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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.
Adding a central repository of applications is no more "The App Store Model" than Ubuntu's central repository of applications. It's only "The App Store Model" if that becomes the ONLY way of putting applications on your device.
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.
The problem with Apple is that we have already seen what their vision of an app store is: A Garden of Pure Ideology.
It doesn't have to be that way. It can merely be apt-get with a fancier interface and a means to pay for stuff.
Microsoft could abuse this idea. However, Apple is already abusing this idea.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"Gee Mr Coder, you appear to have a Linux version.... we don't like these kinds of apps in our store."
"Gee Mr Coder, this appears to be an office suite.. we don't like competitors in our store."
Isn't that the EXACT same thing Apple is doing with their App Store?
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
On the upside, it's not really different than what Ubuntu does with software repositories... except that they'll presumably be charging for it. And it would be one way for an administrator to allow people to download software while being reasonably assured they're not going to install malware by accident. I would hope.
As long as Microsoft doesn't block installs from outside the store, I don't see a problem.
Yes, but Apple's products are shiny.
There is a vast difference between merely providing an app store, and an app store that is the only method of obtaining 3rd party software for the platform.
Better known as 318230.
An interrogated app store IS NOT a terrible thing even for a desktop.
What would be terrible is if Microsoft made themselves the only app store for windows.
Take a look at Steam. It is really well loved by a lot of users but it is in effect an app store.
Here is the important part.
As long as I do not have to use Microsoft's app store I don't have an issue with them having one.
As long as I can install what I want from where I want I just don't have a problem with this.
Now Walmart, BestBuy and GameStop will be up in arms and the say good buy to the used software market for some stuff but other than that...
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Nobody cares if somebody does an app-store. The model people fear is an app-store ONLY method where it's the only way to install programs. This doesn't appear to be that, so why SHOULD we care? The fears regarding Apple and OS X deal with the (very real in my mind) possibility that they could indeed setup an app store and mandate that it be the only source for third party software.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The difference here is that you can still install applications from outside the app store on Windows (and Android for that matter), where on iOS you can't. That's why everyone was worried about the next version of OS X moving to a more iOS-focused paradigm; Apple has final cut on everything.
"It's a reverse vampire...they....they crave the sun!"
Isn't that the EXACT same thing Apple is doing with their App Store?
No. Apple does not refuse to carry apps from developers that have versions for other platforms. And even if they did, it would still be different because Apple is only one player in a competitive market. Don't like Apple's methods, but a Blackberry or an Android and you can still have a huge selection of apps. Apple doing this would be like Dell or Toshiba doing it. If you can't grasp the difference between a monopolist leveraging their monopoly into another market versus a non-monopolist bundling products, well you haven't been paying attention here or you willfully refuse to understand.
All that said, it's pure speculation that MS would make such draconian restrictions upon their application store.
Congrats- you've just proven that you have no idea what you're talking about. The term "monopoly" has an actual definition in economics, and it has nothing to do with control of supply (although that's sufficient to be a monopoly, it's not necessary to be one). A monopoly is any actor with monopoly power- the ability to set the price of a good, rather than having the market do so. If an actor has this power he can set the price above the equilibrium price, decreasing the quantity bought but increasing his own total profits. This creates a market inefficiency called "deadweight loss" as well as reducing consumer surplus in favor of producer surplus, neither of which are good for the economy as a whole.
Microsoft most definitely has a monopoly under that condition- they can set a price higher than equilibrium because there is no true replacement good. That makes them a monopoly.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
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.
What the hell happened to the idea that technology was supposed to make society better?
People.
People replaced "... makes society better" with "... makes company more profitable". I was going to say capitalism instead of people, but this would also happen in any other economic and political model. We've demonstrated again and again that we're just a bunch of egoistic little chimps, who at best have the well-being of their tribe at heart.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Uhhh - the monopoly business doesn't bother me so much, as the unfair trade practices. There are many that MS has engaged in, but the single worst thing they ever did, was to demand exclusive contracts with vendors.
Totally wrong. And, it should have been punished severely. Not only Linux, but other OS's would be light years ahead of where they are today, if the vendors had been permitted to build custom and/or "standard" machines with alternative OS's all along.
Even today, it's a bit difficult to navigate Dell's site, to find the machine that you REALLY want, without Windows. That's just wrong, wrong, wrong. All of the possible configurations, and all the possible OS's should be easy to find with a simple search. Very simple search. "No OS Thinkpad" should take me right to the window where I can customize it - I shouldn't have to make multiple searches in the enterprise/business section.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br