Microsoft Build 2016 Live Blog

[HardOCP News]

The crew at Engadget is live-blogging the Microsoft Build 2016 event as we speak. So far Microsoft has talked about 270 million Windows 10 activations so far, universal Windows platform apps, and shared code between Windows, Android and iOS. Microsoft also says there will be more than one thousand new APIs in the new Windows SDK coming out later today.

 

[Deleted member 245375]

I just wish they'd spend some money on training these people to have some damned personality in their presentations. Apple knows how to do presentations right - if Microsoft's people had one-tenth the personality and ability that Apple's presenters do Microsoft would get a lot more interest.

 

[ShagnWagn]

270 million huh? So, almost enough for every single person in the U.S. including infants? I'm calling them out on their numbers. I don't know of a single friend or family that has Windows 10 except for a single new laptop we just got for our church last weekend. Aiming for over a billion? So 15% of the world's population, many of whom don't even have electricity or have enough food just to live? LOL. So how many of these are actually active? Are they counting reformat and re-installs because it hosed computers? How many of them were wanted? Sadly, I just can't trust M$.

 

[bloodhawke83]

270 million huh? So, almost enough for every single person in the U.S. including infants? I'm calling them out on their numbers. I don't know of a single friend or family that has Windows 10 except for a single new laptop we just got for our church last weekend. Aiming for over a billion? So 15% of the world's population, many of whom don't even have electricity or have enough food just to live? LOL. So how many of these are actually active? Are they counting reformat and re-installs because it hosed computers? How many of them were wanted? Sadly, I just can't trust M$.

i think they are counting smartphones, tablets and consoles? worldwide.

 

[grtitan]

Its a trap, Canonical, run!!!!

 

[ShagnWagn]

i think they are counting smartphones, tablets and consoles? worldwide.

Win10 on xbox consoles? Does anyone even have a windows smartphone? I don't know of any. I think the country of Japan boycotts M$ don't they? Sony fans? I think they are inflating the number so more people jump on the bandwagon. Kudos to them if it's a realistic number. I wonder if these numbers are like the 110% of people voting in the state of Florida in elections.

 

[ccmfreak2]

270 million huh? So, almost enough for every single person in the U.S. including infants? I'm calling them out on their numbers. I don't know of a single friend or family that has Windows 10 except for a single new laptop we just got for our church last weekend. Aiming for over a billion? So 15% of the world's population, many of whom don't even have electricity or have enough food just to live? LOL. So how many of these are actually active? Are they counting reformat and re-installs because it hosed computers? How many of them were wanted? Sadly, I just can't trust M$.

I'm pretty sure they were including phones, surfaces, and XBox One devices in that. I've been streaming the event here at work from the beginning, and I can tell you there's a huge push for multi-platform integration being built directly into Windows Development. The mentality: Code once, works everywhere. So it makes sense, in the context of that universal integration mentality that they would include Windows 10 across all devices.

That being said, Windows 10 has been adopted quite heavily in my social circle. My wife and I are both on it as well. That's not to say it is without issue - my wife's formerly-win-8 machine has had some issues with sleep since the Win 10 upgrade - but most users have little reason to NOT upgrade to Win 10.

 

[heatlesssun]

i think they are counting smartphones, tablets and consoles? worldwide.

I think there's about 20 million Xboxes in that number and maybe about 10 million Windows 10 phones? So around 240 million x86 Windows devices. Looking at the daily numbers at GS Stat Counter, that's well within reason according to that tracker. Netsmartketshare numbers will be out Friday which generally show a lower share for 10 but sill probably will be within reason.

 

[Carouselambra]

Win10 on xbox consoles? Does anyone even have a windows smartphone? I don't know of any. I think the country of Japan boycotts M$ don't they? Sony fans? I think they are inflating the number so more people jump on the bandwagon. Kudos to them if it's a realistic number. I wonder if these numbers are like the 110% of people voting in the state of Florida in elections.

My house has :
3 Windows 10 PCs
1 Windows 10 Tablet
2 Windows 10 Phones

I also have a Windows 10 machine at work.

So between my wife and I there is 7 installs..

 

[Osirus]

5 Windows 10 PCs
1 Windows 10 Tablet
1 Xbox One

 

[phred15]

How many of us have removed windows 10 multiple times? I'm good for 7 or 8

 

[HardUp4HardWare]

Microsoft non-event. My goodness, I just went through the live blog and it is boring as hell.

I love the bit "FASTEST OS ADOPTION RATE EVER" yeah, because you are constantly shoving the windows 10 broomstick up all our asses.

 

[ShagnWagn]

My house has :
3 Windows 10 PCs
1 Windows 10 Tablet
2 Windows 10 Phones

I also have a Windows 10 machine at work.

So between my wife and I there is 7 installs..

This is odd. This other article says there are supposedly 270 million people on win10. Microsoft boasts 270 million Windows 10 users, details Anniversary (Redstone) Update

 

[Osirus]

Microsoft non-event. My goodness, I just went through the live blog and it is boring as hell.

I love the bit "FASTEST OS ADOPTION RATE EVER" yeah, because you are constantly shoving the windows 10 broomstick up all our asses.

People whined that Windows costs too much, now they whine when its free.

Wah wah wah, shove up your asses, whatever. No matter what they do youll find some reason to bitch and moan about it.

Windows 10 exists. Its available, and people are installing and using it. Fucking deal with it.

 

[ShagnWagn]

People whined that Windows costs too much, now they whine when its free.

Wah wah wah, shove up your asses, whatever. No matter what they do youll find some reason to bitch and moan about it.

Windows 10 exists. Its available, and people are installing and using it. Fucking deal with it.

They whined windows cost too much? That is news to me. I'll be more than happy to pay for it. With no media center, I fail to see why to use any kind of "home" version. I'll pay for the Enterprise version to retain my privacy. But I already vowed to skip Win10 entirely. Just like I did win95/98.

So who is the "bitch and moan" person here? Might want to take your own advise. Deal with it.

 

[DPI]

Interesting how there was really no mention of Windows Phone at today's event. Like as far as MS is concerned, it doesn't exist.

 

[jhymesba]

They whined windows cost too much? That is news to me..

Sadly, I just can't trust M$.

One generally doesn't use M$ unless they are complaining about how much Microsoft's software costs.

270m devices isn't that much of a reach when you consider that a typical household may have 2 or more devices. Like the folks here have been saying. 2 adults, each with a desktop and a laptop, an extra tablet thrown in there for good measure, and an XBox One notches up 6 installs. 50 million families could achieve the numbers you're seeing. With how aggressive MS is on pushing the upgrade to 10, maybe 270m isn't such a strange number after all.

It's a free country, however, Feel free to install whatever your little heart desires on your hardware. Don't take any of these observations to mean you must go rush out and buy the hated 10.

 

[heatlesssun]

Interesting how there was really no mention of Windows Phone at today's event. Like as far as MS is concerned, it doesn't exist.

Not phone hardware. But the Universal App platform and apps, those run on Windows 10 phones. Microsoft clearly understands that it's never going to be a significant player in the handset market. But it's not totally ignoring it either by making the universal platform a core of all of it's platforms while adding cross-platform capability beyond Windows devices. Some interesting stuff, like native Ubuntu console apps on Windows 10.

 

[Ordeith]

Win10 on xbox consoles? Does anyone even have a windows smartphone? I don't know of any. I think the country of Japan boycotts M$ don't they? Sony fans? I think they are inflating the number so more people jump on the bandwagon. Kudos to them if it's a realistic number. I wonder if these numbers are like the 110% of people voting in the state of Florida in elections.

There are more than 40 million people using Windows smartphones. They are actually a pretty good platform if you can get over your bias enough to see it.
Your Japan line is funny as it is one of the countries where Windows Phone is quite popular. Many Windows Phone models are ONLY available in Japan, as there is enough of a market, and interest, there to sustain the platform within the country.
The 270 million is devices that are actively used. If you downloaded it and installed it on the same device a bunch of times it would only count as one. If you downgraded to a lesser OS it wouldn't be counted. Most marketshare trackers back this number up.

 

[HardUp4HardWare]

People whined that Windows costs too much, now they whine when its free.

Wah wah wah, shove up your asses, whatever. No matter what they do youll find some reason to bitch and moan about it.

Windows 10 exists. Its available, and people are installing and using it. Fucking deal with it.

Ah, I got my OSs for free via MSDN or other promotions, so shove it.

 

[Osirus]

Interesting how there was really no mention of Windows Phone at today's event. Like as far as MS is concerned, it doesn't exist.

I don't believe Nadella wants Windows Phones. Its a failed platform he inherited from Ballmer and all indications are they are trying to kill it off.

Build this morning covered Surface, Desktops, Xbox, and HoloLens with nary a mention of Windows 10 Mobile. I saw way more stuff demoed for iOS and Android than W10M.

 

[ShagnWagn]

There are more than 40 million people using Windows smartphones. They are actually a pretty good platform if you can get over your bias enough to see it.

What do you mean my bias? I am simply stating fact of my immediate observable proof. My bias against the government counting more votes than there are people? I agree with that.

 

[ccmfreak2]

Interesting how there was really no mention of Windows Phone at today's event. Like as far as MS is concerned, it doesn't exist.

MS knows if they want to drum up excitement for their technologies they have to appeal to the broader masses, which is why they demoed some of the bot features on an Android device. I think the Skype demo was on a MS phone, though.

Remember, this is a developer conference. You're not going to get developers from all different areas excited about your technologies by appealing to 1% of the mobile development marketspace. What they did push was a seemingly easy conversion process to the Universal Windows Platform, which will help push their mobile segment by default. Their biggest issue in that segment is applications. The more UWP applications out there, the better chance the phone has at succeeding.

 

[nutzo]

I love the bit "FASTEST OS ADOPTION RATE EVER"

And now we know why they started pushing the upgrade unto domain joined computers.
I had to setup a group policy disallow OS upgrades so people didn't accidently hose their systems
We have old custom software that doesn't work with windows 10, and users that get lost if an icon on the desktop moves.

 

[modi123]

The crazy image recognition (embedded in the glasses demo'ed by Saqib Shaikh yesterday) were crazy. Describing what is in view.. reading specific parts of menus, etc.

Crazy API/cognitive services being rolled out.

I'll throw this out there- if anyone has a hololense and they don't feel the urge to love it I know a guy that would give them a good home.

 

[DPI]

MS knows if they want to drum up excitement for their technologies they have to appeal to the broader masses, which is why they demoed some of the bot features on an Android device. I think the Skype demo was on a MS phone, though.

Remember, this is a developer conference. You're not going to get developers from all different areas excited about your technologies by appealing to 1% of the mobile development marketspace. What they did push was a seemingly easy conversion process to the Universal Windows Platform, which will help push their mobile segment by default. Their biggest issue in that segment is applications. The more UWP applications out there, the better chance the phone has at succeeding.

"Easy conversion process"? Unfortunately I don't really see developers rushing to take their perfectly working Win32 programs and sticking them into a needless UWP/Metro wrapper just for the privilege of Microsoft taking 30% of the sale. Get real. These conversions would also be meaningless for the "mobile segment".

Windows Phone is dead. MSFT is following the standard script when killing a product line. First they "retrench around core users" like they did in 2015, admitting they'll never have a marketshare impact. Then a year later they "focus on other areas of growth", meaning the product is at a dead end. In another year or two they put out official "end of support" notifications.

 

[chockomonkey]

Interesting how there was really no mention of Windows Phone at today's event. Like as far as MS is concerned, it doesn't exist.

Not phone hardware. But the Universal App platform and apps, those run on Windows 10 phones. Microsoft clearly understands that it's never going to be a significant player in the handset market. But it's not totally ignoring it either by making the universal platform a core of all of it's platforms while adding cross-platform capability beyond Windows devices. Some interesting stuff, like native Ubuntu console apps on Windows 10.

I don't believe Nadella wants Windows Phones. Its a failed platform he inherited from Ballmer and all indications are they are trying to kill it off.

Build this morning covered Surface, Desktops, Xbox, and HoloLens with nary a mention of Windows 10 Mobile. I saw way more stuff demoed for iOS and Android than W10M.

They did announce that Xamarin is going to be included for free in every VS version. That's the Windows Phone announcement right there. It makes sense to me that they'd focus on iOS and Android stuff so that folks want to start coding apps for those platforms is Xamarin, by default also allowing them to be on WP. And as you know, the lack of apps on WP is one of the main reasons that it struggles to take off. I have one myself. I like it for the most part. There are some really stupid things, but the lack of apps (like an app for my bank, or Hearthstone) are key reasons I'm considering ditching the platform for Android for my next phone.