Here is why MS is failing.

 

http://www.vanityfai...o-steve-ballmer

 

Gosh.... it all sounds so familiar, in so many ways.

 

Also:

 

And so, the bureaucratization of Microsoft began. Some executives traced the change to the ascension of Ballmer, but in truth Microsoft’s era of fast cash was almost certainly the actual driving force.

 

More employees seeking management slots led to more managers, more managers led to more meetings, more meetings led to more memos, and more red tape led to less innovation. Everything, one executive said, advanced at a snail’s pace.

 

“There was this institutionalized system, and it was like designing software by committee,” said Prasanna Sankaranarayanan, a former Microsoft engineer. “Things moved too slowly. There were too many meetings.”

 

I can almost imagine MVGibbage, nodding.

Here is why MS is failing.

 

http://www.vanityfai...o-steve-ballmer

 

And the headline quote from that article?

 

"Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft."

 

read it and weep, Mr. Howard.

And the headline quote from that article?

 

"Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft."

 

read it and weep, Mr. Howard.

 

That also contains a message about the conservatism bred by success. The new can be blocked by allegiance to things-as-they-are.

Hello

A great read, but depressing all the same.

P4... the stack ranking system, almost word for word what is happening where I work, it's not just Microsoft that's afflicted with this particular madness.

The new can be blocked by allegiance to things-as-they-are

 

Which, I would posit, and from reading that artice, is exactly where MS themselves have been for the last ten years..while innovation carried on around them, they persisisted in non-innovation and allegiance to things as they are..See Office/Windows/Server..

 

You can see their short-sightedness all over that article..Read the bit about e-Books..FAIL MS!!!

 

But it was ever thus in huge corporations with grey leaders..It is incredibly hard to be a huge market leader, with all the logistical and operational guff that that entails and still innovate - see Google..They are an engineering company, not a web company..Their innovation has taken second-fiddle to their global domination goal..

 

MS were and still are just playing catch-up..And they have lost. For good. I doubt MS as it is now will still exist in ten years time...

 

Like him or loathe him, Steve Jobs brought a sales ethos to market..he slimmed down Apple's product line from around 25 products to about six, and he made them sexy..They sold themselves..Apple didn't and still don't need a sales pitch..But, their innovation has stalled, too..Why? Coz the main driving force behind that alternate view of how a company can still make money while bahaving in a weird and quirky way with only six products went along with Jobs..Tim Cook will do to Apple what JH did to FLIGHT..Mark my words..

 

Business isn't meant to be fun. if it was, we wouldn't get paid to do it; we'd be paying somebody else for the priveledge...

Business isn't meant to be fun. if it was, we wouldn't get paid to do it; we'd be paying somebody else for the priveledge...

 

Its an old saw with me. Its modern business that is not meant to be fun, and I believe a large part of it is computerization. Human beings are now expected to act like soulless units with goals measured to within seconds and down to the penny by machines that never get sick, or feel bad and are not saddled with the need to eat and sleep. Companies keep trying to make their employees act like their machines, with machine perfection, and its pretty much draining all humanity (and joy) from everything.

 

Machines don't innovate, and I feel many companies are now machines, with regrettable human components.

Cool it brought you to real flying. I notice you list your location as Groton. What airport are you learning at. I learned at Mansfield (1B9) which is southeast of you maybe 40 miles or so. I grew up in Attleboro and Mansfield was the nearest airport to home.

 

Rag Tag... I tried to send a PM but it was blocked.

 

The airport that I fly out of is Fitchburg (KFIT). It was a choice of Nashua, Hanscomb or Fitchburg. The training and renting at Hanscomb and Nashua were just too expense and focused on commercial pilot training. The Minuteman airport in Stow was a possible but the flight training there had just had a huge scandal over training illegal aliens. However it is just about the same distance as Fitchburg and, in fact, I am flying out of there this weekend with a new friend that I met at the EAA chapter meeting in Fitchburg.

 

I picked Fitchburg because of a recommendation of a pilot friend from my sports car club. He thought that the multiple runways were longer and wider and the traffic on weekdays was very light. He said the EAA chapter there is very active and friendly to new members. Fitchburg has turned out to be a great choice... really nice people.

 

Brian Sanborn

Groton, MA

MS did not pay attention to loyal decades long followers and customers, as many others around here did not either, because of their greed..................good for you Microsoft....

 

I'm happy to be informed, that attempting to keep a business succesful...............is GREED. Thankyou!

Machines don't innovate

 

No, but without machines to facilitate, there would be very little innovation these days...I think business should be fun..My business is fun.. We use machines each and every day..We maintain a realistic view of both our own importance (small) and the realisation of our goals...We are constantly managing our clients expectations. In this way, people don't feel let-down by a sudden veering off-course...

 

I do think it is totally unrealistic to knock MS for trying to maintain profits, and for killing a non-profitable franchise..It's what businesses do, as LAdamson says above..Without profit there would be no MS. If FLIGHT wasn't profitable, what on earth would make them continue to sink $$ into it?! It's like keeping on a bad employee because a couple of your customers like him...Whether or not we felt it was a viable title is totally irrelevant..sad, but true...

Back in 1985 when I was using my Amiga computer with 4096 colors, 600x400 resolution, built in sound, mouse, operating system-the IBM pc had 16 colors , no sound, and a very cryptic DOS made by Microsoft. I got a pc with The first version of Windows later-but I think it was about 10 years before the pc/Microsoft caught up to what the Amiga had offered. IMHO nothing is new here....

No Profits=No Jobs, and MS made business discision dont blame them, and lesson learned how not to market and design a game. It only lasted 6 months if that.

Unless I missed something P3D doesn't offer any radical improvements over FSX, and there just aren't any other commercial sims around.

 

 

 

P3D offers a lot, including

 

( 1 ) It is in constant development, with regular updates.

 

( 2 ) It is being developed by a large, professional company, that is not gong to disappear overnight.

 

( 3 ) Those developing P3D listen to, and interact in an unprecedented with the FS Community.

(You can interact on their Forum, with the actual software developers (by name), and the Project managers. They respond, and provide answers, and are eager to receive feedback from users)

 

(4) While keeping backward compatibility with past FSX addons, they appear to be addressing the major shortcomings of FSX.

( a ) Code Instability and old, outdated Legacy code,

( b ) Advancing to 64 bit, to allow massive expansion by removing 32 memory constraints.

( c ) Moving towards better Graphics processing .. DX11 etc

 

(5) You can purchase it TODAY for less than the initial release cost of FSX , and you get FREE updates, until the next major revision.

 

(6) You can try out the FULL Version, for a month for less than $10, to see if you like it.

 

(7) But above all, it has POTENTIAL, and that is probably the most exciting feature.

That, and the fact that as a customer, you can interact with the developers, and help to make P3D what the users wants, going forward.

 

(8) (like XPlane), open SDKs and potential of anyone to develop addons for the product, either as Freeware or Payware.

 

The future of Flight Simulation is at an exciting point in it's evolution -- hardware performance is still advancing at a high rate, and is far, far more powerful, than it was when FSX was first released. Modern hardware runs FSX / P3D amazing well, even with everything set to max.

 

Lastly, there is still one very significant FS developer out there, that is rumored to be announcing it's Revolutionary Solution of Consumer Flight Simulation, before the end of the year. :Applause:

 

If anything, the biggest problem facing today's FS enthusiast, is that they are spoilt for "affordable" choice !! :dance:

 

Geoff

To me, it's weird how Microsoft has just killed these projects (FSX and Flight) without selling the source code or releasing it. Most companies sell dead assets but they choose to hold them tightly. Why? What's the purpose? One thing that both Flight and FSX did was keep people on the Windows platform (I always bought the latest version of Windows with the latest version of MSFS myself.) But, if you're sitting on a mountain of code and you want to have good PR and you don't care about making money in FS any more and you want to keep people on your core product, why not release the code (or sell it to someone). It's a win-win as far as I can tell. Good PR, keep people on your OS, the sim community gets an engine that continues to improve.

 

(And I am aware of P3D...but am unsure about whether the software was licensed for further development.)

 

While I thought I had said my last in this forum, I'd like to address this issue.

 

EA were TERRIBLE stewards of Sim City (not to be confused with The Sims), However, although Will Wright has moved on, someone in the company realized that they had the intellectual property rights to something special and, in result, appear to be set to pick up where they left off. MSFS is iconic and someone MIGHT see this light and pick up the pieces.

 

Real flying is too damned expensive, so I suspect many like me around going to stick around for some kind of high-fidelity flight simulation software for as long as we draw breath. It really is a good day for Laminar because the ball is in their court. I would expect that having a major competitor bow out will give them the critical mass needed. I'm not a big fan of Austin Meyers, but at least he's a real pilot and has genuine love. That is gone with MS and, out of decorum, I can't share the words I have in my heart for Joshua Howard.

 

Sorry to you guys who loved Flight, I am NOT happy that they took your software away. I mean that honestly, truly, and very sincerely. This is not much good in what has just happened.

 

I'll never give up flight sim, even if I'm running (a la Falcon) FSX 10+ years after its release. I'm going to be puchasing XPlane this weekend in order to encourage development in a high-fidelity flight simulator. I'm going to be hoping for P3D to get past licensing issues now that MS has quit the game.

 

As many others have said, the chapter is closed and what an era (1982 - 2009 (and a wee bit of 2012)) - we've been blessed.

 

Take care Flight fans, I really feel for you and would not have wished this on anyone.

P3D offers a lot, including

 

( 1 ) It is in constant development, with regular updates.

 

( 2 ) It is being developed by a large, professional company, that is not gong to disappear overnight.

 

( 3 ) Those developing P3D listen to, and interact in an unprecedented with the FS Community.

(You can interact on their Forum, with the actual software developers (by name), and the Project managers. They respond, and provide answers, and are eager to receive feedback from users)

 

(4) While keeping backward compatibility with past FSX addons, they appear to be addressing the major shortcomings of FSX.

( a ) Code Instability and old, outdated Legacy code,

( b ) Advancing to 64 bit, to allow massive expansion by removing 32 memory constraints.

( c ) Moving towards better Graphics processing .. DX11 etc

 

(5) You can purchase it TODAY for less than the initial release cost of FSX , and you get FREE updates, until the next major revision.

 

(6) You can try out the FULL Version, for a month for less than $10, to see if you like it.

 

(7) But above all, it has POTENTIAL, and that is probably the most exciting feature.

That, and the fact that as a customer, you can interact with the developers, and help to make P3D what the users wants, going forward.

 

(8) (like XPlane), open SDKs and potential of anyone to develop addons for the product, either as Freeware or Payware.

 

The future of Flight Simulation is at an exciting point in it's evolution -- hardware performance is still advancing at a high rate, and is far, far more powerful, than it was when FSX was first released. Modern hardware runs FSX / P3D amazing well, even with everything set to max.

 

Lastly, there is still one very significant FS developer out there, that is rumored to be announcing it's Revolutionary Solution of Consumer Flight Simulation, before the end of the year. :Applause:

 

If anything, the biggest problem facing today's FS enthusiast, is that they are spoilt for "affordable" choice !! :dance:

 

Geoff

 

 

P3D is owned by a Lockheed Martin, company that is having major financial problems and expecting layoffs presently. How long do you think they will be throwing money at what is basically FSX trying to get it to run right?

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77779.html

How long do you think they will be throwing money at what is basically FSX trying to get it to run right?

 

Hello

It is already running right, has been for some time now.

You really need to let go of the idea that FSX does not run great on today's hardware.

The 3rd party industry around FSX would not be able to sell so much product if everyone was having issues with performance, think about it.