Microsoft Demos Metro UI For Enterprise Apps

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Microsoft Demos Metro UI For Enterprise Apps

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @05:01AM from the it-looks-pretty-but-does-it-work dept.

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."

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Looks a bit like Powerpoint. by SuricouRaven · 2012-03-21 05:06 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.
1. Re:Looks a bit like Powerpoint. by thend · 2012-03-21 05:40 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The entire MetroUI looks like Powerpoint in my opinion. At first I thought it would grow on me. Seems like it's growing like a tumor though and it's completely useless. RDP in Metro isn't my idea of how I want to manage multiple servers. This is a huge step back and like a commenter below said, very much like DOSSHELL.
  Who decided "full screen apps" was the way of the future again?? Could we please hop in the Delorean and take care of them??
2. Re:Looks a bit like Powerpoint. by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-03-21 05:54 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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.
3. Re:Looks a bit like Powerpoint. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-21 05:56 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Who decided "full screen apps" was the way of the future again?? Could we please hop in the Delorean and take care of them??
  The only way to fight the plague of failed web developers ruining otherwise-functional interfaces is to shun them.
  Otherwise, it's back to the derp. Computers are used to analyze data and produce content, and need flexible and customizable UIs with lots of knobs to tweak, and lots of data to give us feedback on what's going on. Tablets and mobile phones are used to consume content and can get by with elegant chromeless UIs. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with either sort of device or either UI, but those of us who know the difference between producing and consuming content know exactly what went wrong.
4. Re:Looks a bit like Powerpoint. by RazorSharp · 2012-03-21 06:48 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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."
5. Re:Looks a bit like Powerpoint. by hairyfeet · 2012-03-21 07:01 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I have shown Metro and even let them play with the thing to over 200 customers now, average folks like Suzy the checkout girl and Brian the backhoe operator and you know what? THEY HATE IT. Not just unfamilar, not just unsure, but HATE IT and want nothing to do with it! Now folks I have had just about every alpha and beta of Windows since Win2K and I have NEVER gotten that kind of response ever, not even with WinME or Vista. With ME they thought it looked nice...until it BSODed of course (stupid mixing of VXD and WDM drivers!) and with Vista they thought it looked "cool"...until they saw how damned slow it was on the then current hardware, but this? they fucking HATE it, they loathe it, they have NO desire to run it, in fact here is the closest i got to a "compliment" for Metro, by a LOL customer named Ms Pipkin: "Why that's a nice looking cell phone picture...is that Android? I hear that's nice...what do you mean Windows? Windows what? Why that is stupid! Why do I want a cell phone on my computer?"
  You know they are fucked when the only questions I got about win 8 wasn't any of the ones before like "How does it run?" or "Does the stuff I use run on it?" but instead "But YOU can still get me Windows 7 if I need another one, right? You got some source, right?". Hell I wish I could find the video again from the little Yahoo shill girl, they give her any crap product and she is always "You should buy it! Buy it now! No seriously you should go out and buy it now!" and when they gave her Windows 8 her video was "Uhhhh...maybe you should wait until you get something with touch before you buy Windows 8? Yeah that's what you should do, buy a tablet and THEN buy Windows 8!" which for her is "My eyes! The goggles they do nothing!". I mean that's fricking sad when the girl that got giddy over a universal remote can't even muster enough perky to shill for your product and has this kind of...lost and confused look on her face through the entire video, damn it was funny!
  
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  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:I like this by h4rr4r · 2012-03-21 05:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
Re:I like this by Gobelet · 2012-03-21 05:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

Seeing how the target demographic of that package is mostly MBAs, I think it works out pretty well.
Metro UIr (beta)! by ebunga · 2012-03-21 05:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

So it turns your zillion dollar ERP system into a Web 2.0-style interactive infographic that makes USA Today look information-dense?
1. Re:Metro UIr (beta)! by glassware · 2012-03-21 05:35 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yep. Demos sure look clean if you remove A) all the necessary controls that allow you to do useful work, and B) the context that helps the human eye figure out how data point relates to the overall picture.
  This is much more a "dashboard demo" than an "application demo". But dashboards are hot right now; everyone wants one. Certainly no harm in offering appealing dashboards except that they obscure how much work is required in order to make a dashboard show something useful in a relevant context.
Re:Embrace Metro by Tridus · 2012-03-21 05:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Re: Metro Going Away by TaoPhoenix · 2012-03-21 05:23 · Score: 4, Funny

It might. PlaysForSure went away, Zune went away, various of those Live services went away. I even have the marketing slogan!
"Ride the Metro to see the Vistas out the Windows with Me!"
They can fix all their branding in one sentence!
Uh oh, I think I just found a new sig for a week.

--
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Sound of Jaws Music... by macs4all · 2012-03-21 05:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

I am a developer working for an ISV selling third-party enhancements to MS Dynamics NAV (formerly called Navision). My bosses are at Convergence right now.

I certainly hope that MS doesn't roll this shite out to the rest of the "Dynamics" family. They have already hamstrung layout and created ridiculous UI faux-pas-es enough with their "Role Tailored Client" (tell me WHO else makes the default for deleting records be "YES"?!?!?).

This is just hideous. And I fear it is a-comin', like the shark in Jaws....
Re:Embrace Metro by 0123456 · 2012-03-21 05:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Re:Embrace Metro by macs4all · 2012-03-21 08:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Re:Embrace Metro by macs4all · 2012-03-21 09:35 · Score: 3

Who is selling other OSs? Apple will only sell you an OS with a 2k hardware dongle. Linux is free.
Um, Macs start at $600.

And anyone who thinks a Mac mini with a dual-core 2.3GHz i5 isn't powerful enough for the secretary, sales, accounting, doctor's office, boss' office, production manager's office, factory-floor, web-designer, code developer (not everyone compiles OSes or gigantic games), et frickin' cetera, and even some light "server" applications is simply delusional.

Period.
Re:Embrace Metro by jd2112 · 2012-03-21 10:00 · Score: 3, Funny

My smart money says is will reside in the land of Microsoft Bob and Clippy...
What did Bob and Clippy do to deserve Metro?

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Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.