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Leaked MS Presentation Shows App Store Plans For Windows 8
FrankNFurter sends word of an internal Microsoft presentation leaked online today that contains details about Windows 8. The slides mention support for 3-D displays, connectivity upgrades, rapid startup times, and an integrated application store. Quoting Neowin:
"Consumers will be able to search on the web or locally on a Windows 8 machine to access applications from the store. Microsoft also details plans for application developers to help reach millions of users. One of the goals is to ensure licensing and monetization for developers is flexible with a transparent on-boarding process. It's clear that the 'Windows Store' will be a software service Microsoft provides and hosts fully in the cloud. The company will likely build the distribution model on Windows Azure to lure application developers."
Everyone is up-in-arms over the bizarre prediction by some third-party developers that Apple will move to an app-store model on OSX (and all the haters pre-condemn them for this "fact" despite Jobs refuting it), and then it's Microsoft that comes out and proposes to do it.
Question: Since Apple was labelled "the new Microsoft" due to its supposed policies, does this make Microsoft - um - the new Microsoft, again ? [grin]
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
One of the goals is to ensure licensing and monetization for developers
Considering how badly Microsoft has hampered open standards and locked down their operating system for the sake of "monetizing" software in the past, how bad will it be now that they are, presumably, trying to beat Apple at their own game of a walled-garden app store? And on the desktop no less?
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
Microsoft... Bringing you Today's technologies 4 years from now..
Wheres the innovation?
And really? an App store? For WIndows?
Cloud Computing? Really? Isn't it here now today?
Searching the Web or Locally? (Hmm... I dunno if I have been doing this my whole life)
Rapid Startup times? Every OS I have boots in less than 30 seconds.. Last time I booted windows it took 5 mins.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
.
Always a promise from Microsoft, never a reality in Windows.
As long as I can continue to purchase and download software as normal I couldn't care less about an MS app store.
The second they try to lock down Windows so you must use their app store, I'll be gone from the Windows platform and won't look back.
So, whatever. Don't care. If Microsoft decides to shoot themselves in the foot trying to push this, they are easily replaceable.
Great. The future of PCs is trying to be like the mobile phone industry today. They call it "integration". I call it "service restriction." There's so many artificial barriers like this in IT right now it's seriously impeding our ability to innovate. Why do we need a dozen different platforms, fifty operating systems, and a plethora of incompatible development environments, languages, and libraries underneath that? And don't tell me it's because each fills a "special niche" -- that's only true to a point.
In the hardware world, we have cores -- dedicated chunks of silicon that each perform a specific task. They're licensed out for cheap, or in a growing number of cases, made available for free. I know programmers always have a library of their own code too because the truth is the same problems come up over and over again. But thanks to intellectual property and copyright law, there's virtually no code re-use. Nobody shares. And thanks to all of this, the operating system of 10 years ago could run on a P133 with 64MB of ram now needs 10x that just to boot.
If you'd come to me 10 years ago and said, "Hey, I'm from the future -- and look what we've done!" ... I would have said "Fuck this, I'll be a doctor instead." It's complete bullshit the things we do in the name of profit. Think of what our infrastructure and society would look like today if we didn't have cell phones and basic cable sucking $200 or more out of us a month, banks finding new and better ways to fuck us over, debt collection firms getting people thrown in jail, and all this other stuff that basically say "We're fat, stupid, and need more money -- and you're gonna give it to us or else."
What the hell happened to the idea that technology was supposed to make society better?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Rember Lindows/Linspire. Its click'n'run software had a pay download feature.
I see a potential marketing problem.
.. my app.
Windows 8
Windows 8 my files.
Windows 8 my CPU.
Windows 8 all my money.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
The app store concept is not evil unless traditional distribution is eliminated.
I think it would be very easy for MS to have its cake and eat it too. MS does not need to lock out alternatives because others will do it for them!
MS could make the app store a new choice that expands the distribution of software. Unlike Apple's "i" products, this time the app store would be in addition to traditional distribution, not a replacement. Of course, the apps in the store have undergone some review from a virus/spyware/malware point of view, whereas traditional distribution is what it is. With the app store's new level of safety, users in general (and corporate users in particular) would quickly self-mandate the exclusive use of the app store. Corporate IT would hop on the bandwagon in 5 seconds if it had everything they needed. MS would market this as their best solution to the virus/spyware/malware problem "and of course, it's completely voluntary."
Using a convenient control panel setting, the users (or their helpful sysadmins) could make a unilateral decision to restrict installation of software to the app store. For MS, it's a win across the board: No DOJ investigation, more open than Apple, and for once MS has a way to do something useful about unstable and rogue programs that seem to slip past Windows' limited defenses.
The software center in the latest Ubuntu is a joy to use. If I only marked certain apps as "best of breed", it would be perfect. And the price on all those apps, $0. Seriously. If my mic volume worked, I'd never boot windows again. (My Mic works, but it is too low, even when cranked to 100%.)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
You complain about having so many different platforms, but this is helpful in one regard - avoiding a homogenous system, which leads to more trouble in the event of compromise.
If you want to avoid duplication of efforts, it's pretty obvious at this point you want a core html5 app and then perhaps custom IPhone or Android specific applications as well. Then you can still have the system security of a number of platforms but lower development costs.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think going forward, most OS's are going to have an App Store built in. It's simply to convenient and brings to many advantages to the average user. It's also almost certain to be abused to reduce consumer choice and make the application market less competitive. So rather than complaining about it, I propose we modify the app store so we get all the benefits and none of the drawbacks.
A central "store" app for downloading, buying, upgrading, and registering software does not really exist on any desktop today. Some handle noncommercial downloading, some handle nothing, some handle commercial titles only. The real hurdle is in getting some of the benefits (like vetted software and remote disable of malware) without getting the drawbacks (like a single gatekeeper and fewer choices due to artificial restriction). We can't trust any single vendor and we shouldn't have to. Rather we need a model where one app can manage multiple repositories, all with signed software, updates, and the ability to transfer payments for registration purposes. Then we need a separate component that vets the apps, verifies the sources and ACLs, and lets the user know how much they can trust the app. This info can come from multiple parties and be weighted to give an overall trust rating the OS can use to apply default security restrictions automatically. The multiple parties might be the OS vendor, a security company, and an open project akin to ClamAV and together they build a greylist for your apps.
The benefit here is competition and better quality as a result. If MS is deciding all by themselves what software is trustworthy, they have little motivation to fix problems in a timely fashion or work hard at it. If, however, three or four parties are offering a for pay service, they're all competing for your money and are directly motivated to do the best job possible, resulting in fewer mistakes and better data for end users.
Yeah, Microsoft innovates. Yeah, that's why they dominate the desktop marketplace. Once again, they are ripping off ideas from Apple.
If the OS were free and they made their money in the App Store, this would make more sense - they would be beholden upon revenue from the App Store to survive. But this is just an attempt to counter Apple's success and Apple's increasing mindshare. Microsoft's 'App Store' will be an ugly, controversial mess and will likely drive more business toward Apple.
First question would be - Don't they already have an 'App Store'? Oh, wait, it only sells Microsoft software.
What happens when somebody comes up with something that competes with an existing Microsoft application? I think we already know the answer to that one.
What happens when someone comes up with a truly 'killer app' that becomes hugely successful? Microsoft will first try to buy the app to capture that 'lost' revenue, and if they fail to negotiate a suitably low price, will duplicate the app in-house and compete for that market.
So, someone quickly que the glossy, focus-group approved, TV ads that promise shiny exciting new toys for your already buggy, overburdened laptop.
Everybody sing! I'd like to buy the world an APP, and keep it company, I'd like to promise happy times, and flying chairs to see.
Best regards.