That pretty much sums it up. The 8.1 changes, so far as I can tell, are bugfix/stability changes.
The article feels like click-bait to me. The little blurb on zdnet about the author helped me better understand where he's coming from:
Matt Baxter-Reynolds is a mobile software development consultant and technology sociologist based in the UK. His next book, "Death of the PC" is out in September.
Do you think part of this phenomenon may be that all the investments in automated testing have shortened the time window between RC and RTM such that there's much less to be gained by an early RTM release? (and of course less time in everyone's schedule to coordinate it)
To those who keeps saying "VS2013 preview and Windows 8.1 preview" are enough, so what? How is that any excuse not to release the finished code to the developers early so that they don't have to trust MS on this? How about we do our own testing and feel confident that our apps are ready on first day.
There is absolutely NO reason to hold it back until Oct to release the same code that they can release now to people who paid for the perks of getting RTM early to make sure they feel confident.
Why take any risks when there's like a whole month for the developers to test and validate against the final RTM/GM build?
Am I misremembering something, or similar thing is going on with Google? As far as I remember, few last Android versions were introduced in a 'oh and by the way, it's shipping today' fashion. I guess you could argue only negligible percent of user have access to day 1 Android upgrades, but still - that doesn't count as early access in my book.
As a Microsoft developer with access to Windows 8.1 Preview, I remain unaffected by any alleged bus collision.
Beyond that, Windows 8.1 was RTM'd on August 23rd. The typical timeframe would be a few weeks later it would be released to MSDN and TechNet subscribers which would place us around September 15th.
Now, there have been rumors galore around whether MSDN/TechNet subscribers would get access to Windows 8.1 on the typical timeframe and conflicting messages from Microsoft spokespeople. I was curious so I just spent 10 minutes reading everything I could find on this topic on a "within past 24 hours" Google search. I can't find a source. The only source anyone I could find mentions (if they mention a source at all) is The Verge:
Many had hoped MSDN or TechNet customers would get access to Windows 8.1 shortly after RTM, but Microsoft says this is not the case.
Is there a link to a site where they got this information? If it was a phone conversation, who did they speak to? Many of the rumors that were formerly going around were sourced from a small Microsoft office in Europe from an employee speaking off the cuff. Are they using that same source or do they have a new source?
It could be very true that Microsoft is not releasing early to MSDN/Technet but I haven't seen a reliable source cited yet. I'm curious if anyone else knows precisely where this information is coming from.
I have been an MSDN subscriber for more than a decade and you can count me as someone who is more than a bit annoyed.
One of the perks of being a sub is the fact we get bits within days of RTM, the purpose being lead time for code updates and new releases, but the majority of subscribers are geeks who just want the new thing now.
The irony of the Ballmer retirement happening recently brought back youtube clips of the 'Developers, Developers, Devlopers' chant. It is easy to forget that working with developers in a first class way, was one of the many ways that Microsoft won such incredible share over time.
I used to explain it to friends and colleagues this way, when they would see the enormous binder of MSDN DVDs at my office. I would tell them that Microsoft would rather give me copies of everything for free than sell 100 copies at Staples. Not because I am special, but because they know if they win my allegiance then I will build software that requires windows. The cycle continues and by simply being nice to developers, they generate huge numbers of corporate IT customers.
For the longest time I felt this was true...but then it changed.
I cannot put my finger on an exact date, but it was after .NET came out. There were quite a few VB people upset by .NET but by and large it was broadly accepted as good and the community grew. It was probably around the WPF/Silverlight days that things started going sideways. The market was starting to fracture as mobile was gaining traction, ASP.NET was stagnating and something was not right.
Over the next several years there were so many platform misfires and misadventures it was hard to know where to spend your time. The dev evangelism team did not make the macro transition to a more web centric community as well as they should (people used the web 13 years ago but so much dev learning still happened in user groups and at small conferences) and when there was competition for mindshare from Apple and Google in the mobile space – Microsoft was on the sideline. Two huge companies waving promissory notes of riches if we would just come build apps with them and Redmond still could not figure out if we should be using Silverlight or HTML5.
Which brings us back to today, there are still so many mixed signals. Windows Phone has some great hardware but their iteration pace is lacking and while I love my Lumia 1020, my love is really for the camera, not the OS which still seems to be missing too many things (and no, I am not talking about apps). Windows Azure has vastly improved but they still don’t compete with Amazon on price, SQL Server has gotten better and better over time and no one doubts it to be VLDB capable but while they focused on BI and esoteric elements of the engine – the NoSQL world sprouted up with the only response from Redmond being effectively– ‘those document databases are not all that great.’
So is not giving us access to the Win 8.1 RTM really that big of a deal? No, but taker in the greater context it is just one more in a series of insults to what was once, your most valuable customers.
You don’t win the enterprise and then force your will upon developers, you win developers and let them force their will on the enterprise.
I spent many years as a Windows developer and your story resonates with me too.
Now I work in Azure. Basically "in the elevator" I bumped into this high-level developer evangelist. I gave him an earful of my own and and made him promise to have lunch with me.
If there was one or two succinct points that I could convey to him, what should it be?
There should be an intense, almost religious push internally to make Scott Guthrie the new CEO. Not likely I know, but platforms that developers depend on such as Windows, Windows Phone, .NET, Azure etc - should be something he runs. The Microsoft dev community has deep respect for and a strong relationship with very few people and he is far and above the most central of those figures.
The communal touch points that DE folks used to be so good at are gone now, I have about 5 or 6 close friends in my region all of whom are all like myself, independent consultants using MS stack, none of us have heard from our DE in years. User group support has vanished, local meetups where the DE will come show us and teach us stuff used to happen at least every quarter and even more often - have not seen one in years. What I do see are sales people who are only interested in talking to me if I can push Sharepoint Enterprise into a large company. Nevermind that it does not make sense, nevermind that developers by and large despise Sharepoint, that is what matters right now to them. It should be the other way around.
Also, if they are going to dangle money out there as an incentive to developers to build Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps, it should be incentive, not token. You want me to stop working and build something great - give me a way to propose it and a budget and if Redmond thinks the idea is good, fund it. Not some 5K in advanced revenue shit. There are tens of thousands of highly talented developers who love the Microsoft stack who would build amazing new experiences for Windows and Windows Phone if someone could help them do so and the current incentives are just laughable. iOS and Android are lotteries that could let me win big, if I am going to gamble my future I am going to do it there. But if Microsoft created an incubator system that let me propose an idea, get it funded and guide me through the process and ultimately help to promote the app - they would have developers fighting to get in.
