What Cross-Platform Microsoft Solutions Are Missing?

With the new Microsoft ambitious to “be where [their] customers are,” it’s been really comforting to see that I can jump from iOS to Mac to Android to PC and have a pretty positive experience on all three.

I realized the other week when I messed up my PC (overwrote the MBR… oops) and I used Linux Mint for work while I waited for an opportunity to fix things… the Linux experience is about the only place MS was lacking. I was able to do what I needed via the web client, but even though it was temporary I felt the lack of a OneDrive sync client keenly, and the web apps are no replacement for the real apps when you need to get down in the weeds.

What do you think they’re missing? Is this all a moot point because they should be converting pretty much everything to a PWA from here on out?

Conversation 7 comments

  • Paul Thurrott

    Premium Member
    20 April, 2018 - 10:17 am

    <p>I've been looking into Linux again recently and was wondering the same thing: The lack of OneDrive client sync kind of makes the platform a non-starter for me. </p>

    • longhorn

      23 April, 2018 - 7:21 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#264577"><em>In reply to paul-thurrott:</em></a></blockquote><p>The situation is probably the same on Chrome OS. I've read that the OneDrive app for Android doesn't work that well on Chrome OS.</p>

  • Rick Foux

    23 April, 2018 - 5:06 pm

    <p>It really depends on how deep into Microsoft you want to invest yourself. For example, some diehards would say that they should have kept throwing resources into Groove and expanded Movies &amp; TV to other platforms. Honestly, I'm just as happy using Amazon for those things, but I would have liked them to beef up their Photos Companion app and turn it into a real competitor to Google Photos. Maybe roll it into Microsoft Pix, and bring Pix to Android as well. Their current solution (OneDrive) doesn't hold a candle to Google Photos right now. </p><p><br></p><p>And yeah, Linux needs dedicated Office apps other than the web versions. We have Office for Mac, and we have some iOS and Android apps that are a…bridge…between the web and desktop versions, but why not just have Office for Linux?</p>

  • skane2600

    23 April, 2018 - 5:08 pm

    <p>Yes, they should stop failing to convert most of their programs to UWP and start to fail to convert them to PWA.</p>

    • hrlngrv

      Premium Member
      23 April, 2018 - 6:28 pm

      <p><a href="#265338"><em>In reply to skane2600:</em></a></p><p>From a logical perspective, they're already failing to convert them to PWAs.</p>

  • hrlngrv

    Premium Member
    23 April, 2018 - 6:44 pm

    <blockquote>. . . <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">overwrote the MBR . . .</span></blockquote><p>Ah, yes, one of the perils from installing Linux along with Windows.</p><p>Nothing like learning the merits of <strong>dd if=/dev/sdX of=/tmp/sdX-mbr.bin bs=512 count=1</strong> to backup the MBR just in case. I learned that the hard way myself.</p><p>Full Windows desktop Office isn't going to become PWAs. Small chance 1GB PWAs would ever be popular, and at least for Excel and Access, no chance PWA versions would be anywhere near feature-complete.</p><p>Also quite awkward for MSFT if the PWA version of Word, say, were feature-equivalent to the Word web app, which has more features than the mobile versions of Word, including UWP Word. If such a Word PWA were free and only required a MSFT account, who'd bother with UWP, iOS or Android versions? OK, that may be the point of PWA Office, replacing all the mobile versions. Still, how many Office 365 users would stop subscribing and just use free PWA version?</p>

    • longhorn

      23 April, 2018 - 7:30 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#265347"><em>In reply to hrlngrv:</em></a></blockquote><p>Use Easy BCD (Windows) or GRUB Customizer (Linux) to deal with MBR related stuff. No need for excessive terminal usage…</p>

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