Windows Mobile 5 development team dropped the eight ball and the whole damn company should be held a

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tim Burr
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Tim Burr

Do I have your attention? Good. I want to go into rant mode and tell
anyone who gives a rats ass what I think of Microsoft dropping support
for ADOCE/CEDB.

I read a thread today by Mike B at

http://groups.google.ca/group/micro...t+for+Window+Mobile+5&rnum=1#41fe3c8cfe163fd2

and thought it deserved a posting under a new topic...

To quote:
I sure wish we'd see a way to come out with new
stuff like EDB without breaking existing apps, but that is another thread
altogether.

Mike B.
Click to expand...


Well Mike B. This is that thread...

Not only should Microsoft provide 'SUPPORTED' ways to port old apps to
EDB from CEDB et al, it should be a legal requirement punishable by
stiff fines if not done. Thinking from the analogy of an automobile,
there is no damn need of these wankers reinventing the wheel every few
years without allowing for a way to change the tires. Currently
Microsoft operates with the mentality that everyone should upgrade to a
new automobile even though the one they own works fine.

I am getting tired of all of the hype about how things are so much
better and faster. How we should upgrade. I went along with that line
of crap when I upgraded an eVB project midstream, to VB.Net compact
framework. I refuse to do that again as it cost me time and money. If
you are not going to help me in a 'SUPPORTED" fashion then why the hell
should I continue to support Microsoft? Think about it. I am a loyal
customer. I buy and use your products. I try and stay current in my
devlopment. I start large projects and then you come out with new and
wonderful ways to develop. And in your opinion, so wonderful, that the
old ways suck. Suck so bad in fact, that you refuse to support them.
Who cares about the speed improvments? Who cares about the new
functionality? If you can not provide me with utilites to seamlessly
upgrade then your collective asses deserve a good swift kick.

LISTEN TO ME MICROSOFT EMPLOYEES, MANAGEMENT, SUPPORTERS what you are
doing is wrong wrong wrong. It is unethical and immoral. I think a
class action law suit is in order. Maybe that will straighten out your
warped sense of reality. Your lack of support is costing me time and
money. I want paid back. To paraphrase the late Johnny Cochrane:

If you don't support we will see you in court.

Loogie is pissed off like never before and a pissed off Loogie is a
pain in the ass.
 
So, just to play devil's advocate, how long would you require
backward-compatibility? Forever? How much did you say you'd be willing to
pay for your device in order to have this? Remember that every extra OS
feature takes space in the ROM and RAM, so you'll need more-costly hardware
to support it. How much battery life are you willing to do without in order
to have it? Remember that RAM chews power like crazy, so, for 10% more RAM,
figure 10%+ less battery life. Some of the potential Pocket PC customers
would, no doubt, be willing to pay, but most wouldn't, whether in terms of
money or battery life.

The tire analogy isn't quite fair, either. It's more like, can you use your
own old tires and wheels on the new car you just bought? Can you? I'm
guessing that the tire diameter, probably the number of lug bolts, etc. are
all different. And Microsoft isn't telling you that you must buy a new car.
They are saying that, if you want the features of the new car, there might
be some features that you enjoyed in the old car which are no longer
available. The radio, let's say, doesn't have an 8-track option, no
offense, per se, to the 8-track; think cassette, if you want. Sure, you can
add your old radio back into the car, but you have to wire it in, and
Microsoft doesn't physically prevent you from adding some sort of
third-party 'radio' to your device to handle Access compatibility, but you
can't fairly expect them to sell the radio as a standard feature, unless the
market really wants it.

If you can build a business case that MS would make $xyz more money if they
would just continue supporting ADOCE and Access, they'll do it; they're very
numbers-driven. You're off-base suggesting that not supporting ADOCE is
"immoral", however. That's crazy talk. Microsoft is a business and they
respond to the market very well. In the cases where they've done illegal
things with respect to Windows, they've been punished (though you can argue
the effectiveness of that). They are not morally, or otherwise, obligated
to allow you to support their new OS without any effort. They aren't taking
away anything that was yours. They aren't killing you or otherwise
preventing you from living your life the way you want. They're aren't
compromising on your or your customers' personal safety to pad the bottom
line.

I certainly don't agree with every decision that Microsoft makes and have,
of course, been bitten by incompatibility between successive versions of
various OSes, embedded and desktop. I've found bugs in Windows CE that have
not been fixed, despite the acknowledgement that yes, they are wrong,
because there isn't enough of a business case to justify the effort to build
and test the fix. Hated that, but how can you argue with it? If the fix
allows me to sell 50 extra licenses for Windows CE, that makes MS maybe
$1000, though it might make me $100,000 in hardware sales. If you want
something done about this, you need to build a business case for MS to
address it and, if you can do that, they'll work on it. Otherwise, you have
an opportunity to serve this large market of people who need ADOCE support
in existing applications yourself by building your own layer for ADOCE and
selling it. No comfort there, of course...

Paul T.
 
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