What's up with Microsoft?

Without being a financier, it is very difficult to evaluate the success of a large company, except for personal feelings,

obtained by looking at its products onstore shelves. And when looking at Microsoft products that are not available in Russia, a private consumer may have doubts about the sanity of the company's management, its suspicious orientation towards some abstract user that exists, perhaps, only in a parallel world. Yes, the company still gets the lion's share of its revenue from the sale and maintenance of virtual offices, office tools and stuff like that. And even her aspirations for the private sector are understandable, because once she managed to introduce the DirectX and Visual C ++ libraries into the gaming industry, without which modern games cannot be launched, she managed to release the Xbox game console on computer hardware, but that, it seems, is all. Indeed, nothing else comes to mind that could please a simple layman, something that could make him remember the name of the company more than once a year. The mobile electronics market is structured in exactly the same way as any other, competitors are on the alert, and if new interesting products are not released regularly, then you can fly into the pipe.

So what did Microsoft do all year long that sent it into a tailspin?

Windows 11 Update 22H2

All year, it seems that Microsoft has beendebugging the most voluminous update 22H2 for Windows 11. Starting from October 04, 2022, the update began to be downloaded to compatible devices, and gamers howled a little later. No, the 22H2 update did not cause blue screen errors, but many previously installed games and programs launched the GPU performance optimization system built into the update, after which the FPS sagged even on productive hardware.

But apart from the usual scandals with the release of each update, Microsoft finally guessed to add a tabbed feature to File Explorer, similar to that found in every modern browser.

This is a really useful thing that makes it easier to work with files and saves the user from having to launch many windows.

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In addition, a new Photos app was introduced, which has undergone a total redesign and is integrated with Apple iCloud Photos.

Not having its own developed ecosystem, Microsoft is trying to tie its own operating system to the functions of competing ones. For the user, this is a definite plus.

Other changes brought by update 22H2 are minor, adding, for example, the ability to create folders in the Start menu, as well as allowing you to slightly customize its appearance.

For the user, this does not play any role at all, because alternative applications "Explorer" are a dime a dozen, like the Start menu.

Windows Subsystem for Android

Nothing has changed in a year, subsystemstill only works with the Amazon Appstore. The only achievement for the year is the increase in compatible applications from 50 at the beginning of the year to 1000 by the end. We can say with some confidence that this feature is not a priority for Microsoft and can be closed at any time.

It's funny, but the ability to run Android applications was promised at the time of the release of Windows 10. Years later, the idea has not been implemented properly.

Fortunately, Microsoft supplies a subsystemWindows for Android environment with the debugging option running. As a result, an advanced user is able to install any Android application through the Android Debugging Bridge (ADB). But the fact that this feature is not available to any user is a shame.

Building an ARM Windows developer platform

In October 2022, Microsoft hitpublic never seen before. We are talking about the announcement of a project called Windows Dev Kit 2023 (formerly Project Volterra). As part of this project, Microsoft will sell a reference ARM-based Windows device to programmers, and happy programmers will be able to debug their software products, applications and games on it.

The photo above shows the same device,called Windows Dev Kit 2023 and asking $599 for it. Monitors are not included, only a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 nettop with 32 GB PDDR4x RAM, 512 GB SSD, three USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports and two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports falls into the hands of the developer. C. How many of these devices were sold, Microsoft does not report.

In 2022, the already indicated chipset was releasedSnapdragon 8cx Gen 3, but few dare to make laptops or tablets on this truly the most powerful of the dragons. Other than the Surface Pro 9 5G, only one variation of the Lenovo ThinkBook 13s Gen 4 comes to mind.

Surface 2022

Released in 2022:Surface Studio 2 Plus, Surface Pro 9 and Pro 9 5G, Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Laptop Go 2. The most interesting, in my opinion, is the last one, i.e. Surface Laptop Go 2. This is a typical example of how a nameplate can double the price of exactly the same products from other manufacturers.

Surface Laptop Go 2

Typical slim laptop with 12.4 touch screenhaving a resolution of 1536 × 1024 pixels (most will stop at this point), built on the basis of the 11th generation Intel Core i5, equipped with 4GB or 8GB LPDDR4x RAM, 128 or 256 GB SSD, they are trying to sell in Russia for 99,990 rubles on average. The calculation goes to the corporate client and only to him. No one in their right mind would buy such a miracle, there is too much difference between a dull product and its price.

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For designers

Microsoft 365 is different from the on-premises packageMicrosoft Office is very striking. By preinstalling a standard office, the user receives only the set of tools that was included in the distribution, no more and no less. The Microsoft 365 service, due to the fact that it works on a remote server, is always up to date, and sometimes throws up new tools. This is exactly what happened in 2022. The company decided to expand the offer by adding a couple of tools for designers.

Microsoft Designer is an AI-powered tool thatwhich is designed to generate images from text. Such “pictures” are always in demand and help to design a website or a post on a social network, an advertising poster layout or a presentation frame. In other words, this is an advanced analogue of the PowerPoint designer that does not require special skills. The software product is currently in early access as a standalone application, but will be included in the Microsoft 365 toolkit upon release.

The Bing search engine has acquired integration withfamous electronic artist DALL-E 2, which was called Image Creator. The main work that Microsoft has done is to install a hard filter. The user will not be able to get nudes from a famous beauty or a bloodbath involving nuns. At this point in time, the service is not available in Russia, despite the invigorating inscription about "coming soon in your region." It is sad.

Microsoft Clipchamp is a typical video editoroffering different filters, cropping, gluing, and so on. A kind of pop version of Sony Vegas, iMovie, Adobe Premiere Pro, Lightworks and the like. The video editor is available as a standalone app, but the reason it's mentioned here is that it's been part of Microsoft 365 since 2022 and is even available in the browser.

For players

Right now, Microsoft is fighting for the right to acquire Activision for $70 billion.

Publisher of dozens of game hits of all timeActivision stood up like a bone in the throat of the antitrust authorities in the US and Britain. Moreover, these same bodies in the US have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, which means that the process is dragging on. The essence of the claims is very simple - some of the players on the Play Station are very worried that the Call of Duty series of games will become an Xbox exclusive, depriving all other platforms of such happiness. Funny? Highly.

Conclusion

So what caused the fall in Microsoft's profits anddepreciation of its shares? It would be logical to assume that the coronavirus is in China, where, as you know, there are a lot of programmers who are now forced to work remotely. But personally, it seems to me that Microsoft robbed itself after it stopped working in Russia with its inexhaustible client base in the face of all government agencies and entrepreneurs. This is her choice, and we will be engaged in practically legalized piracy (in Belarus, by the way, this is already the case), nothing else remains.