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Their primary product is Office. Desktop Windows is a major focus and driver for lock-in, but it sits at about 2/3rds the total revenue of Office, and for many people the face of Microsoft *is* Office. As standalone product lines, only their Server products (most of which host Office components like Exchange, Skype for Business or SharePoint) come close to the desktop Office product revenue.

For a long time Microsoft was aggressive about complete lock in around the Office ecosystem. They've become a lot more open recently, as they've realised it drives people towards building solutions around their Office software and related cloud services. They're solidly engaging the reseller and partner channel again to encourage anyone building their own IP around Microsoft solutions. Office 365 and cloud - once it's there, it's a pain to get back out, the ultimate recurring-revenue lock-in.

Source for revenue stats 2016.

That is correct, HDR is not possible via HDMI 1.4.

As for the original PS4... "NeoGAF forums user Jeff Rigby discovered last year that the Playstation 4’s custom HDMI controller is apparently HDMI 2.0 compatible"
Source: https://www.winbeta.org/news/s...

Previously having read what he had said, but unfortunately cannot find the post, the PS4 HDMI controller is higher bandwidth than HDMI 1.4. This would suggest that it may have been designed to be upgradable to a later version of HDMI than was available at the PS4 launch via a firmware upgrade.

Why does everyone continue to trot this out? It's completely false, and has been since the first uEFI systems shipped.

Please show me a motherboard or non-tablet OEM system that doesn't allow you to turn off Secure Boot. They don't exist outside of Windows RT devices that basically don't exist anymore. Microsoft even publishes documentation on how to turn it off. You can even turn it off on Microsoft's own Surface Pro hardware. Surely if Secure Boot was about locking out other operating systems, they would have done it on their own god damn hardware?

Stop spreading FUD.

Well, looks like you're right about this point.

If I'm going to lambast people for appearing to talk out their ass, I can't very well exclude myself, right? Consider me lambasted, and my own snark retracted. Most of the other facts still should stand.

how are they managing that, MS no longer license win 7 Pro!

That is wrong. It is even mentioned in the f..ing article that Windows 7 Pro is available to OEMs until October 31, 2016.

It seems that which replacement you get largely depends on the outlet type, which of course depends on your location. Plenty of people are saying their replacement cord looks identical or nearly identical while having different part numbers.

http://windows.microsoft.com/e... disagrees with you. Windows 8 is supported until 2023, as long as you have the Windows 8.1 Update

Microsoft marketing. Try checking the actually methods they use to track their operating system and you'll see the truth.

Actually Windows is deemed safer by in the security industry than either Mac OSX or iOS.

http://www.winbeta.org/news/fo...
https://usa.kaspersky.com/inte...
http://www.cnet.com/news/in-th... Regardless, I think the consensus these days is we all need to be careful regardless of device. Social engineering happens on them all. I use both Macs and PCs. I run AV and OpenDNS Umbrella and more for my Macs too and scrutinize anything attachments, links, etc. that I go to.

Right, it is area, but if you think about it that is quite a difference. Here's an example of the different sizes:

http://www.winbeta.org/sites/d...

That picture is very zoomed in, for context the Twitter tile is slightly larger than a standard desktop icon.

I'll be happy to provide. A simple search on Windows 10 Free strategy found these two links. Was it that hard to be informed before putting BS online like all the trolls of this world?
http://www.winbeta.org/news/st...
http://www.howtogeek.com/22095...

Perhaps you misunderstood. I was asking for primary source material. Would you happen to have a link to internal strategy documents?

The howtogeek.com article had no citations to internal strategy memos and the winbeta.org article reiterated a PR tweet.

My entire point of asking for these memos was that what the PR machine or third-party analysts say is not the same as the actual process Microsoft used to make it's choice. That's what I'm after. Why did Microsoft make the choice, not why do others think they made the choice and not what did Microsoft say to clarify the choice.

I never said it wasn't inflammatory. It was. I don't disagree with the moderators.

Great, so the attacks to his comments were perfectly justified.

What is a founded opinion? One where one uses something, like say Microsoft adding subscription options to Office, to found an opinion, such as they might add subscription options to Windows?

He didn't quote that. He just blurred some random anti MS BS.

I had not seen these internal strategy memo links. Would you care to provide a citation?

I'll be happy to provide. A simple search on Windows 10 Free strategy found these two links. Was it that hard to be informed before putting BS online like all the trolls of this world?
http://www.winbeta.org/news/st...
http://www.howtogeek.com/22095...

WIndows isn't moving to the subscription model. That has been debunked over and over again.

So, I don't think it is a slippery slope

Well none of what you wrote above that is a slippery slope, or relevant, because Windows 10 is not using a subscription model. This conversation is mostly hypothetical.

I don't trust them to play fairly and honestly.

You have your opinion, that's fair. Mine is, I somewhat trust them because they currently need to make themselves trustworthy. This isn't the same stale Microsoft from the monopoly days that knew they had no legitimate competition... this is a fresh Microsoft with a new direction, new leadership, and a birth of openness unparalleled in their history.

It's my computer, not theirs.

If it's really your computer, then you'd know how to uninstall an update.

I wonder how much headache this will create among web developers. Will Spartan implement things in a new unheard of way or will it actually try to achieve maximum compatibility?

According to WinBeta, interoperability with other browsers is the goal of Spartan. Compatibility (for legacy/enterprise sites) is the goal of IE. IE's Trident engine will not be updated except for security fixes, and Spartan's Edge engine will move forward with modern standard, new features, and improved performance.

This is nothing, wait until you see the new Control Panel icons.
http://www.winbeta.org/news/wi...

Folder icons are easy to change, and no you don't need 3rd party software to do it, just go into properties.

Maybe Google is late to the enterprise game, but they certainly have started pursuing it. Apparently, a lot of corporations are switching to Google for Work, mine included.

http://www.winbeta.org/news/go...

While Microsoft is considered the evil empire on /. , I do like the fact that the main players - Bill & Melinda Gates, Satya Nadella, and Steve Ballmer - all did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.

Bill Gate's ALS video was very creative (and inspired this ALS video) so how come multi-billionaire Balmer couldn't do a better video ... or was it because he was "very busy" ;)

I think this might shed some light on the issue: http://www.winbeta.org/news/br...

Only a 14% market share?

Argue with Microsoft. It was their comment.
http://www.winbeta.org/news/mi...

Lenovo is NOT backing out of the small-screen Windows 8.1 tablet business. They have clarified their stance today. See here: http://www.winbeta.org/news/le...

Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft

According to This site iOS has 59..49% of the market and Android 24.4% in the US. Windows Phone (1.21%) is being beaten out by BlackBerry (1.64%), Symbian (2.06%, and Java ME (10.2%). Very few people are buying Windows Phones, so how much of a market is there for stolen ones?

Not that anyone here reads the articles, but it was explained in an adjacent article. Win7 phones will get an upgrade to as close to Win8's mobile format as possible with the hardware in the prior models. Without diving fully into the hardware specs, I can't tell you if there is a significant internal difference other than cpu count, but the article sounds like there are a lot of changes in the new hardware requirements.

Beta 2 was to be released in the Nov-Dec '05 timeframe but alas, this has slipped significantly to at least March '06.

Microsoft sources confirm that indeed the target launch date slipped almost 6 months but were tight-lipped when WinBeta.Org questioned them on a new target date. All we were told [on the record] was that it would be a few months later than previously planned.

"The leak of the screenshots that are claimed to be of 5203 will be embarressing for Microsoft in that many Beta 1 testers will be wanting to skip Beta 1 and jump right to Beta 2's 52xx builds."

either a bluescreen of death (soon to be redscreen AND bluescreen of death in Longhorn)

The RSOD has already been removed. :(

MS has said that RSOD are temporary and it will be a BSOD (BLACK screen of Death) for boot-loader failures.

http://winbeta.org/comments.php?id=2988&catid=1

Don't believe me? Well, check what netcraft tells you about www.winbeta.org. However if you manage winbeta.com to reply with a database error, you get a PHP/MySQL error in a file in /var/...

Windows XP still uses the 2D-only GDI, as does Longhorn (the successor to XP to be launched sometime in 2004, if memory serves). Originally, Longhorn was going to contain a 3D GDI (using DX, I assume), but according to my friend Element at Winbeta, the development of the new GDI was taking too long to be implemented in Longhorn. So, a 3D GDI in Windows has been pushed back until Blackcomb (to be launched between 2006 and 2008, and almost no information whatsoever is available about it except the 3D GDI bit).

Another question though, which I will ask my 3D coder buddies--what impact will pixel shaders and vertex shaders have on these 3D windowing systems? It seems to me that it could either add significant amounts of detail or significantly increase speed by taking advantage of long shaders (assuming the shader implementation is good.. *cough NV30 would be bad for this cough*). Still though, it could explain why PS/VS are being pushed so heavily in DirectX.

According to our friends at winbeta.org, it is a dupe, and not of the dual-post kind.

FWIW, I think winbeta.org posted these screenshots and movies of the new OS in action (to quiet the naysayers) about 2 or 3 weeks ago. Now it looks like they've had some sort of datawipe as of 10/30 (but I imagine some form of them are still available on their IRC channel - I'll leave that to someone else to confirm or deny). As I understand it Icrontic had them and was asked to remove them. For anyone that cares to try, the old link was here. *shrug*

FWIW, I think winbeta.org posted these screenshots and movies of the new OS in action (to quiet the naysayers) about 2 or 3 weeks ago. Now it looks like they've had some sort of datawipe as of 10/30 (but I imagine some form of them are still available on their IRC channel - I'll leave that to someone else to confirm or deny). As I understand it Icrontic had them and was asked to remove them. For anyone that cares to try, the old link was here. *shrug*