My experience with Microsoft is that they still fundamentally don't understand that everything has changed around them. They believe they are right because they are Microsoft and poor sales, poor reviews and poor stock performance is really just an unfair world set against them. What else could it be? We are Microsoft!
When I tried to engage Microsoft about better supporting indie game developers on Windows Mobile phone, the sense that I got was that XBox was successful brand and that adding Xbox-like services to Windows Phone could jeopardize this brand. How could they offer a free achievement system for indie developers and still justify charging $50K for similar services on Xbox? (source: I'm the creator of mogade.com)
How does this relate? I'm not surprised to see that the Azure team is attempting this whereas the Windows Phone team never did. It's obvious now, looking back at it, but I should have engaged the Azure team, not the Windows Phone team, for any truly progressive thoughts on mobile development.
Does everyone forget that the U.S. government brought an antitrust case against Microsoft and nearly broke them up? That experience certainly cooled them off a bit.
They've slowly aligned themselves in the background with Facebook, Yahoo, and even Apple against Google. They just inked another licensing deal with Foxconn for use of Android and Chrome OS of all things.
I can't speak to the company or your experience, but I recall MSFT doing a bunch of outreach a couple of years ago for Windows Phone - free devices, etc. Large companies often have silos with their own focus - getting one to adopt the practices of the other may be difficult.
Maybe reengaging or conversing with one of the WP dev evangelists might make additional progress - maybe not immediately, but establishing a relationship, comtinual dialogue, and persistence can sometimes help turn a large ship.
>How could they offer a free achievement system for indie developers and still justify charging $50K for similar services on Xbox?
they can't. but is offering a free achievement system for indies going to net them enough to compensate for the loss of AAA developers on xbox? probably not. microsoft's earnings came out last week - they're still beating google on both gross and net revenue. They're not entirely stupid over there. I agree with you, they definitely don't seem to be progressive or well positioned for the future, but they're making money.
Are people using Azure Mobile Services happy with it? I watched the first NSScreencast on it, and it just seemed to introduce so much complexity. If I wanted to manually configure SQL tables, I'd make my own backend. Parse on the other hand was extremely well documented and required 0 server or database knowledge.
Edit: Personally I don't find Azure marketing all that interesting, but they have been doing a great outreach effort. In addition to DF, they've two sponsored NSScreencasts and the latest iOS dev weekly newsletter.
Surprised? If you look in the iTunes store, MSFT has a number of apps, a number well reviewed. Much of the commentary after MSFT released numbers last week was about the diversity of their offerings -- yes Windows and Office are still the big fish, but diversity can be a good thing.
MS Office for Mac and an investment in Apple when it was in a tough spot show a history for the company having a broader view than just the Windows ecosystem (that's not saying, that isn't the MAIN focus).
He's advertising their cloud development platform. If it was AWS, not much different, as the Kindle Fire's a direct competitor to Apple.
Years ago, when the MS hatred was a bit more intense on places like Slashdot, I amused myself with capturing screenshots of Microsoft ads on their site. Here's a few from my old blog:
Gruber must be having a hard time finding sponsors if he decided to accept money from Microsoft, probably the second company he hates most (the first one being Google, obviously).
MS might have figured out that cloud services are a big weakness within the iOS plattform and that they're in a prime position to get iOS users to use their offerings.
Microsoft have been a player in the mac ecosystem for long, and most of people's complaint was that they didn't do enough (no new versions of IE, Office suite lagging after a while, the windows phone app coming later, etc)
The Core Intuition podcast also got sponsored by azure, and one of the host was joking "it's as if they thought it out to be used by developpers". If anything, microsoft will be more than welcomed I think if they put efforts to have OSX/iOS devices as first class citizens in their platforms.
[+] [-] latch|13 years ago|reply
When I tried to engage Microsoft about better supporting indie game developers on Windows Mobile phone, the sense that I got was that XBox was successful brand and that adding Xbox-like services to Windows Phone could jeopardize this brand. How could they offer a free achievement system for indie developers and still justify charging $50K for similar services on Xbox? (source: I'm the creator of mogade.com)
You really get the sense that the comical org-chart representation of MS is accurate: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1OeWV6O5BzM/TmjGWNGlO7I/AAAAAAAAAA...
How does this relate? I'm not surprised to see that the Azure team is attempting this whereas the Windows Phone team never did. It's obvious now, looking back at it, but I should have engaged the Azure team, not the Windows Phone team, for any truly progressive thoughts on mobile development.
[+] [-] ziadbc|13 years ago|reply
They've slowly aligned themselves in the background with Facebook, Yahoo, and even Apple against Google. They just inked another licensing deal with Foxconn for use of Android and Chrome OS of all things.
[+] [-] jmspring|13 years ago|reply
Maybe reengaging or conversing with one of the WP dev evangelists might make additional progress - maybe not immediately, but establishing a relationship, comtinual dialogue, and persistence can sometimes help turn a large ship.
[+] [-] notatoad|13 years ago|reply
they can't. but is offering a free achievement system for indies going to net them enough to compensate for the loss of AAA developers on xbox? probably not. microsoft's earnings came out last week - they're still beating google on both gross and net revenue. They're not entirely stupid over there. I agree with you, they definitely don't seem to be progressive or well positioned for the future, but they're making money.
[+] [-] acchow|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MaxGabriel|13 years ago|reply
Edit: Personally I don't find Azure marketing all that interesting, but they have been doing a great outreach effort. In addition to DF, they've two sponsored NSScreencasts and the latest iOS dev weekly newsletter.
http://nsscreencast.com/episodes/59-windows-azure-mobile-ser...
http://iosdevweekly.com/issues/90/?utm_source=iOS+Dev+Weekly...
[+] [-] jmspring|13 years ago|reply
MS Office for Mac and an investment in Apple when it was in a tough spot show a history for the company having a broader view than just the Windows ecosystem (that's not saying, that isn't the MAIN focus).
[+] [-] bdcravens|13 years ago|reply
Years ago, when the MS hatred was a bit more intense on places like Slashdot, I amused myself with capturing screenshots of Microsoft ads on their site. Here's a few from my old blog:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020929185648/http://www.mr-bill...
(Today that's no big deal since ads are served based on your browsing history if you don't block, but in 2002, I think that was less likely)
[+] [-] laureny|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anextio|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m_mueller|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brandynwhite|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffehobbs|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hrktb|13 years ago|reply
The Core Intuition podcast also got sponsored by azure, and one of the host was joking "it's as if they thought it out to be used by developpers". If anything, microsoft will be more than welcomed I think if they put efforts to have OSX/iOS devices as first class citizens in their platforms.
[+] [-] mchiang|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Anechoic|13 years ago|reply
see: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/30/
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/22/
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/09/ etc
[+] [-] ryanolsonx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xyzodiac|13 years ago|reply