is so fucked.

http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/03/skype-users-hit-milestone-2-billion-minutes-per-day/

Continuous 50% growth year after year is a terrible position for a company to be in.

about 17 hours ago on The Next-Gen Skype 1 reply 8 recommends

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Actually, Microsoft now has more than a dozen different billion dollar businesses.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/microsoft-adds-azure-to-its-billion-dollar-a-year-club/

about 18 hours ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft?

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Nokia has reached underlying profitability in the last several quarters, thanks largely to the shift from Symbian to Window’s Phone.

about 18 hours ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft?

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I don’t understand how people can so ignorantly spew the same talking points about Nokia’s history while completely ignoring the context.

Take a look at some of the charts from the time, and you’ll see that Nokia was already in a death spiral, and had been for a while.

Yes, the burning platform speech hurt things further. No, it was not the cause of Nokia’s problems. Far, far from it.

about 18 hours ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft? 1 reply

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Nokia ranks 10 on the list of top 10 smartphone vendors, 8 out of the top 10 use android, heck LG sold 10 million phones last quarter compared to Nokia’s 5 million. How long do you think Nokia will need to turn things around? 3 years? 5 years? 20 years? Windows phone is not advancing becaus eof Microsft’s sluggisnesst ime for Nokia to act up before its too late
Remember also, just recently, that Samsung makes 95% of all profit made by Android manufacturers?

And just saying “heck, LG” as a way of dismissing the company is pretty meaningless. LG clearly is doing something right, as they are far-and-away the 2nd most profitable Android manufacturer, making a higher profit share than “good” Android OEMs that everyone expects to succeed, like HTC or Sony.

Maybe Nokia would do better on Android. Maybe they wouldn’t. Conjecturing as if it’s a natural foregone conclusion is wrong-headed.

Windows Phone is very quickly becoming Nokia Phone. Even if they continue their slow increase in market share, that puts Nokia in a position of unique market differentiation that they are unlikely to have. And it puts them in a particularly strong position in the developing world, where Windows Phone software undeniably performs better on lower-priced hardware than Android, allowing them to have better performing devices while at the same time having higher margins than the zero-margin Chinese manufacturers filling the bottom end of the space. That’s better for profitability and long-term financial health.

about 18 hours ago on Should Nokia end the partnership with Microsoft?

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Okay, this thread’s a bit silly.

It’s not, strictly-speaking, the OP’s fault that this happened to him. I don’t think that this is the best way for Windows to implement the updates, with no way to post-pone further (as Windows 7 did).

However, at the same time, someone in the OP’s circumstances (very long stretches with critical work applications open with no restarts in between), has numerous options available to them to prevent this kind of thing from ever happening. The most obvious, and one that I would recommend, is to simply set Windows update to “Check & Download” but not install your updates.

When you set up Windows 8 in the first place, it intentionally queries you how you would like to apply updates. You can’t skip it without making a choice. It sounds like you have some pretty firm ideas about your workflow, and so you can’t really blame the OS for doing things that Microsoft has found benefit the majority of their consumers, especially when there are clear and obvious ways presented to you to prevent it from happening in your circumstance.

Maybe OS X doesn’t do it this way. That’s pretty irrelevant. OS X doesn’t do a lot of things that Windows does, and its UI is totally different, not necessarily better, and has its own idiosyncrasies.

about 18 hours ago on Microsoft is completely clueless about user behavior 2 recommends

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The reason they aren’t selling is because they cost too much. Windows 8 is incidental.

2 days ago on Intel could have been inside the original iPhone, says outgoing CEO

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…to be honest, you really shouldn’t spend that much time in them.

I know I’m here too much when I start to become irritable, short-tempered, and generally a worse human being.

4 days ago on The Verge forums are kinda like Lord of The Flies? 9 recommends

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?

That’s your argument?

If you want Xbox Music while jogging, just buy a fucking Windows phone. It’s an option.

4 days ago on MS should probably just give up in the consumer space 2 replies 12 recommends

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Eh? Z2760 is last year’s chip from Intel, too. The A6X happens to be the newest Apple has on the market.
But it’s not even a valid comparison, because A6X uses a lot more power than the Z2760.

CPU-wise, even Clovertrail is competitive with the A6X. GPU-wise it’s far behind. But it’s also more power efficient.

Bay Trail is going to be arriving around the same time as the next Apple chip. We’ll see what’s up, then.

4 days ago on Intel could have been inside the original iPhone, says outgoing CEO 1 reply

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Intel’s capex this year is $13B. They working on completing just 2 fab sites this year for their 14nm process.

You’re dramatically underestimating the costs involved in cutting edge chip manufacturing.

4 days ago on Intel could have been inside the original iPhone, says outgoing CEO

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But all of that can happen without Apple buying Intel.

Apple can just buy Intel’s product.

Shocking, I know.

4 days ago on Intel could have been inside the original iPhone, says outgoing CEO 1 reply 1 recommend

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This is true. But it was named something different, looked different, and was marketed and distributed differently. Most people think of Nexus devices as “Google” products, and wouldn’t think to ask who the company subcontracted to make them is.

If people see an AT&T Samsung GS4 for $599 and a Google Samsung GS4 for $349, which do you think they would buy?

That one level of separation is often enough.

4 days ago on looks like the nokia event was exciting afterall 1 reply

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Yeah, that’s why Facebook tends to be the universal group messaging app. It transcends those issues for most people.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in

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Wow, SMS pricing in the States is crazy.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in

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Hooooly shit.

I’m paying $22.50/month for my whole plan, and that includes unlimited calling, unlimited SMS/MMS, and unlimited data (within a certain range before separate roaming charges kick in, however).

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in

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That makes a ton of sense.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in

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Yeah, pretty much.

4 days ago on Windows Phone overtakes BlackBerry to claim third place in 2013 smartphone shipments

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Hahah, so the vicious circle of bullying continues, eh?

The people who were beaten as kids are the same ones that grow up to beat their kids.

4 days ago on Windows Phone overtakes BlackBerry to claim third place in 2013 smartphone shipments 1 recommend

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For what it’s worth, that’s installed base, not marketshare.

At least according to IDC, WP was at 5.4% of India’s smartphone market share in Q4 2012 (which is higher than iOS).

4 days ago on Windows Phone overtakes BlackBerry to claim third place in 2013 smartphone shipments 2 recommends

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Because you can’t follow technology trends, or realize the significance of international communication?

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in

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I suspect the percentage of Skype users who know that Microsoft now owns Skype quite easily rounds down to 0%.

My grandparents use Skype. My coworkers around the globe use Skype. My acquaintances in Africa use Skype. I don’t even particularly like it, but it’s absolutely ubiquitous.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in 1 reply 1 recommend

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Ahahaha…

Hoo boy. No other communications client comes anywhere near Skype’s dominance. Everything else has a small fraction of its market share. The fact that it’s the most used service for international calling, period (i.e. including phones!) should be some indicator of its relevance.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in 5 recommends

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But everyone can use SMS, Skype and Facebook. Aren’t those the real standards, then?

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in 1 reply 6 recommends

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Such a great comic. And tragically poignant.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in 1 reply 2 recommends

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I think that would be a valid reaction if Google hadn’t tried to play the moral highground card throughout the keynote. As it stands, this article is just calling them on their bullshit, and pointing out why it’s not at all a legitimate solution to the problem we should be trying to solve.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in 10 recommends

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They just rolled all their MSN users into Skype (which still uses the XMPP standard).

That’s like saying they “discontinued” Hotmail, but really they just changed the service to Outlook.com.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in 1 reply 5 recommends

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Positioning something as the best option by saying its available for “all major platforms” while at the same time recognizing that it leaves out millions of users, is awfully disingenous.

Unless it’s available for all platforms – and SMS is the only one, with Skype and Facebook being the only two that are available for all “smart” platforms – it’s not really any better than any of the other fragmented solutions.

4 days ago on Pick your poison: messaging will be fragmented, expensive, or locked-in 1 reply 5 recommends