Can Windows 8 Succeed In a Cloud-Based World?

New submitter Nerval's Lobster writes "To say that Microsoft has a lot riding on Windows 8 is a bit of an understatement. The upcoming OS needs to prove that Windows can stay relevant in a world where desktop-based programs are increasingly giving way to cloud apps, and mobile devices are eclipsing PCs as the center of people's computing lives. Can Windows 8 succeed in that mission? The real answer will have to wait, but in the meantime I've laid out some potential success-or-failure factors over at SlashCloud."

Comments

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes

Re:Yes

[DickBreath]

Yes. All you need is a web server with a deeply integrated Metro UI. Just be sure not to log out while the web server is running.

I challenge!

[Kenja]

I doubt the validity of both the claims and the question in this article. I dont see "desktop-based programs are increasingly giving way to cloud apps" nor do I see the client OS as a factor in cloud computing (isn't that the whole point?).

Re:I challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd also throw in that for computing privacy, desktop-based software still leads the way. Web traffic is data mined and sold as is the personal data we put out there on the net. But I can still edit a photo on my desktop in private.

Re:I challenge!

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Agreed. Cloud based systems are a cachet that finds itself most useful for people who are highly mobile, even a low range laptop or netbook these days has vastly more computing power than is needed to operate every application most people might need. Data storage on USB drives and other mini systems are also well capable of absorbing a lot more data than most people produce. I mean any computer capable of playing a modern computer game can do almost any other task with ease, and cloud computing isn't useful for most of those other tasks.

The "cloud" is being heavily promoted for a variety of fairly obvious reasons, but to me its a solution looking for a problem, with as much value as thin client systems have.

Re:I challenge!

[jythie]

I would say it is not even a solution looking for a problem.. it is an old solution solving the same problems it did before, only rebranded and getting a lot more attention by consumers. Once the type settles down, I am guessing, not much will change. Use cases that lend themselves to this type of client/server system will continue to use them, while use cases that lend themselves to local computing will continue to use them.

Re:I challenge!

[Sir_Sri]

*some* desktop applications are going cloud ish, especially things that can be done on the web, and new technologies (that are mostly built from the ground up to be web products) are OS independent.

And sure, for those solutions windows is no better and no worse than its competitors. Even if that becomes 99% of computer use time. It's still the rest of the time that is the differentiating factor that Windows competes in. To give an extreme contrived example: imagine 99% of my computer use can be done in a webbrowser, in the cloud. the other 1% is diablo 3. Now, I can run diablo 3 on mac or windows and linux. If I just spent 600 or 700 dollars in computing hardware 'extra' to play diablo 3 am I going to now avoid spending another 100 or so on an operating system if that makes it perform better? That's where windows has to compete. They have to do all of the stuff you can't do in the cloud better than everyone else. Better can mean a lot of different things to different people of course.

Admittedly, the question sort of implies a connection with Office and Windows, which is fair enough, if not all that clear in the summary. How office will survive, when there are cloud document systems that are much more reliable than traditional office on a desktop ever can be might be fair question, but that's why windows 8 is integrating skydrive and all that stuff, and office is as well.

Re:I challenge!

[ocean_soul]

You're absolutely right. The PC is not going away for serious work or for gaming. So whether or not Windows 8 will survive does not depend on the evolution of the cloud. Personally, I think Windows will be around for a long time to come. If only because of there gigantic install-base. It is possible that Windows will, slowly, lose some of this install-base to linux but this will not happen suddenly. And Windows surely won't lose it to tablets or smartphones.

Re:I challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh...

Seen the PC selection of games recently at the usual gaming shops. You might see an endcap with some Blizzard packages, and that is essentially it.

PC gaming is dead, people have moved to the console.

Re:I challenge!

[jellomizer]

Back in the pre-Web Days. We bought PC's and we ran important business software on them. These software for the most part did the following...
There is a form you needed to fill out, based on you answers it would bring you do a different form, and at some point save the data... These apps were the majority of the apps. These are now pushed to Web based interfaces, because you are wasting your time trying to deploy across many systems, having a shared location, or open the firewall more so you can access the right port. Being the average Joe is miserably poor at keeping their data safe, cloud storage and web applications is often more of their friend then their problem. So a lot of apps that were once installed on your PC are in the cloud.

Also with more applications running off the web, you really don't need much of a computer anymore. Windows 8 may not rekindle an average persons need for a real computer. I still need a real computer... But my wife she doesn't. If I gave her an iPad she would be able to do everything she currently does on her computer.

Re:I challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

PC gaming shops are dead, people have moved to Steam.

Here, FTFY. My DVD drive is dusty and I'm not even sure it works anymore, I just get my entertainment in downloadable form. It takes about 4-5 hours to get to the shop for me, and then I have to preorder or trust my luck to get what I want. Downloading a DVD sized game is hour or two for me, it's always available and I don't need to take care about keeping installation media, I just need my login.

Sure as hell B&M shops are dying with Steam/GOG/Origin/Hulu/Netflix taking all their business.

Re:I challenge!

[ColdWetDog]

I would say it is not even a solution looking for a problem.. it is an old solution solving the same problems it did before, only rebranded and getting a lot more attention by consumers. Once the type settles down, I am guessing, not much will change. Use cases that lend themselves to this type of client/server system will continue to use them, while use cases that lend themselves to local computing will continue to use them.

Christ. Does this mean we will have to go though all of this again? Maybe by that time I'll be senile enough to not notice.

Re:I challenge!

[jythie]

Yep. And in another 15 years we will go through it again.. and again.. and again. The pendulum between server-centric and workstation-centric stuff keeps going back and forth.

Re:I challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

The PC manufacturers and Microsoft in particular see a mounting problem. That is that PCs are becoming less relevant as computer users move to phones and tablets, especially as these are not Microsoft devices.

Microsoft and its group of OEMs have been blindly centered around the desktop PCs and have actively worked against all other possibilities. When Netscape brought up the idea of using web based systems using their browser MS reacted by creating IE to drive Netscape out of business.

Now MS is faced with a significant problem: non-Microsoft phones and tablets are reducing the need for desktop PCs. Unless MS can create a structure where the PC is still the center of computing then they become totally irrelevant. They are (belatedly) trying to create a new structure where there are Metro desktop PCs, WP7/8 phones and WinRT tablets that share data using the cloud so that all devices are still relevant and necessary. This suits their aims as everyone will now require 2 or 3 licenced devices and all of them MS as well as paying for cloud services.

However, other companies are moving towards a different idea that only one device is needed and it is not a Microsoft one. It may be the phone that can plug into a monitor or TV and run as a desktop, or a tablet or convertable, or simply a USB plugin that runs the computer. None of these require Microsoft at all.

Next year may be too late for MS to change the direction that most are moving.

Re:I challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest problem with desktop and application virtualization is server resource.

Currently the volume of processing, storage, memory, and power coming out of "consumer" (God I hate that word) hardware is several magnitudes cheaper than server hardware and that's been the driving paradigm for 3 decades for having a Host OS and offloading most of the processing onto the Host OS. I believe within the next decade, that may very well change and endpoint devices will become thin clients for many applications because of the ability to localize apps. The real gambit is endpoint device bandwidth.

The three biggest issues right now is Bandwidth, Disk I/O and memory;

A 1920x1080 30FPS movie chugs upwards of 30MBps of bandwidth and runs like !@#!@$ even on a LAN connection using the most recent version of MS Remote Desktop. We'll need at least another doubling or TWO of LAN Standards, plus another generation or TWO of wireless standards, before these types of environments become a real threat and a real alternative. And that goes especially on the wireless standards; MBps/Sq Foot/Host is a real equation and that number has to go up before serious consideration can be made. By then who knows what software app will have come out. Clerical work is going to become increasingly automated and increasingly simplified, but it's conceivable one could create a mechanical drafting application that can simulate failures in real time, as one example of many, many things that are currently server-centric that can be rapidly brought to the desktop in a few generations and in those instances responsiveness is key.

  SSD's help with disk I/O but they are currently expensive, especially on the server end. You also can't just buy a bunch of small disks, run 30 or 40 VM's on them and hope things will turn out OK because Random Read/Write under RAID does NOT scale well performance-wise.

For memory, you need MINIMUM 4 GB per VM, 6 if you want to play it safe. The hyper-visor alone costs 1GB or so to run. 8GB is the maximum memory size and most servers are tuned to 320GB per Processor max. If you wanted to virtualize 100 people, give them 60GB of disk apiece, plus 6GB of memory to run their apps in. You'd end up with a bunch of dual processor, 96GB of memory servers running about 13 users apiece, costing around 15k/year per server, plus licensing, plus the endpoint device cost. By the time you're done, your cost is around $3-4k/user which is high, it should be around $2k/user and for THAT cost savings to occur, we need about 10 years of additional developement.

DEFINITELY it's time to start adopting, intelligently, these technologies into your infrastructure in ways that save time, cost, and make people's lives easier. Saving time is a GOOD thing.

Re:I challenge!

[Vancorps]

Given that you can take your virtual desktop offline and on the road with you I'm not so sure it'll swing back. From a corporate perspective it's a no brainer. When you abstract the work from the hardware a lot of options that never existed before gain traction. My favorite example is fully 3d capable Autocad running on an iPad. I hate the iPad but it's pretty cool to take the tablet to the meeting, mark-up your changes, then connect to your virtual desktop from your workstation and continue where you left off.

The owner of the company routinely goes from his phone, to tablet, to Mac, to Windows at his desk, and never thinks twice. He's always got his desktop with fast local access to network resources. It's a combination that's hard to beat.

Re:I challenge!

[jbolden]

nor do I see the client OS as a factor in cloud computing (isn't that the whole point?).

Depends on the cloud model. There were some excellent cloud solutions (though they weren't called that) I used in the 1990s with Active X. Often the purpose of cloud models is to make distribution of software easier, you don't necessarily need client diversity. Though with

a) Many more macs
b) Mobile
c) Linux servers being in the majority

A windows only solution is unlikely to be as acceptable. On the other hand one where only certain clients worked right... I could easily picture that.

Re:I challenge!

[jbolden]

Christ. Does this mean we will have to go though all of this again? Maybe by that time I'll be senile enough to not notice.

Yes about every fifteen years for the rest of your life. What you will really enjoy is in about 5 years people will be pitching thick clients with their tremendously devices specific features as an innovation. You are already seeing this on mobile where the move is away from generic and towards a specific app wrapping the functions of specific sites and once you have that offline modes and...

Re:I challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft and its group of OEMs have been blindly centered around the desktop PCs and have actively worked against all other possibilities.

Oh right because there were never any Windows tablets, XBox doesn't exist, Windows Mobile didn't exist years and years ago, Windows Phone doesn't exist, Microsoft Lync, Skydrive, Office 365, all the iOS apps (Lync, Photosynth, Skydrive, OneNote, etc...)...yeah clearly they are working against all other possibilities.

This suits their aims as everyone will now require 2 or 3 licenced devices and all of them MS as well as paying for cloud services.

Licensed devices? You mean devices running Microsoft software, MS get their revenue from selling software licenses so obviously that's what they are going to be doing, Google get their revenue predominantly by mining data to sell targeted advertising and Apple get their revenue from selling software & hardware as a package. Everyone charges for cloud services at some point, I've got 25GB of cloud storage on Skydrive for free, can't match that from Apple or Google. Basic web-based Office is available free on Live just as the basic web-based Office equivalent from Google is available free through Google Apps, Apple doesn't have an equivalent there.

However, other companies are moving towards a different idea that only one device is needed and it is not a Microsoft one. It may be the phone that can plug into a monitor or TV and run as a desktop

Who is doing that? Who has even a 1/2 successful product like that? Obviously that one device will be a phone (people aren't going to replace their phones with a huge tablet) so who has managed to do anything like what you suggest in a successful way?

or a tablet or convertable

It seems you don't know very much about Microsoft's strategy, they seem to be going in exactly that direction in terms of convertible tablets and there's no reason you can't plug that into a TV or stream through a device like an XBox like Apple does with their AppleTV, not sure if Google has anything like that anymore.

or simply a USB plugin that runs the computer.

errr...again, maybe do a little research? Windows To Go is a USB stick that runs the computer, just like Linux Live Distro CDs/USBs.

None of these require Microsoft at all.

None of these require any particular company, and no particular company is in any better position either.

I don't think your post has any merit at all, can you explain how even one other company is going in this direction you suggest? It seems there are some companies that have unsuccessfully tried bits and pieces of what you suggest, but I certainly can't think of any company with a strategy like that.

Re:I challenge!

[jbolden]

Its more than that. This used to be called Display Processors

Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose peripheral hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again

There had been several cycles of this already by the late 1960s.

Re:I challenge!

[jbolden]

How office will survive, when there are cloud document systems that are much more reliable than traditional office on a desktop ever can be might be fair question

Office + Sharepoint is way ahead of any cloud solution. Office + Sharepoint + Dynamics + Universal Communicator + .... is very rich. That's how they survive. The problem is that maybe 10% of businesses use the whole Microsoft suite.

Re:I challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can run diablo 3?

Re:I challenge!

[Anonymous Coward]

I reject your reality and substitute my own.

Re:I challenge!

[CodeBuster]

He's always got his desktop with fast local access to network resources

The key word here is local resources. That's where the cloud tends to fall down, especially for the sorts of live action personal productivity apps that are common in the workplace. This category would include general office productivity (document editor, spreadsheet, presentation builder, etc), engineering and drafting (AutoCAD et al), video editing and graphics (Adobe Suite), or software development (Eclipse, Visual Studio, X-Code, etc). The losses as cloud apps lag and try to keep up are especially noticeable for power users who create and edit large or complex files, make frequent use of keyboard shortcuts and have high WPM typing speeds. They expect a workstation that can keep up and any lag on the part of a cloud app is simply unacceptable. It was the same problem with "thin clients" (remember that fad?) until workstation hardware became so cheap that the thin clients' margins completely evaporated and the idea was finally put out of workers' misery. The biggest cost in business, at least in the developed world, was and remains labor. It makes no sense to cheap out on hardware, virtualization or cloud apps if it costs even just a bit of worker productivity on a regular basis. It's a false savings.

Re:I challenge!

[CodeBuster]

Also with more applications running off the web, you really don't need much of a computer anymore.

If you don't need much of a computer to do your work, then maybe your job can probably be automated anyway. Most of us here on Slashdot would be completely dissatisfied with dinky web apps running in the cloud. Powerful workstation, accept no substitutes.

Re:I challenge!

[drsmithy]

The three biggest issues right now is Bandwidth, Disk I/O and memory;

I disagree on memory. Personally I find the increase in memory capacity to be the most amazing aspect of hardware growth over the last few years. You can put 1TB of RAM into servers these days, FFS. The smallest VMware hosts we buy are 256GB.

Similarly with bandwidth. 10Gbe and 8Gb FC provide more than adequate bandwidth for even the densest VM servers in all but corner cases. Heck, even 1GbE and 1Gb iSCSI is adequate for the fat part of the bell curve.

IO has, of course, always been a problem - but with more and more storage vendors finally starting to leverage SSDs for caching, it's becoming a solved (or at least mostly circumvented) problem.

For memory, you need MINIMUM 4 GB per VM, 6 if you want to play it safe. The hyper-visor alone costs 1GB or so to run. 8GB is the maximum memory size and most servers are tuned to 320GB per Processor max. If you wanted to virtualize 100 people, give them 60GB of disk apiece, plus 6GB of memory to run their apps in. You'd end up with a bunch of dual processor, 96GB of memory servers running about 13 users apiece, costing around 15k/year per server, plus licensing, plus the endpoint device cost.

WTF are you doing with VM specs like that ?

Typical office worker VDI VMs (Windows 7x 32) get 1.5Gb (maybe 2Gb) RAM each and thin-provisioning/linked clones should mean a per-user footprint of well under 10GB on your primary storage. Power Users get 3, maybe 4GB. Remember also that the typical environment can easily oversubscribe by 25% or more.

Broadly speaking, you can expect a consolidation ratio of about 4-8 VMs/core for a "normal" range of users and assume about 1Gb RAM each. This could go as high as 12-14 VMs/core (call centre) or as low as 1 (engineering/medical usage). So in the typical case a 48-192Gb RAM, 12-core Nehalem or better based server would comfortably run 48 - 96 VDI VMs at a server cost of US$5,000 - $10,000, depending on your storage connectivity.

If you're lucky enough to be doing a call centre style environment where requirements tend to be light, then 16 or 20-core, 256GB+ hosts should be able to comfortably exceed 200 desktops each.

The "problem" with VDI, like other terminal-style environments, is that you need large scale (1000s of users) to see real capex savings, particularly because the requisite storage infrastructure tends to be expensive. There are definitely manageability and opex savings at lower densities, but the up-front $$$$s need to be more closely examined.

Re:I challenge!

[Sir_Sri]

Sure, but that's also a relatively small portion of the total market. If microsoft loses mindshare in the consumer space, or google steps up its google docs game there is theoretically a problem there. But MS isn't just sitting around doing nothing.

Re:I challenge!

[jbolden]

I think Microsoft has already lost mindshare in the consumer space. Apple has set the bar to the point that Microsoft products are seen as worse but cheaper. In the consumer space MS is sitting around doing little. Microsoft OTOH is focusing more and more on the highly profitable enterprise market which Apple doesn't want.

It wouldn't shock me if 10 years from now, MS is a enterprise OS and doesn't have anything in consumer.

Re:I challenge!

[cavebison]

I doubt the validity of both the claims and the question in this article.

Indeed. Neither are we a "cloud-based world", a ridiculous thing to say. I don't see people un-installing their PC apps for cloud apps, except where web-mail is used over installing an email client. Wake me up when we have cloud-based web browsers. :)

Mobile apps are also native apps - they're not "cloud-based", except for communication and updates.

"mobile devices are eclipsing PCs as the center of people's computing lives"? Hardly. The centre of people's *social* lives, sure. I'll agree when the PC on my desk at work is scrapped, along with the desk itself, and I can do everything from home on a tablet. Which would be a pain in the ass right now.

Windows 8 is a decent UI for a phone. I tend to think most computer savvy people will use it more or less like Windows (and every other graphical OS) has always been used.

What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Sounds like bullshit world to me...

Tell you what: the "cloud" hype will come crashing down the minute some big company that invested massively in off-site services and storage loses internet connection for a few hours...

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's already happened multiple times. Surprisingly, the world continues to spin once per day.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its already happened several times... as an IT Ops manager...I will NEVER put all my eggs in the cloud hype basket.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[magarity]

Big companies make private clouds for their mission critical server needs. Public cloud services are for, well, the public and their consumer level devices.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[gstoddart]

Tell you what: the "cloud" hype will come crashing down the minute some big company that invested massively in off-site services and storage loses internet connection for a few hours...

In fairness, people said the exact same thing about outsourcing of things like your IT infrastructure.

There's loads of companies that farm out their storage and a few other things like that.

That doom and gloom didn't come true either.

Companies are more interested in saving money than incurring a small amount of downtime (depending on what the systems are) ... so in the same way that IT outsourcing is still around, I can 't see "the cloud" suddenly toppling over in one go.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[marcosdumay]

Big companies make private clouds for their mission critical server needs.

Those are called datacenters. Yep, big companies are using them for a long, long time. They also like to keep their private cloud local, to not depend on internet conectivity.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Big companies can and should generally get agreements/licenses for local servers and training for the IT department for cloud products. Some solutions such as the online office solutions are a bit harder to get these for, but some software companies are willing to form agreements and such since not all IT departments even allow external access.

Similar problems still exist for general networked solutions, intranet sites could have a server go down etc. The move for a more sane offline experience for cloud based products is still budding.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[srmalloy]

The whole 'cloud computing' thing seems to me to depend on three things: First, do you trust that the server(s) for your apps are going to have both 100% uptime and 100% connectivity, second, do you trust that your data is going to be secure both stored in the cloud and in transit to/from the app server(s), and third, what is the cost of moving your data between cloud storage, the app servers, and your local machines compared with having both the data and apps local?

Now, I can see where cloud computing could be a godsend to the software publishers; once they no longer have to contend with the stumbling block of users being able to continue to use perfectly-functional but outdated software and avoid paying for new versions, they can establish a continuous revenue stream, because they can keep the software on their servers, and users will have to keep paying year after year for continued access to the applications.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about all those companies who invested massively in on-site services, and ended up having cooling/electrical/redundancy/hiring/backups/disaster-recover problems? That kind of thing is incredibly common for small/medium businesses.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[ArcherB]

Sounds like bullshit world to me...

Tell you what: the "cloud" hype will come crashing down the minute some big company that invested massively in off-site services and storage loses internet connection for a few hours...

For some reason, I'm not seeing Windows8 to be oriented towards business. I'm sure MS will try to force it, but I just don't see that tablet interface running on a typical workstation and certainly not a server.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Penguinisto]

Even a "private cloud" can cause troubles.

I used to work for a place with manufacturing facilities in Oregon and California. All of production (stupidly) relied on a BI cluster located in OR. In spite of numerous demands to have it made redundant, the dumbass IT head insisted that dual connections (through two differing carriers) would supply sufficient redundancy.

What he didn't count on was a (IMHO drunk) CAL-TRANS worker accidentally digging up a few fibers, which in turn knocked all of Ventura County into the dark for almost a day - including both carriers. When that went down, so did production. 17+ hours at ~$4500/minute downtime gets awful expensive. A backup/replicated cluster at the CA site would have only cost about 3-4 hours of that time at most, but would have saved them a whole lot more.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[zrbyte]

Agreed.
 

mobile devices are eclipsing PCs as the center of people's computing lives

"eclipsing"? Oh please. Quick poll: How many of you are posting your comments from a smartphone, tablet?

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[spire3661]

There is no cloud 'hype'. Big storage folders on the net is a giant BOON. Just dont use it in stupid ways, like thinking that its a backup or private.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[master_kaos]

I work at a small company where we used to have a server colocated for $300 a month which included unlimited bandwidth and bit level backup. Not a bad deal. About a year ago we decided to switch to AWS. We are now paying approx $200 give or take 20 bucks. After moving we have never had downtime, and also have great scalability. Oh, we also have 4 servers running 3 micro, and 1 medium. It was well worth the move, the scalability alone is amazing.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[NatasRevol]

I give you Windows 8 Server.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/v8-default.aspx

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[TheLink]

Did the IT head keep his job or even get a bonus?

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Where mobile devices like phones and tablets shine is during a commute on a train or bus. How true it is I don't know, but I heard that in Japan many people just don't have a home computer or laptop, since they spend so much time commuting. In most western countries driving is a lot more common, to and from work and home, both of which have more useful machines available.

This is of course the weakness of mass consumer cloud adoption - if you have a machine capable of doing useful work, you already have a machine capable of beating the cloud hands down in every way without the ongoing cost and risk of an internet connection. For sharing large files, collaborative work, desktop publishing (blogs, flickr accounts, youtube), smallish offsite backups, the cloud works great, but even then you need local copies.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

He may well deserve one. 17 hours at 4500 USD per minute is below 5 million. Depending what this cluster really is it may cost more to set it up and operate it. Heck, we paid in my las tproject a wonderfull amount of around 650.000 USD for 3 years + purchase cost... for ONE DATABASE SERVER (albeit a big oracle RAC). 17 hours for such an event that may actually be a contractual violation (lines on same place) may be worth it. But then, this company had 2 owned data centers - only for it's own machines, abotu 8 miles apart with their own fibers in between ;)

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[mlts]

I'd also add one more thing in the mix:

If a cloud computing provider goes bankrupt, the buyer of the liquidated servers has all the data stored on there free and clear. Trade secrets can be uploaded as a torrent. PII including bank info and credit cards? Public domain.

Consider this: If a cloud provider goes bankrupt, all the data on their servers is free for the taking by anyone.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

meh, 4.5 million in losses isn't that much for the numbers you're throwing out.

I think you fail to calculate the cost of the pipe, the infrastructure, the salaries, and YOY costs to run the extra infrastructure. you cant be running synchronously mirrored data over an appreciable distance that would span counties--as your outage suggests it effected. you're now accepting data loss to roll over onto your warm-DR site. so what is your recovery point objective? How about your recovery time objective? how much backend IT effort will be required to cleanup the mess of the DR cut-over after things were spun up? Were your DR systems equally sized? (Do you roll back at some point?). After you spent all of that for your warm-DR site.... what happens if next time the back-ho operator hits your manufacturing site's cable where multiple carriers coalesce their traffic? .. you know like how your datacenter was hit? DOH!

knowing nothing about the production, it seems odd it requires an active connection to the mother-ship to..... manufacture.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

I think the 'will the cloud guarantee 100% uptime for your apps' thing is a bit of a red herring. I can't guarantee 100% even if it's inhouse. Though, obviously, I know the failure modes a bit more.

I think there's a huge subset of IT departments out there that are not as technically skilled as {Amazon,Google,Azure,etc.}. For them, they won't worry about this part as much.

Granted, there are a lot of other things to worry about once your data hits "the cloud" but for uptime only, I'd trust a Google engineer more than I'd trust most people I've worked with.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[ArcherB]

I give you Windows 8 Server.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/v8-default.aspx

I really hope it doesn't have that tablet interface. There were no desktop screenshots in the videos I saw. The last thing I need is to work in an office administered by an sysadmin that needs a touchscreen to do his job.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Darinbob]

The IT head usually has more power than the CEO and the board of directors.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Kalriath]

That is completely wrong. The server owner has as much claim on the data on the servers as you do - specifically, none. In the event of a liquidation sale, the liquidator would wipe the drives, and if they fail to do so, releasing confidential info from the drives is a criminal offense. Absolutely not "free and clear" and definitely not "public domain".

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because big companies that invested massively in off-site servers AND on-site servers have never had any service outages?

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jupiter?

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[sootman]

> What's a "cloud-based world"?

Bespin?

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[exomondo]

Difference is that if your local power/connectivity goes out you're probably stuffed either way. But if you're using a 'cloud' solution and the provider's power/connectivity - or something along the way - goes out then your local operation is still good to go but your hamstrung because your data is offsite, if your data was local you'd be fine.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[exomondo]

I really hope it doesn't have that tablet interface.

Why would it? It's a server.

The last thing I need is to work in an office administered by an sysadmin that needs a touchscreen to do his job.

Huh? Where would there be an interface that requires a touchscreen?

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[jbolden]

That doom and gloom didn't come true either.

We don't know that. We haven't had problems like a serious war yet. Between the Napoleanic wars and WWI world trade was massive about 1/3rd of the economy. WWI shut those systems down and they never recovered. What happens if we were to lose connection with India for years? We've had a very stable world for a while now, periods of stability come and go.

Now besides the meta issues... I'd just comment that losing indigenous IT seems to have paired quite often with drops in productivity gains for US operations. So it might very well have been the case that there was a 1x surge in savings followed by a long term administrative problem. We need better paired case studies.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Johann Lau]

Sure, but chit-chat with friends ain't "computing". Well, not more than, say, using a microwave oven is. Everything has "computers in it", so what. Try to keep up.

Re:What's a "cloud-based world"?

[Anonymous Coward]

...but this already happened with Amazon ec2 last year (or two years ago?) and we're still here.

What does that even mean?

[pegasustonans]

"Cloud-based world"? Did the marketing team write that up?

Anyway, Windows 8 will do just fine, especially because Microsoft is falling all over itself trying to be tablet-friendly and all of the other bollocks that'll generally make it a pain in the ass.

But, as in many things related to the traditional desktop PC, the reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.

On a related note, Windows 8 will be just as relevant to the business market as they ever were once you disable the terrible new UI, and that's all that matters anyway (whether businesses choose to skip Windows 8 in favor of waiting for the next iteration is another possibility, but unrelated to all the tablet nonsense).

Re:What does that even mean?

[SJHillman]

I think the business market will largely skip Windows 8 like it did Vista. It's more likely Windows 8 will be akin to a botched beta to try new features (IE: Metro) and see how the market reacts - similar to how Vista was. Then Windows 9 (like Windows 7) will take the good and strip out the bad from its predecessor and be the next Big Thing like Windows 7 was. It's not the first time MS has launched a product that will likely fail just so they can use the data to make the following product a blockbuster.

Re:What does that even mean?

[gstoddart]

I think the business market will largely skip Windows 8 like it did Vista.

I would tend to agree ... but not because they're "avoiding" it (though that might be the case), but because people are really still in the middle of deploying Win 7.

Where I work, rolling out Win 7 has been in the planning stage for well over a year. We're going to start rolling it out fairly soon to users.

Which means at an enterprise level, Vista got skipped because people were waiting for it to get sorted out. Win 7 is ramping up, but not everybody has gotten there yet. And all of the organizations who are just in the middle of putting out Win 7 will end up skipping Win 8 because Win 9 (or whatever) will be out by the time they're ready to change anyway.

The reality is, corporate stuff happens on a *long* timeline, and it isn't something you can change direction mid-stream on.

Though, for my own personal machine (which is also due for an upgrade), I will likely opt for Win 7 because Win 8 is a fresh steaming release which I don't trust. (Actually, I don't thin it's fully out yet anyway.)

Re:What does that even mean?

[Junta]

Anyway, Windows 8 will do just fine, especially because Microsoft is falling all over itself trying to be tablet-friendly and all of the other bollocks that'll generally make it a pain in the ass.

After trying the Win8 customer preview, I think it *won't* do 'just fine', precisely because they are *trying* to be tablet-friendly with a horridly awkward UI concept for desktop. Hell, I don't see how pure touch even works particularly well with Metro.

Re:What does that even mean?

[cpu6502]

>>>Then Windows 9 (like Windows 7) will take the good and strip out the bad from its predecessor and be the next Big Thing like Windows 7 was

So it's the Star Trek effect. Only odd-numbered ones are good: NT 3, 5 (XP), 7, and 9.

Re:What does that even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see this too. Where I work they are rolling out Win7 on a limited number of assets at a time and for many people this means new assets (new computers).

Re:What does that even mean?

[steveb3210]

Windows 8 will be just as relevant to the business market as they ever were once you disable the terrible new UI, and that's all that matters anyway (whether businesses choose to skip Windows 8 in favor of waiting for the next iteration is another possibility, but unrelated to all the tablet nonsense).

Atleast in the consumer preview, there is no way to disable metro, there is no start menu to fallback to..

Re:What does that even mean?

[pegasustonans]

Windows 8 will be just as relevant to the business market as they ever were once you disable the terrible new UI, and that's all that matters anyway (whether businesses choose to skip Windows 8 in favor of waiting for the next iteration is another possibility, but unrelated to all the tablet nonsense).

Atleast in the consumer preview, there is no way to disable metro, there is no start menu to fallback to..

Until Microsoft gets their act together, I'd suggest this as a fix for the problem: http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/files/

Re:What does that even mean?

[dreemernj]

Except that Windows 2000 was awesome.

Re:What does that even mean?

[Barefoot Monkey]

Windows 2000 falls under "NT 5" so the claim still holds :)

Re:What does that even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally, when slashdotters make predictions about Apple products, go with the opposite and you'll be right. Likewise, as in your post, when slashdotters make predictions about Microsoft products, they are generally spot on. I'm with you on this one.

Re:What does that even mean?

[devent]

I just wonder, why isn't it the development model for Microsoft anyway? As I recall, there was always the iteration between a "beta" Windows and the "stable" Windows. Win 3.11 (stable), then Win 95 (beta), Win Mil (beta), and then Windows 2000, Windows XP (stable), then Vista (beta), then Windows 7 (stable).

Ubuntu's model would be much better for Microsoft and the businesses that rely on Windows. Two versions of "beta" or "experimental" versions, then one LTS version. The first version is like a "vision" to the future, then some people can pick it up and try it and Microsoft would receive the critic, the next version would fix bugs and improve on the critic, and the can pick it up and try it again and report issues/critic. The third version would be more stable, "ironed out" and would be the LTS (Long Time Support) version what cooperations can deploy.

Of course Microsoft's business model is to sell the system, so it would be difficult to sell a "beta" or "experimental" system, and would be more difficult to convince to give the first two versions out for free. But it would make sense. Or Microsoft could sell the first two versions as "desktop" or "end user" systems, and the LTS version for the enterprise.

Re:What does that even mean?

[gmhowell]

Windows 2000 falls under "NT 5" so the claim still holds :)

Well, Nemesis sucked, so there are exceptions to these rules.

Re:What does that even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

After trying the Win8 customer preview, I think it *won't* do 'just fine', precisely because they are *trying* to be tablet-friendly with a horridly awkward UI concept for desktop.

What specifically are you having difficulty with? It's really just icons on a grid scrolling horizontally instead of the start menu, as soon as you launch a normal desktop program it's not really any different at all, i don't think users are going to have much difficulty working in windows 8 the way they did in windows xp or 7. I think the only questionable element is whether metro applications will catch on for desktop/laptop users.

Re:What does that even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more likely Windows 8 will be akin to a botched beta to try new features (IE: Metro) and see how the market reacts - similar to how Vista was.

Vista's problem was its introduction of a new (and better) security model and driver model, naturally these things break compatibility so of course Vista will be badly perceived. However these features that created the bad rep for Vista exist in 7 in the same way, the difference is that by the time 7 came out the 3rd party companies had brought their compatibility in line, it wasn't the software, it was the timing. There is nothing in 7 that couldn't have been an SP for Vista, but the bad name of Vista meant they had to re-badge.

Re:What does that even mean?

[exomondo]

I just wonder, why isn't it the development model for Microsoft anyway? As I recall, there was always the iteration between a "beta" Windows and the "stable" Windows. Win 3.11 (stable), then Win 95 (beta), Win Mil (beta), and then Windows 2000, Windows XP (stable), then Vista (beta), then Windows 7 (stable).

I think you've missed a couple and the general timeline is a bit off, they aren't really sequential like that, for desktop OSes there's:
3.x, 95, 98, ME, then this line was killed and merged with the NT line at XP.

The NT-based versions:
NT4, 2000, XP, Vista, 7.

Re:What does that even mean?

[dreemernj]

Ahh, so Vista was good too since it falls under NT6 just like Windows 7 does? :-D

Re:What does that even mean?

[cavebison]

Then Windows 9 (like Windows 7) will take the good and strip out the bad

I'm not even sure later versions of Windows will be as successful as XP, unless MS can continue to push people to upgrade. Main reason is I think MS has lost the plot when it comes to UI design.

If you've seen Visual Studio 11, you'll know what I mean. Very few developers like it, and MS has always been good at developer tools. Something has gone wrong at MS in the UI department, and that's very bad news now that competition with Apple has become serious. MS is not Apple and perhaps shouldn't even try to be. Strange thing to say perhaps, but I think MS needs to find its identity again, like IBM has.

Windows 7 is technically very good, but the UI - for ease of use and keyboard navigation - still irritates me. I have Win7 on my "server" PC, but continue to use XP on my laptop every day. Gave Win7 every chance to impress me, and have persisted with it for a while now, but I won't be installing it on my laptop until absolutely necessary.

As for Win8, it seems MS is trying to change the UI experience completely for PCs, which is a major gamble. Brave, but.. it's not broke, is it? Apple came up with a great new UI for a *great new device*. The PC still uses a mouse, and all the same usability rules apply as did 10 years ago. So.. we'll see.

what the hell is slashcloud?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Looks like every other tech blog out there. Will we come one day soon to find the slashdot home page covered with tiled pictures in Metro style as seems to be the new (and unusable) norm for many popular tech sites?

At least the summary you posted here (and I'm guessing this didn't go through firehose) admits that the headline has a question that can't be answered. Since it can't be answered, why post it? We'll find out how Windows 8 does when Windows 8 is released.

Why is "slashcloud" added while basic things like 'related articles' are still broken? (Seriously - "Rand Paul has a Quick Fix for TSA" is related to this article in some way? Not to mention that the Related links all seem to pull from the same pool of five articles.)

Re:what the hell is slashcloud?

[SDrag0n]

SlashCloud.... This site used to be interesting but since it only seems interested in promoting it's new mostly worthless articles written for people who don't have much of a technical background and that don't really answer any questions but sure do toss a lot of buzzwords around. I think I'm off to somewhere else.

SlashBI and SlashCloud? No thanks.

Re:what the hell is slashcloud?

[Gilmoure]

Exactly!

Whats the current status of vi vs emacs?

How's the latest build of NetBSD doing?

Is this the month were Dvorak says Apple is beleaguered or is it even numbered months?

Re:what the hell is slashcloud?

[gmhowell]

Exactly!

Whats the current status of vi vs emacs?

How's the latest build of NetBSD doing?

Is this the month were Dvorak says Apple is beleaguered or is it even numbered months?

More important, are your hot grits naked and petrified? What is Natalie Portman up to?

Enough of this cloud BS

[JDG1980]

The problem is actually exactly the opposite of what the original poster thinks. Microsoft is making too much of a break with the past with Windows 8, being far too quick to chase trends and forgetting that real work is done on the traditional desktop and will continue to be for the forseeable future. The cloud is a fad that will flame out after the first couple of high-profile security breaches and/or data loss incidents. Tablets are great as consumption devices, but not if you're actually doing real work.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[spire3661]

God Damn It!. 'Real work' is not the exclusive domain of workstations. People do REAL WORK everyday on phones and tablets etc. Your dismissal of non-workstations as toys shows your ignorance on the subject.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Likewise phones. Even what I would call the baseline in computing tasks, word processing (typing words and seeing them appear on screen) is basically impossible on a phone.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I doubt it's a fad anymore than the internet turned out to be a fad. But I agree with the general notion that the idea that cloud will take over all as nonsense. And that putting all your data on some strangers network and hope that nobody else will look at it, ensure that it's safe, etc, etc, by some average data center staff, who for some notion, is expected to perform better in caring for your data than they do for their own, as plain silly.

We all know how much your typical IT person knows about security, always cares for other people's data, never gets upset with employers, is well paid, or simply screw up, on purpose or not. Never mind the fact that everyone at the cloud provider are total strangers in at an unknown location(s) that you will never know or meet. But trusting them will all your data is a good idea?

I'm glad to see that others have and are realizing the same.

Of course, in talking about the general population, they will like lemmings pursue whatever the latest is, at their own demise. Unknowing but willing, cannon fodder comes to mind.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like I'm baiting you, but I'm not.
Please enlighten me as I'm one of the people that can't think of a way to get "real work" done on a smart-phone or tablet.
I've had an Android phone for over a year and the best I can call it is sometimes convenient.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yes and no. The vast majority of workers are not mobile, i.e, they're chained to their desks because of the kind of work they do. If they aren't near their desk, they aren't really working. Now, why would I, as a smart businessman, consider paying $400 to $800 for a table for people who are server as well by a sub $400 PC? I agree that Microsoft is foolish to be chasing these trends. Give it a couple of years and tablets will be interfacing with keyboards and displays using device appropriate user interfaces similar to how laptops use key boards and displays today.

I think MS has a long life ahead providing a non-tablet interface.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[werewolf1031]

Sorry, but I can't get any coding done on anything without a physical keyboard. My current Android tablet is awesome to have around, but it's not a "workstation" by any stretch. Even my smallest laptop is infinitely more productive. Part of it is architecture (x86/x64 vs ARM), most of it is interface and applications. No, not "apps", those are useless for production because they're limited by physical interface -- no one's going to do any serious coding on a touch-based thumb keyboard.

'Real work' is not the exclusive domain of workstations.

It will be until tablets can do as much as workstations -- and that includes natively running the programs needed to get work done, to which they are not even close (unless you're just writing up formatted documents and calling that "work").

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[Junta]

'The cloud' as MS imagines and Windows 8 facilitates is, however, MS' wet dream.... if they can win. Suddenly, not only does MS have a monopoly on your application platform, they get a monopoly on the data you manage with it. Suddenly they not only have more stuff to mine for revenue, but in addition to worrying about if you can find a calendar app in a competing OS that can manage your schedule, now your schedule itself is stuck in MS servers.

I doubt it will flame out though. I think it should fail in many respects and particularly in digital media context royally screws up the concept of 'ownership', but it's still clearly happening....

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[Junta]

In terms of form factor, most any 'real work' is unsuitable for a tablet or phone device. Among the people who do indeed use it for 'real' work, probably more than half do it out of blind zealous devotion to the device rather than of practical considerations. If you have to do any significant amount of text/data entry, you are doing yourself a disservice by using touchscreen-only devices. Also, fitting your work into sub-10-inch display territory when it is perfectly reasonable to let it be more than twice that.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[bityz]

Can you supply examples (or links which give examples) of the types of "real work" done "everyday on phones and tablets"?

I ask because I'm interested and I'd like to know if your comment is an informed observation or merely an opinion.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[dreemernj]

No true Scotsman I see.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[countach]

Do you think coding is the gold standard for what is considered "real work"? LOL.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[countach]

You forget that computing is often an adjunct to the real work, rather than the real work itself. e.g. you're a doctor going around the hospital and you need something to carry around with your work. Portability is more important to the real work than having a full sized keyboard and monitor.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[lgw]

So you plug a real keyboard, real monitor, and ethernet cable into your tablet/phone at your desk, and you're golden (you might even have a docking station, which might even be wirelessly connected to your mobile, so just walk into your cube and sit down and there you are). Compiling and other compute/graphics intensive work will still require workstations (or equivalent machines in the datacenter sending a display to your mobile device), but most work not so much.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[lgw]

Well, anyone who doesn't work at a desk for a start: insurance adjusters, engineers doing inspections, surveyors, doctors making the rounds.

And anyone who does work at a desk could just connect a keyboard and monitor to thier whatever to have the traditional interface devices (haven't seen that with mobiles yet, but there are thin clients now that are the same idea).

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[exomondo]

The problem is actually exactly the opposite of what the original poster thinks. Microsoft is making too much of a break with the past with Windows 8

I disagree, all they've done is change the landing screen to be the start screen, which replaces the start menu. As far as the traditional desktop workflow is concerned the only thing that has changed is the application launcher (assuming you prefer the start menu to the taskbar). To look at it it might appear that things are drastically different, but when you actually use it it becomes apparent that not much has changed at all from the way you work in windows 7.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[Anonymous Coward]

They're also, unfortunately, fine for doing what executives do. Look at the business analyser for GP 2013 on Metro -- they've been demoing it with Kinect of all things!

This is an accounting program. With Kinect. You heard me.

But remember that executives just glance at their dashboard and look at a small handful of knobs, caring that they look slick over getting things done.

(The A/R Clark that deals with over a thousand transactions per day is not exactly going to care about Kinect or other whizz bang nonsense, but they'll need to ensure that this payment and those two credit notes are correctly applied accross these three invoices (in varying ratios) and the statement produced is what the client expects. Also, of course, ensuring that the correct G/L account is used.)

Actually getting detail working? Not so good.

Re:Enough of this cloud BS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but most "real work" on computers involves a fair amount of "words" or "numbers", which desktop systems are far better at handling than tablets. Since "real work" usually involves "productivity", tablets are not going to replace them.

In light of all that, Windows 8 must walk the...

[kronnek]

"In light of all that, Windows 8 must walk the equivalent of a loose tightrope in a gale-force wind, over an enormous pit of white-hot fire." While walking uphill in a snowstorm of grenades. How old is the writer?

Really?

[Enderandrew]

Will Best Buy continue to sell Windows desktops? Yes. Will enterprise shops still buy Windows desktops and servers almost exclusively? Yes. It doesn't matter. As much as Windows ME was a disaster, it didn't affect market share. As much as Vista was a turd, it didn't affect market share.

Even if people started replacing desktop apps with web apps, they still need an OS on their desktop/laptop.

Furthermore, as much as I don't care for Microsoft's business tactics, and as much as I love Linux, I think Microsoft will actually GAIN market share with the new Window Server 2012 while companies like VMWare and Citrix will be losing business.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, you're wrong, it is 2012 now and the penalty for failure are much greater than last decade.

First of all, the entire PC sales channel is dying in zero-margin hell -- Best Buy is dying, Dell is dying, HP is dying, and they are taking AMD down with them. Second, 'Enterprise' has essentially given up and decided to remain on Windows XP forever. They will never ever adopt Windows8.

Windows 8 is like an atom-bomb at the shaky-foundations of what's left of the PC empire. If it fails to catch on, the entire structure will collapse and PCs will collapse into no-name chinese obscurity. Prepare for Apple iPad domination, it is the future.

Re:Really?

[Enderandrew]

Windows Server 2012 is the name of the new server product that will ship at the end of the year.

Windows 7 has pretty good adoption in the enterprise market. And while most shops didn't deploy Vista on the desktop, they were buying Vista licenses with a downgrade to XP. Microsoft didn't lose money or market share. I imagine that many shops will purchase Windows 8 licenses as soon as it ships, with a Windows 7 downgrade and actually deploy 7 on the desktop.

For years people have said the PC market is dead and no one will purchase PCs anymore because netbooks are around, or smartphones, or tablets. But more most people, these devices supplement a PC. They don't fully replace a PC.

PC sales haven't suffered, and PCs certainly aren't disappearing in the enterprise market (where Microsoft really makes bank).

Re:Really?

[Junta]

I think Microsoft will actually GAIN market share with the new Window Server 2012

Why? I can see it keeping some 2k8r2 shops from jumping ship because 2012 does a few things like ReFS mitigating the advantages of ZFS and (future) btrfs, but I don't see anything to induce non-Windows shops to jump aboard all of a sudden. 2k8r2 already has virtualization, so maybe 2012 gets some capability to be more competitive, but those vmware shops that are willing to jump ship have largely already done so (to KVM either in Free or RedHat backed configurations mostly). The overwhelmingly large base that sticks with VMWare that is still out there isn't looking to jump platforms unless VMWare royally screws up.

Re:Really?

[Neil Boekend]

If that were true ("PC is dying in zero margin hell") then that is because PC users want to pay as little as possible. Why would they go to Apple?

Better question:

[Penguinisto]

Can Windows 8 succeed in a cloud-based world where ISP/carrier bandwidth caps are becoming prevalent?

Re:Better question:

[jbolden]

where ISP/carrier bandwidth caps are becoming prevalent?

Bandwidth is more or less increasing steadily. There have always been problems on the edges of various pricing models which moves home / small business models from "all you can eat" to "all you can eat with some limitations". If you legitimately need more bandwidth, you can buy as much bandwidth as you want.

Re:Better question:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

They'd be better off going back to DOS, tacking on a modern API, an IP stack, and a browser. Get rid of the Windows desktop entirely, at this point it's just eating clock cycles so that secretaries can display pictures of ponies and grandkids.

Stupid Question

[DougReed]

A 'Cloud-Based' world? WTF??? The real question should be simply .. will Windows 8 succeed. I think not. It is Microsoft's latest 'Vista' disaster.

After this fails and Microsoft can no longer give their versions names because of 'Vista', and cannot give them numbers because of Windows 8 ... Can we switch to Linux or Mac???

Re:Stupid Question

[clarkn0va]

I'm still holding out for Mojave!

Re:even better question:

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Can Windows 8 succeed in a cloud-based world where ISP/carrier bandwidth caps are becoming prevalent?

Can the cloud-based world succeed in a world where ISP/carrier bandwidth caps/overages are become prevalent?

The answer to news questions is No.

[cpu6502]

Except in this case.
YES of course Windows 8 will succeed, just as Blurays have succeeded, despite rampant claims that discs are no longer needed. You can't just pull everything off the net, when you either have slow connections (Dialup or Economy cable) or data limits (250GB). That means you need a base OS to run the programs offline. Or for privacy.

Re:The answer to news questions is No.

[spire3661]

Blu-ray is limping along compared to DVD adoption. Optical discs are most definitely on their way out. Very few people give a shit about 1080p perfection. They just want to watch a movie, now.

Re:The answer to news questions is No.

[cpu6502]

That's how I am..... except when it's something I love like Star Trek or Babylon 5. Then I want the HD and that's only available (for me) through Bluray.

Of and I disagree the adoption is slow. DVD took almost ten years to outsell VHS. Bluray's only been the "official" HD standard for 3-4 years now. In ten years I'm sure it will outsell the older standard

Re:The answer to news questions is No.

[countach]

Selling a lot of copies is not enough to be considered success. Blurays are not a success even though quite a few are sold. To be a success in Microsoft's world, it has to maintain Microsoft's dominance. That's a big ask.

Re:The answer to news questions is No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why use blue ray unless you have a crappy Internet connection?
Optical is dead. Go to a store and get a disk, or......., I want to watch movie, press a few buttons and start watching.
I don't have optical disks unless it's for my PC's. That's only because I have to install Microsoft products.......
Optical is dead......

Metro interface

[jakimfett]

The primary mistake that Win8 is making: assuming that touch screens will be used by everyone. I'm a web developer. I'm not going to go buy a touchscreen just so I can upgrade my windows, and a mouse/keyboard combo just doesn't work with Metro.

Is there a concern?

[Murdoch5]

Even if Windows doesn't fit nicely into the cloud based world it will still be the king of the desktop. The buisness computer model wont change where you need Windows to be compatiable. The user computer model wont change where most users are unwilling to try something new. The big box store model wont change, there not going to start stocking Linux based boxes.

Microsoft has nothing to worry about, even Windows ME sold! They have the monopoly on the market, there going to live out to another relase, and a another relase and etc... If they don't support the cloud on release they will in an update and an update to that update to the update that installed the update for the cloud. Microsoft is a long way off from dying. Which isn't a good a thing!

Windows 8 will be just fine.

[Anonymous Coward]

My SSD (OCZ) recently failed so i thought i would try the Win8 community preview while i waited for my RMA. The first day, Metro UI really slowed me down and I didnt like it one bit. I started to google around on disabling Metro but i decided to give it a fair shake. I'm glad I did and here's why. It is so freaken fast! Once you learn the shortcuts and gestures you will find that's its actually has less UI friction over a traditional start menu. Toggling between apps is super fast as well. I'm not sure it has a place in the enterprise but for home I think its a nice change.

Forget about the cloud

[satuon]

Microsoft's biggest challenge would be to convince people that Windows 7 is somehow not good enough anymore and they can't just use their current computer until its harddrive gives out. How many years until there's software that won't run on Windows 7? Or XP for that matter.

Re:Forget about the cloud

[spire3661]

On the gaming front, XP is being phased out. I think BF3 required Vista+

Re:Forget about the cloud

[EvilSS]

^This^ I think Microsoft is going to have an even harder time convincing corporate customers to switch to Windows 8. Most are just now rolling out Windows 7. Microsoft is not doing themselves any favors by forcing the Metro UI down the throats of PC users. I suspect this is all going to end up with Windows 8 turning into the new Windows Vista for PC users. Everyone is going to hold off until Windows 9 and hope that MS comes to their senses.

Re:Forget about the cloud

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's like the phase out of windows 2000, the "requirement" for vista or 7 was likely only because M$ paid off the game manufactures to put an OS check in the installer.

I remember several games that would refuse to install if they detected windows 2000, but if you installed the game on an XP and then copied the files and registry keys over to your win2k box it would work just fine. Later on the requirement for XP/vista/7 became legitimate do to directx and such, but for the first year or so of games locking out windows 2000 it was definitely an artificial limitation.

Re:Forget about the cloud

[Mashiki]

Well that's only for DirectX. And there are hacks to get DX10/11 to run under XP.

Re:Forget about the cloud

[nschubach]

Well, there's no DirectX 12 yet... and it will obviously use some new technology that Windows 7 could never handle.

Re:Forget about the cloud

[bloodhawk]

They don't have to pay off anyone and it is not an artificial limitation. XP is limited to DirectX 9 (10 and onwards had some fundamental architecture changes that would have required major changes to XP which were not made and will never be made). Game developers want to use the latest graphics effects, therefore the Vista+ requirement, this will only get more and more prevalent, XP is dieing as a gaming OS, especially on the new release front.

Re:Forget about the cloud

[avandesande]

probably when IE 11 won't run on windows 7....

Re:Forget about the cloud

[wbo]

Well that's only for DirectX. And there are hacks to get DX10/11 to run under XP.

Those hacks simply cause XP to lie about the version of DirectX that is currently installed and some of the better ones have simple stubs for some the new API calls introduced in DirectX 10 and 11. The do NOT actually implement the new features found in the later versions of DirectX.

While this means that applications that require newer versions of DirectX can "run" it also means that the moment an application tries to use any of the new features are used there will be rendering errors and other unexpected behaviors.

No.

[DontScotty]

When enough people get tired of their "Cloud" documents being inaccessible because Internet connection has problems/dies/they can't link to the wireless?

The people will be revolting.

Re:No.

[iceaxe]

The people will be revolting.

People have always been revolting.

Oh, were you meaning that as a verb?

Do you want dumb terminals and remote mainframes?

[DutchUncle]

Because that's what this whole cloud nonsense really means - going back to the hierarchy and control from which personal computing freed us.

Every time a game or program requires remote authentication, the reviews are scathing; yet somehow there is still a push to a paradigm of remote *everything*. This is completely inconsistent with the observed preferences of knowledgeable users. Of course, business management loves the idea - they see the control of centralization without even needing an in-house IT department. For anybody else, it means giving up the rights to your own computer.

The cloud fills a nitche

[Karmashock]

It does things the desktop apps didn't do before or didn't do very well. There are a lot of things desktop apps do a lot better then the cloud.

Neither one has to displace the other. It's like music and movies. You don't really consume one to the exclusion of the other. Ideally the cloud and desktop apps should learn to get along because in that way they can both play to the other's strengths and cover the other's weaknesses.

Re:The cloud fills a nitche

[BeerCat]

Neither one has to displace the other. It's like music and movies. You don't really consume one to the exclusion of the other.

I watch movies and listen to music. I don't "consume" them.

The only time music would be "consumed" is if you adopt Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" metaphor as literal - "If music be the food of love, play on"

Re:even better question:

[Electricity Likes Me]

Oooh I live in Australia: no!

Seriously, how anyone uses any of the cloud-based services I know about was a mystery still I started realizing what type of internet you could get for $70 a month in the US.

Native apps will always be better.

[InvisibleClergy]

Any cloud app requires a round-trip to the server and back in order to do anything which requires saving what you have right now as an intereim step. Usually that's something like 200ms, which any gamer will tell you is extremely perceptible.

On the flip side, any desktop app with more than about 200ms lag between clicking a button and obviously doing something is frustrating and ought to be supplanted by THE CLOUD.

Re:Native apps will always be better.

[Fwipp]

Cloud-based apps doesn't mean they have to do the equivalent of X-forwarding. In most cases, you can do the majority of the manipulation on the device itself, and only go out to the 'cloud' for opening files, saving them, and checking for updates (or downloading the app each time you run it, as is often the case with javascript apps).

Re:Native apps will always be better.

[CastrTroy]

Not necessarily true. I heard that Facebook (or someone else, I can't recall) basically just assumes the request goes through without and error and the UI acts accordingly. In the exceptionally odd case that an error is returned, it can still be displayed after the fact, but what you get is a UI that looks like it is responding instantly, even though the saving hasn't actually happened. With some UI tricks and a bit of work you can have a very responsive UI on a web app.

Re:Native apps will always be better.

[Anne Thwacks]

A fine approach if its a picture of your dog farting, but I would not want to go that way for mission critical business documents!

Re:Native apps will always be better.

[countach]

The trend is towards invisible background saving rather than pressing some menu item to save. Apple's iWork apps on ipad you never explicitly save, and you are never aware of when it is going to the cloud.

Re:Native apps will always be better.

[Anonymous Coward]

The trend is towards invisible background saving rather than pressing some menu item to save. Apple's iWork apps on ipad you never explicitly save, and you are never aware of when it is going to the cloud.

That could be REALLY annoying, and I would never use something (for work, etc.) that functions in this way. Suppose you type something, realize your original version was better, and want to revert. You just close the app, and when it asks you if you want to save the file, tell it no. Or you close the file within the app, and it asks you if you want to save the file, just the same, and again, you tell it "no".

If it is saving in the background, periodically, or continuously, you don't have that capability, unless it also is prepared to save up to an infinite number of undo-steps... or saving the changes incrementally so you can walk back through them, which is kind of the same thing, but would take up way more bandwidth and disk space... as well as being annoying... you may find yourself wondering which revision was the one you started working on today, before you screwed it up?

So you can keep your cloud. I will ALWAYS use local apps more or less exclusively, for anything that matters. I insist on retaining that level and type of control. If there is a computer or "OS" that wants to insist on storing data and retrieving programs from some remote device or devices or network, I WILL NOT USE IT.

No sane, intelligent person who is aware of the unique hazards that come with such a system would. What does that say about the people who are currently doing that, then? They're insane, stupid, or just ignorant of the dangers... or what they work with and on, using a computer, is not important to them, and they don't care if someone else holds it hostage, denies them access to it, or the network fails or is too busy and they can't access it when they need it... etc.

All problems mainly INVENTED by cloud-computing. A STUPID idea whose time has already gone.

Y'all kids forget... what you now call cloud computing has been around since the 50's and 60's. That's the way ALL computing was back then. You're local "computer" wasn't even called that, it was called a "terminal". It connected to a remote computer, and THAT computer kept your software, your data, etc. Your terminal did not have storage or any real memory of its own... it didn't need it, and it would have made it impossibly expensive if it had, given the cost of processing power and memory at that time, during the age of disc packages, tape drives and punched cards. Before the floppy diskette. The one advantage was of course, besides that it made computer power available remotely, all you needed was a line of communications (such as a phone line,) a monitor, a keyboard, and a modem.

Now for some reason people want, against all common sense, to go back to those dark days. What are these people, fucking stupid? The only thing to be gained here, really, is the ability to access the same files and programs from multiple devices, but with this trend towards tablet computing, the idea some seem to have is of people not even having PC's anymore, just these tablets. Well, if you do all your computing from a tablet, you only have one device, you probably don't have 5 or 10 different tablets, all being used by a single person for different purposes... so why, again, does everything need to be in "the Cloud"? The excuse that it makes pushing out software updates easier is idiotic. If you have, essentially, to redownload a portion of (or an entire) application to use it every time you restart your device, that's more bandwidth burned up than just by sending out patches and updates, since everyone will be downloading the app or applet every time they fire up that program.

As for those who might want to access the same files across multiple devices, there is a device for doing just that... it's called a "thumb-drive".

If your device doesn't have a USB port into which to stick a thumb d

Not many countries have high speed internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a tough question, most of the developing countries are not much equipped with High Speed Internet .. ISP capping and many factors comes into play

Re:Not many countries have high speed internet

[Anne Thwacks]

Actually, here in the "old world" (UK), a lot of computers are not on the internet at all shock, horror!

There are loads of things you can do on a computer without an internet connection. And quite a few which you would prefer not to have an internet connection. (Can you say "stuxnet"?)

I am shocked that software suppliers cannot understand the concept of a freestanding PC. I am not sure Win7 can even be used without Internet. I still have machines running Win98 in the lab. I believe my sewing machine runs a heavily customised Win98,

Re:even better question:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. And Windows 8 can't survive in any world. Metro is going to sink Windows.

diablo

[fishingmachine]

everyone who has had the misfortune of buying and attempting to play diablo 3 single player knows exactly why cloud computing wont work. (hint the servers have gone down more times than days theyve been up so far and you cannot play a single player game with the server down)

Re:diablo

[ArsonSmith]

at lvl 57 and I haven't seen this issue other than launch day...

Re:diablo

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought this game the Thursday after it came out and have not encountered any server downtime (other than scheduled maintenance, but I'm an old guy with a life so I have to play at weird times, which oddly is when nerds aren't playing, so it's a good time for server maintenance).

My anecdote rocks. I share it only to put hopefully a small dent in the hyperbole of the Epic Fail of the Diablo III game launch.

Re:diablo

[fishingmachine]

you must not play at odd hours then, my work forces me to play very late at night/early morning. actually as soon as i bought it and installed it, on release day, i just made it inside new tristram when it went down for maintenance first. since i play from around 3am-10am est, its been a crapshoot whether im actually able to get on or not.

I think a better question would be...

[Anonymous Coward]

... can Windows 8 ever succeed against Windows XP?
Will Freeza defeat the Earthlings?
Find out next time on /.TEE VEE.

Wrong questions

[werewolf1031]

As a decades-long desktop- (and now laptop- and tablet-) user, I do not want "cloud based solutions". If the cloud-based bullshit goes down, or if the power goes out locally, or my ISP decides to take a crap, my shit better still be there... or rather, HERE. Locally. On a disk. It can be one of my hard drives, or my USB SSD drive, or my LAN-accessible network drive, whatever, but if I don't have direct access and control of my shit, then something is WRONG, and all the "cloud" solutions in the world won't help me at that point.

My second Android tablet, an Asus Transformer, came with some kind of cloud storage service. I've never touched it; never felt the need to. I'm not paying someone else to store my own stuff, especially when most of it won't even run on ARM devices anyway.

Yeah, I use Dropbox to keep files synchronized across devices. The difference? I still have access to my shit when I can't access the "cloud" for any reason.

Honestly, this "cloud" nonsense has to stop. The marketing bullshit has to stop. Just call it what it is: Internet-based storage. Which means, if you can't access the Internet, you can't access Your Stuff. It's off-limits to you. WTF is the point? As a remote backup? Ok, I can see that. But as real-time storage that you can't control? Screw that.

Re:Wrong questions

[ArsonSmith]

quick summary of post:

I hate the cloud and everything it stands for.
I use the cloud in the way it's suppose to be used.
The cloud has to stop.

Re:Wrong questions

[CodeBuster]

Honestly, this "cloud" nonsense has to stop. The marketing bullshit has to stop.

I agree. I really wish that someone out there, more knowledgeable than I, would finally lead the charge on a spirited attack against all of the marketing hype and bullshit surrounding the cloud. The tech companies don't care because they're too busy selling software and hardware to suckers who don't know what they're really buying. They promote the hype and sell the products, but they aren't drinking the cool-aid that they're serving. It's like the Realtors during the housing bubble. They knew it was a bubble and they knew the mortgages were shit, but they didn't care because they were making money and nobody wanted to be the one to break up the party before the police arrived to do it for them.

Re:Wrong questions

[lsatenstein]

Cloud storage is wonderful, particularly for companies who are established in tornado alley, or in "hurricane prone" states. You are lucky because you can get flooded, or the roof can cave in, and you can still be (on paper) in business.

And in states where the temperature climbs above boiling on roof tops, the similar argument holds. Your hard disks located in the cloud wont melt, even if you do.

Yes!

[Alex Belits]

Of course, it can! If it doesn't matter what is on the client, it can just as well be the worst OS in the history of makind!

Windows 8 is Cloud Based...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if the person that posted this article has played around with Windows 8, but anyways. Windows 8 is cloud-based. Logging into windows 8 requires a user to have an email address. All new features of Win8 are cloud based, finance, social, etc... The only thing not cloud-based on win8 is the code that is installed on the ole laptop or desktop.

what a bunch of nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has their hands in more than the latest-and-greatest OS. To somehow believe that this is make or break is naive/ignorant. MS has many previous/current OSs that are doing quite fine in the world and will still make millions. Vista was a "failure" yet made the company millions in profit. MS also has their hands in consumer and enterprise software, Mobile and many other ventures.
It sure would be nice if there were more articles of what is and less articles about "wishful thinking"

Re:what a bunch of nonsense

[hackula]

Vista was a "failure" yet made the company millions in profit.

I always thought the "fail fast and often" spiel had a different point to it, but this works too.

Shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...desktop-based programs are increasingly giving way to cloud apps, and mobile devices are eclipsing PCs as the center of people's computing lives."

Neither of these things are true.

Cloud apps are failing to live up to their promises, with many corporations shelving the idea entirely in light of security and availability concerns. Also, mobile devices are /at best/ beginning to "rival" the PC market -- they are quite far from "eclipsing" it.

So, please, shut up.

Yes, duh

[hackula]

Yes, they have nearly 100% OEM lock in. Provide a fact-based reasoning for how this could change anytime soon and I might change my mind. The cloud has nothing to do with this. Win8 will be compatible with the cloud, just like all of its competitors (the entire point of the cloud). Is this supposed to suggest that mobile devices are going to replace the desktop/laptop? I will believe that when I see a youngster (the ones who are the most mobile) writing a term paper on a mobile device and not getting an F. Sure mobile is great. I probably browse the web more on my phone than my computer these days... but I will be damned if I have to do more than a couple minutes of actual work on it. Most people need a PC, even if for a smaller subset of their computing these days, and as long as Windows has hardware lock in and no mainstream competitors in sight, things are not going to change.

Re:even better question:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. And Windows 8 can't survive in any world. Metro is going to sink Windows.

You got that right! Its aweful and only good for a tablet. No enterprises I support will be leaving Win 7 for the next 10 years from what I have seen!

The marketeers koolaid is actually poison

[WaffleMonster]

It is really sad we have all this technology only to see it wasted on nonsensical bullshit designed to extract every penny from every imaginable sale channel rather than provide value to the paying customer.

The EE guys are taking names and kicking ass while software finds new ways to waste every new transistor and radio tower thay are given.

I am ashamed of myself and my industry.

Yes

[mcavic]

This is not a cloud-based world. It's a device-based world, with the cloud as a big component. So yes, Windows 8 will do fine as long as Microsoft doesn't screw it up too much. Even better if it does well on both a PC and a mobile device.

Re:even better question:

[Anonymous Coward]

and the US is considered to have BAD internet.

I think another interesting question, can cloud-based services succeed in a internet grining to a halt under bufferbloat?

Re:even better question:

[Darinbob]

Seriously, here in the US I don't know of any individuals using cloud based services, it seems to be mostly a pipe dream for corporations hoping to unload some of their infrastructure costs. It's a silly idea that's being hyped to death, and this article is just one more example of the hype (ie, by assuming that cloud based world will exist it prompts the reader into accepting that premise).

Re:even better question:

[nine-times]

And also in a world where major ISPs have a monopoly/duopoly and refuse to build out there infrastructure to have decent speeds. Seriously, even in large population centers, you often can't get decent speeds.

I feel like a lot of talk about "the cloud" is hype until you can get a >1mbps upload rate for less than $100/month.

The "cloud" is not what is going to kill Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's insistence on shoving "Metro" down everyone's throat, like it or not, is what is going to doom the platform! Their depreciation of the traditional desktop and traditional applications in favor of "Metro" apps is also very disturbing...as Microsoft is pushing developers into the "walled garden" of their ecosystem (and taking a 20%-30% cut of all sales). Newsflash Microsoft! People LIKE the desktop environment! Here's another...People HATE Metro! It's fine on a tablet or game console, but putting it front and center on Windows 8 is a disaster! Forcing apps to run full screen is a HUGE step backwards! Forcing people to buy their software ONLY through Microsoft? FAIL! No support for "sideloading" apps off a website? FAIL! Poor multi-monitor support? FAIL! Locking down hardware so you can ONLY run a Microsoft OS on the hardware you OWN? FAIL!

Personally, I see Windows 8 as Microsoft's "PS/2" moment. They are trying (desperately) to get in the mobile game by sacrificing the ONE strength they have. IBM tried the same thing with their PS/2 platform...and we all saw how that worked out! The only question is who will rise to take Microsoft's place. I am not speaking about the immediate issue with what people will run when Windows 8 is collecting dust on retail shelves (most will probably just run Windows 7)...but who will take the leadership role that Microsoft held for so many years? Who will be shaping the future of computing? As personal computing moves more and more to mobile devices, and away from the desktop, the only thing for certain is that it WON'T be Microsoft!

REAL QUESTION IS "CAN 'CLOUD' SURVIVE?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it will 4 typical end-users on PC desktops @ least. Too many folks are used to doing things a certain way, & once folks, including myself, get "set in their ways"?

* It can be MIGHTY HARD to change them... myself included...

APK

P.S.=> This "CLOUD" initiative that ONLY THE PRESSES SEEM TO BE "CHAMPIONING"?

Hey - It ALMOST reminds me of what I left originally in computing (green-screen IBM setups from AS/400 systems on slave-terminals for end users, & same from the VMS side pretty much) : Dumb Slave Terminals to mainframes/midranges!

Which got 'displaced' LARGELY by "Client-Server" based designs (main server/departmental server (housing some DB engine usually), to PC-desktop client workstation nodes)...

Folks generally LIKE it & are USED to this type of arrangment with an OS they're familiar with for decades in Windows-based desktops with the Win9.x Explorer shell!

Making people change is DUMB if they do NOT WANT IT (just like Windows 8's "metro" interface OR ribbons in Office apps & more... dumb!))... ak

Cloud-Based World Isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a huge difference between companies using web-based applications on servers run in-house and this thing called The Cloud, which has demonstrated itself to be full of risk and fail. The article's premise that things are going cloud-based is false, and becoming more so as more and more companies realize that putting their data online and/or outsourcing its processing is a mistake.

DOA

[Anonymous Coward]

MS forgot that real users learn by rote! Windows 8 is a radical GUI change that will be DOA in any corporation which trains users. Home users won't even know it is Windows.

The funny thing is how Win7 rocks - I recently got back to Windows after a decade away, and think Win7 is one of the best GUIs I've ever seen. I like it better than the Mac, and almost as much as KDE.

And MS wants to throw it away for Win8? (Which I've used in the preview.) They're basically destroying themselves.

This one may finally pull Ballmer down!

Re:DOA

[neminem]

Funny, I like it almost as much as KDE, too. I hate KDE.

No.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It cannot succeed anywhere because it's a crap.

Fuck The Cloud

[sexconker]

Fuck the cloud.
You can pry my native installations and data I actually own from my cold, dead boxen.

Re:Fuck The Cloud

[CodeBuster]

Just wait until they've got most people switched over to the cloud and then they will turn on the data caps and metered billing for network access. Will the cloud still be amazing when people are paying by the byte? It's a trap!

goolge? linux? apple is too locked down

[Joe_Dragon]

goolge? linux? apple is too locked down.

And in a more mobile setup the least thing you want is carrier lock in with very high roaming fees and small data caps.

also apple why no battery swapping or SD / USB slots on mobile systems.

what about Dual-SIM phones? nice to keep business and private use on the same phone with there own plans or have your main sim + one for lower cost roaming.

data network will need to be better

[Joe_Dragon]

and going full cloud aka on-live is a BIG data HOG and it add's a lot of control lag as well.

Re:even better question:

[kelemvor4]

No. And Windows 8 can't survive in any world. Metro is going to sink Windows.

Aside from "a train" and "a cellphone company" what is this Metro which you think is going to sink windows?

Re:even better question:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know of any individuals using cloud based services

the fuck?. Gmail, Google Apps / Docs, Dropbox, BaseCamp, Flickr, Spotify, Netflix. Most individuals I know do almost everything they use a computer for "in the cloud". The corporations are the ones that seem to be holding on to legacy standalone apps.

Re:even better question:

[dimeglio]

I agree. Cloud based services exist for the short sighted few who see IT as a cost center when in fact IT should be considered a key factor in driving up enterprise competitiveness through increased efficiency.

Re:even better question:

[Vancorps]

You might have a point if you assume that everyone is using the same cloud and not their own private clouds. As someone deploying Virtual Desktops far and wide I can safely say that cloud services make a huge difference on end-point costs as well as reducing downtime associated with pouring coffee on a laptop.

I like the idea that hardware failure isn't going to stop me in my tracks. Windows 8 cloud integration doesn't strike me as anything special, same goes with SQL 2012 cloud hooks which I feel are both targeted towards the perception of cloud computing that you have.

I'm also not sure where the summary came from, with modern cloud computing there will be a push for running the same apps everywhere and not needing a different tool for each platform. Microsoft's OneNote is a prime example of this. Desktop computing isn't going anywhere, but what you can do at your desktop is about to explode in a big way. The ability to share massive resources should improve everyone's performance. Working remotely or in the data center? Performance won't be hurt either way.

I'll agree that management usually sees cloud services as a pipe dream. Everytime I'm asked to evaluate our services for cloud computing I remind the CxOs that we already do cloud computing privately. With XenServer being free it's awfully hard for the likes of Amazon to compete unless you really need to scale and even then, the cost savings are temporary.

Re:even better question:

[Dreth]

I don't know of any individuals using cloud based services

the fuck?. Gmail, Google Apps / Docs, Dropbox, BaseCamp, Flickr, Spotify, Netflix. Most individuals I know do almost everything they use a computer for "in the cloud". The corporations are the ones that seem to be holding on to legacy standalone apps.

None of those things are really relevant to the business world. You don't share DVDRips or ISOs over a network for your buddies at work, you don't have any need to watch movies or upload 100 pictures from that Canon of yours at a workplace, the only semi-useful thing in there are Google Docs (don't count Gmail since any e-mail is just as efficient in sending and receiving e-mails) but then again, most corporations already have volume licenses so that's not even that big a hassle.

Re:even better question:

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Cloud based services exist for the short sighted few who see IT as a cost center when in fact IT should be considered a key factor in driving up enterprise competitiveness through increased efficiency.

I really wish it were the short-sighted few who view IT as a cost centre. I'm afraid that, in my own personal experience of 20+ years, the short-sighted ones are the masses. It's a very rare corporate indeed that truly views IT as a key asset rather than a cost centre. Doubly so for a corporate outside of the actual technology/IT industry itself.

Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares... Microsoft hasn't been able to convince the public to step up to a new operating system since Windows XP.... Most people just accept the new version because it arrived on their PC.

even better-er question

[Anonymous Coward]

Where, precisely, is this cloud-based world?

Re:even better-er question

[Neil Boekend]

Well, in Mario you sometimes have these plants you can climb on. Sometimes that gets you into the cloud.

Is the cloud really going to edit 4K films?

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

The cloud isnt going to replace desktop applications. Holy fuck you idiots, stop spreading this horseshit.

The Cloud is not the threat...

[elabs]

...the threat is alienating developers by continuing to cancel projects, frameworks and languages that we depend on. Windows 8 is already fully cloud integrated. In fact, it's TOO integrated into the cloud, in my opinion. Many features of the OS stop working when you disconnect from the internet. The real problem with Windows 8 is the app gap that will persist because developers have to rewrite all their apps to work for Metro. All the XNA apps written for XBox and WP7 should have worked out of the box, but instead they will not work at all on WinRT and will have to be rewritten. Unless I can do that in a managed language I will not bother. Silverlight OOB apps should have been supported as well. Silverlight in the browser should be supported, especially if they are going to let Flash in. I don't want to use some HTML5 beast to run Netflix. Finally, WP7 apps should just run as metro apps with no code change. No rejiggering should be necessary. If they had done that and supported their own technologies they would have hundreds of thousands of apps in WinRT from day one. As it is they will have very few.

Re:even better question:

[exomondo]

Oooh I live in Australia: no!

What's the problem?

Re:even better question:

[exomondo]

No. And Windows 8 can't survive in any world. Metro is going to sink Windows.

Aside from "a train" and "a cellphone company" what is this Metro which you think is going to sink windows?

It's basically just the start screen instead of the start menu, i don't particularly like it and i'd prefer an option to default to the desktop with a start menu but i hardly see this as 'sinking Windows', we've seen plenty of fairly drastic changes over the years and all the set-in-their-ways geeks decry every change as the death knell of whatever product but it very rarely is.

Traditional PC

[Anonymous Coward]

> real work is done on the traditional desktop ...

running the traditional XP or maybe 7.

The problem for Microsoft is that they need to cost the world many billions each quarter. That means they have to stop people sending their money to the likes of Apple and Android makers instead of spending it on more and more 'traditional PCs'. They need to find a reason for people to buy a tablet and/or phone _and_ a PC that will work together, and not from Apple. So they try by being more Apple than Apple. But they will only be able to do this next year, or for corporates maybe that will be 2015 or so. Meanwhile the world revolves and leaves them behind.

Of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 8 is going to be a huge disaster. That way everyone who is foolish enough to buy it will have to turn around and buy Windows 9 as well. This has been Microsoft's MO since Windows ME.

The Desktop isn't going away

[TnyLtSprGy]

Despite what the mobile world thinks the desktop system will probably never go away. Any real content creation need to be done on a desktop system. And the demands of Localized Storage, Fast Speed, Security, and Offline Connectivity and others will likely make cloud/browser based solutions an inferior choice for years to come. Who's going to want to sit down to a smart phone at their office?

A more important question to ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can Windows 8 survive in a Windows 7 world? M$ releases a useable OS with a minimum of problems, then a POS that people won't use at gunpoint.

XP? People still using it.
Vista? Only used in Hell, anymore, as a punishment.
7? A viable alternative to XP, and can be made to look and act like 95/98/XP to a large extent.
8? I predict another Vista.

Looking forward to Windows 9, assuming M$ survives that long.

Re:Will question headlines ever go away?

[gmhowell]

Will question headlines ever go away?

Betteridge has an answer to your subject line: no.

Of course it will succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

...and it doesn't matter how good it is. Windows ME? Windows Vista? They were all pieces of **** but they made the sale. It doesn't have anything to do with how good the product is because even good desktop software in MS's scope of the world is pretty crappy by comparison to other software. Key factors will be that it will be sold by the millions to OEM manufacturers. This means everyone buying a new Dell or similar product will get it without even knowing what it really is. Then you have the marketing to follow which will tout all the positive aspects of it on some commercial where Jerry Seinfeld talks about birds or something. So now you have sparkly adds and all the cool kids are already running it. Now look at your average PC user. They don't know anything about any of this crap nor do they care. All sides point to yes Windows 8 without requiring the laymen to even wonder why and before you know it, even the worst possible outcome just results in another Windows Vista era with a new brand name to stamp over where it previously said Vista. Compared to Windows XP and Windows 7, Vista was a disgrace but I don't recall hearing about falling profits in Microsoft during that time. Oh now I remember, if I paid extra I could downgrade to an older version. Thank god I run Linux and no I'm not suggesting Linux as the replacement because even as a Linux zealot I still don't think my dad will use it but at least I'm not bound by the shackles of Windows. Thankfully my dad tried Mac, loves it and hasn't looked back and despite Apples growth which I praise in comparison to Microsoft, I doubt we'll see Microsoft get out of the Desktop market within my lifetime and I also doubt that no matter how bad they do, they're still going to post a profit from OS sales alone. In fact I think just one of the OEM's alone (Dell?) would be able to hit the point of a profit in the first purchase they make of 10 million copies or however many million they buy per financial quarter. MS is like a religion. Smart people often look past it or above, not above their own beliefs but in the marketing to push one groups purpose over another but no matter how many people do, the pews are still always full every week, not from the people who've looked for a higher purpose but from the drones en mass with expandable income who need to be a part of the big picture. Who cares if Windows 8 really is ready? What difference will it make if it's not? It will sell, MS will gloat their profit and a little piece of me will cry inside.

Re:Of course it will succeed

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called a paragraph, look it up before making another word vomit.

Re:even better question:

[FirephoxRising]

I live in rural Australia and get 19.5Mbs, with 500GB download for $70/month. (as part of a $130/month bundles with my phones). You need to shop around and chase the better plans. Netflix works really well with some DNS fiddling.

The magical mystical "cloud"

[Anonymous Coward]

This is asinine. The "cloud" is just a needlessly fancy name for a server.

OMG... how can a client operating system like Windows possibly survive in a world of clients and servers? Oh noes! Everything is different!!!

Oh wait, no, everything is still the same.

Re:even better question:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know of any individuals using cloud based services

the fuck?. Gmail, Google Apps / Docs, Dropbox, BaseCamp, Flickr, Spotify, Netflix. Most individuals I know do almost everything they use a computer for "in the cloud". The corporations are the ones that seem to be holding on to legacy standalone apps.

We all aren't using all that shit, though.

I use gmail, but I only use it for the address. I get an e-mail, if it's important, I save a copy locally. Whether it's important or not, I then delete it, I have it saved. If it requires a reply, I'll do that, then usually delete it. If it's a conversation going back and forth, I usually keep only the last received message (I hate clutter) if the old text has been quoted. Once the conversation ends, I delete the message(s).

I don't use Google "apps" or "docs", (not even sure what they are or why I would want to use them...) nor Dumpbox or Basecramp or Flicker, or Spotifly, or Netpics or whatever. I do watch much of what I used to see on TV online, but that's not the same as "the cloud". The show is not MINE. I don't own it. If that's using "the cloud", then so is watching TV. Neither is. I used to keep local copies of shows I'd watch online, but as I don't want to run afoul of some copyright NAZI's who may be spying on my internet traffic, I've decided it would be unwise (low benefit to risk ratio) to bother keeping the mostly only marginally watchable garbage that passes for entertainment anymore on my local machine. By not keeping it, there's less incrimination shit for someone to find.

Deleting all that stuff has also dropped my hard disk usage down to a tiny fraction of capacity, which means there is a good chance I will never fill up these disks.

This is a good thing, since watching old episodes of crap TV was kind of a time waster anyway, so in a way, all the efforts at protecting their "IP" has been beneficial to me, it has helped goad me AWAY from wasting more time on their garbage product, the Twinkies of the mind, if you will. Empty calories, not REAL food. I have since taken up learning another language, learning to code... and my TV "consumption" goes down more and more. I am pleased at this.

So I will keep my "legacy" standalone apps, (or programs, as we old folks call them) and you can have your "cloud" apps.

The day will come when the internet will be down, overloaded, etc., or someone will screw up the server something important in "the cloud", and all the people who still use "legacy" standalone apps will not be bothered one little bit. You'll be up shit creek without a paddle, since the paddle is stored in "the cloud".

Have fun!

Re:even better question:

[Anonymous Coward]

No. And Windows 8 can't survive in any world. Metro is going to sink Windows.

Aside from "a train" and "a cellphone company" what is this Metro which you think is going to sink windows?

You forgot "an 80's song" by Berlin...

Metro is the name for the interface that they're (M$'s) going to try to force everyone to use so that the pain-in-the-ass limitations of a tablet interface will be visited upon the PC world. (There are advantages to touchscreen, they just don't translate to a non-touchscreen mouse and keyboard driven computer.) It won't sink Windows, because 7 works fine. It won't sink Windows any more than Vista did. All that will happen is there'll be a huge but mostly futile push by M$ to force everyone to adopt the new OS version, and pay them again, calling it an upgrade... and pretend there's a reason for them to keep fixing what wasn't broken (anymore) by releasing new OS version after version AFTER they got as close to right as they can possibly be. M$ screwed up, in a sense when they released XP, and again when they released 7, by making something that basically worked, they shot themselves in the foot in terms of being able to sell "upgrades".

For myself, the fact is, I categorically refused to pay M$ for another OS after XP. I got my copies of 7 from my University, through a heavily subsidized program at the university bookstore. You could argue that I paid for them when I paid my tuition and fees, but since the US Department of Veterans Affairs pays my tuition and fees, *** I *** really didn't pay for them at all... but if you pay taxes in the US... *** YOU *** did. :^)

(Thanks for that, by the way... everyone who paid for my copies of Windows 7... they really are much better than Vista, and even XP...)

From my perspective, they didn't screw up with XP and 7, they screwed up with Vista, and are about to screw up with 8, when they should simply not ever have released those OS's. It was a case of trying to justify putting out new software and hoping everyone will pay for it, when they should have just worked on making XP better, more stable, and more secure, without trying to force everyone (and you saw what resistance they met... Vista flopped HARD) to go to a new OS that didn't really do anything more or better than the old one, just more annoying.

Can Windows 8 Succeed In a Cloud-Based World?

[1s44c]

Can Windows 8 Succeed In a Cloud-Based World?

I really hope not. It's long since time it died out. There are better things ready to replace everything windows is currently doing, in most cases at a fraction of the cost and with way better security. Windows only continues to exist due to inertia.

Re:The "cloud" is not what is going to kill Window

[1s44c]

This whole thing appears to be Microsoft attempting to copy Apple's business model. It's always been Microsoft's standard practice to copy things that work from other companies because they don't really have the ability to innovate themselves. The thing is they are not apple and they will produce a twisted parody of Apple's walled garden and everyone will hate it.

Like you say, it's going to be a big pile of FAIL and hopefully it will reduce the amount of Windows and the resultant botnet and virus problems in the world.

Re:even better question:

[Electricity Likes Me]

We have something similar in my house actually. That's not the problem - the problem is the asymmetry. Cloud services generally have to presume an upload component when it comes to using them to do work - and you're not going to be able to do that to any appreciable degree stuck on a 1 mbps upload speed.

The US has a wide variety of plans, but the most important thing is that a lot of people have access to upload speeds in excess of 1 megabyte per second, which is about the minimum you'd want for serious remote server use. Where in Australia it is just impossible to get anything with a better upload then ADSL2 for less then many hundreds of dollars a month. Even Annex M isn't very common, and that isn't very good.

Why does no one realize?

[BlueCoder]

Windows 8 is going to follow the iPhone model. Sure it will be windows but it's going to be locked down. You will have to purchase all applications and possibly media through the Microsoft store where they will take a percentage. They will have complete censorship control over all applications. The only plus side is that it will eliminate the significance of viruses and malware which will benefit the company and it's platforms image. Software in essence has to be white-listed by Microsoft. People will of course still be able to root it just like phones can be but just like rooted phones it will open up those users to trojans. For the vast majority of ignorant users it will be a good thing.

No network connection

[Anonymous Coward]

No desktop. At least with my laptop, I can get work done without a network connection. Metro does not multi-task. Windows 8 will land with a big thud like Vista did. I like Ubuntu, but don't like Unity. I've been running Xubuntu.

Photography

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, I'd love a situation in which all my images were stored in the alleged cloud. But, as a professional photographer (or at least, professional photographic tech) could someone enlighten me as to how this might work? I was in Zion this past February, accumulated in the course of 3 days 2000 images. That's only 20gb of RAW data for me, but some of my clients shoot 2000 images per hour. The computers in question are fully capable of dealing with that amount of data, but our ISP? not so much. From my point of view, it'll be at least another decade if not 10 before people that actually generate data can work without local storage.