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Microsoft To Switch Focus To Windows 8 In July 2010
An anonymous reader noted a bit from Ars saying Microsoft will be switching internal focus from Windows 7 to Windows 8 in fiscal year 2010. Microsoft's fiscal year starts in July, which is only eight months away. According to Microsoft's roadmaps, the release of Windows 8 is scheduled for 2012."
Hey, I heard that Ubuntu going to be switching focus to 10.x next year as well! STOP TEH PRESSES!!!1!
Do we actually have anything to talk about regarding Windows 8, or is this just another thread where we trot out all the usual "ZOMG evil Micro$oft abandonware bloated faked figures blah blah blah"? Because that's getting kind of old.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
A company is planning ahead for their next version. News at 11.
Most large corporations have 3-year PC replacement cycle, and get pissed when the new thing is the same as the old thing except for the hardware.
Most large corporations have a staggered, consistently employed 3-year PC replacement cycle, couldn't care less about what software is installed since they're all imaged in-house, and prefer hardware to remain consistent as long as possible.
They should have been working on Windows 8 nine months ago, or whever they basically put Windows 7 into freeze. It was over a year ago that they decided certain major features weren't making it into 7.
The team that develops the OS should be focused on the new version right away.
Surely Microsoft is a well-run corporation with long term planning. Surely they have a future roadmap of where they want Windows to go over the next 5 years. Surely Vista and 7 were intentional stepping stones along their master plan.
I can't fathom the possibility that Microsoft has become this un-agile behemoth that no longer innovates, but rather has knee-jerk reactions to the OS market.
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When you discover Austrian economics, you'll learn that there is no such concept as intrinsic value. So this statement is meaningless about any good or service. It might be meaningful for YOU for RIGHT NOW, but the notion of value is time and observer dependant.
And all miss certain desktop scenarios that windows nails, which is why everyone on the planet hasn't simultaneously said "OMG -- why do i keep paying money for windows when *nix does EVERYTHING I NEED EXACTLY THE WAY I WANT"
Given the amount of inflation between now and then, even paying $250 for an OS today is "so 1990s".
The idea that the operating system on your computer -- the thing that actually lets it do useful things -- isn't worth dinner for 2 at a national-chain resturant (your $30 figure) is completely hillarious. You honestly would rather forego the last 30 years of personal computer history and instead have 1 dinner for two?
I think "an" OS is easily worth $100 or more per year to me. I'd skip dining out 4 times a year to have one. It's nice that there are free choices available, and in some cases I use those free choices since the marginal utility benefits of pay-ware doesn't justify the marginal cost increase for my scenarios.
I think it must be a common fallacy amongst f/oss zealouts that they feel like the only people that must be clued-in, and that if only the rest of the planet would "discover" that there are free operating systems out there, Windows and other commercial operating systems would vanish.
I suspect that the major vendors and Fortune 500 companies are very well aware of free software and what its advantages and disadvantages are, and have conciously chosen to continue using Windows for the majority of what they do based on a value analysis. I also suspect that they continually re-visit this analysis [and this accounts for things like the Wal-Mart and Dell linux machines..]
I think it's fair to guess that most people paying for windows figure it is worth 75% or more [to them] of what they're paying for it.
So I don't find your post insightful at all. You don't understand economics, and your assessment of value seems very contrived to me... based on ideology rather than reality.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I started with a home computer in the 80s. Quite fun but cassettes were slow, so I got a PC with MS DOS 3.3
I upgraded to DOS 5 because of its memory management. I then installed Windows 3.1 upon DOS 5 because of the truetype fonts and word processing. It made me more productive.
(I also started using Linux because it allowed me to have a Unix at home without suffering that asshole sysadmin at the university, but this posting is not about Linux)
I upgraded DOS5+Win3 to Win95OSR because it was more stable and easier to use than 3.1, it had font smoothing, native TCP/IP and it was generally an OS vs DOS and a windowed shell. It made me more productive.
I skipped Win98 and WinMe because they offered nothing new.
I started using Win2000 because it was a real OS, much more stable and secure than Win95. It made me more productive.
I started using XP when nLite matured because I could remove the useless crap and XP is optimized for speed and supports network bridges and, most importantly, cleartype. It made me more productive
I've tried Vista and 7 but they have not made me more productive. I wonder if Microsoft can change that with 8.
That's kind of a foolish statement. Windows doesn't do things the way people want either, which is why the average user can emit an impressive stream of complaints about their computer if you let on that you're in any IT-related field. The reason people don't switch is a combination of some or all of these factors:
The idea that the operating system on your computer -- the thing that actually lets it do useful things -- isn't worth dinner for 2 at a national-chain resturant (your $30 figure) is completely hillarious. You honestly would rather forego the last 30 years of personal computer history and instead have 1 dinner for two?
What are you talking about? Linux and others have been around forever. In the past five years or so Linux, particularly desktop-focussed distros like Ubuntu, have gotten to the point where you could give one to Your Mom and she'd be able to install it. These are free operating systems. They're also completely gratis. There's no law that says an OS has to cost money, and there's not that much support in the history books for such a notion either.
You say that for you, an OS is worth about a hundred dollars. That's fine, but understand that's your perception of value, something about which you just finished lecturing that other guy. Neither history nor economics support the idea that an OS must have a pricetag.
Finally,
I think it's fair to guess that most people paying for windows figure it is worth 75% or more [to them] of what they're paying for it.
That's patently absurd. Most people don't realise they're paying for Windows at all. Remember, to them, "it came with the computer". To an extent they are paying very little for it since OEMs subsidise the cost with the idiotic crapware they also pre-install. But the point is that most people do not go out and buy a Windows disc. They use whatever the hell is on the computer and give zero thought to the price or value of the OS.
A more realistic scenario would be to talk to a real user. You know, that nice lady next door who has been pulling her hair out for the past two weeks because Windows has getting less and less stable. At first it was just throwing Dr Watson stuff in her face she didn't understand. Then Explorer would crash practically every time she booted the thing and she's had to learn to reboot seven or eight times before it would come up and stay. Then McAffee started throwing a hissy fit, often crashing and taking down Windows with it. IE is taking forever to open and half the time, when sh
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Ten years ago, I would have completely agreed with this post. Today, if anything, the Microsoft shills have taken over slashdot.