> I don't think privacy is a mass market appeal. Here's an experiment you could do. Stop a few random persons on the road or on the train and ask their opinion about equivax, Cambridge Analytica, and Chrome's recent privacy violations and I'm sure you'll get blank stares on 90 out of 100 people.
But repeat the same experiment asking them about Facebook listening to their conversations (whether true or not, it's now believed) and about adverts tracking them around the web and those same people will start complaining vociferously and tell you how creepy it is.
Microsoft is investing into IoT now. I could see smartphones morph into different specialized wearable devices, which puts Microsoft ahead of themselves, once again (they are always early to the party without the best party favors).
>they are always early to the party without the best party favors
Innovators' curse maybe? They were pioneers in voice assistant, smart phone and tablets. Alas!
MS has begun to coast with AR - hololens, no new version in a while. Apple is well positioned to take the lead here.
As for IOT, I feel the current MS won't win. Windows 10's constant need to phone number will wear battery down and consume previous bandwidth.
I don't think privacy is a mass market appeal. Here's an experiment you could do. Stop a few random persons on the road or on the train and ask their opinion about equivax, Cambridge Analytica, and Chrome's recent privacy violations and I'm sure you'll get blank stares on 90 out of 100 people.
As for developer fees - the jumping CEO reduced the app registration fee. No one noticed. He gave the OS for free - OEMs didn't bite.
Nadella recently reduced the their store fee from 30% to 15%. And you didn't know about it.
I feel that focusing completely on consumers would get MS 95% of the push it needs. The wishes of external parties is what gave us the DRM, Youtube's content ID and much more - all anti-consumer.
Developers complained about losing revenue to piracy - voila. Microsoft built WP so that it was impossible to get apps outside the store.
Apple has "arguably" been about consumers and we can see where that led them. IMO, fuck everyone else, design consumer friendly stuff. At least that's how Google search, android, and gmail began.
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/campaigns/micr...