Microsoft Will No Longer Force Bing By Default For Office 365 ProPlus Customers (windowscentral.com) 38
Microsoft will no longer forcibly make Bing the default search engine in Chrome for Office 365 ProPlus customers. A tech community post from Microsoft announced the change. From a report: Microsoft states that people will have the choice to opt-in to have the Microsoft Search in Bing browser extension installed. Microsoft was going to install the Microsoft Search Bing extension onto any system with Office 365 ProPlus that didn't already have Bing set as the default search engine. This would have effectively forced Bing onto Office 365 ProPlus customers. The move set off waves of backlash around the web, which caused Microsoft to change its plans.
Backlash? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why I also think they won't make changes in response to customer backlash in Windows 10: They feel most people have nowhere to go
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Microsoft does listen to its customers. The problem is with them, is that often try to implements as many ideas given.
People often outrage on problems while they exist, there are no good solutions, and implement a fix which then make a bigger problem somewhere else.
Re:Backlash? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Microsoft doesn't listen to its customers.
They boorishly impose new marketing ideas, cause mayhem, and then after much outcry, will backtrack, waiting to spring the next nonsense on their captive market.
They can't get upgrades right. We now have Windows 10 upgrade mayhem after a botched Windows 8, 8.1, and early editions of 10.
But they don't care, because of their Windows franchise monopoly, and their revenue streams continue to flow because users have no real alternative unless they do forklift upgrades to macOS or are wiley enough to think of Linux.
They can continue this, like Apple does, foisting nonsense on their customers because they're monopolies. Until the herd moves, and the herd is mightily invested in Microsoft-compatible creations, the monopoly can do what it wants until the wounded fight back. Users are still, however, in jail.
Microsoft: "Boorish", causes "mayhem". (Score:3)
Microsoft management seems to be huge group of people who don't have social ability. Microsoft is getting an extremely bad reputation.
But... Linux has a poor user interface. People who just want to use a computer don't want to get involved.
Why is Windows 10 the [microsoft.com]
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But... Linux has a poor user interface.
Have you tried Linux Mint? I wouldn't call the UI "poor"
It doesn't suck any worse than Windows. Plus, you have complete control over updates: Disable all/security only/automatic/manual, etc.
Sure, you don't have Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook or Project. If those are required, it's a deal-breaker.
But it works just fine for me at home, and I prefer it to Windows.
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My Canoscan USB LiDE flat bed scanner just plain works right out off the bat in Ubuntu 18.04. In Windows, it hasn't worked since Windows XP, because there is no driver support anymore.
Windows is the one with the "poor user interface" these days. Anyone telling you otherwise is likely just a shill for Microsoft.
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It doesn't suck worse, but it's not better either. Meanwhile there are a ton of other caveats that Linux introduces, like being incredibly fragile as soon as you stick a pinky toe outside of whatever very heavily curated experience has been provided.
Windows -> Difficult, unreliable OS, but unbelievably vast software and hardware ecosystem
Mac -> Overwhelmingly more usable that Windows, a decent ecosystem of software, but locked down hardware
Linux -> Difficult and arguably unreliable OS (mostly refe
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Linux -> Difficult and arguably unreliable OS (mostly referring to the GUIs...
For several years MATE has been a rock sold, straightforward, old school, GUI which just keeps out the way and doesn't keep changing for no reason. Also, it performs as well or better on the same ancient hardware I was running Gnome 2 on *ten years ago*.
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Are they testing the waters or are they that naive to think it was a good idea we would all like? Either way they know their customers are not going to go elsewhere fast enough for it to matter.
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They learned nothing... (Score:2)
From the antitrust suit. Mark my words, they'll keep abusing until they are slapped down again. And next time, the courts will have no empathy.
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You think the US courts will have empathy? (although I assume you meant "sympathy").
Whoops. Thanks for the correction!
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Right now the courts are stacked in favor for big companies like Microsoft. It can take decades for the courts to change, its leaning.
To be slapped, would have to have power (Score:2)
From the antitrust suit. Mark my words, they'll keep abusing until they are slapped down again.
Do they have enough real power or marketshare at this point to be slapped down?
It seems to me that companies at this point have enough real choice they could leave if Microsoft got really abusive again - as we see with them reverting this choice, which they would not have done in olden days.
At this point there's no need to slap them down, because the market will do that job properly.
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Riiiight. And which market might that be? The one where Apple's OS and office products will take over? The multitude of Linux environments perhaps?
Kindly tell us, at this point in time, what possible option(s) exist for companies to leave Microsoft? And not pie-in-the-sky, it will happen ideas. Cold, hard truthful statements about who can displace Microsoft.
Bing just not there yet (Score:2)
I have Bing installed as default search engine on my phone. Simply put, it's just not the equal of Google yet. You can't force business users to use an inferior product.
I tried having it as desktop default too, but it really is not great as a search engine for day to day development work the way Google is (though honestly if Bing spent one effort on better Stack Overflow inclusion to search results they could probably get there).
Re:Bing just not there yet (Score:5, Insightful)
"You can't force business users to use an inferior product."
Where in the world do you live, and can I move there?
Here is how it seems to go where I live.
After reviewing all the available products, we have weeded it down to the three big Name Brands.
We give these companies a chance to give their marketing spew.
We ask questions then they lie by giving us the answer we want to hear.
The Honest company gets kicked out, because they told us something we didn't want to hear.
Out of the remaining companies, we pick the cheapest one.
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The Honest company gets kicked out, because they told us something we didn't want to hear.
They didn't force you, it was your company that made a dumb choice there.
Taking back what I said about Google quality (Score:1)
So right after I post that note about the superior quality of Google, I try to use it to convert bytes into MB with this:
6452208 in MB
(thinking it would infer the first number was in bytes)
and get back this as the top result:
The Poop Troop in Winnipeg, MB | 2047930101 | 411.ca
Thanks Google.
At least Bing had the decency to give me this document as the top result that actually matched the number:
[PDF])645-2208 - Columbus, Ohio
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Nope, it can't make the inference since your unadorned value could be bits or bytes. Gotta use "6542208 bytes in MB".
Interestingly enough, MiB gives me mebibytes and Mib gives me mebibits, but both MB and Mb give me megabytes.
Has Microsoft *really* changed? (Score:2)
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They've turned Windows into the most user-hostile operating system ever.
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"the new Microsoft" is actually worse than old MS in Bill Gate time, from the perspective of customers.
Old MS was extremely anticompetitive and use dirty tactics agains competitors, but it actually take great care not to offend customers:
- Update are actually security update, not randomly add/substract/change feature or settings.
- Update can be turn off completely. let business user to have stable OS snapshot they can rely on.
- No software activation. Activation greatly complicates OS image deployment.
- No
ProPlus? (Score:4, Funny)
"Office 365 ProPlus"
And here I thought that Apple's naming conventions were dumb... Microsoft are going dumberer.
In need of corporate history lessons (Score:1)
Dear Microsoft,
Please add the following lines to your internal release guidelines and make every damn executive write a 500 word essay on what each one means to them:
People do not like having products shoved down their throats.
Thinking you know what people want better than they do is called arrogance.
Regards,
The World
In need of destruction, not improvement (Score:2)
I don't wish them to improve, I wish them to alienate users and drive them to other OS.
That's healthier for humanity.
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in other news... (Score:1)
In other news, the local neighborhood mugger promised to stop mugging redheads on Wednesday evening between 5 and 7pm.