Can Microsoft Afford To Lose With Windows 8?

snydeq writes with the opinion that Microsoft can afford Windows 8 failing on the desktop. From the article: "Windows 8 is an experiment that may well fail, but Microsoft will cull invaluable feedback for Windows 9 in the process, long before Windows 7 runs out of gas, writes InfoWorld's Serdar Yegulalp. 'Can Microsoft really afford to alienate one of its biggest market segments for a whole product cycle? In a word: Yes. In fact, doing something this risky might well be vital to Microsoft's survival,' Yegulalp writes. 'Microsoft needs to gamble, and right now might well be the best time for the company to do it. The company needs to learn from its mistakes as quickly and nimbly as they can — and then turn around and make Windows 9 exceed all of our expectations.'" Microsoft has managed to weather several OS flops (Windows Me anyone?) thanks to their domination of the market, but with Android gadgets and iPhones becoming pervasive can they pull it off again?

Comments

Cycles

[Vahokif]

This has happened before, and it will happen again.

Re:Cycles

[poetmatt]

It doesn't mean they can survive.

There are more mobile phones being sold today than laptops and PCs combined.

So no, this isn't a time they can afford to be continuing to a: lose marketshare for another 3 years and B: lose even more marketshare at the same time.

Re:Cycles

[datavirtue]

Whatever....we just need a decent file system. The data is getting out of control. Hundreds of thousands of files everywhere, and that is just on my home PC. We need full-blown customizable meta-tagging (with default templates for certain types of files) on data with easy search methods. We also need an easy way to force network users to to fill in certain meta-data (with logging and reporting) or no savey.

Re:Cycles

[erroneus]

I think this will be quite different this go-around.

I think the next Microsoft failure will seal their fate. There are lots of factors at play which Microsoft is not presently able to compete against. The love of Android and iOS are two of them, but web technologies which depend on advanced features found in the "standards compliant" browsers out there (I know MSIE 9 is quite compliant, but many people can't even use it for various reasons... not available on XP and large programs like Documentum does not support MSIE 9 yet) are creating UI elements which promise application portability to all manner of devices out there.

While the rest of the world is moving on into newer, more interesting things, Microsoft keeps guard on its 20+ year old Win32. They keep screaming "developers developers..." but they are also suffering because of those same developers and their highly inconsistent quality, standards compliance and stability. Time and time again, Microsoft has had the opportunity to remake itself and have decided against it in favor of keeping those who cling to the old ways happy.

Windows 8 will be soundly rejected but more than that, the common people will be more aware of Microsoft's failure and doubt them. I have heard people say numerous times that they don't want a Windows phone because they don't want a phone that crashes or is insecure. And these are from 'common people.' And these same people are looking elsewhere.

Worse, it is being discussed all over that people in business want to use their own personal devices for work. This doesn't always go over well with IT or many businesses out there, but the desire isn't going away and people want what they want and don't want what they don't like... Windows in this case. With all the push to alternatives, Microsoft failing to push out its own alternative to itself will prove to be its end.

Re:Cycles

[hcs_$reboot]

Windows N+1 is usually an improvement over Windows N. But what really makes people buy N+1?
- the Windows label?
- the "N+1" difference over "N"?
The answer is, still, in 2012, because people prefer a "cheaper" solution (over Mac), an easy no question purchase, a "standard comp that resembles the one I use in my company" as it has been the case for 20+ years. Tons of PCs are sold daily, and guess what? The latest Windows (besides Vista maybe) comes with it. So, when the time for Windows N+1 has come, N+1 sells well...
Most of people are not rushing to get N+1 over N. They renew their PC to improve the hard. And N+1, automatically, magically, traditionally, and, above all, commercially, comes in it.
When most of big companies start to stop (!) renewing their Microsoft contracts / purchasing PCs (almost) blindly, the (N+1)/N ratio will start to weight a lot more.

Re:Cycles

[Computershack]

I don't see many college students typing up their homework on their iPhone.

Re:Cycles

[SJHillman]

There's more napkins being sold than mobile phones too, doesn't mean napkins are going to replace phones. I believe smartphones still account for less than half of the mobile phone market, not to mention numerous people buy Tracfones to take on vacation so they can leave their $300 smartphone at home. Likewise, there's a ton of things PCs and laptops can do that phones never will unless they can project a large enough image to replace a monitor and have an interface half as versatile as the mouse and keyboard system. Phones also need to be replaced far more often due to accidental and intentional damage. People think twice about throwing their PC at the wall because they're pissed not because of the cost, but because of the size. Same reason fewer laptops get sent through the washing machine.

Re:Cycles

[Rie Beam]

People are buying less computers because everyone has a computer and there isn't this arm's race to replace computers every six months to a year. Give it a few years; once cellphone tech has hit a wall, the technology will also finally start hitting laptops and desktops (assuming it already isn't).

Cellphones are great but even at their best, they're still a portable version of their mature parents. No cellphone is going to ever meet the criteria of having a massive display and a keyboard and still fit in your pocket -- it just isn't physically possible.

Re:Cycles

[shoehornjob]

MS certainly made strides on search in vista and extended that into Windows 7. I'm in front line tech support and the search actually works. Instead of walking customers through several steps I just have them search for it. Search brings it right down to their comfort level. A new file system would be nice but I'm usually pretty organized so it's not a big issue.

Re:Cycles

[erroneus]

What you describe is known simply as "critical mass." Microsoft was able to overthrow entrenched competitors in the past though the mass in those days were not as critical as they are these days.

Microsoft can do whatever they want. But the world has shown it's not going to wait for them to make something new and better. While Microsoft keep churning out the same Windows with new faces and newer versions of the same Office suite which is slightly not compatible with the versions before it (virally forcing everyone to upgrade), other players out there are exploiting the desire of the consumer to have something new.

IBM gradually became less relevant because they stayed "blue" and continues to use an extremely disciplined engineering mindset on doing things. Spending as much time as I did with AS/400 and other IBM stuff, I got a fairly good taste of IBM's flavor. IBM's flavor is today what it was back in the day and people wanted that sturdy, flavorless, disciplined, engineered reliability because back in the early days people were scared of computers and technology. (Recall the days when people 'proudly' announced that they were 'computer illiterate'?) Those days are over and IBM's appeal faded with people's fears.

Microsoft's flavor was once new, fresh and exciting. But the thing about fresh and exciting is that you can't stay fresh without changing the recipe. And exciting becomes boring without new things added to the mix. The trouble with Microsoft is that they are trying to be IBM and Microsoft at the same time... supporting the old-timers as well as feeding the craving of the masses. Normally, when a company tries to do that, they set up two product lines... one to keep the steady, reliable going and the other to remain cutting edge and interesting. Linux makers have been doing this for a while and the model works exceptionally well. Microsoft, on the other hand, seems to be trying to do both diametrically opposed things with one product. On the surface, it just seems like a bad idea.

Microsoft can do whatever it wants, but even $35 billion is not "unlimited." People want what they want. And people DON'T *want* Windows. They might NEED Windows, but they don't *want* Windows. And once that love is lost, it's lost. There is no going back. No renewal.

Re:Cycles

[mcgrew]

You are 100% incorrect. To change from oil and gas to green renewables you would have to replace every gas and coal fired generating plant with wind or solar or hydro or nukes, and replace every single vehicle with an electric one. The financial costs would be enormous.

OTOH if Microsoft ceased to exist tomorrow, nobody would be the worse for wear except maybe Adobe. Nobody would have to buy new hardware, there are alternate OSes out there that are not only equal to but in most cases superior to Windows. Switching from one release of Windows to the next takes a bigger learning curve than switching from any flavor of Windows to almost any KDE-based Linux distro.

You don't have to use the command line or compile your own programs as the MS Fudsters would have you believe. Any software you need is only a few clicks away in your repository. And unlike Windows, Linux is even easy to install!

Re:Cycles

[ConceptJunkie]

I have to say, the ribbon interface is about the only thing I _don't_ hate about Office, but I only use it when I really have to. Ribbon or not, you couldn't pay me to compose a document in Word. Excel is OK, as long as you don't use it too hard or do any scripting, at which point you will be made aware how remarkably fragile and bug-ridden it is. Access should have been taken out back and killed before it was ever shipped. Outlook has all the disadvantages of bloated Enterprise software, but none of the advantages. I can't even get it to consistently remind me about events in my calendar.

The main reason why no company is walloping Microsoft up one side and down the other on Office software is that people will only accept alternatives that are as horrendously bloated and overcomplicated with features as the Office apps are. As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft didn't ruin Word, they literally ruined _word processing_ as a concept.

Its how microsoft works

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 95 - Stable
98 - Bluescreening POS
2000 - stable as a rock
ME - less said about it the better
XP - Good enough that MS is having a tough time getting people to part with it
Vista - Disaster at launch, heard its better post SP1 but thats too late
  7 - Quite good
  8 - likely to be rejected by enterprises for a kiddish interface unless the UI changes

Re:Its how microsoft works

[mikael_j]

You've got it wrong.

Win 9x (95/95 OSR2/98/98SE/ME) was overall a steaming pile of dung.

WinNT (NT3.51/NT4/2k/XP/etc) have all been pretty decent compared to 9x (although they've made quite a few questionable design decisions along the way).

As for the recent UI changes, all par for the course with MS, they seem to always change something and their fanboys/shills will dismiss complaints with "well, we did a biased usage test and concluded that this was the best solution so STFU". Eventually everyone gets used to it and the world moves on.

Windows evolves

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft are marketing experts. There will always be the masses that are suseptible to the hype of marketing... that's what it's designed for. You can see as the names are totally emotional and illogical (XP, Vista, 7 now 8). With each version it's just another version of Windows NT... Of course they need to fix a few things that don't work too well (or at all), and also add features for the geeks. But the main thing is to make it look new and 'trendy'.

Re:Windows evolves

[beanpoppa]

And how would you name OS's? If the best criticism you can come up with is the name, then they are doing something right. To the contrary, I think MS is horrible at marketing. They haven't had a good marketing campaign since the debut of Windows 95.

As for each version being just another version of Windows NT- what else would you expect it to be? Just like every release of MacOS before OS X was a new version of MacOS Classic, and every release of OS X is a new version of 10.0.That doesn't diminish the fact that new, and sometimes innovative features aren't added.

Re:Windows evolves

[fwarren]

Marketing experts? Bill Gates in a mall eating a f*cking churro and wiggling his butt walking though the parking lot?

What they have are the OEMs. They can't load OS X on a computer. Do you see anyone being successful loading Linpus Linux? Even the "Mighty Ubuntu" has no real traction. OEMs have to play Microsofts game and load whatever version of WIndows comes along.

Home users will pirate what ever version of windows works for them. Even if they have to pay a friend to load it onto their system.

Big Businesses will get a license and run whatever version of Windows run the applications they use.

Small Business will just complain.

Then everyone will get used to the crappy version whenever they have to deal with it and wait for Microsoft's next version which will "hopefully" fix the mistakes.

Re:Windows evolves

[walterbyrd]

I would say that Microsoft are vendor lock-in experts.

Windows ME?

[rbowen]

I read every day about how Apple has won and everyone had an android phone, but in the real world, the people who say "what's slashdot?" also don't remember Windows ME or Microsoft Bob. And a computer is a Windows machine and you write Word docs, and you "make a PowerPoint" for a presentation.

Sure, people complain about Windows, but macs are just too weird and, after all, it's just a tool.

At least in this school district, they've trained another generation who thinks that computer == Windows.

Do you have a choice ?

[freshlimesoda]

Irrespective of wether you use Windows or not, thousands of Windows PCs around the world are sold everyday by multiple vendors backed by hardware / software warranties. What happens if Windows 8 fails ? Nothing. Windows 7 will cascade the failure until next product refresh. Tablet or PC, is not a question faced by CIOs for 90% of their workforce still. The fact in case that Windows 8 works great, if happens true, is immaterial!

Call me dumb as rocks, but

[Compaqt]

instead of releasing a version people don't want and "culling valuable feedback", why release what people don't want in the first place?

Who's asking for this stuff?

Don't people actually do, you know, work with their computers? Invoices, reports, letters to vendors and customers, research, etc.? Also dev, CNC, CRM, CMS, movie/pic editing, and more.

Who is it that stares at their start menu/screen/whatever all day and gush with wonderment? People with work to do open their programs in the morning and ... work.

On the other hand, I have to grudgingly admint (as a Linux fan) MS really has something going with Sharepoint and OneNote. Cool stuff in the window environment/OS? Not so much.

Nobody of value uses tablets. Don't focus there.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that many in the industry don't see tablets for what they generally are: a useless niche device surrounded by endless media hype.

Apple's success with smart phones and tablets is very misleading. Execs and managers see high sales numbers for these devices from Apple, and think that there's some sort of real demand, driven by utility. That just isn't the case when dealing with Apple, however. People generally buy Apple devices for reasons of vanity, not utility. Apple peddles a religion more than it peddles technology. Certain foolish people will spend huge amounts of money on anything Apple cranks out.

This is exactly why basically every other attempt to get into the tablet market has failed, or at best has not been a complete disaster. Samsung, HP, and RIM, among others, are excellent evidence of this. They went into the tablet market thinking they were selling technology. They suffered from comparatively few sales, because very few people actually need or even just want tablets for any useful purpose.

Tablets are much like Ruby on Rails. Yes, there's some small technological element. But the hype isn't about the technology. It's about the semi-religious culture infecting the people who hype and use the technology. In the case of the iPad, it's about owning devices with the right logo. In the case of Ruby on Rails, it's about buzzwords. It's not surprising that so many of the staunchest Rails advocates are also Apple users. They're a perfect match of hype, ignorance, and a false sense of superiority.

In fact, it's doubtful that any other company or project can actually compete in such a situation. There are only so many fanatics to go around, and these fanatics are very reluctant to not follow the chosen path. The moment they start to deviate, they become individuals, and thus lose much of the comfort that comes from being part of the Apple or the Rails cultures. That's why I suspect there can only be, at most, one hype-driven, quasi-religious consumer base for vanity technologies. They inherently have to be a monopoly.

"Feedback for Windows 9"

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the consumer preview? M$ has screwed the pooch so badly with W8 that even now they're talking about how W9 will fix its problems...even before it has even been released.

Sure they can

[Sir_Sri]

Of course MS can afford a product cycle that isn't hugely popular. Their biggest competition for Windows 8 is Windows 7, which gets the job done for most people. Vista sucked in large part because people were quite happy with windows XP and didn't really want anything else.

Where they can't really afford to flop is in mobile. But they seem to have the right general idea, one core OS for both desktop and mobile (making cross platform development and use much easier), and then something that is unique from iPhone/Android. Whether it gets market traction or not who knows, but they seem to have some generally good ideas. Their desktop... meh. People can stick with windows 7 for a year or two longer while they figure out what the most important things to change from 8 are.

The other thing is that many of us on /. may not quite grasp how normal people use computers, and how much simpler something like live tiles could be. How many computers do you see that have a desktop full of icons, people who can't manage simple things like bookmarks etc.

And as I say, it's not like MS has any meaningful competition in the desktop space right now. Arguably there is a surge in mac uptake among young people especially, that poses some potential longer term risks, but then Apple without the reality distortion bubble is going to have a much harder time in the long run too, so that provides some longer term advantages. Probably it'll even out in the end.

Re:Sure they can

[JustinOpinion]

The other thing is that many of us on /. may not quite grasp how normal people use computers, and how much simpler something like live tiles could be. How many computers do you see that have a desktop full of icons, people who can't manage simple things like bookmarks etc.

I see what you're saying, but I think Windows 8/Metro is a failure in this regard, mainly because Microsoft didn't go "whole hog" with this new design ethos. If you think of an iPad, it really does reduce complexity for the end user, by getting rid of so many of the things that a normal desktop computer does. This is somewhat annoying if you're trying to do something more complicated, but it does indeed simplify the computing experience for many people.

But in Windows 8, it seems that you have all the usual complexity of the conventional desktop, plus this new Metro thing. So now your average user not only has to manage all the files on the hard-drive, and all the icons on their desktop, and all the windows in the usual desktop/window interface... they additionally have to figure out and manage live tiles. Worse of all, they now have two competing metaphors: desktop windows and live tiles, which sometimes work together, sometimes duplicate functionality, and sometimes are totally distinct ("I remember being able to make this work... but was it a Metro app or a regular desktop app I did it in?").

One of the most basic principles in UI design is consistency. Being consistent lets users develop muscle memory, simplifies their mental model for the computer, and lets them predict the behavior of new, unfamiliar software. Being a slave to consistency can be bad (and stifle innovation), but conversely if you break consistency you need to have a really good reason: the gain in productivity or power must be sufficient to offset the user confusion. (This is at least one reason that we stick with so many arbitrary conventions in our computers: they may not be the best conventions but by being consistent people can at least learn them.)

Windows 8/Metro breaks consistency in a major way. Not just in breaking with tradition (which can be justified if the new interface is sufficiently better), but by having internal inconsistency between the two competing UI metaphors. By not being committing to one or the other, MS is making both of them more confusing.

You may argue that novice users will just stick to the simplicity of Metro, and never be bothered by the complexity of the traditional desktop (which will be available for power users that need it)... but I am unconvinced to say the least. Legacy software will jolt the user back into the desktop. Even novice users have probably used a conventional desktop and will try to get back into it. Metro in general does not appear to reproduce all the functionality of the conventional desktop. So users will now have to flip between the two different modes all the time. In fact some have also argued the opposite: that novice users will stick to the desktop and ignore Metro (or just use it as a fancy app launcher). This still adds needless complexity. Either way, this is a UI disaster.

It's been said so many times that it's almost pointless to say it again: Metro looks like a very nice UI solution for mobile and tablets. But whoever thought it was the future of desktop computing needs to have their head examined.

Product of focus groups

[GeneralTurgidson]

Years and years of Microsoft going "what does the consumer want" has lead to this. Uncomplicated. Pretty. Microsoft needs to take a page from apple--step back and objectively ask "would I enjoy using this piece of shit?". Ask their tech support "would you enjoy troubleshooting this piece of shit?". That would be some constructive feedback.

They've pushed the Trendy boat out too far now

[Viol8]

So far in fact that its its being swamped by the waves of derision. I can't believe anyone at MS seriously believes that whats a good UI for a handheld keyboard free tablet with touch interface is a good UI for a desktop corporate PC with a mouse. Sure, the old XP/7 style UI can be used but why should you have to dig around for it, why isn't it the default and why should app developers have to decide whether to develop for Metro or "Legacy" Windows? Sorry , this makes no sense - MS have seriously fscked up this time. I'm sure under the covers that Win8 is a very professional OS , but the Metro GUI is going to kill it in MS's cash cow sector - ie corporate unless they sort the mess out now. Many corps are only now considering Win7, there isn't a cat in hells chance of them considering Win8 with a Metro interface.

Re:They've pushed the Trendy boat out too far now

[DrgnDancer]

They're trying to copy Apple's use of a partial mobile UI in places on Lion and Mountain Lion. The big difference is that Apple realized most of their core users wouldn't want to use a Mobile style UI most of the time, so they basically made it a thing that you could do, but not the default. Even then a lot of people don't really see the point. I can't say that I've ever used Mission Control, and I'm honestly a bit miffed that they sacrificed my virtual desktops to put it in. Still, it's not much of annoyance (beyond the loss of virtual desktops) that's it's there, since I don't have to use it. Microsoft went the step further (and I think the step to far) of making Metro the default UI. Worse, you can't every really entirely get a "classic" UI. You can run the desktop as an app, but from what I've seen it almost feels like a virtual machine or remote desktop deal. You almost feel like you're not running on the local hardware.

They go out of their way to show you that you're "supposed" to be using Metro. The idea seems pretty insane to me.

Re:They alienated a major sector before

[Spad]

I don't know, Windows 8 is one hell of an interface shift from Windows 7; if you think you had trouble with users getting lost when you switched to Office 2007 with the Ribbon, just wait until you take away their start menu and their desktop.

Re:Nobody of value uses tablets. Don't focus there

[Serious Callers Only]

I'm surprised that many in the industry don't see tablets for what they generally are: a useless niche device surrounded by endless media hype.

Agreed, they have no user file-system, no world-class 4G wireless, and less space than a nomad, and that's why they're selling tens of millions a quarter....

http://www.statista.com/statistics/165489/global-sales-of-apple-ipad-by-quarter-since-2010/

Tablets are much like Ruby on Rails...In the case of the iPad, it's about owning devices with the right logo. In the case of Ruby on Rails, it's about buzzwords...They're a perfect match of hype, ignorance, and a false sense of superiority.

The only ignorance and false sense of superiority I've encountered about rails was from haters who have never used it. Have you? It's just a web framework, maybe one of the better ones, maybe not, but it has become the focus of ire perhaps because people are so insecure in their technological choices they feel the need to look down on a web framework (WTF?). Rails is useful for some sites (I have used it on some myself), and other languages like PHP or Java have their place as well depending on specific requirements and code available in libraries etc. Buzzwords don't come into it, nor do logos, at least in my case, and I've never met anyone who made their choices based on such things. If any widely used web language deserves to be panned, it's PHP for its awful, messy API, though they have cleaned up their act recently. Rails is pretty middle of the road, and it's just a web framework.

As to the iPad, it's a pretty good device, for what it is, and frankly it covers 100% of the computing usage pattern of most people I know (web, email, games) - yes it doesn't cover the needs of everyone, but that's ok, if it is popular it's not going to cause your computer to be confiscated or to spontaneously combust - you can continue to live in a world where the iPad is popular, and feel no pain, so long as you can manage to tolerate the thought that others might have different needs to you. Can't think why anyone would buy something purely because it has a logo on it - I bought an iPad because it is a good tablet, and I wanted a tablet to read the web and mail on, that's it, and it is has served admirably for that purpose.

In fact, it's doubtful that any other company or project can actually compete in such a situation.

Bullshit. Android has been doing pretty well, in spite of fragmentation and several mis-steps by Google like Google Play. The only people who think like a cult are those who feel they must oppose everything Apple or everything Rails without question or thought. If you want to criticise Apple, criticise their predatory business practices, their monopoly on the marketplace, their banning scripting from the store, their blatant ripping off of other developers, but don't try to criticise a device which is best of class, and really popular, as somehow doing well because it has a logo or people are enlisted in a cult! People are buying the iPad in their millions because it is good, and they find it useful. Deal.

The "Tick, Tock" cycle of design

[Hadlock]

Intel is doing the Tick-Tock cycle for their processor families/flagship products, that sort of sounds like what the author is suggesting here, except for Microsoft's flagship product instead.
 
Tock: Win 2000
Tick: Win XP
Tock: Win Vista
Tick: Win 7
Tock: Win 8
Tick: Win 9
 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

Re:The "Tick, Tock" cycle of design

[SlashV]

Except Win 2000 wasn't a Tock, Maybe you meant Me?

Re:The "Tick, Tock" cycle of design

[Andy Dodd]

Except that W2K was actually decent... It was ME that sucked.

Re:Why Microsoft will not fail

[bmo]

>For simple reasons: It is coherent

Windows 8 is about as coherent as a a drunk who has just finished his third bottle of Mad Dog 20/20.

Two competing UI paradigms powered up in the same OS simultaneously is not the definition of coherence and consistency in UI.

--
BMO

Wisdom of innovation

[shiftless]

instead of releasing a version people don't want and "culling valuable feedback", why release what people don't want in the first place?

Who's asking for this stuff?

"If I had asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me faster horses." -- Henry Ford

Why does everyone think Tablets will replace PC

[netsavior]

I don't understand why everyone (including MS I guess) thinks tablets will eventually replace PCs. Is it just that I and everyone I know are way more verbose than the average person? Are people really going to tap out blog posts and forum posts and emails (not texts/tweets) on glass horrible excuses for virtual keyboards? really?

They have an input problem, and I don't see ANY solution that will make them a serious computing option within the next 10 years, barring a docking station that just basically makes them a PC anyway (at which point what is the point?). Voice control may not ever work, much less "soon," glass keyboards seem fine in the store, but if I had to type even this rant on one, I might shoot my tablet instead.

I have a tablet with a full usb keyboard, and that works, but I mean it isn't even more portable than a laptop at that point.

Re:Are bad Microsoft versions deliberate?

[hairyfeet]

Actually that wasn't what Vista capable was about, it was about not slapping Intel in the face. You see the early betas for Vista included support for several older chips by Intel and when they changed their driver model at the last minute it left no way for those Intel chips to qualify as they were "kinda sorta" Dx9, not actually full Dx9. So to keep Intel from getting burned with warehouses full of the shitty chips and from the OEMs getting burnt by their Intel boards and looking elsewhere MSFT basically gimped Vista Basic (in the early builds Basic had a lot more visual features that were omitted like more Aero features) to give Intel a checkbox they and the OEMs could use to say "Sure it runs the new Windows!". what got their asses in a sling was all the ads were nothing but Aero Aero Aero and the courts ruled a reasonable person would think being able to run Vista meant shock! gasp! actually being able to run Vista. who'd have thunk it?

Let me dispel another myth while I'm here, kay? the whole "Its the death of the PC!" horseshit which is complete and total horseshit, if anything people have more x86 units than ever before...and that's the problem. You see folks have been conditioned to shitcan their smartphones every 2 years when the contract is up, they got drawers full of the damned things, whereas on the x86 PC front its just the opposite. You see for several years now PCs have been more than "good enough" for the tasks folks have for them. hell my mom has a 10 year old hand me down P4, and for the stuff she does, shopping on Amazon, playing her AoE and match 3 games, its frankly overkill. Anybody still using 10 year old smartphones? Hell my boys like to game and I just NOW upgraded them from Pentium Ds to AMD quads because they games finally started to drag, that's 6 years on those units, and did they get trashed? Nope i sold them and both units are running happily one with a checkout girl that uses it to chat and use youtube, the other a neighbor that likes old flight sims. Does anybody think either of those are even gonna stress those 6+ year old Pentium Ds? of course not.

This is why MSFT is shitting themselves with fear over being left out of mobile and is willing to waste millions upon millions on this disaster trying to force their way into mobile, its because once we got dual cores PCs became "good enough" for the vast majority for the tasks they had. Does anyone think that someone like my GF, that only uses FB, webmail, and Youtube, would actually notice if you switched her 3 year + triple core for a brand new 8 core? Hell the triple spends most of its time twiddling its thumbs. MSFT and the PC OEMs got spoiled during the MHz wars where throwing out your PC every 3 years was the norm because of the huge chip advancements that made that 3 year old PC simply too slow to run the modern programs but once we went to dual cores and everyone started spending more and more time on the web that era was over. A 4 year old triple or quad could easily last you until 2020 and beyond simply because people just aren't stressing the units. Hell I bought a 6 core because they are selling 6 core barebones on Tigerdirect for $289 delivered, but did I NEED it? Nope, my quad was crazy fast and even gaming wasn't stressing it.

MSFT wants into the ARM race because they see its the new MHz wars but nobody cares about having Windows when it won't run Windows programs. android can undercut them on price (although I still don't see why they are popped for product dumping, as they spend a billion a year only to give the product away. if MSFT or Apple did that they would so be busted) and Apple has the buzz and network effect. MSFT needs to spin off their mobile division or just call the new ARM OS Metro with no Windows or Microsoft name anywhere, but that would make sense. Instead they are gonna shoot themselves in the face trying to shoehorn the smartphone onto the desktop instead of the desktop onto the smartphone like WinMo. if its any consolation MSFT I predict in 5 to 8 years you'll see smartphones end

Do none of you people work for large companies?

[tekrat]

I cannot believe all these people here posting that the desktop is dead, tablets are the future, and no one is going to use a full blown PC except for hardcore gamers.

Dudes; wake the f up. In the corporate world, the desktop PC is everywhere. What do you think people in offices are doing all day, surfing facebook? They are not because facebook is blocked by the corporate proxy.

No, the are running spreadsheets, inputting data, copying data out of custom apps built in-house that speak to gigantic Oracle databases, and pasting that data into word documents, and writing a ton of material to explain that data so that it can be understood by MBA suits who decide what stock they are buying this microsecond.

All that isn't going to be done on a tablet. Not this decade, at least.

I need two monitors at 1280 x 1024 to get my work done, and I'm still losing windows under all that clutter. I have to monitor 4 different exchange mailboxes, I have 3 browser windows, a rumba session to the mainframe and several instances of notepad and MS word running. And a CMD/DOS session for FTP, and a window to my share on the SAN.

I have to run Firefox for external web browsing but IE8 to access the internal intranet, as the apps don't format correctly under firefox.

Our machines run 24/7 because a night-shift comes in to take our places when we leave for the day.

If you really think a tablet is going to replace this infrastructure any time soon, I don't think you understand just how entrenched large corporations are in the PC. And it took them decades to get here, we still have old-timers who have worked here since before the PC was a part of the corporate world, and they only know how to use the phone, they don't send emails. Of course, most of the these folks are close to retirement.

But that means that it took 40 years to get to this point, and I think it's going to take 40 years to move to some other technology that's radically different, like a tablet.

Microsoft is smoking crack if they think we're all going to smoothly transition to a Tablet OS, even on our desktops, in anything less than 10 years.

Re:is this a viable business stratagy?

[jones_supa]

Windows XP was just a bloated remix of Windows 2000. One thing that also seems to be often forgotten is that XP had initially horrible security, and malware was everywhere - it was SP2 what finally made things sane.

NT4, 2000 and 7 are the solid ones.
95 was the most revolutionary, as it defined the GUI that we more or less still use.

Re:In windows 7 MS finally got it right

[Bengie]

"The problem Win7 has now is that there isn't that big a price difference between comparably equipted macs and PCs."

Mac quad-2.8(45nm) 3GB-ram(3x1) 5770 1TB-hd $2500 (Mac store right now)

PC-Custom quad-3.3ghz(32nm) 16GB-ram 2x8(Corsair) AMD7950 2TB-hd 256GB SSD(Samsung 830) Seasonic Gold(89% low 92% avg 95% max efficient) 650watt PSU Win7 prof $1850 (NewEgg right now) .......