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Microsoft Demos Metro UI For Enterprise Apps
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has demoed a working prototype of Microsoft Dynamics GP (an ERP package) running on Windows 8, with a full Metro UI. This is the first example of an enterprise app for the Windows 8 metro 'wall.' The one hour keynote is available online behind a short registration form ... (demos start around 40 minutes in). Screenshots available at source."
Or embrace this as an good time to invest that consultant money in switching to another platform.
Too much wasted real estate. Why all the pictures of people?
This is one of those things the MBAs will love to waste everyone's time with, and other than look shiny offer nothing.
Seeing how the target demographic of that package is mostly MBAs, I think it works out pretty well.
So it turns your zillion dollar ERP system into a Web 2.0-style interactive infographic that makes USA Today look information-dense?
If enough companies ignore it and continue putting out normal applications instead, Microsoft will have to deal with that. Metro isn't the sun, it's not inevitable if the market outright rejects it.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Who decided "full screen apps" was the way of the future again??
That would be all the people who rushed like mad to buy iPads.
Not really. Apple didn't have to deal with PowerPC applications. They told the market to deal with it. Could Microsoft do this? Yes. Should they? Yes.
Why would anyone choose to run Windows if it didn't run their Windows apps?
Windows lives and dies on backward compatibility. Metrosexual is the best thing they've done in years... for people selling other operating systems.
It makes sense for a tablet. I even like the way that Lion does it because it's just like an expanded maximize that's useful in certain situations - gesture controls on the trackpad are integral for the way OS X does it, though, and I don't know if that feature will ever appear on non-Apple computers.
But I think that Microsoft's Windows 8 strategy is a big mistake. For all the reasons the marketing people can come up with to make the tablet and desktop OS the same OS, there's a technical reason why the synergy people are wrong. The differences between the ARM and Intel versions are one example.
Hopefully, for my sake, Apple doesn't go overboard in their blending of iOS and OS X. Fortunately, I like what they did with Lion. I don't really use Mission Control, but I like the way they've done full screen apps (allowing you to jump in and out of full screen mode). It'd make me sad if the next big cat went the way of Metro (which it doesn't look like so far). I find it strange that Microsoft didn't see what happened with Unity and heed the warning.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Not really. Apple didn't have to deal with PowerPC applications. They told the market to deal with it. Could Microsoft do this? Yes. Should they? Yes. Not saying I like Metro, I don't. But at some point, the get-off-my-lawn folks need to get over themselves, it's not 1995 anymore and a weak Microsoft stuck supporting multiple UIs isn't good for business.
Actually, Apple provided several tools to ease that transition (hell, it HAD to!)
Fantastic JIT Compiling built into the OS, that worked SO well that Apple themselves left parts of the Finder and other OS pieces-parts as 68k code for several OS revisions.
"Fat Binaries", which like the later "Universal Binaries", allowed developers to package both 68k and PPC code in the same application bundle, with the OS seamlessly choosing the correct version to use.