Anyone else see Microsoft losing momentum?

[dkediger]

Microsoft saddled itself with this burden. They're the ones that strapped a mobile UI and API on their existing Desktop OS. How many times have you heard/read complaints about the split between the simple things like changing Windows settings in Win8 (e.g. "is the setting in the Control Panel or Metro's PC Settings")? If a giant software company has problems with the split platform, imagine the burden on smaller ISVs. Well, I can tell you, they're avoiding the problem by abandoning MSFT.

Let me pose the question less rhetorically. If the ISV's goal is "top to bottom" desktop to mobile support, who provides that? Serious question. Microsoft may be a giant software company, but that means their installed base - and hence support - inertia is also higher. How is developing for IOS gonna reach OSx? Android to ChromeOS? Likely running just a front end on whatever device and using cloud services behind the scenes. And who has some pretty comprehensive cloud services?
Win32 still exists, and will through Win 9 at least. The desktop is still there.

None of this was necessary. The only differences between a "mobile" app and a "desktop" app are the size of the screen and the input method. MSFT should have spent its time tackling those problems in their existing framework.

And the underlying physical hardware. That's a BIG difference...ARM to x86/x64. If anything, we should all be railing at Intel for ignoring the mobile hardware platform and creating the underlying hardware mess. They're receiving their pound of flesh. Microsoft went the abstracted hardware support path once, it ended up a dead end for them. And that was when the UI form factor was all fairly homogenous.

 

[Cleavitt76]

None of this reflects the sustainability of their primary businesses (i.e. Enterprise).

Are you saying that their enterprise business is sustainable or unsustainable?

 

[Mike Gibson]

Let me pose the question less rhetorically. If the ISV's goal is "top to bottom" desktop to mobile support, who provides that? Serious question.

Serious answer. MSFT is way behind in mobile and needs to provide the tools and infrastructure to bring ISVs to their platform. Why should small ISVs break their backs supporting a platform with 3% market share (WinPRT) or one with declining sales (Win32)? As much as I hate AAPL and GOOG, I will be forced to move to their platforms at some point in the future unless MSFT turns things around.

Microsoft may be a giant software company, but that means their installed base - and hence support - inertia is also higher.

Yes, and they knifed that huge installed base in the back by radically changing the Windows UI and they knifed their ISVs by radically changing their core API.

And the underlying physical hardware. That's a BIG difference...ARM to x86/x64. If anything, we should all be railing at Intel for ignoring the mobile hardware platform and creating the underlying hardware mess. They're receiving their pound of flesh. Microsoft went the abstracted hardware support path once, it ended up a dead end for them. And that was when the UI form factor was all fairly homogenous.

ARM vs x86 is irrelevant. The Win32 API is portable across CPU architectures. I can compile my C#/C++ WP8 app, which uses Win32's Direct3D extensively, for x86 to test in the emulator and then for ARM to test on phone hardware. Office on the Surface are Win32 programs compiled for ARM.

The bottom line: MSFT already had a portable, battle-tested Win32 API for serious programs. All they had to do was change the UI APIs to support scalable programs. That's it. Backport it to Win7 and they would have had a winner.

 

[Cleavitt76]

Serious answer. MSFT is way behind in mobile and needs to provide the tools and infrastructure to bring ISVs to their platform. Why should small ISVs break their backs supporting a platform with 3% market share (WinPRT) or one with declining sales (Win32)? As much as I hate AAPL and GOOG, I will be forced to move to their platforms at some point in the future unless MSFT turns things around.

You completely avoided his question and only talked about the one area where MS is behind (mobile) while ignoring all the areas of technology that they dominate.

Yes, and they knifed that huge installed base in the back by radically changing the Windows UI and they knifed their ISVs by radically changing their core API.

The deskop UI is still there and so are all the core APIs which is why desktop programs continue to run on Windows 8 just as they did on previous versions. Microsoft has *added* Modern UI apps and programming models to their ecosystem in order to provide for a new use case. They have not abandoned their other programming technology/frameworks. Microsoft has not told developers to stop programming other apps types. They are still expanding the frameworks used by desktop apps and other types of apps. They are still developing brand new software themselves using non-modern UI frameworks and tools. I don't know why so many people think that Modern UI and the Windows Store is intended to replace every other aspects of Windows and Microsoft software.

The WinRT/WinPRT runtime is accessed mostly through .Net and XAML. XAML has been around for several years and .Net is well over a decade old now. Both of these are also used to create desktop applications (among other things) so clearly MS is not abandoning their developers. The only difference is the programming model, but that is no different that a developer that has to learn web programming techniques (session handling, data persistence, etc.) after becoming an expert in desktop programming or vice versa. I hate to break it to you, but as a developer you will need to be willing to learn new things if you want to write new kinds of programs.

ARM vs x86 is irrelevant. The Win32 API is portable across CPU architectures. I can compile my C#/C++ WP8 app, which uses Win32's Direct3D extensively, for x86 to test in the emulator and then for ARM to test on phone hardware. Office on the Surface are Win32 programs compiled for ARM.

The bottom line: MSFT already had a portable, battle-tested Win32 API for serious programs. All they had to do was change the UI APIs to support scalable programs. That's it. Backport it to Win7 and they would have had a winner.

Of course ARM vs. x86 is relevant. WinRT is designed to support relatively simple apps that *may* be running on devices with very limited hardware, devices with power constraints, and devices with slow/cloud storage as their primary storage. The Win32 APIs are not designed for this type of device. If the goal was to create touch apps for quad core desktop computers I would agree that Win32 with a modified UI would be the best route. However, that is not the case. Many ARM devices are too simple to be able to support all the functionality of Win32 and even if they could it would make them very inefficient. There is a reason why apps get "tombstoned" instead of just collecting as background processes where they would eat memory and kill battery life. WinRT is designed to compliment Win32, not replace it. It is an option for developing a certain type of application with requirements that are very different from desktop programs. Complaining about this is like saying that MS should have used Win32 APIs as the basis for their HTTP services and web application development frameworks.

 

[dkediger]

OK, let's try a different tack on this question....

My viewpoint is an enterprise IT manager. My concern is keeping the technology at the point of use as appropriate and effective as it can be. Honestly, I'm not that concerned with the phone side of things. I think for the near/intermediate future, this overarching hardware cycle and the next, those will exist - in the enterprise - as an auxiliary, secondary device that compliments the primary working device. And those are what I am concerned about - the working tablet, notebook, and desktop.

In my enterprise, 2/3's to 3/4 of my devices only need one or two "browser" apps and then email. That is it. I'm really pretty excited overall about this time period - I get to re-imagine technology at the point of use for a large part of my enterprise. Sure there is also quite a bit of hand wringing and gnashing of teeth, but overall, this type of opportunity hasn't existed in a long time. Prior to this, it was always easy to walk around and say "desktop here, desktop there, desktop there, ohh, notebook over here." All of that was also extreme overkill for the previously mentioned fractions of my workforce. I realize I am not representative of every enterprise, but I suspect more so I am than I am not.

For those users, what gets my interest, is the premise of WinRT, or even IOS. Relatively lightweight, sandboxed apps that greatly limit some of the exposure in the "sins of apps past." Conceptually, its appealing. Whether its practical, we'll all find out. If that's Microsoft or Apple (I don't think Google really cares as long as ad revenue flows) or both, I'm fine with it. Microsoft has actually presented and seems to be working to produce that vision. As I've mentioned before, Apple desperately needs to get enterprise managed services (iCloud) to up their game. Simply beating a BYOD drum gets pretty old pretty fast without some type of coherent service behind it.

I'm not prioritizing a grand unified app experience from desktop to notebook to tablet to phone. I am prioritizing consumption of some of the same info across devices, but not the overall app experience - although that would be an awesome bonus. Maybe there's a disconnect in expectations between end users, devs, OS providers, and the press?

 

[Mike Gibson]

You completely avoided his question and only talked about the one area where MS is behind (mobile) while ignoring all the areas of technology that they dominate.

I should have made it clear at the start of that reply: MSFT should provide desktop to phone support.

The deskop UI is still there and so are all the core APIs which is why desktop programs continue to run on Windows 8 just as they did on previous versions. Microsoft has *added* Modern UI apps and programming models to their ecosystem in order to provide for a new use case. They have not abandoned their other programming technology/frameworks.

Oh yes they have. ATI/AMD has said that there will be no Direct3D12. That is core Win32 technology (and was responsible for all the gains in GPU horsepower for 20 years, which has benefited phone to supercomputer hardware).

The only difference is the programming model, but that is no different that a developer that has to learn web programming techniques (session handling, data persistence, etc.) after becoming an expert in desktop programming or vice versa. I hate to break it to you, but as a developer you will need to be willing to learn new things if you want to write new kinds of programs.

Uh, I have "learned new things". I have a fairly complex scientific app in the Windows Phone Store right now. After going through that exercise, I determined that MSFT's RT concept is stupid.

Of course ARM vs. x86 is relevant. WinRT is designed to support relatively simple apps that *may* be running on devices with very limited hardware, devices with power constraints, and devices with slow/cloud storage as their primary storage. The Win32 APIs are not designed for this type of device.

Simply not true. The program determines how much power is consumed by the device, not the OS. For example, I can run my Win32 programs on my Samsung Series 7 Slate. The fan never revs up unless I do a ton of 3d volumetric rendering (which will rev the GPU fan even on a Desktop machine). Then I run Microsoft's own WinRT Solitaire, which is supposedly a power-sipping "modern" app. Without doing anything, the fan starts revving up. What happened? I thought WinRT meant low power consumption???

Many ARM devices are too simple to be able to support all the functionality of Win32 and even if they could it would make them very inefficient.

Not true. My HTC 8X has about the horsepower of a 10 year old laptop. Win32 programs would run fine on that device (and, in fact, my WP8 app uses Win32 APIs, Direct3D and simple file access calls, as much as possible for performance).

There is a reason why apps get "tombstoned" instead of just collecting as background processes where they would eat memory and kill battery life.

Win32 apps can be shut down by the OS at any time (see WM_QUERYENDSESSION, etc.).

Complaining about this is like saying that MS should have used Win32 APIs as the basis for their HTTP services and web application development frameworks.

Uh, you do know that the Win32 APIs, WinInet and WinSock, are the underlying technology used by WinRT's HTTP APIs, correct? See the following:

Connecting to an HTTP server using Windows.Web.Http.HttpClient (Windows Store apps using C#/VB/C++ and XAML) (Windows)

It's crazy. People think that WinRT is some great new thing that breaks with the past. In reality, it's just an additional (and unnecessary) framework sitting on top of Win32.

 

[Citizen X]

I think the reason for declining consumer sales has more to do with current hardware/software being 'good enough', not so much anything Microsoft has done or failed to do.

Thank you. When IBM sold its PC division to Lenovo that was the clear sign the PC market was mature and a commodity business.

Not true. Look at the financial statements/profile for AAPL. It has more revenue and cash on hand than MSFT. Its iPhone business alone is larger than MSFT's total from all products. MSFT is the underdog.

Ugh. How many desktops is Apple's software suite on? How many companies run their entire operation on Apples? Microsoft sold almost 4 million xbox ones... How many next gen game systems has Apple sold?

Apple is a phone and tablet company. That's it. Every other thing they sell is either dead or dying. Maybe Macbooks are maintaining? Who knows. The majority of what they sell is phones and ipads. With phones becoming a commodity and Apple restricting their entire line to one form factor you really have to wonder not if but when their revenue numbers are going to start coming under pressure.

 

[Citizen X]

It's crazy. People think that WinRT is some great new thing that breaks with the past. In reality, it's just an additional (and unnecessary) framework sitting on top of Win32.

What matters is the end user experience. And the end users I know who run businesses and use RT tablets to help do it have no complaints. Oddly none of them have ever said, "it's just an additional (and unnecessary) framework sitting on top of Win32." They are just happy to have Office with Outlook, a proper browser, and few if any virus concerns.

 

[jmshub]

I am a systems administrator in a financial institution. I would love to see our vendors build Windows 8 apps for our bank applications. We would lock the PCs down, eliminating the desktop and people using desktop applications. The browser doesn't run plugins, getting rid of a lot of our vulnerabilities, like Java apps. Unfortunately, this is the type of stuff that I am not seeing Windows 8 being done at all, and it's a real shame.

 

[dkediger]

I should have made it clear at the start of that reply: MSFT should provide desktop to phone support.

I realize this forum is Windows Phone Central, but again, are we giving Apple a pass here? You could argue their transgression regarding desktop to mobile app support is more egregious than Microsoft's. You're going to take a dose of poison in targeting any platform, none of them reach across devices.

Apple is a phone and tablet company. That's it. Every other thing they sell is either dead or dying. Maybe Macbooks are maintaining? Who knows. The majority of what they sell is phones and ipads. With phones becoming a commodity and Apple restricting their entire line to one form factor you really have to wonder not if but when their revenue numbers are going to start coming under pressure.

In a sense, this is why I refer to them as a "Niche" company. Granted, its a hell of a niche - but they've had the same play for years - with no real hint at what their next play will be. They could have my undivided attention today if they would announce an enterprise manageable "iCloud" similar to Office 365. I'm not holding my breath though.....

Edit:
To expand on this - I truly believe this is why Google plays nice with Apple and is antagonistic towards Microsoft. I'm not trying to be misogynistic in this illustration, but what the hey:
Apple is the "wingman" to Google in the battle for the bar pickup against Microsoft. Not any threat to move in on your pickup, while Microsoft is the rival at the other end of the bar who just ordered up drinks.....

 

[Cleavitt76]

Oh yes they have. ATI/AMD has said that there will be no Direct3D12. That is core Win32 technology (and was responsible for all the gains in GPU horsepower for 20 years, which has benefited phone to supercomputer hardware).

How is that an example of MS abandoning their other programming technology/frameworks? Direct3D 11.2 is still available and is considered cutting edge. It just got released with 8.1 a few months ago for god's sakes. Is there even a need for a major new release of Direct3D at this time? What advancements in GPU hardware would it take advantage of that Direct3D 11.2 isn't already making use of? This is a pretty poor example of MS abandoning their programming technology. At least pick something that hasn't been updated in the past few months.

Simply not true. The program determines how much power is consumed by the device, not the OS. For example, I can run my Win32 programs on my Samsung Series 7 Slate. The fan never revs up unless I do a ton of 3d volumetric rendering (which will rev the GPU fan even on a Desktop machine). Then I run Microsoft's own WinRT Solitaire, which is supposedly a power-sipping "modern" app. Without doing anything, the fan starts revving up. What happened? I thought WinRT meant low power consumption???

That is only part of the equation. Yes, I can write a traditional Win32 desktop program that just sits there idle and uses very little CPU power. However, it still uses memory which is a problem on mobile devices like ARM tablets and phones once you open a few too many apps. It also won't respond to being "tombstoned" (i.e. purged from memory) and then "rehydrated" (expected to startup in the same state it was in before it was killed) which are memory and power saving concepts used on ARM class devices. Those concepts and related APIs don't exist in Win32.

Most importantly, Win32 supports a ton of functionality that is not needed on a small mobile device and duplicating all of the underlying technology would be very wasteful for a phone or Surface RT style device. This is why WinRT was designed to provide a subset of Win32 functionality. You could argue that they should have just made a stripped down version of Win32 and then changed some things related to very low power hardware. I would argue that the result of that project would might be called "WinRT".

Not true. My HTC 8X has about the horsepower of a 10 year old laptop. Win32 programs would run fine on that device (and, in fact, my WP8 app uses Win32 APIs, Direct3D and simple file access calls, as much as possible for performance).

You complain that MS has forced you into WinRT and abandoned Win32 (you specifically mention Direct3D as an example of this) and then you talk about using Win32 APIs and Direct3D in your own published WP8 app.

Win32 apps can be shut down by the OS at any time (see WM_QUERYENDSESSION, etc.).

Completely shutting down the app has nothing to do with the concept of tombstoning.

Uh, you do know that the Win32 APIs, WinInet and WinSock, are the underlying technology used by WinRT's HTTP APIs, correct? See the following:

Connecting to an HTTP server using Windows.Web.Http.HttpClient (Windows Store apps using C#/VB/C++ and XAML) (Windows)

It's crazy. People think that WinRT is some great new thing that breaks with the past. In reality, it's just an additional (and unnecessary) framework sitting on top of Win32.

This is funny for two reason...

First, I wasn't talking about the underlying implementation within the Windows OS, I was talking about from the developer perspective. In other words, it would be silly to complain that MS uses HTML, JavaScript, or ASP.Net as their web programming frameworks instead of sticking with Win32 APIs and C++ to write webpages. Those languages/frameworks are intended for completely different types of applications.

Second, you are again proving my point. You keep saying that MS has abandoned Win32 in favor of WinRT, but here you are saying that WinRT is an additional layer that has been added above Win32. You also said earlier that Win32 is still accessible (via "un-managed" code calls).

While you may see WinRT as unnecessary for your style of coding or your own needs, it really isn't any more "unnecessary" than any other abstraction layer. The .Net framework is an abstraction layer that runs on top of Win32 (on x86 Windows machines at least), but it has a lot of advantages and is a more reliable, efficient, and consistent development platform for most common applications. ASP.Net is an abstraction layer that ultimately runs as HTML/javascript and it has many advantages over traditional web programming for most web apps. Even your beloved Win32 and Direct3D are abstraction layers (although lower level) over internal OS specific implementations.

EDIT:

P.S. I never claimed that WinRT is some "great new thing that breaks from the past." I have said quite the opposite actually, but I agree that many people think it is meant to replace everything else which is not the case.

 

[Cleavitt76]

I am a systems administrator in a financial institution. I would love to see our vendors build Windows 8 apps for our bank applications. We would lock the PCs down, eliminating the desktop and people using desktop applications. The browser doesn't run plugins, getting rid of a lot of our vulnerabilities, like Java apps. Unfortunately, this is the type of stuff that I am not seeing Windows 8 being done at all, and it's a real shame.

Yeah, there is a lot of untapped potential for businesses in Windows 8. Businesses tend to move slowly so I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for industry specific Modern UI apps. However, you might be able accomplish something similar on the desktop now. If your users really only need access to a limited list of applications you could use Group Policy to limit certain user groups (non admins) to only be able to launch certain executable paths.

Run >> gpedit.msc >> User Configuration >> System >> Run only specified Windows applications

"Limits the Windows programs that users have permission to run on the computer. If you enable this policy setting, users can only run programs that you add to the list of allowed applications."

You may already know about this, but I just thought I would throw it out there in case it helps. It's hard to get a virus when all you can execute is Outlook.exe, Word.exe, and MyCompanyProgram.exe. Microsoft has some white papers on the interweb with details needed to implement this properly.

 

[rmeigs]

Even the most die hard fans of Microsoft among the journalists are getting skeptical about the company's future.

Which diehard Microsoft fan journalists are getting skeptical? I haven't seen one (but maybe I missed it).

Has no one been reading their quarterly financials over the last years? Microsoft is an enormous success and powerhouse with plenty of cash to see it through on Windows and Phone products. It's easy to see the struggles they are having at growing market share in phones or the stumble of Windows 8 and assume Microsoft is in trouble. But Windows and Windows phone are third tier products and not where MS makes it money.

 

[bilzkh]

I'm going to bet that we'll start seeing some rapid movement after BUILD. For the longest time the Windows Phone team was the team *no one* cared about at MS, and now, they're in charge of OS development at the company. With all those resources at their disposal I'm sure we will start seeing quality stuff shoot through a lot quicker.

 

[Simon Tupper]

Which diehard Microsoft fan journalists are getting skeptical? I haven't seen one (but maybe I missed it).

Has no one been reading their quarterly financials over the last years? Microsoft is an enormous success and powerhouse with plenty of cash to see it through on Windows and Phone products. It's easy to see the struggles they are having at growing market share in phones or the stumble of Windows 8 and assume Microsoft is in trouble. But Windows and Windows phone are third tier products and not where MS makes it money.

money is obviously not the problem with MS. The problem is how people see Microsoft. They don't think about Microsoft the innovator, but more about Microsoft the undead behemoth(they want it dead).

 

[stephen_az]

I'm trying really hard to believe in that company, but its tough. They recently admitted that W8 was a failure and from there we haven't seen any good news about the Redmond's giant.

In fact, it started the hate machine all over again on many websites.

I'm trying not to care about it, but the more it goes the more I think that every devices I own that runs either WP/RT or Pro are already obsolete.

Ballmer is a cancer. He's good with money, but he's hurting the company in every other way. Everytime he bashes on a product to make one of his products look good it has the opposite effect.

I wish I could like this company as much as I do with many other brands, but the fact I can't buy one of their products and have the certainty that it's worth it makes it hard to appreciate MS. They had me before with Vista and the Kin, but this time I was expecting a better outcome.

I'm one or two fails away from switching to a company that offers me some sort of certainty.

I wonder if people who post this sort of thread even follow the actual news. 1) Even though the numbers were released today, it was no secret they were going to be one of the companies beating Wall Street estimates. On a day when the markets were down across the board, they were up because of their record quarterly performance. What a terrible performance. This is, of course, occurred by pushing Ballmer's flawed vision forward. Again, what a terrible future this conveys.

BTW, it would be great if people would drop the incredibly offensive and repugnant insistence on referring to another human being as a cancer. Perhaps you gave never lost a loved one - good for you. Having lost my father and one of my dearest friends to cancer (she was not even 45 years old) I find that phase to be about as callous, insensitive, and disgraceful as any uttered in any setting. A little decorum and consideration can go a long way.....

 

[dkediger]

money is obviously not the problem with MS. The problem is how people see Microsoft. They don't think about Microsoft the innovator, but more about Microsoft the undead behemoth(they want it dead).

Which is a shame, because across the board, Microsoft is undertaking some pretty comprehensive and far reaching innovation. Its not "goldpagne" or a giant data stream parsing funnel, so I guess its not that meaningful.

 

[Mike Gibson]

How is that an example of MS abandoning their other programming technology/frameworks? Direct3D 11.2 is still available and is considered cutting edge. It just got released with 8.1 a few months ago for god's sakes. Is there even a need for a major new release of Direct3D at this time? What advancements in GPU hardware would it take advantage of that Direct3D 11.2 isn't already making use of? This is a pretty poor example of MS abandoning their programming technology. At least pick something that hasn't been updated in the past few months.

Those are tweaks on existing releases and I'm not talking about D3D12 right now. According to AMD/ATI, MSFT has no plans for a Direct3D12. No plans -- meaning it is a dead end. As for future GPU innovation, I'd like to see Output Merger stage shaders. Most important are the things I can't even think of right now.

That is only part of the equation. Yes, I can write a traditional Win32 desktop program that just sits there idle and uses very little CPU power. However, it still uses memory which is a problem on mobile devices like ARM tablets and phones once you open a few too many apps. It also won't respond to being "tombstoned" (i.e. purged from memory) and then "rehydrated" (expected to startup in the same state it was in before it was killed) which are memory and power saving concepts used on ARM class devices. Those concepts and related APIs don't exist in Win32.

A Win32 program can certainly start up in its previous state. My Win32 apps start up in nearly the same state that they were in when closed. And look at WM_QUERYENDSESSION for information on how to know when your Win32 app is force-closed. Adding a few more messages would have been far easier than reinventing the wheel over and over again.

Most importantly, Win32 supports a ton of functionality that is not needed on a small mobile device and duplicating all of the underlying technology would be very wasteful for a phone or Surface RT style device. This is why WinRT was designed to provide a subset of Win32 functionality. You could argue that they should have just made a stripped down version of Win32 and then changed some things related to very low power hardware. I would argue that the result of that project would might be called "WinRT".

Yes, they should have produced a stripped down version of Win32. I would have completely supported a new Win32 subset that cut out old, obsolete stuff (especially insecure APIs and access) while adding a simple, scalable UI API. I also like the Store managing updates, etc. (though not the 30% cut, that should be no more than 10%). Take the good stuff from WinRT (scalable XAML, store, etc), repackage it for Win32, then backport the damn thing to Win7 and they'd have a winner. I would have converted my Win32 programs over to this new Win32X platform instantly.

What I do *not* like is MSFT wasting their time reinventing file access, forcing ISVs to use the stupid Async pattern, etc. Basically nuking all existing Win32 code. The market has proven this to be the wrong course. Windows is dying right now. The MJF article on ZDNet says that MSFT has abandoned their plan to bring WinRT and WinPRT closer together in the upcoming Win81 update. Why? Because Win8's OEM sales dropped 20% in the latest quarter. That's a forward-looking number which means that OEMs expect sales to get even worse than they were in 2013. MSFT is panicking and tossing everything aside to try and fix the Win8 disaster. And note that this Win8 disaster is *not* independent of the WinRT development disaster. It's reflected in the lack of large selection of WinRT programs. Why would an ISV duplicate all their Win32 effort for a entirely new, critically limited, and poorly performing WinRT system? Do I even need to mention the orders-of-magnitude slower file access in WinRT?

You complain that MS has forced you into WinRT and abandoned Win32 (you specifically mention Direct3D as an example of this) and then you talk about using Win32 APIs and Direct3D in your own published WP8 app.

I'm talking about the future of Direct3D, not the present. See my comment above about MSFT not developing future versions of D3D.

First, I wasn't talking about the underlying implementation within the Windows OS, I was talking about from the developer perspective. In other words, it would be silly to complain that MS uses HTML, JavaScript, or ASP.Net as their web programming frameworks instead of sticking with Win32 APIs and C++ to write webpages. Those languages/frameworks are intended for completely different types of applications.

An OS is written C++ and I'm a C++ programmer. I don't care what framework goop other languages use to communicate with the OS. I want a clean, simple OS that I can access from C++. You do know that WinRT is written in C++, correct?

Second, you are again proving my point. You keep saying that MS has abandoned Win32 in favor of WinRT, but here you are saying that WinRT is an additional layer that has been added above Win32. You also said earlier that Win32 is still accessible (via "un-managed" code calls).

Very few Win32 APIs are available to WinRT programs. And even then they're inconsistent between WinRT and WinPRT. For example, WinRT only has the Windows.Socket APIs while a WinPRT program can use WinSock. The HTTP situation between the WinRT/WinPRT is even worse. I couldn't use XMLHttpRequest2 because of the differences in behavior between WinRT and WinPRT (e.g. both fail range-byte GET requests differently because they set the gzip flag on requests, both cache things differently, etc.). What's stupid is that XHR2 calls WinInet to do the actual work but my C++ programs can't access WinInet. To fix this, in Win81 MSFT wasted more time implementing an entirely new HttpClient API. Guess what, it turns around and calls Win32's WinInet. Why didn't they simply give C++ programs access to WinInet in the first place???

While you may see WinRT as unnecessary for your style of coding or your own needs, it really isn't any more "unnecessary" than any other abstraction layer. The .Net framework is an abstraction layer that runs on top of Win32 (on x86 Windows machines at least), but it has a lot of advantages and is a more reliable, efficient, and consistent development platform for most common applications. ASP.Net is an abstraction layer that ultimately runs as HTML/javascript and it has many advantages over traditional web programming for most web apps. Even your beloved Win32 and Direct3D are abstraction layers (although lower level) over internal OS specific implementations.

See my comments above about C++ and OS access. I don't care how many layers of goop MSFT wants to place between the OS and other languages/scripts.

 

[a5cent]

Just wanted to say thanks to all the posters in this thread! Very interesting and unusually high quality discussion.

 

[TaliZorah]

Windows may not have a super strong choke-hold for the every day home PC like they used to but fact is in the gaming world (im talking PC not just xbox) and the business world windows is king and thats not going to change during any of our lifetimes.