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Microsoft: Windows 8 To RTM In August
nk497 writes "Microsoft has confirmed Windows 8 will RTM the first week of August, with general availability in late October. Steve Ballmer suggested Microsoft expected Surface to sell "millions" of the 375m Windows 8 PCs expected to sell in the next year — spending much of the keynote talking about partners' devices. From the article: 'Tami Reller, chief financial officer and chief marketing officer of the Windows and Windows Live division, confirmed the release date at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto today, as she showed off a host of Windows 8 devices created by the software giant's manufacturing partners.'"
Were journalists allowed to touch any of them this time?
Microsoft has announced that the release date will be pushed out to Friday, December 21, 2012
Some may say that this is a re-incarnation of Microsoft Me or Microsoft Vista, no, it is much worse than that, this is a re-incarnation of Microsoft Bob.
It does not matter which platform you want to put this OS on, it will suck on all of them.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Me and Vista were two very different problems. The former is what happens when you half-heartedly add a few features to a dying OS; the latter is what happens when you try to do quite a bit of under-the-hood engineering and modernisation, give up, start again, and then realise you've sold nothing new for half a decade so put out what you have before you're ready.
8 is what happens when you imagine that Program Manager wasn't sufficiently unsuitable for a modern high-res PC, and instead decide that you're working in CGA in an accessibility mode for people with reduced vision and dexterity.
This is like Acorn, Amiga, etc. in the late '90s - instead of following their strengths in the desktop world, they suddenly rush to the new consumer device - then it was the Set Top Box / Multimedia Thing / etc. A few minutes later, they're all but dead.
Hm, could MS really die out soon on the desktop?
Comparing Win8 to ME or Vista is unfair to Win8.
The really sad part about Win8 is Metro. There is a LOT to like about the underlying OS (password unmask, much better taskmanager, and many other small improvements), and I have no reason to think that the OS itself will be unstable like ME or Vista.
If Microsoft would fix Metro on the desktop (It may be fine for tablets and phones), Win8 would be something I would like. However, as it currently stands, I won't "upgrade" until I have a good, stable way to disable Metro and use the other features of the OS.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
It's Microsoft's attempt to build a new desktop OS that works well and that people like, but to improve usability in the face of their massive market losses to Apple which are mostly predicated on usability.
It's also an attempt to shortcut their way into the mobile space by adding a mobile UI to their existing product. Their mobile OS is failed on phones, but there's no big competitor to Apple in the tablet space right now, and MSFT hopes they can be that.
Basically, MSFT is years behind in just about every product line they have, but are still following their tried-and-true, packaging up other peoples' ideas with Windows logos, and selling them as innovation.
Citation please? I find it difficult to imagine in what universe Apple would use a half-finished, poorly marketed and mediocre system like Azure for their cloud offerings.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=icloud+azure
Me and Vista were the SAME problem...that being Microsoft's inability to perform a platform upgrade for windows in less than ~7 years. Sadly the cash flow wants 5 years, so they have to stump some piece of crap out that will bring in the cash.
ME was just 95 with some stuff on it (like 98) because XP wasn't going to be ready early enough to help the cash flow. Vista was basically win7 with some stuff cut off of it so they could get it to market, since 7 was going to take a couple more years to be ready.
Windows 7 is about all I (or anyone) needs for the foreseeable future. In fact XP is enough for many. Windows 8 is just a knee-jerk "lets put a phone interface on a pc" reaction, seems hard to me to use, and doesn't bring any serious features that would help a lot of people, or even a large minority.
So yeah, I'll be lumping it in with ME and Vista. Pointless crap designed to part people with some cash. The one major difference is that I think 7 will have a lot more staying power than XP, and Microsoft is in the same bucket as RIM. Rode the same pony for too damn long.