microsoft

Breathtaking future from Adobe – er, and Microsoft?

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Is it bad that I look at this, want it and then when I see it’s Microsoft think twice? Microsoft tends to do feature lists really well, as in adding a lot of features to the list. It tends to demo well too. But then in real life the perfect demo crashes all the time. Or the features on the list don’t actually do what you thought they would (see the howls of WordPerfect users forced to switch to Word and learning that Microsoft literally – literally literally, not just very – could not do Reveal Codes). Or the features are just so hard to find that you wonder whether they’re really there or not.

So the Microsoft element of this makes me cautious. And I suppose it’s interesting that Adobe is getting into bed with Microsoft more: it makes you wonder if they’re really thinking of abandoning their power user base over on Apple gear.

But if you’ve ever used Photoshop, Illustrator or other main Adobe apps, this will impress you.

 

 

Very nice: Microsoft OneNote adds superb iOS 8 feature

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The new iOS 8 for iPhone and iPad – which will be available for free from tomorrow – includes a new feature called Extensions. And one Extension is a Sharing one that Microsoft has leapt on for its OneNote app.

If you use iPhone or iPad at the moment, you know that there is usually a Share button somewhere on the screen: it looks like a rectangle with an up arrow coming out of it. When you tap that, you get the option to share whatever is on your screen with anybody you like via email, for instance. Or AirDrop. If you’re looking at a photo you can Share it to your own photo library.

Now you will be able to share it right into OneNote. See something, write something, watch anything, tap and pop it straight into OneNote. It is a great feature from iOS 8 and it is really well adopted by Microsoft.

I’d say that I can only hope Evernote does the same thing but there is more to it than hope: you can be pretty sure that Evernote will. My Share button is going to get crammed with this stuff.

Not including OneNote. I don’t use OneNote. But it’s good touches like this that would make me think about it. Have a look at all this in action in Microsoft’s video.

Why? Microsoft releases celebrity app

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So far it is only available on the US iTunes Store but Microsoft has released a free iPhone app that lets you stalk – I mean, track your favourite celebrities. Seriously, why?

Okay, I’ve never bought a celebrity magazine, I have never chosen a film based on the actor in it – or the director, for that matter, though I have because of the writer – so I’m not the target market here.

I’m also not someone who would find the app’s name anything but irksome: it’s called SNIPP3T. All caps and with the 3 instead of an E. Cool. Like a naff password. If you’re interested and if you have a US iTunes account, knock yourself out here.

If you’re firing me, get on with it

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Last week we had an email from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella of which the kindest thing you could say was that it was less embarrassing than his previous one. I tried reading it for here, to see if there were any actual news items in it that I would want to tell you, and I just glazed over. Others ripped it apart to mock, many ripped it apart to say there was one fact buried in this palimpsest of overlapping indecipherable sentences.

It was that Microsoft sounded pretty damn likely to lay off a lot of people very soon. They’ve now been laid off.

But the actual blow, the news of their redundancy came after another obfuscated email. This time, it took eleven paragraphs before it got to the point and one writer rips it apart par by par.

Typically, when you’re a top executive at a major corporation that is laying off more than 10 percent of your workforce, you say a few things to the newly jobless. Like “sorry.” Or “thank you for your many years of service.” Or even “we hate doing this, but it’s necessary to help the company survive.”

What you don’t do is bury the news of the layoffs in the 11th paragraph of a long, rambling corporate strategy memo.

And yet, this was Microsoft honcho Stephen Elop’s preferred method for announcing to his employees today that 12,500 of them were being laid off. (18,000 are being laid off companywide; Elop, the former head of Nokia, oversees the company’s devices unit, which was hardest hit by the layoffs.)

How bad was Elop’s job-axing memo? Really, really bad. It’s so bad that I can’t even really convey its badness. I just have to show you.

Here’s how it starts:

Hello there

Hello there? Hello there? Out of all the possible “you’re losing your job” greetings, you chose the one that sounds like the start to a bad OKCupid message? “Hello there” isn’t how you announce layoffs; it’s what you say right before you ask, “What’s a girl like you doing on a site like this? ;)” It’s the fedora of greetings.

Microsoft Just Laid Off Thousands of Employees With a Hilariously Bad Memo – Kevin Roose, NY Mag (17 July 2014)

It’s not funny for the people who’ve lost their jobs, which is the main point of Roose’s piece. It’s also easy to say that you shouldn’t do it in this way, but actually, no. You shouldn’t. Take a read at Roose’s whole piece.

What you, me and especially Microsoft could learn about writing

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Earlier this week, Microsoft’s new head Satya Nadella sent out an email to all employees and, practically by natural extension, the world. I started to read it, wondering if I could find out something useful but I stopped when I realised I’d been thinking more about the cooking I had to do that night.

I did have one evil thought, which is that Nadella’s predecessor Steve Ballmer famously wrote a tortuous email like this not very long ago. I remember seeing the sheer length and the utter absence of any information and feeling that this summed up Microsoft. I believe the company is in a better state now with Nadella but I did do a quick word count. I expected Nadella to be quicker and to say at least some things more substantive but no and no.

I left it. But others have not and I think they make smarter points than I could have done. Specifically, Jean-Louise Gassée extrapolates from this one email what a bad situation Microsoft is in and he extrapolates lessons we could all learn in how to write betterer email things, like.

Clarity and ease are sorely missing from Satya Nadella’s 3,100 plodding words, which were supposed to paint a clear, motivating future for 127,000 Microsoftians anxious to know where the new boss is leading them.

Nadella is a repeat befuddler. His first email to employees, sent just after he assumed the CEO mantle on earlier this year, was filled with bombastic and false platitudes:

“We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization. We are the only company with history and continued focus in building platforms and ecosystems that create broad opportunity.”

Microsoft’s new CEO needs an editor – Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note (undated but probably 14 July 2014)

That was shockingly bad: Nadella’s line about what only Microsoft can do is bad. I remember reading this on an Apple iPad. That would be a device that did everything Nadella says only Microsoft can do, but it would also be a device that Microsoft didn’t do and so far can’t come within sight of competing with. Gassée has some thoughts about this. But he also points with detail toward this core idea that I think, and he clearly thinks, is relevant to us all:

As I puzzled over the public email Microsoft’s new CEO sent to his troops, Nicolas Boileau’s immortal dictum came to mind:

Whatever is well conceived is clearly said,
And the words to say it flow with ease.

I’ll have that. Even though I know I ramble, I’ll keep focused and clear. In my head, anyway.

Gassé isn’t a fully uncontroversial figure but he’s been around the block in this industry for a long time and he writes this analysis well. He does include diagrams of how such emails should be written and I just naturally recoil from so much prescription but I have agree it makes sense. And that Nadella’s email truly lacks anything but a hip photo at the top.

Update: Microsoft restores Skype missing feature

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Previously, Microsoft updated Skype for iOS and took away voice messages. That old thing. Who’d use that? And wouldn’t be willing to trade in their iPhone for an Android device in order to listen to a voicemail message? See Microsoft Taketh Away.

You know it wasn’t a plan to rob iPhone users of a core feature but the way it was handled, it sounded as if it was and anyway, the result is that we were robbed of a core feature. And because of Apple’s usually handy automatic app updating, we got this improvement without noticing.

It’s now fixed. But Skype/Microsoft really doesn’t like to admit to a mistake however obvious. So the return of voicemail messages is not a bug fix and they obviously won’t apologise for the problem. Instead, it’s a new feature you should be grateful they’ve added in. I was grateful before, it is a good feature, but we had it and this is like ten fishing for compliments after screwing us around.

From the official blog:

We have been reading and listening to your feedback ever since we launched the new remastered Skype for iPhone and have been hard at work incorporating your suggestions. With Skype 5.1 for iPhone we included the ability to delete a conversation, edit a message and added a “Skype”-only contact filter, to name a few. Today, Skype 5.2 for iPhone adds more of the features you want most:

Voice message support: When you receive a new voice message from someone, it will show up in the conversation. To listen, just press play.

Skype 5.2 for iPhone – blog (7 July 2014)

What Microsoft can tell small startups

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Not much, you’d think. And I still wonder. But ex-Microsoft guy Rakesh Malhotra says he learnt lessons there that have helped enormously in his jobs since, including:

Know your blind spots: Like a lot of companies, Microsoft conducts 360-degree reviews, where you solicit a review from everyone surrounding the employee: Manager, peer, reports, etc. There are many best practices as to how to conduct an effective 360-degree review, but the effect is usually the same — you learn your blind spots. A successful leader pays attention to weaknesses and finds a way to manage them. It really helps to be self-aware, especially at a startup, where every member has a lot of responsibility.

Lessons — From Microsoft! — On Being a Startup Leader – Rakesh Malhotra, Re/code (27 June 2014)

I didn’t put the exclamation mark in that article title. But I thought it.

Microsoft giveth

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From next month, users of Microsoft’s Dropbox-like OneDrive will get 15Gb free instead of the current 7Gb. If you’re an Office 365 subscriber, that goes up to an is-this-a-misprint size of 1Tb.

Microsoft:

Our data tells us that 3 out of 4 people have less than 15 GB of files stored on their PC. Factoring in what they may also have stored on other devices, we believe providing 15 GB for free right out of the gate – with no hoops to jump through – will make it much easier for people to have their documents, videos, and photos available in one place.

Massive increase to OneDrive storage plans – Omar Shahine, OneDrive blog (23 June 2014)

Seriously? I think the 15Gb free space is tremendous but why claim 75% of all computer users have no more taken up than that? I don’t mean to be rude questioning “our data” but it is unsubstantiated. And this is Microsoft, the company whose user testing of Microsoft Word seemingly failed to include any tester trying to open an existing document or create a new one. Hmm. Everything makes sense now.

So does Microsoft making this generous deal and doing so now. OneDrive is Microsoft’s version of Dropbox and right from the start it has offered more space than that service. But now Apple is shuffling its iCloud service so that instead of only an invisible repository for documents, it’s going to be an actual space you can reach and add files to.

It’s not like I think Microsoft should say “hey, we’ve got this one rival we’re trying to unseat, right, and now there’s bleedin’ Apple coming along AGAIN, we’re going to shove some free space at you”. But the 15Gb is sufficiently generous that I think it could’ve just said that and not tried to claim that it can hold all the documents and images and music of all but 25% of computer users.

I don’t have a Microsoft OneDrive account and I do have a Dropbox one. To be honest, I do relish how useful Dropbox is and it would take work to switch away. You could and probably should have Dropbox and OneDrive, that would make a lot of sense for storing documents in places you could reach wherever you are.

But I have a low faff level. I already think it’s bad enough with iCloud that I have to think first, which application did I write that document in? And how I do sometimes have to stop to ponder, did I do that in Pages and store it in iCloud or did I do it in Evernote? I’m also an OmniOutliner user which comes with the Omni Group’s brilliantly-named OmniPresence.

Somehow without intending to, I’ve become fractured over several cloud services. I will get Apple’s iCloud Drive, as it’s going to be called, because it’ll just be here on my Macs and iOS. Maybe I can fold some things into that.

But isn’t the cloud supposed to make all this stuff transparently easy? If you’re in or you like the Microsoft environment, maybe this new OneDrive offer does.

Official OneDrive site