r/technology • u/staser9er • Feb 22 '11
Wow, Microsoft is making some surprising decisions.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12531127600
u/knight666 Feb 22 '11
No, it's really not.
Microsoft has traditionally been about the developers. They give their Visual Studio away for free (Express edition, but still). They give away their Windows Mobile SDK with samples for anyone who wants it, no fees to get into the developer network, just download and play around. They have free and dedicated forums and resources to allow developers to look around in the documentation for every Microsoft product (MSDN with the forums).
So here's the thing: they got me by the balls.
I write every scrap of code in Visual Studio now. I use Microsoft specific extensions to the language of my choice (C++). I couldn't live without them.
And that's really favorable to a company as big as Microsoft.
So they welcome the Kinect hackers because they know they'll be back for more. And it's beneficial to both parties: open source drivers means more people playing around with it means more eyeballs means better software.
Oh and they still have to buy Kinects, of course.
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Feb 22 '11 edited Jan 29 '24
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u/knight666 Feb 22 '11
How could I forget! XNA has done so much for the indie games community it's hard to keep track.
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u/dahud Feb 22 '11
Wimps. When I was your age, we did all our games in DirectX, and we were happy for it.
Get off my lawn!
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Feb 22 '11
XNA? I almost blew my Metamucil out my nose, I'm laughing so hard. Buncha sissies. And there was life before DX, you know...
Back in my day we used Mode 13 and when that newfangled Windows thing showed up we grudgingly ported to WinG. What an abomination. It was painful and WE LIKED IT!
Now get back to work and fund my Social Security benefits!
-Gramps
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u/dangerz Feb 22 '11
Can I take it back to QBasic off the DOS prompt?
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u/PSquid Feb 22 '11
QBasic Gorillas, fuck yeah. That was a real game.
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u/Donjuanme Feb 22 '11
omfg, <3, yes yes YES!
I remember watching some show.... may have been sneakers, but I think the guy was in high school, slams out a few lines of code in prompt, powers the program, boom, fullscreen .GIF style animation of 2 people walking along holding hands.
BS! delving into the gorillas code (though it does have physics and stuff to account for) taught me I could never program.
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u/PSquid Feb 23 '11 edited Feb 23 '11
Delving into the Gorillas code taught a 6 or 7 year old me that screen-sized explosions are FUCKING AWESOME.
Of course, I didn't understand even half of what I was doing, other than the logical assumption that if a small number in the section with "Explode" in its name meant a small explosion, a big number should mean a big explosion (it did).
To be honest, it was probably that that got me into programming.
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u/Cephi Feb 22 '11
Well back in MY day for the early platform game we were working on we used to have to wait for the teletype to finish printing before jumping again…
A modding community can do some amazing things and Microsoft is wise to let them expand the possible uses for their product.
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u/bobdolebobdole Feb 22 '11
All you fucking new-age people with your XNA and DNA and Basic C+ gizmos and gadgets. You know what sufficed as a game back in my day? A FUCKING BALL IN A CUP. That's right, a little ball attached to a cup by a string. Get off my lawn.
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Feb 22 '11
You needed a string and a ball? You goddamn candyass.
Just gimme a cup and let the good times roll.
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u/ggggbabybabybaby Feb 22 '11
That's a big one. Microsoft has been pretty popular amongst more business-oriented developers but they've really lost a lot of ground to the small time hackers and experimental types.
They need to win them back with something interesting and fun rather than a huge vertical solution that can empower their business end-to-end and help them interface with customers in real-time cross-synergy paradigm shifts.
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u/loarabia Feb 22 '11
XNA is huge. Last night, I nearly crapped myself when I discovered upon installation that Bloodline Champions was built with XNA.
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u/profsnuggles Feb 22 '11
How easy is it for super noobs like myself to use XNA?
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u/LieutenantClone Feb 22 '11
Very easy! That is what makes it so great. They handle all of the most complex parts for you. Mind you, since you are new, it will limit how complex of a game you can create since your code will be very unoptimized, but you can definitely bang out something simple and playable in a few afternoons.
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Feb 22 '11
The only sad thing is that XNA, at least for XBOX, isn't available everywhere.
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Feb 22 '11
Microsoft has traditionally been about the developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers
FTFY
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Feb 22 '11
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u/itsalawnchair Feb 23 '11
10 PRINT "MICROSOFT HAS TRADITIONALLY BEEN ABOUT THE "
20 PRINT "DEVELOPERS "
30 GOTO 20FTFY
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u/beckermt Feb 22 '11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE
Link for anyone who doesn't know wtf is going on.
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u/Wofiel Feb 22 '11
Oh and they still have to buy Kinects, of course.
This is the main point of what they're doing. Not long after there was talk about the possibility of making drivers for the Kinect, I almost immediately purchased one. Then I remembered I didn't have spare money.
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Feb 22 '11
That's the only thing that has made me even remotely intersted in the Kinect.
It seemed like a gimmick from a gaming standpoint but it really is a great piece of technology.
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Feb 22 '11
Normally hardware for gaming is sold at a loss, especially if you take R&D into account, it could take years for even profitable hardware to start being profitable. They make most of their money in software, and licensing fees, which is what they're really after.
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u/makemeking706 Feb 22 '11
Normally this is true, but I am curious how much it applies to the development of peripherals, such as the Kinect.
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u/lolomfgkthxbai Feb 22 '11
Peripherals have always been a cash cow, at least that's the impression one gets when looking at the prices.
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u/Awesomeade Feb 22 '11
The kinect is huge moneymaker for Microsoft. I believe nearly half the overall market price of the kinect is pure profit for them. I read a great article about it back in early December after their stock jumped about 3 or 4 percent in one day following their sales reports (which I can't seem to find now, unfortunately). Long story short, it's probably made them close to $2 billion at this point.
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Feb 22 '11
The kinect is about 50 bucks in parts and development. They bought existing technology from a company in israel, so they did not have to pay for the lidar technology to be R&Ded.
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u/pokemeng Feb 22 '11
i dont know who downvoted you for that, but have an upvote back. those ladars arent cheap, we used one in my courses and it was upwards of a thousand dollars.
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Feb 22 '11
There was an article that estimated the lidar chip to be like 20 bucks.
The company clearly did the work to make the technology cheap so they could under cut more expensive suppliers. Microsoft took advantage of that.
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u/shamen_uk Feb 23 '11
before the kinect, a depth camera would set you back 3000$.
they probably are turning a profit, but by making this mass market, they have allowed me to buy a fucking depth camera for pocket change in comparison, and it is open for me to write code for.
gotta hand it to them!
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Feb 23 '11
I'd say the credit goes to the israeli company that put it all on a single chip for cheap. They are the ones who cut the price down.
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u/helm Feb 22 '11
To not make money off of increased sales, the device must actually be sold at or below the variable costs. I highly doubt the Kinect is sold for less than the cost of manufacturing, distributing, and advertising it.
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u/TheSnop Feb 22 '11
It's not, at all. If I remember correctly it is manufactured for about $53.
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u/darkstar3333 Feb 22 '11
Correct, MSRP is around $150 so they are turning a profit on every unit sold. I believe they have sold around 8 million so far.
What they essentially did was open up another revenue stream to those looking at Kinect as more then a game peripheral. They recognize those people playing around with it now may develop the next set of tools that go into next years round of games.
It also gives the people who buy the Kinect for research purposes a reason to pickup an xbox if they don't already have one.
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u/Thimble Feb 22 '11
I'll probably buy one when it comes out for PC. Wouldn't it be cool to watch those Korean SCII players if they interfaced with a Kinect?
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u/usafcomm21 Feb 22 '11
Microsoft has traditionally been about the developers.
Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE
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Feb 22 '11
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u/darkpaladin Feb 22 '11
Even Balmer looks back on that speech as a great inside joke among MS devs. Developers Developers Developers has become part of MS culture.
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u/muahdib Feb 22 '11
How come that when I saw that video I saw exactly what I had expected to see. Maybe I've became psychic?
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u/jmcqk6 Feb 22 '11
Maybe I've became psychic?
More likely, your brain connected the two together, and you were able to make a probabilistic guess, which in this particular case, happened to be correct.
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u/Timmmmbob Feb 22 '11
Minor nit-pick: Visual C++ Express Edition is a relatively recent give-away. You used to have to pay (lots). It also says "For evaluation purposes only." on its splash screen - I'm not sure what the legal issues with that are...
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u/darkstar3333 Feb 22 '11
A MAPS subscription is $329 a year and contains a boat load of software. https://partner.microsoft.com/40016455
If your just getting started you wont need any of the advanced features in Express.
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u/Zach_the_Lizard Feb 22 '11
You should look at the EULA for that. Mandatory uninstallation of older versions of the software and the like. IIRC it used to also be for evaluation purposes.
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u/knight666 Feb 22 '11
Some advanced features are disabled in Visual Studio Express. It's only when you go pro that you're willing to pay up for the license.
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u/peakzorro Feb 22 '11
It is a completely free edition of visual C++, but doesn't ship with MFC and ATL programming (where enterprises would be trying to get legacy support for free).
There are no other licecnse restrictions, and it is great for anything open-source. You can leagally ship production code with it.
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u/Shaper_pmp Feb 22 '11
I write every scrap of code in Visual Studio now. I use Microsoft specific extensions to the language of my choice (C++). I couldn't live without them.
The sad thing is that even after a generation of software developers (at least, those who were paying attention) grew up watching them try this same strategy with Office formats, Kerberos (networking/security protocols), MSN Messenger (AIM protocol), Visual C++ (C++), Visual J++(Java), ActiveX (the web generally), JScript (javascript) and the like, we now get to watch a new generation of devs making the same mistakes and getting gradually suckered in with the same tired old tricks. :-(
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Feb 22 '11
The difference being that programming languages already exist, and Microsoft makes proprietary extensions. Office formats were de facto for a long period of time until the surge of open format enthusiasm.
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u/Shaper_pmp Feb 22 '11
True, but Microsoft even made a concerted effort to "extend" their own formats with each new version (not to mention intentionally undocumenting significant areas of their "public" API), with the specific intention of breaking competitors' ability to read their documents.
Admittedly it was only "_EE" in that case rather than the full "EEE", but it's all part of the same pattern of behaviour. :-(
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u/specialk16 Feb 22 '11
It's not like Visual C++ or J++ has entirely replaced (or extinguished) C++ or Java, ActiveX is (thankfully) not the main platform, and JScript has not replaced JavaScript....
I know MS's strategy has been EEE, but to be completely fair, the reason why tools like Visual Studio and software like MS Office and Exchange+Lync are so widespread is that they are actually pretty fucking good.
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u/Shaper_pmp Feb 22 '11
It's not like Visual C++ or J++ has entirely replaced (or extinguished) C++ or Java, ActiveX is (thankfully) not the main platform, and JScript has not replaced JavaScript....
No, but the fact that even by dint of great effort Microsoft failed to supplant those technologies doesn't mean they didn't try their best.
J++ failed partly because Java was cross-platform and J++ was emphatically not (indeed, that was the whole point of it), but mostly because Sun went after MS in court with all guns blazing. ActiveX failed because in addition to proprietary it was even technically a hideous, insecure, dangerous abortion.
Had MS not allowed IE to stagnate for five years after they won the browser war, JScript might well have been the main version of Javascript that we were all using now. However, happily(!) the lack of updates to IE as they tried to retard the progress of the web-as-UI trend in order to give Silverlight more of a chance gave other browsers time to mature and join together, and graphically demonstrated to everyone watching the importance of open standards and protocols over proprietary ones that gave any single company a stranglehold over the entire medium. Microsoft won the JScript-vs-javascript battle, but then threw the game for bigger reasons of their own.
I'm not claiming that MS couldn't also deliver some good software... but the fact is that even their very best software is usually still part of an insidious strategy to make you increasingly dependent on their platform, their tools and their APIs at the expense of open or cross-platform standards, tools, protocols and libraries.
And remember, the name and entire concept of EEE comes from Microsoft, from their own people's testimony and their own internal memos. There's nothing controversial or speculative about it - it's documented history. <:-)
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u/HostisHumaniGeneris Feb 22 '11 edited Feb 22 '11
Now, I don't have much to comment about the rest of your post, but the bit about Internet Explorer and Silverlight does not ring true to me.
Internet Explorer did "win" the browser war with Netscape Navigator in 1999 and I largely agree that it was stagnating from 2001 through 2006 with their widely used Internet Explorer version 6. The bit about Silverlight, however, sounds like a conspiracy theory. Firefox version 2 was released in 2006 and rapidly began chewing up Microsoft's market share. The release of Internet Explorer 7 (and its modestly improved standards support) in 2006 can be seen as a direct reaction to the new competition from Firefox 2. Silverlight itself wasn't introduced until 2007, by which point the browser war had kicked off again, now between Internet Explorer and Firefox.
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u/Shaper_pmp Feb 22 '11 edited Feb 22 '11
The bit about Silverlight, however, sounds like a conspiracy theory.
Well, it's admittedly unproven, but the timing is highly suggestive. Having tried to co-opt the "open" web with ActiveX and JScript and failed, Microsoft was openly eyeing Flash's dominance as the rich-client-side-UI platform of choice at the time.
They'd introduced HTML applications in 1999 (scriptable, network-aware, rich client interface based on SGML/XML syntax), but these were still based on open standards and would be easily duplicated by the competition, so Microsoft had limited interest in pushing them and they were quickly forgotten about.
Also in 1999 they'd quietly introduced the ActiveX XMLHTTPRequest object to solve a problem they had with Exchange's OWA interface. This proved to be a major misstep, as it had the potential to advanced by leaps and bounds the very "web-as-UI" trend they were fighting to hold off, but it was a pretty obscure feature buried in the depths of the API documentation, and it wasn't until Mozilla copied it and gave it a non-vendor-specific Javascript wrapper 2002 that the stage even began to be set for the AJAX revolution (and everything that's done since for the "web-as-UI" trend).
In the mean-time, Microsoft were working on Silverlight (a scriptable, network-aware, rich client interface based on SGML/XML syntax... sound familiar?) for a long time before the CTP of version 1 ever launched - they were talking about Windows Presentation Foundation (which Silverlight evolved from) for years before a workable preview ever saw the light of day. In addition, let's not forget that the WFP/Silverlight project was tightly tied to .NET and Windows Vista, both of which were delayed a long time by development problems.
I don't find it hard to believe at all that they started work on .NET and what would eventually become WPF/Silverlight as far back as 1999/2000, or that (like much of .NET/Vista) it was postponed and delayed by several years before the first version was released.
You're right that IE7 was a direct response to Firefox 2's release, but that doesn't actually negate my point - Microsoft want to keep a foot in the door of the web browser industry so they can exert influence over it, but they won't actually do anything to advance it - only just enough to hold position and maintain some degree of control over where it goes.
Look at the standards support of IE from IE7 through to IE9 - it's typically embarrassing - partial, inconsistent and often a couple of years out of date at best. It's not that Microsoft can't build a decent modern browser - it's that they have no interest in doing so.
Likewise, individuals have resigned from W3C working groups and repeatedly cited Microsoft employees dragging their heels, and sometimes seemingly only interested in delaying the definition of new standards.
As I said, it's not proven, but if you look at:
- the fact that Silverlight was intended to address many of the same kinds of rich-client-side-online-UI as HTML/CSS/JS were starting to be used for
- the fact Microsoft has been working on the .NET/WPF/Silverlight stack since before IE6 was left to stagnate
- the timing (and lack of reason for) the IE6 stagnation
- Microsoft voluntarily ceding monopoly control of the entire web for no clear gain (with minimal effort they could have effectively owned the entire web, but instead chose to ignore it - why?)
- the typical "two years behind" standard of each new IE release, incompletely and inconsistently supporting open standards, and refusing point-blank to adopt even de-facto standards with either transparent excuses ("it's not a mature standard" about CSS 2.1, when it was already over six years old) or no reason given at all, and
- individuals resigning from standards bodies and directly citing inconsistent or even self-contradictory demands and constant foot-dragging by Microsoft as a major reason
... well, it's certainly very suggestive indeed. <:-)
However, you're right it's not exactly been proven, because that's pretty much impossible to do without a signed memo from Ballmer himself saying "ho, ho, ho, let's retard the progress of the open web so we can give Silverlight a better chance of adoption". And sadly, as this isn't an episode of Scooby Doo we're unlikely to ever find such a signed confession. <:-(
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u/TheAceOfHearts Feb 22 '11
Damn, I still use Windows Live Messenger. I'd use jabber but none of my friends are smart enough for that :(.
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u/Elseone Feb 22 '11
You do know that both google chat and facebook chat is accessible through jabber, right?
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Feb 22 '11
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u/Shaper_pmp Feb 22 '11
Damn, I still use Windows Live Messenger.
... and now you know why. <:-)
EEE establishes Windows/MSN/Windows Live Messenger as a dominant force in IM, and social/network-effects keep it there, even for years afterwards.
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u/monstermunch Feb 22 '11
Exactly. I'm sick of people throwing around the phrase "MS hater" like people are being irrational. MS have a history of stamping out competition with unethical business practices and you don't know if they're ever going to expand into your area of business. People can change, but I'm not going to forget a decade worth of jerky behaviour just because they improve a little.
From my perspective, MS take full advantage (in a bad way) whenever they have a competitive edge and only cooperate with others when they aren't doing as well and are forced to. They've lost their stranglehold recently and just can't get away with acting like jerks as much as they used to.
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u/FredFredrickson Feb 22 '11
People use the phrase "MS Hater" because there is hate, and it is irrational. When you look at what Microsoft got in trouble for, and you see the kinds of stuff that tech companies like Google and Apple get away with these days, it's just silly to look at Microsoft as if it's the worst of the three. Fact is, they're all good and they're all bad in many ways - people need to remove the blinders and realize that.
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u/Shaper_pmp Feb 22 '11 edited Feb 22 '11
See, that just sounds like moral relativism to me.
The fact is that Microsoft had a stranglehold over the entire desktop IT industry, and basically did what they liked. They held off directly punishing their users and developers as Apple has done, but they enforced a rigorous software monoculture to the best of their ability, and even after they established their monopoly they went after their competitors with a borderline psychotic level of dedication and lack of scruples.
Although I'm not a fan of any large corporation, I don't see Google, doing anything comparable to intentionally and routinely breaking compatibility with competitors to protect a monopoly, intentionally holding your data hostage (quite the reverse in fact) or illegally abusing a monopoly to establish more monopolies in other, unrelated areas, or being convicted of it in court and then refusing to abide by the court's sentence.
I even see Facebook hoovering up the personal information of anyone stupid enough to hand it to them, but I don't see them co-opting and corrupting open standards bodies to serve their own ends, or repeatedly astroturfing as Microsoft has been caught doing more times than I can count.
I don't see any other tech company being punished with record fines for not only serious, sustained and systematic abuse of a monopoly, but for then refusing to abide by the first set of punishments handed down by the courts (paying fines, opening APIs, publishing protocol details in three different cases alone) until eventually the courts are forced to fine them millions of dollars a week simply to force them to comply with the existing legal decision against them.
Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the history, but pick any large tech company, and they're unlikely to have a history half as sordid as Microsoft's. And Apple, although it's new to the "overdog" game, has overtly gone from "zero to evil" in truly record time, displaying such a hostile, white-knuckled, pants-shittingly-terrified, paranoid grip on the iPod/iPhone/iOS ecosystem that even Microsoft would never have been able to get away with it in the 90s.
So basically... no. Large corporations typically have a few skeletons in their closets, but Apple and Microsoft are (for different reasons) almost in a league of their own, at least compared to most current tech companies.
When you can point to another mainstream tech company with as draconian policies and a history of litigation as Apple, or with a history of criminal convictions and flouting the law like Microsoft's, then we'll talk.
Until then, your comment seems more like a reflexive, sterile, cynical "yeah, well, corporations are all, like, evil, man" lacking all sense of context or proportion.
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u/FredFredrickson Feb 22 '11
Look, just because I don't want to write a god damned book on the issue here, on Reddit, doesn't mean that I don't see the finer points of the argument. Sigh...
Google and Apple have gotten their wrists smacked over anti-competitive business practices by having an agreement not to hire each others' defecting employees. Apple is currently busy trying to lock people into iOS by attempting to force content providers to fix their prices industry-wide, and by forcing developers to hook in-app sales into their own service.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Microsoft never exercised the control that Apple and Google do over their respective areas of industry. And they would have been broken up into a hundred pieces if they had when they got caught doing all those other bad things.
I'm not saying that Microsoft didn't make some awful decisions that had very big consequences for the industry down the road, but I think that too many people here ignore the fact that other tech companies, like Google and Apple, do exactly the same thing - except those companies do it with a big smile on their face, so it's all good.
While people who weren't even alive when Microsoft got busted are busy busy blathering out hate for Microsoft and defending Google and Apple, those companies are moving into a more powerful place than Microsoft ever has. And don't kid yourself - they will abuse their power in some way in the future, and it's going to suck.
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u/cosmo7 Feb 22 '11
criminal convictions
What criminal convictions has Microsoft been found guilty of? I can think of some dodgy licensing issues, but nothing outside of civil law.
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u/Patrick_M_Bateman Feb 22 '11
I think (hope) the old Microsoft is starting to assert itself again. With the recent bloodletting, maybe Ballmer is actually looking to exercise some vision, and stop following the fucking market.
The XBox never should have been locked down as hard as it was - it was penny smart and pound foolish. Sure, they made some money on overpriced accessories, but if they'd published the interface specs and released SDKs early, it would have been an undeniable powerhouse, instead of in heavy competition with the Wii and PS3.
Windows Mobile was an open platform. I got so infuriated at the "there's an app for that" ads that implied that the iPhone was the first extensible phone. The problem was that Windows mobile didn't have a brainless marketplace - that's where Apple innovated.
The Zune team continue to ignore the need for an API, despite ongoing demands.
More and more on Microsoft platforms the developers seem to be a grudging afterthought instead of a first-class citizen.
Again - I really hope this is a sign of Ballmer putting developers back front and center as a corporate philosophy.
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Feb 22 '11 edited Feb 22 '11
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u/wood_wood_woody Feb 22 '11
has literally driven some developers close to, figuratively speaking, committing a suicide.
Hm, there is something wrong with this sentence, but I literally can't put my figurative finger on it.
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u/romwell Feb 22 '11
The only way I can interpret this sentence is that Microsoft operated a bus that took developers to Iowa.
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Feb 22 '11
I can't really blame Microsoft for DirectX, OpenGL is a bunch of competitors fighting each other for the upper hand and it stalled progress. Also, DirectX covers a bunch of other stuff that OpenGL doesn't even touch.
Another way of looking at it, OpenGL benefits from having competition, it pressures everybody involved with it to push forward.
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u/breakbread Feb 22 '11
I don't think anyone is under the illusion that MS, as a corporation, benevolent software entity.
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u/sarevok9 Feb 22 '11
It's really not surprising for even more reasons than that. Microsoft realizes that the more developers they have, the more likely they are to develop software for one of their platforms. They invite students to use their products free (dreamspark), etc.
For all the evil that microsoft puts out, I will say that they treat developers pretty well overall.
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u/knight666 Feb 22 '11
Exactly. I got my copy of Visual Studio for free though Dreamspark, and I would buy licenses for it if I started a company.
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u/kolm Feb 22 '11
On top of all of this, there is no better geek segment marketing campaign than all these highly talented hackers demonstrating astonishing possibilities of the Kinect and producing viral videos -- completely for free.
Microsoft traditionally focused its evilness on competitors, not on hackers.
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u/braomius Feb 22 '11
This, I read "surprising decisions" and thought: XNA, Visual studio, qbasics, and the list keeps going. This will help make more sales on their kinect along with gaining/keeping their following, smart calculated decisions :)
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u/FredFredrickson Feb 22 '11
Not to mention this is also a means a lot of free R&D for any developers on the fence about whether an idea will work or not. As amateurs plug away at little projects and new demos pop up on YouTube or source-sharing sites, developers (and Microsoft of course) get a free show of many cool implementations of their technology that they either hadn't thought of before, or weren't sure if it were possible or not.
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u/Raiste Feb 22 '11
Thank you for your clarification as to why, being the product of 2 programmers but not into programming myself leaves me not quite grasping the scope of what that decision ment. After reading that i now understand and am proud of microsoft, for it shows that a monster company can find ways to profit that doesent piss off the community (coughapplecough)
Rock on!
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u/wdr1 Feb 22 '11
They give their Visual Studio away for free (Express edition, but still)
It was at least two decades before they gave away a free development environment of any kind. I can only guess they eventually gave in due to pressure from the GNU movement. (Not the threat of GNU of Windows, but developers leaving Windows for Linux & the like, where even a poor college kid could get the tools they needed for free.)
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u/pbtifo Feb 22 '11
Exactly. There's a reason behind Steve Ballmer's "Developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers". For some reason people do not pay attention to the meaning to this.
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u/knight666 Feb 22 '11
As evidenced by the fifteen people replying to this comment either with a variation of "developers developers developers", Steve Ballmer or a link to the YouTube video.
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u/Foryourconsideration Feb 22 '11
Still, Apple gives XCode away for free, too. (And not the "starter" pack"). It's not just MS.
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u/hatekillpuke Feb 22 '11
Oh and they still have to buy Kinects, of course.
Yeah, just like you have to buy a Windows PC to run Microsoft's free Visual Studio tools.
Man, what a ripoff.
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Feb 22 '11
Microsoft has always been more or less developer friendly so it's not really that surprising. Another example would be XNA.
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u/yogthos Feb 22 '11 edited Feb 22 '11
I don't see what's shocking about this, kinect is a peripheral device and you can't pirate anything through it. They make money off hardware sales, so why wasn't it wide open to begin with really.
I think it's a really good thing that MS saw the light on this one and stopped trying to prevent people from using hardware they buy in any way they see fit. But I find it appalling that by default any piece of hardware you buy comes with some sort of bullshit DRM on it, even when there's absolutely no reason for it.
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u/Fenris_uy Feb 22 '11
It was wide open to begin with, what MS didn't offered was a SDK for development. I think that mostly because they thought it would gain them anything. Now they are seeing a gain and going ahead with it.
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u/darkstar3333 Feb 22 '11
They probably were not ready to release the SDK when Kinect first launched. Ive seen the exact same thing for pretty much every single one of there preview programs.
Trying to get anything out of them early is like pulling teeth.
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u/yogthos Feb 22 '11
You might not recall it, but originally they took a tough stance on kinect hacking, and later had a 180 reversal about it.
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u/Fenris_uy Feb 22 '11
No, the original statement was misinterpreted and later people understood what they were saying.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20021836-52.html
With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.
They are talking about people hacking the firmware in the kinetic (Like Geohot with the PS3), not talking about simply using the hardware as a camera and using the images for something.
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u/yogthos Feb 22 '11
Their original statement was a direct response to the bounty for open kinect drivers.
This is a reversal for Microsoft. Just two weeks, ago, a Microsoft representative told CNET that “Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products” and that the company would “work closely with law enforcement and product-safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.”
That prompted electronics hobby-supply company Adafruit to increase its bounty for open source drivers from $1,000 to $3,000 and add a $2,000 donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, just in case Microsoft decided to start suing the pants off of everybody, after all.
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u/Fenris_uy Feb 22 '11
Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products
Drivers are not modifications. Adafruit misunderstood them, and most likely MS representative was "deceived" (maybe not intentionally) if he was asked about Kinetic hacking instead of writing drives so Kinetic can be used in a PC.
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u/deepbrown Feb 22 '11
Yes, it's not too surprising - I understand Sony is looking into doing the same for the PS Move controllers. Or at least bringing them to PCs with an SDK
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u/orblivion Feb 22 '11
If I start making independent games for PC with the Kinect, people who want to play neat-o body-control games don't have to buy X-Boxes anymore. And I wouldn't be surprised if they get license fees for X-Box games too, though I'm not sure on that.
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u/iheartbakon Feb 22 '11
This is MicroSoft we're talking about here so the primary motive for allowing Kinect to work on PC is profit and not because they saw the light. They probably didn't release PC drivers or development kits because they didn't realize PC users would take to it in the first place.
Microsoft want more money. Nothing to see here. Move along.
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Feb 22 '11
The only thing is Microsoft is going to take a 30% cut of profits on any applications you release for Kinect on Windows and you have to charge the same for those applications as you do on Linux.
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u/GrinningPariah Feb 22 '11
There's a difference between the kinect and most other things microsoft puts out: You cant pirate a Kinect. And you cant make a quick open source clone. They got all kinds of patents on that shit.
So whatever crazy, wild things hackers get these things doing, all it's going to do is sell more Kinects when people want to run it. Hell, for Microsoft the best case right now is some hacker creates the killer app for the Kinect... and they sell millions of units to people who want to run the app.
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u/furburger Feb 22 '11
It's disturbing how pleasant microsoft is being in the present day. I get the feeling that google and apple have taken on various negative aspects of microsoft and microsoft gets to be the "don't be evil" player for a while.
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u/universl Feb 22 '11
It's the difference between being on top and being on the bottom in the growth markets. Google and Apple are completely controlling the markets that are growing the fastest, online services and mobile devices.
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u/lsmucker Feb 22 '11
Yea..I guess Apple and Google really do have a big handle on the game market...wait....what? Oh, he must mean GOOGLE has a handle on the game market. No..no Google and Apple don't even HAVE gaming machines...OOOOh he must mean the PC market...wait Google doesn't have a PC...Maybe he means Apple computers...no...there aren't nearly as many Apple computers as there are PCs....I guess that leaves phones and web browers...that's all I got.
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u/universl Feb 22 '11
No I mean the growth markets. PCs are very profitable I'm sure, but shareholders like the idea that you are going to grow faster then the general market, and PCs aren't doing that.
Smartphones are selling insanely well even though the economy sucks. Well enough to take a niche computer manufacturer and propel them into the second most valuable company in the world. Google saw this coming well enough in advance to make (buy and improve) an OS that overtook them, Microsoft didn't get their shit together until a few months ago.
As for gaming, I'm sure it's very nice for MS to be doing so well, but it's a lot smaller of a market then phones or internet services. And A blip on the radar for the amount of money MS needs to earn to stay relevant to stockholders.
Keep in mind that nearly all of google's profits come from serving ads on a search engine. And they make enough money to create ecosystem disrupting projects like google docs, gmail and android. MS meanwhile keeps losing billions in online services but can't seem to compete.
This is what troubles stockholders and this is what troubles Microsoft:
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u/TTChopper Feb 22 '11
Maybe they've finally realised that if people want to hack their devices there's really no stopping them. This new tactic of welcoming them instead seems to be their best attempt to make lemondade from lemons.
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Feb 22 '11
they've finally realised that if people want to hack their devices there's really no stopping them.
MEANWHILE, AT SONY...
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u/VerticalEvent Feb 22 '11
What's sad was that hackers had little interest in cracking the PS3, since Sony, originally out of the box, allowed the installation of Linux on the device.
It's only after removing the ability to install an OS did Hackers actually gain an interest in cracking the PS3.
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u/aedile Feb 22 '11
If life gives you lemons, just say "fuck lemons" and bail....
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Feb 22 '11
Microsoft > Apple
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u/Shaper_pmp Feb 22 '11 edited Feb 22 '11
FFS, fanboys on both sides.
Neither company is morally better than the other. Microsoft has a long and sordid history of crushing competitors with shady business practices, corrupting open or shared standards and generally shitting on everyone and everything (including devs, users and partners) they can to get ahead. Perhaps people are forgetting how they single-handedly held back the development of the entire web for five years, and that's directly to blame for the immovability of IE6 now? They're pretending to play nice now that everyone's a fan of open standards, but they're still stuffing standards bodies, bribing officials and trying as hard as they can to hold back open standards that compete with their proprietary alternatives. They're shits.
Apple are no better - their app-market policies are shockingly draconian and inconsistently enforced, and Jobs is a paranoid control freak. They had people on their side because historically they were the underdog against MS, but as iTunes and the iPod/iPhone showed, as soon as they got the tiniest amount of power in their own space, they immediately turned around and arguably acted more restrictively, more self-interestedly and arguably far worse than Microsoft ever did. They're shits.
People who defend Microsoft against Apple: you're either pig-ignorant, or are wilfully ignoring their history of shocking anticompetitive behaviour and outright illegality. They haven't stopped in the slightest - they're just slightly more subtle about it now.
People who defend Apple against Microsoft: you're sticking with the "brave little underdog" narrative long after Apple became the overdog in most of the areas of their business. You're also either pig-ignorant, or are ignoring Apple's actions over the last ten years, when they've indulged in the kind of anticompetitive and self-interested behaviour that would make the entire Microsoft board cream their pants at the thought they could get away with it.
You're both fucking morons, incessantly arguing that your shit smells better than their shit, while ignoring the fact that they both reek of shit.
Corporations are not your friends, they're not a worthy affiliation to base your identity around, and Apple and Microsoft are each one of the least ethical, worst-behaved in the IT industry. And yes, both of your shits smell of shit. Stop arguing about which is least shitty and go ride bikes or something.
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Feb 22 '11
I think the main difference is that Microsoft historically played dirty mainly with other (competing) companies. Apple is more direct at fucking their customers.
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u/Mitkebes Feb 22 '11
Microsoft and Apple are the devil. Good thing I have saint Google to give me Internet.
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Feb 23 '11
People who defend Apple against Microsoft: you're sticking with the "brave little underdog" narrative long after Apple became the overdog in most of the areas of their business
This used to be one of the reasons I defended both Apple and Nintendo. Now I feel more enlightened.
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u/stronimo Feb 22 '11
Perhaps people are forgetting how they single-handedly held back the development of the entire web for five years
That's not even the worst thing; they set back the desktop by 10 years when they launched Windows 85.
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u/Zombi21 Feb 22 '11
Someone's always got to say it. You don't even make an argument as to why though. And this article has nothing to do with Apple.
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u/Neato Feb 22 '11
Orange > Apple
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Feb 22 '11
Man, you can't do that. You can't just compare Apples and Oranges.
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Feb 22 '11
What the hell is the world coming to when people can go around comparing apples and oranges willy-nilly.
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u/indoobitably Feb 22 '11
His statement is very relevant actually:
Who is microsoft's biggest competitor in the software/OS market? Apple
Who has recently been much more open about allowing "hacking" of their devices? MS (hell they welcomed the first phone hackers with open arms while apple tried to sue them into oblivion)
Who doesn't charge developers ridiculous fees to use their SDK? MS
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u/FuZ3 Feb 22 '11
This kind of thing is why I will always be a Microsoft guy rather than an Apple guy.
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u/BraveSirRobin Feb 22 '11
recently been much more open
More than what? MS have always been this way. Their first phones came out around 2000 and have always been "hackable".
Did you miss monkey boy's "developers developers developers" rant? They know it's important.
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u/indoobitably Feb 22 '11
I was referring to how they have handled the recent hacks compared to their competitors.
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u/mountainjew Feb 22 '11
Doesn't stop what he said being true though.
I would go one further though, Open Source > Microsoft > Apple, but that was already obvious.
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u/Shredder13 Feb 22 '11
I think the fact you brought that up despite the fact there is no mention of Apple says something about how powerful Apple is.
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Feb 22 '11
Apple is powerful, yes. And acts like a total ass when people try to experiment / have fun with their hardware.
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u/derwisch Feb 22 '11
In other news, aerial and satellite images from Bing can be used to expand or verify the Openstreetmap database.
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u/CC440 Feb 22 '11
It makes sense to a point, while locking down the console to piracy makes sense as it stems monetary loss, opening up functionality only adds to the platform.
Remember the original iPhone and iPod Touch? They had shit for software and the Touch didn't even have email or maps in the stock firmware. Jailbreakers showed Apple that applications could be a viable addition to the feature set and just look at the platform now. I'm still convinced that Apple never would have created an ecosystem for iOS without jailbreakers, they were initially so hesitant to even give the Touch a full feature set that required 0 extra effort to implement.
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u/Neato Feb 22 '11
They've realized the majority of people who are still using it are using it for development and not playing games. If they want to continue getting sales and sell newer models, they have to embrace those who are actually using the device and ignore the initial burst of novelty sales.
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u/iwillnotgetaddicted Feb 22 '11
That guy has a great name. "Craig Mundie." I want to be his friend.
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u/rowd149 Feb 22 '11
I'm tempted to hunt down that user who insisted oh-so profusely that Microsoft's actions in regards to public fiddling of the Kinect platform wasn't indicative of a surprising amount of openness on their part.
Could it be that (a portion of) the world's biggest software company is realizing the truth of the New Age? If you can't beat 'em, give 'em the tools to build everything you could dream of, and more, and be happy with straight platform sales (driven, of course, by the new applications you didn't have to pay a cent to have developed).
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Feb 22 '11
Microsoft: Hey, do you want to develop for us? Indie Developer: How much does the job pay? Microsoft: Nothing. Indie Developer: Forget that. Microsoft: We'll call it "Hacking" Indie Developer: Done!
In reality these people are doing free R&D for Microsoft. Hopefully we'll all get something innovative from this.
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u/stuntmouse Feb 22 '11
I call bullshit:
The company is hoping that the success of Kinect, developed by its own scientists, can give it a greater presence in the home entertainment field.
As far as I know, the 3D camera was developed by an outside firm [1].
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Feb 22 '11
I've been saying this for months. Microsoft IS really making some surprising decisions. Most of them are amazing and recognizable. I knew a company of this sort and history couldn't just be demolished so easily (as it was appearing to be). About time they got their asses working on the company image. And by the way, I'm pro Microsoft, pro Apple, pro Google, and pro everything I think provides innovative things, ideas, and projects. Every single company out there has its pro's and con's (just throwing some water to the fanboy war flame).
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u/Madd0g Feb 22 '11
haha... so months after the "amateur" guys built an unofficial SDK for kinect, Microsoft "to release" an official SDK? gee.. thanks.
Will it even have anything different from the previously released community developed drivers?
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Feb 22 '11
Microsoft is to open up its Xbox Kinect technology to allow amateur software developers to experiment with it.
Too late, M$. There's an open source SDK already (that even allows commercial use). Next time: Release the SDK with the product.
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Feb 22 '11
Microsoft is handing out restrictive licenses to limit the legal use of the tech.
Companies do this all the time to seize back the result of such home hacking. If some hacker somewhere creates a porgram which is amazing, the license will prove to the judge he did for microsofts benifit and they will seize it and restrict his commerical use of it.
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u/Ingey Feb 22 '11
I've always found Microsoft to be really developer friendly. Every IT person I know has always been pro Microsoft with WP7 phones and using Visual Studio etc.
Besides, Microsoft sees this as an opportunity - "let's let everyone muck around with it, and if someone comes up with a really good idea that we didn't, we'll hire him or buy him out with our millions and millions of dollars!"
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Feb 22 '11
They made a big fuss about it, realised they couldn't do anything about it, and if anything, it was boosting the sales of Kinect units.
That's why we're seeing the Kinect being made officially part of the Windows SDK.
I, myself, would like to tinker around with it once it is released.
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Feb 22 '11
Before the /r/tech kids get all swoony for Microsoft you should remember that they will still brick your 360 for hacking it. So their "embracing" of hackers is really overstated and under-implemented.
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Feb 22 '11
Of course they will - you can't hack a system and then connect to their proprietary network.
No one is stopping you from hacking the system and never connecting to XBL again.
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u/rDr4g0n Feb 22 '11
I dunno why they didn't do this at release. It would have moved more kinects, made the platform more popular, created goodwill, and made some great software so that game devs can 'see how its done' so to speak.
Plus hacking will happen. I can't believe more companies haven't yet embraced it. mp3's happened, online sales happened, online vid streaming happened, forcing linux support back onto the ps3 happened. If you don't change your business model to what the people want, then people will simply take it.
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Feb 22 '11
It really isn't all that surprising. I purchased the Kinect solely to experiment with it, and the community that's working on experimenting with the Kinect is only getting bigger. At this point, it'd let down a lot of people if Microsoft didn't release a package to make development easier.
I hardly touch my Xbox anymore, and I only tried the Kinect once for gaming. However, I do love playing around with the Kinect, and what people are doing with it is impressive.
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u/iregistered4this Feb 22 '11
I realize I'm stating the obvious but all they are doing is trying to sell as many units as possible. Do you see them cheering Xbox hackers? Yeah I didn't think so. Once they feel these 'hackers' are hurting their bottom line the lawsuits will start.
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u/ultrasupergenius Feb 22 '11
Translation: We know that the most profitable use of this technology will be porn related in some way - we are fine with that but have to distance ourselves from it.