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Acer: Microsoft Surface 'Negative For The Whole PC Industry'
Shortly after Microsoft announced its upcoming Surface tablet, there was speculation that it might sour the company's relationships with OEM partners. Statements from an Acer spokesperson indicate that's definitely the case. The spokesperson told Bloomberg, "On one hand Microsoft is our partner, but on the other, Microsoft’s move makes them compete not only with us but all PC makers. We think that Microsoft’s launch of its own-brand products is negative for the whole PC industry." The company is reportedly considering whether or not they want to keep relying on Microsoft's software products.
Most hardware vendors are Microsoft's bitch, and they have NO ONE to blame but themselves. They've been loving this relationship with them. I don't think PC manufactures can do anything.
If anyone is bad for the PC industry its Acer. Short of those $70 netbooks you find on Craigslist, Acer is the bottom of the barrel.
More variety, more competition.
Plus, actual users of desktop PC's will be more advanced users so we might get less dumbed down software too!
Is the year of the linux desktop!
Of course they don't want to rely on microsoft, that was a stupid position to get themselves into in the first place. NEVER rely on a single source for anything of any importance!
MS isn't going to hurt the industry as a whole, only the OEMs since it wont reduce sales, just shift them. There's not a lot the OEMs can do about it, they need MS and MS don't need them.
MS can treat the OEMs however they like and they will still keep lapping up whatever scraps they are fed because they have no choice now.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
I've been thinking it for a long time. Microsoft NEEDS to make their own hardware. They NEED the bubbled off environment that lets them make a good product. They NEED to stop trying to build for the lowest common denominator. Apple has been doing this for a long while now. Their products "Just work" because they are in a closed environment where testing can be done in a realistic matter. I hope to see them take this further and lock out desktops and Laptops to their own manufacturing.
Sure it sucks if you are a manufacturer, but there are other options out there for your gear. Android and Linux come to mind.
As if their gonad piercings aren't chained directly to MS? Please. Give me a break. What are they going to do, install Linux? License OSX from Apple? That'll last as long as the first grandma trying to open a forwarded power point file.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
So, we have:
- Dell (project Sputnik. Partners with Canonical to sell Linux PCs)
- Valve (Steam for Linux)
- Blizzard (only blasted Windows 8, not announced their contingency plan yet)
- Mozilla (Windows 8 revives the IE browser lockin)
and now Acer
how can you not take the "think twice" line as a threat of defection
Where are they going to go?
Option A) Yes, they could just pick a Linux distro and run with it. But now they're a software company, and they don't want that. Most of these things are publicly traded, and they don't have margin to do a year of no profits while they spin up of a new division without getting killed in the markets.
Or option B) they bitch a little and keep selling Windows.
Stop your crying and focus on your products.
I used to love Acer back in the 1990s as they had quality products. My CRT 19 inch screen lasted until a few years ago and the color quality and craftmenship was amazing. Today?
They are not the same company. I needed a 2nd source of income a few years ago and worked at an office store. Guess which machines had BSOD on display even! Acer. Guess which ones were always returned? Acer. Guess who has no tablet presence? ACER
Samsung and Asus kicked your ass while they were ants to you at one time. Sorry Acer you lost and it is time to stop blaming others like Microsoft and go fix yourself if you want to compete like Samsung did who had little to 0 presence in your market just a few years ago to one of the top sellers today.
http://saveie6.com/
Seems like sour grapes to me. Microsoft picked Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba, and Samsung to launch Windows RT tablets (they also picked HP, but HP declined, and decided to focus on x86 tablets instead). Acer is not on that list, so these words are no surprise. You don't hear any of those companies selected speaking out against the Surface.
Source: http://www.unwiredview.com/2012/07/24/asus-lenovo-toshiba-samsung-to-launch-windows-rt-tablets-this-year-others-await-microsofts-permission-in-january/
Dear Acer ( and everyone else ):
Please give me what I want at a price point I want it at, and I will buy your product. I have no loyalty to any specific vendor, indeed, why would anyone show brand loyalty?
If it works and it's cost effective, I'll buy it. Maybe you should try competing against MS on those grounds. Us consumers would appreciate that, i think.
Sincerely, me.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The other manufacturers aren't saying anything.
Either Acer has something up it's sleeve, or their mouth is faster than their brains.
MS successfully created the XBox, took them some time to get it right, but now, it's a healthy and serious competitor to the PS3.
Is Acers scared shittless? Yeah, I think so too.
You will get a ton of MS apologists on this story telling us how the PC makers have "failed" Microsoft and how MS had no choice but to blaze the trail. This is bullshit. When Windows Vista and 7 were both released we were assured by MS and their hangers on that it was finally touch friendly and anyone that argued that it was just the same old crap was shouted down in comment forums all over the internet. When sane people pointed out the fact that even if you could manage to put up with desktop Windows on a touch screen you still had to put up with the heat and bulk of the x86 chipsets available they also were shouted down. The funny thing was that despite the echoing chorus that Windows was tablet ready, Windows tablet after tablet bombed. Ballmer in a case of extraordinary egg on face even headlined CES with another HP tablet dud. Where is it now?
Then something strange happened. Another company took an idea that MS had failed to execute on for a decade and ran away with the market completely. And now we hear that MS is coming out with its own gear because somehow the OEMs have failed. No. Microsoft failed the OEMs. How were they supposed to compete with the iPad with fucking Windows 7 on a sawed-off netbook? Get fucking real. Of course this wouldn't even be an issue if the internet echo chamber weren't once again running to MS' defense and pointing the finger everywhere but at where it belongs. MS has failed their partners. Fortunately for Acer et al, Surface in both its incarnations is fundamentally flawed. It doesn't know if it's an ultrabook or a tablet. Windows 8 is some kind of weird FrankenOS that doesn't know what it wants to be and WinRT is as sure a dud against the iPad as any number of $79 tablets hanging in blister packs in Walgreens.
So fear not, dear Acer but have fun posturing. MS has failed you before and they are failing themselves now.
The elephant in the room here is, why is Acer still in business? They have never made a decent computer.
You'll finally have to do some good industrial design instead of just putting together the cheapest components you can find, and riding Window's coattails?
Or you'll finally have a competitor that doesn't pre-install every manner of junk imaginable on the device before giving it to consumers?
Tough cookies. Compete.
Time to bring back OS/2!
Microsoft products being preloaded onto generic hardware, in order to avoid the market forces for selection of that software, was the main negative thing. This is a correction of that negativity. The only weird thing about it, is that it was initiated by Microsoft rather than manufacturer customers.
If only the surface had been released 20-25 years ago, everything would be much better today.
Is it really a negative "for the whole PC industry" or just a negative for Acer and the other OEM partners?
And do what? Write their own OS and take on Microsoft head-to-head? Release only products with Linux on them? I love Linux, but let's be realistic. Acer obviously isn't happy about Microsoft's entry into the hardware side of tablets, but they have few other options, so they will whine about it and continue selling Microsoft products all the while.
Microsoft may not be exactly abandoning the desktop and the laptop, but it doesn't see them as the way forward.
Apple has wonderful control over its hardware, software and services. That also describes RIM.
Microsoft sees the future in mobile devices like tablets and smart phones. It wants to move there and it wants to be like Apple. I think it will end up being more like RIM. In fact it should just short circuit the process and buy RIM.
Google makes Android hardware, why isn't anyone complaining about that?
MS these days often reminds me of a crow. It looks at things (in this case Apple) and says "I want the shiny!" In this case the shiny is wads and wads of cash. They'll fuck it up though, they always do. Like a crow, Microsoft doesn't have the foggiest idea how to make its own shiny.
It didn't do it with the Zune and the later Windows phones, after first pissing away the opportunity to create a successful smartphone platform way back in the Windows Mobile days, when the iPhone was but a glint in SJ's eye.
They may think they're being awfully clever flipping off the OEMs they've been in business with for 20 years, but when Windows 8 and the tablets go up in flames they'll come crawling back.
Microsoft is forced into this as Acer and other hardware builders are failing to innovate. With Google and Apple both building hardware, what does Microsoft have to lose? Acer should instead beg for the contracts, Microsoft certainly does not have production capabilities. Acer has no hand, everyone knows it, including Microsoft.
The best open source office suite is a decade behind MS, the best linux distro is still a headache for nerds let alone normal people, tons of peripherals like printers act pants on head retarded or flat out crash the print server, and never mind you cant even force people from XP to a newer version of windows let alone something that's going to break all their shit.
so seriously
"The company is reportedly considering whether or not they want to keep relying on Microsoft's software products."
What are you going to replace it with, that wont drive away normal, average, everyday customers?
MS is making their own Windows8 driven tablets, huh?
If I were an OEM, I'd just passively ignore that for a time. Win8 might be passably usable on a tablet, but does anyone think MS can take any significant marketshare from the iPad? Besides that, tablets as consumer devices are bound to fail, present hype notwithstanding.
But when my OEM Windows distribution contract comes up for renewal, I'd demand that I can put whatever OS i want on any of my hardware, since MS decided to compete with me directly by making their own tablets (for what that's worth).
"Microsoft Surface 'Negative For The PC Industry OEMs That Suck'"
Cry harder, Acer.
The company is reportedly considering whether or not they want to keep relying on Microsoft's software products.
Yes, that will be great for business. Everyone will rush to buy Asus netbooks with . I love Linux as much as the next geek, but I don't see people buying a lot of Linux machines when other vendors are still selling Windows netbooks.
If I was Acer, I'd be very quietly talking to Valve right now. Valve's recent Linux investments look like one of the first serious efforts to completely streamline the Linux hardware experience. If they can finally be the ones to kick the video/sound compatibility and performance problems, even to an Apple style 'this hardware approved' level it would make them an interesting partner for a hardware vendor. If Acer spends the next twelve months on a very heavy and quiet investment into something like OpenOffice and cleaning up/standardizing the Linux UI of their choice while Valve tackles hardware compatibility and driver issues a year from now they would be in a great place to launch a cheap performance all-in-one. Productivity suite built in with Steam front and center for games. Call it a nice middle ground between a console and a traditional PC. Perhaps even get Blizzard on board. Linux WoW installed right out of the box.
When you don't own your stack, your 'partner' can quickly become your competitor. Google has a long way to go to get there, but maybe a decade from now partners in Android may find themselves in an awkward position too. It is always possible to take the platform and go home if Google goes against your interests, but the result is fragmentation.
Of course, the challenge would be for all the vendors to competently participate in an endeavor like Debian (i.e. a project that while coherent with neutral governance with a nearly zero chance of *ever* getting the ambition to compete commercially with current-day 'partners'), which seems unlikely.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Everybody knows that Microsoft makes Windows incompatible with their competitors products. "Windows isn't done till Lotus won't run." To continue to ship Windows is to pay them to do this as they gradually make your products worse and steal your customers. The OEMs are dumb, but they aren't THAT dumb.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Every so often microsoft gets a turn in the hot seat where people make uninformed, stupid and guess work like predictions about them and follow that up with plenty of sarcasm and disdain.
Sony was last time when people came out of the woodwork to bitch and whine for no reason at all, then it was briefly EA's turn and now microsoft has it.
Microsoft is making their own hardware. Pffff thats good because atleast then there will be some quality and standard because all pc makers have done is they just make complete and total garbage. All these pc manufacturers keep making shittier and shittier products to put in stores that are incredibly underpowered and single handedly killing the mainstream use of the pc and microsoft doesnt want the hassle of dealing with them.
There was a story on here a month or so ago praising MS for that very reason and everyone got behind it. But oh no now that we have a sinister sounding story suddenly everyone is against it.
You guys are fucking morons.
The "OEM kit is rubbish" comments have been extremely small in number until "miracle of miracles" Microsoft announces its in the kit business. Then all of a sudden there it is, "OEM kit was always rubbish" comments from all and sundry, especially those that ran around screaming loudly that Apple's kit was rubbish and you could get better/cheaper/more reliable kit from your common or garden OEM. If it wasn't so pathetic it'd be amusing.
Microsoft gave Acer the last three years to come up with a consumer tablet. And Acer didn't. Sure they made one or two, but those weren't anything ipad-competitive, and Acer didn't market them at all.
So after this many years of the iPad being basically the only marketed tablet, I can respect Microsoft's choice to step up. . .since no one else seems willing to do so.
And yes, in order to do so itself, microsoft needs to make the entire solution, and market the entire solution, and take all of the risk, and force the start screen, and everything else that may be required to compete with the iPad.
And if those tablets are relatively successful, Microsoft will turn it back to Acer-like partners. And if those tablets are very successful, Microsoft will rightfully keep things for itself. And if they fail entirely, then Acer will be right.
It's that simple.
So next time, Acer, try to actually innovate products yourself, instead of yelling at those who try. And stop complaining when someone steps forward to do something that you specifically avoided doing yourself.
Who on God's green Earth is making the Surface kit for Microsoft? Apparently not Acer, but who?
The following may come across as paranoid, but here goes. This is what I think Microsoft's plan is. I'm not guranteeing it'll succeed, but it's what they want.
* MS has not been able to beat linux in the server room. There's a lot of big bucks in corporate software.
* The problem is that PC's are open architecture, and MS can't stop corporations from running linux on a PC.
* They'd love to follow the Sony game console example and lock out other operating systems from Intel/AMD hardware, but they would run into anti-trust problems. The most they can do is ask OEM's to default to signed UEFI boot on motherboards, with a "legacy boot" option available in the machine setup.
* However, on the ARM platform "everybody does it", so MS has no anti-trust problems demanding that ARM Windows machines be signed UEFI boot only.
* So they bring out Windows 8, which will be deliberately horrible on desktops, but optimized for tablets.
* Tablet sales will take off, and "economies of scale" will kick in, pushing prices down. PC Desktop sales will crash and "economies of scale" will disappear. The price of an Intel/AMD "workstation" will shoot up to $4 K or thereabouts.
* Most people who need a desktop will find it cheaper to emulate a "desktop" by plugging in an external monitor/keyboard/mouse to an ARM tablet.
* Since the ARM Windows tablets will be locked down with signed UEFI boot only, they can't be re-purposed as linux machines.
* MS will probably also set up their machines so that apps can only be bought from an app store where they charge a fee for each app loaded. Good-bye OpenOffice for Windows, etc.
* Don't be surprised if MS follows Sony's example, and lobbies to get unlocked ARM PC's outlawed.
Somewhere, former US senator Fritz Hollings will be smiling.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Manufacturers selling Android devices already own the software stack, except for the usual "proprietary" drivers which third parties own no matter what platform. Google's initial advantage, should it start manufacturing Android devices in-house rather than simply co-branding with companies like Samsung and HTC, is the Google app store. OEMs that want to continue along the Android route should develop their own mini-app stores as a back-up plan should Google become Evil and deliberately introduce model-incompatible changes to the app store. Alternatively, they could partner with the likes of Amazon, which already has an app store. If the future is really in the Cloud, then owning the software stack that runs on a device isn't enough.
Than try selling linux systems. Seriously Apple has done this since day one. They are usually called beautifully designed, innovative etc etc. Not saying MS is likely to match Apple in design but as long as MS continues to make most of their money on selling software their is no worries of them having a product of their own. It just might be the next Zune.
Back in 200
Only 1769 years before Unix?
The company is reportedly considering whether or not they want to keep relying on Microsoft's software products.
What are they really going to do? Switch to Linux? That's a laugh. What a good way to invalidate your hardware business to obscurity in the long term.
If you want to beat Surface. Make a better tablet. Make it as thin or thinner, or make it cheaper, or target a different market (7in tablet for Windows 8)
Frankly, Surface is what WIndows 8 Tablet needs. It's a well designed thin and light desktop replacement tablet, and If it's under $1000 it'll fly off shelves.
As for Windows RT Surface. I'm pretty sure MS is making that cause not one OEM wants to touch RT with a 10 foot pole. A Crippled Windows 8 lookalike of Windows Phone 8 is just going to piss off consumers.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
To me, current portable devices are for consumption, not creation
That is so false...
I really like the iPad for writing notes in conferences. It's lighter, quicker, and less obtrusive than a laptop.
Drawing is hands-down better on a tablet than a laptop.
For long form writing I could easily use an iPad as long as I use a keyboard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No matter it's Acer or ASUS or Dell or HP, their "PC" and "Laptop" business hadn't had any significant upheaval since the 1980's.
The original IBM PC, and IBM's decision to (sort of) "open-source" the hardware design was the one thing that gave birth to all these companies (except for HP).
And ever since that happened, in the 1980's, these companies had been doing the-same-old-thing and for once, I'm glad that Microsoft decides to manufacture and market their own "Surface" - for no other reason than to shake up the entire "PC business".
We, the users, deserve much better devices.
For almost 40 years we are stuck with the same-old-thing (tablets and smartphones only enter the field not that long ago) and I hope that this shakeup will bring us more diversed devices, to make our lives more productive, more enjoying
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Coming from the OEM that makes the worst laptops I have ever experienced... care factor very low.
Well their tablet line runs Android and far outsells the W version (the Windows version). So you're focussing on Linux as the challenger, and ignoring that Android has ruled the mobile roost since 2010. Acer on the other hand are not, they can see it in their sales numbers.
So Acer will most likely focus on Android tablets, if they're unhappy with Microsoft making their own Windows Surface Tablets.
On the PC side, Microsoft needs Acer more than Acer needs Microsoft. Acer is at the low end netbook market, and that too can be switched to Android at the flip of a switch.
Have you ever seen Android run windows and a mouse cursor? Because that's what it does when you plug a mouse into it. Plug a mouse into an android phone or tablet and it becomes a remarkably normal PC, one that can run the million Android apps, has tough, Google apps, maps the lot.
Dude, Acer DID make Windows tablet, THEY JUST DIDN'T SELL WELL. The problem is Windows is terrible on tablets. Acer had far bigger sales from the Android version of those tablets, the A500, the A200 etc. because they supported touch, had longer batter life and access to the million Android apps. They even threw in the keyboard dock in my local store, but nobody wanted it.
http://news.cnet.com/acer-iconia-w500-windows-tablet-hands-on/8301-17938_105-20060165-1.html
Microsoft are making their own tablet, because they blame their OEMs for their failure, but in reality Microsoft is to blame for the failure of Windows on tablets, and phones. They OS runs like the hog it is.
Acer is telling it like it is, Microsoft are backstabbing their OEMs, but OEMs are not idiots, they know their Android devices are outselling their Windows ones and they're 'reevaluating' their priorities. Meaning they're not touching the RT version at all, and only a minimal spend on the x86 version.
Acer is being really polite here, telling it in a 'nice' way. Many of those PC companies are crashing with Ballmer here and are probably much more blunt internally, at dealing with that idiot.
Maybe they should have put more effort into designing quality products in the first place, instead of all racing to the bottom these past 10 years. I imagine Microsoft would much prefer having a solid OEM market that can compete with Apple on more than just pricing. Instead, they have an OEM market with crappy to mediocre hardware funded by bloatware and antivirus trials.
1) My first and only laptop is a Acer Travelmate 6000. It won't run Windows anymore due to some hardware failure, but Ubuntu works great.
2) I don't care if Microsoft Surface Pro is bad for the pc industry. Its good for me and i will buy one!
Hivemind harvest in progress..
You prefer a Microsoft hardware monopoly to what we have today?
Sure, ASUS, Acer, Dell and HP keep doing the same thing, no "innovation" of the sort ad agency designer types like. But they pressure prices downward and specs up. The things you can buy for $200 today is incredible - don't take it for granted. I assure you, if a proprietary hardware platform (like the Mac, or the Amiga for that matter) had become dominant, you would get a lot less.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
No, what he prefers is that many OEMs move over to Linux, leaving Windows in the dust.
Think about it - today the only thing still keeping Microsoft in business is largely inertia, and the fact Windows comes preinstalled on virtually every PC sold. When Microsoft themselves enter the race with their own hardware, many OEMs (and maybe even Enterprise customers) will think "Whoa, wait wait wait... Linux can do all these things and more and total cost will be a lot less!" - Then they will jump ship and start offering Linux computers by default with an optional Windows upgrade for say, another $60-$100.
Fast-forward to four-five years later, and the Windows monopoly will be broken. Entering the race as an OEM is probably the worst decision Microsoft ever made in decades, and today it's not the agile beast it was when it decided that "web thingie" in the nineties wasn't going anywhere.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
You prefer a Microsoft hardware monopoly to what we have today?
And there I thought he was saying an MS-brand tablet would make the OEMs up their game.
No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
You need to take your medications today. Also, put on some reading-comprehension glasses.
No, what he prefers is that many OEMs move over to Linux, leaving Windows in the dust.
That presents one important challenge: How to get quality software to Linux. There is tons of it now, but not for the consumer. GiMP is not Photoshop. Really, it isn't. There is no real possibility of editing video. Open/Libre Office is not, for the average consumer, an alternative to MS Office. The overall experience is not particularly high quality (I use Linux every day, it isn't).
Linus has it right. With pre-installs, Microsoft took the PC market, and their market position hasn't changed markedly lately. The question is just what happens to the tablet market. I do know one thing for sure, with the amount of software for Win/x86 out there, the Surface Pro (if of reasonable quality) will be an instant hit. Given that it is about $499 cheaper than an iPad, it could also become a consumer hit. The Surface RT is a little more unsure, but again, there is a huge number of .NET developers out there who are more or less instantly trained on the RT as well (contrary to popular notion, .NET is still fully there for the RT as well, it just looks slightly different).
Spot on. PC manufacturers have been giving us the same devices for almost 30 years. Sure the guts are faster, but it's still a big steel box under the desk, or an unwieldy laptop with a woefully short battery life. They're not prepared to collapse their hardware into this tablet form factor, and it's going to hurt for a while. Bottom line, though, is they can sit around and bitch about it, or get to work and design superior hardware. That IS their area of focus, after all. This is a paradigm shift, not unlike the digital media shift that has thrown the movie and music industries into a panic. So they can embrace it and recapture the market by building something that consumers will want even more than Microsoft's offering, or they can sit and dither while their companies cling to a dead business model.
Acer specializes in making the cheapest crap you can buy without getting eMachines. If there's a company which can almost be blamed for pushing Microsoft to this point, it's actually Acer.
Asus makes pretty good stuff, but go to their website to download drivers. They don't really stay up to date on that do they? Sure, they show a product love for a few weeks after you buy it, but it's just too much work to have a script file which says "All laptops using NVidia chips should get the new NVidia driver when we add it to the server".
Dell, they will continue selling servers and infrastructure to companies. For users who don't get tablets or laptops, they'll sell those too. For users who will now get a Microsoft Surface, they'd have gotten a iPad or a cheap assed laptop otherwise.
HP is kinda like Dell except they don't depend as heavily on PC (unless you're a shareholder whinging about how PC sales are down, when the real sales on are the big stuff).
I can go on and on, but let's be honest, this isn't going to bother the vendors selling :
a) Budget crap "Timmy needs a computer honey... this one on the shelf looks pretty, and it's cheap too. Let's get it"
b) Corporate budget crap "We have to get PCs for 50 telephone sales people, does XX have anything?" (dell's market)
c) Server sales.
Asus will be the worst hit by this I think. But they'll differentiate by offering 900 models of Windows 8 machines each year to choose from, including ones with quad hex-core i7s and GTX900 in threeway SLI that can cook an egg from across the room.
Surface product is not going to be the fastest. It won't be the sexiest. It won't be the most amazing. But it will be the one which Microsoft ships one or two models of each year and for people like myself who are sick of buying cool gadgets and not being able to find cases or accessories for them, this will be perfect.
Acer should quit bitching and learn from this. Make less shit machines and start focusing on how they can make a smaller number of machines which people don't feel screwed for buying afterwards.
don't lump them all in together. some of the hardware manufactuers have foresight. Asus in particular has impressed me.
Asus tablets are very high quality pieces of hardware, priced -very- competitively. Google themselve selected Asus as their hardware partner for their first nexus tablet.
and what have they done to differentiate themselves from the competition? how about the only tablet that can be attached to a matching clamshell keyboard (that contains a second battery no less) to turn it into an android netbook with 15-20 hours of battery life when you want that.
You mean, other than the race to the bottom and having almost no margins, and the OS now costing more than the cheapest machines when it's not bundled? And the death of the home desktop for the masses, closely followed by laptops, thanks to the massive upheaval caused by good-enough smartphones and tablets/pads? All because it turned out, other than gaming and a few niche areas, people only used machines to browse the web, email, a one page document every now and then, and pirate contents, which now has tons of streaming options.
You're right, the PC world is hardly any different to the $3k junk we had in the 80s.
I find the Linux experience, as a whole, to be fully adequate for the most part.
Libre/OpenOffice is a fullgood substitution. I've even heard some people prefer it over newer additions of MS Office. GIMP needs more user friendlyness for sure, but is serviceable enough. For most small tasks though like red-eye removal the built in tool in the photo handler takes care of that. And the overall out-of-the-box experience, atleast in Ubuntu 12.04, *is* in many ways superior to Windows. As always, YMMV.
If the surface becomes a hit, then it *will* (probably) drive the adoption of Linux preinstalls. If it doesn't, then Microsoft has lost some (more?) faith with their OEM partners. It's a lose/lose, the question is will it be worth it?
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
How to get quality software to Linux. There is tons of it now, but not for the consumer.
Not for the enterprise consumer, but for anything anyone needs a computer at home for, Linux has more than enough software for anyone's needs.
GiMP is not Photoshop
True, but photoshop isn't for the home market, the damned program costs as much or more than the computer it's running on. Most non-professionals using photoshop are using a pirate version. There's no need to spend $700 to edit the photos you shot with your cell phone.
There is no real possibility of editing video.
Google says you're wrong.
Open/Libre Office is not, for the average consumer, an alternative to MS Office.
What does the average user need an office suite for? Writing grandma, cropping photos, balancing the checkbook. Oo is perfectly capabe of doing anything the average non-enterprise user needs. Why would a home user spend a couple hundred dollars on a program they would seldom use?
The overall experience is not particularly high quality (I use Linux every day, it isn't).
Then you're running the wrong distro; I see that here often. One fellow was saying last week that he couldn't play MP3s on his Linux machine, well DUH, he was running Red Hat. You don't use a server OS for a desktop client, you use the right tool for the job. There is no "Linux", there are a LOT of Linuxes. I'm running kubuntu, and it's not as pretty as Windows 7 (I have that on a notebook) but otherwise it's superior in every way to Windows.
If Linux lacks quality, why do you use it every day? I call bullshit, friend. If Linux wasn't better than Windows, nobody would use Linux because the computer already has an OS when they buy it.
Free Martian Whores!
Because obviously smart coffee tables will be the next booming market for PC makers.
...Linux experience ... fully adequate for the most part.
and therein lies the problem. There is no real video editor on Linux. Not for beginners nor for advanced stuff. There is nothing like Lightroom or Aperture on Linux. I respectfully disagree that Libre/Open Office is sufficient, for most users (not you or I) it is a step backwards.
That the Windows OEMs have not been able (for the most part) to build quality hardware is the reason Microsoft has no choice but doing this. OEMs should stop whining, hire a couple of designers and start building quality hardware. Hell, they don't even need good designers. Lenovo does great laptops with no design whatsoever.
anything anyone needs a computer at home for, Linux has more than enough software for anyone's needs
This simply isn't true. There is no consumer-level video editing suite, there is no consumer level photo editing suite, Picasa runs under Wine, but now we're starting to expect too much from the end user who doesn't even know that he can search his documents by pressing Ctrl+F. GiMP is OK, but for the enthusiast photo market there is nothing at all. Enthusiasts use Lightroom on Windows and Aperture on Mac, they also use Photoshop. Nothing of that ilk exists on Linux. I have a couple of photo-montage software packages for Windows, I have a couple of HDR packages. Nothing for Linux. People play games, but not really on Linux.
Truth is, to get something close to a usable Linux box with consumer software you'll struggle. You'll run into problems calibrating your monitor. You'll probably struggle with that great nVidia graphics card the guy in the store told you would make things fast and smooth. You'll have problems printing photos on photo paper on that excellent ink-jet that just came out, etc.
Anyone who thinks Linux today is polished and easy enough for the average consumer is delusional. It simply isn't. Not even close. The average user doesn't know the difference between a program running and the data it is manipulating. They do not understand the difference between a web page and a Office document. Expecting them to know how to run a Linux box is absurd.
Google says you're wrong.
No, it doesn't. I didn't say there wasn't video editing software, I said there was no "real possibility of editing video". There is a difference. Video editing is hard. Linux is not a platform that has a working user-friendly (to the degree that that is possible) solution.
If Linux lacks quality, why do you use it every day?
Because I use the kind of software that has high quality on Linux. I deliver software that is to run on Linux (JBoss). Eclipse on Linux (Ubuntu) is quite a platform for developing software. I can do both Java and Ruby stuff in the same IDE, it is awesome (even more awesome on Windows, where there are fewer GUI problems). Since I deploy on Linux, building and testing on Linux is and advantage. That is why I run Linux every day. At work. Windows mostly at home, but running Ubuntu in a VM if I want to do some work-related stuff for Linux.
For none of this I need photo management software, that I have at home. On Windows. On a PC with a calibrated monitor and a calibrated printer.
BTW, I also write C# software on Windows, and Visual Studio 2010 blows Eclipse out of the water. Big time. It is probably the most productive IDE there is, if you develop for Windows.
Big If ...
Imagine you're a corporate boss with all of your hundreds or thousands of employees in their cubicles all being, ahem, productive.
Why the [expletive deleted] would you want to buy them new tablet PCs?
You were pissed off when Microsoft EOL'd Windows NT 4.x and made you test everything again for XP.
You have paid big bucks to set up all of the ergonomic crap for the drones, so they can just sit in front of their CRTs until the accountants twist your arm into upgrading to flat panels.
This crap won't fly in 90% of Microsoft's markets.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Seriously, keep toys of of the workplace.
If executives want some toys, well their offices aren't places for work anyway. Let them buy Apples.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Until Linux boxes become as dumbed down as Macs, techies who love to play with all the wiz-bang settings through CLIs will never allow that to happen.
Windows boxes are safe, MCIEs will never be able to get Linux boxes working. (They'll keep on sucking at the poisoned tits, lurching from one badly bitten, scabrous and gangrenous nipple to another. :-)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I tried to use Linux at one point, and ran into this limitation... the only mature production software available for Linux right now is Blender, and that's only one part of the pipeline. There is high-end production software available for Linux, but for the most part it's proprietary and/or expensive. (By expensive I mean $5k+.) Very few small production and visual effects shops even consider Linux as a result. Even if they could afford the software, they generally can't afford the staff. A lot of Linux pundits cite the cost savings of Linux while also pointing out that you can customize it as much as you want, and in the process ignore the fact that you need to have staff to customize and support it. As a result, most production and visual effects shops run Windows and/or OSX. Many do in fact run both, of course. Some of the same OEMs that build a lot of hardware for Windows machines also build hardware for OSX. The problem isn't that the OEMs can't build quality hardware, the problem is that most of their market doesn't want to pay for it. Hence the level of quality varies widely throughout the market. At the low end you have cheap throwaway crap, and at the high end you have the AlienWares with the Porche designs as well as the MacBook Pros. Apple just stays out of the throwaway market. Microsoft is realizing that there are some advantages to being fully vertically integrated, and they've probably been trying to hide their envy about Apple's ability to act like a monopoly as a result of it, even though Apple doesn't actually have a monopoly based on market definition.
"True, but photoshop isn't for the home market, the damned program costs as much or more than the computer it's running on. Most non-professionals using photoshop are using a pirate version. There's no need to spend $700 to edit the photos you shot with your cell phone." It's far more likely that most non-professionals are using either the included software that came with their PC whether it's mac or windows based, or using Photoshop elements than that they're taking the extra trouble to pirate Photoshop. "There is no real possibility of editing video. Google says you're wrong." That is a classic techie answer, based entirely on specs... you might want to try USING software before making inane claims about it. There are actually good reasons that most people doing video production use some combination of Premiere, AfterFX, Final Cut Pro, Media Composer, and Motion (which seems to be fading in favor of AfterFX). Features is part of it, but there is quite a bit more involved than just a list of features.
Or is it that you make a living working with the OS from Redmond?
No matter it's Acer or ASUS or Dell or HP, their "PC" and "Laptop" business hadn't had any significant upheaval since the 1980's.
The original IBM PC, and IBM's decision to (sort of) "open-source" the hardware design was the one thing that gave birth to all these companies (except for HP).
And ever since that happened, in the 1980's, these companies had been doing the-same-old-thing and for once, I'm glad that Microsoft decides to manufacture and market their own "Surface" - for no other reason than to shake up the entire "PC business".
We, the users, deserve much better devices.
For almost 40 years we are stuck with the same-old-thing (tablets and smartphones only enter the field not that long ago) and I hope that this shakeup will bring us more diversed devices, to make our lives more productive, more enjoying
The reason ms wants to manufacture their own, is based on profit margin. They will not be making a better product, but each piece of hardware will have to be MS certified. Want to add a third party hard disk. Is it certified? Want to sell your software for the new system? MS commission is same as APPLEs.
And of course the certified hardware will cost more, to have the certificate, or it will not be usable on the MS system.
There is more profit in hardware than in Software, as Open Source competes. So, lock in the hardware and Software, and you can keep going for another generation.
@wertigon: I like how you emphasise "will" then put "probably" in parenthesis after it....
You can read right?
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Most of your complaints seem to be about usability
Then I would have to suggest you take more classes in basic reading. Reading 101 should be a good place to start.
Or is it that you make a living working with the OS from Redmond?
Which part of "Since I deploy on Linux, building and testing on Linux is and advantage" did you not understand? I am responsible for a piece of software running on JBoss (Java, Red Hat) with a web client, a Windows client (that is where the .NET part comes in, see above) and Office integration. The majority of the code is Java on Linux.
It is amusing when cool-aid drinking religious nuts always think that someone who disagrees with their religious views must have no experience with said religion. Reality my friend is that most adults do not have a religious relationship with the OS they are running. Sadly, far too many Linux advocates do. You're a member of a cult my friend. You can be cured. See a shrink about it.
A five second Google search proves you wrong.
And what do you have on Windows then? Movie Maker? The program that has repeatedly eaten my friends video projects, and whenever I mention it they react the same way as if I'd mentioned a powerful vampire like count Dracula?
Blender is a great video editor for advanced stuff, and has been used to successfully create atleast three short movies with a very professional look, which isn't bad at all. And you can use it for special effects too! And there is also Cinelerra. For easy-to-use, there's Kino and there is Avidemux.
Now, if we're talking Creative Suite-level, where you get an entire pipeline, then you do have a point. There is nothing like it on Linux - but then again there is no competition on Windows either. So...
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
And what do you have on Windows then? Movie Maker?
That was a joke right? If it wasn't you have just proven you are an idiot.
Blender is a great video editor for advanced stuff
Not really, no. Blender is an excellent tool, but it can't be said to be an appropriate NLE for Linux. It's the closest you're going to get though. The problem with Blender is that it is far too complicated for a casual user (someone using iMovie, Premiere Express, Sony Movie Studio etc). For a pro it would work quite well except for the fact that a pro will use Maya. It's the "standard" (or 3DS Max) and for team work it is "required". I like the way Blender is going, but I am not sure it will make a dent in Maya or 3DS Max sales. For consumers - fuggedahboudit.
There is a wide variety of video stuff on Windows. From Sony Movie Studio (or whatever they are calling it now) and Adobe Premiere Express for the consumer end, to Sony Vegas Pro and Premiere Pro on the prosumer and video end (film pro's use Avid almost exclusively no matter what Apple says). The closest you get to any of this is Cinellara, and it is not suited for any of these markets. For the consumer or enthusiast (say am iMovie or Sony Movie Studio user) Cinellara is cumbersome and difficult, for a Sony Vegas Pro user it is cumbersome and difficult and lacks features needed. For a Permiere Pro user it is a toy that is not usable.
So what do you call Kino then? Dogshit?
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
What I call Kino? Compared to what? Compared to, for example, Sony Movie Studio? Not dog shit, it would be offensive. "Not even in the same league, game or universe" perhaps? Lets see. AVI editing only. Standard def only. Editing video from a camcorder or camera purchased after 2000? Nope, not really.
Kino is not a contender at all in any market. It doesn't do consumer since it does DV-AVI only (most camcorders and cameras after 2000 are either HDV on tape or some sort of H.264 on memory cards), it has none of what consumers wants (terrible effects, fades etc) and it is not in the same ballpark when it comes to usability. Kino doesn't work at all for the prosumer or enthusiast of course. For the pro. Perhaps some time in the 1980s it would have been interesting with its current feature set...
If Kino was commersial software I would call it a joke, as an enthusiasts development project it is cool, it borders, however, on "useless" for any market.
Ah, now I get it, you were trying to make a funny joke. Sorry.
Considering the amount of absolute bullshit that guy is spewing, like "no video editos" when replying to my comment that had a link to Google showing PLENTY of them, he just repeats the same damned lies.
I use both Windows and Linux (XP, 7, and kubuntu), and kubuntu is far superior to Windows in useability. What takes one or two clicks in kubuntu takes five or ten in Windows.
I think he's trolling, so I didn't respond to him. It's been well over five years since Linux passed Windows in useability, stability, driver availability, and software availability.
The guy probably has a business cleaning viruses and trojans off of Windows computers. If everyone switched to Linux he'd be out of a job.
Free Martian Whores!
I am responsible for a piece of software running on JBoss (Java, Red Hat)
Well, there's your problem right there. Red Hat is NOT a good desktop distro. If you're running a server, Red Hat is excellent. If you want to do photo editing, sound editing, video editing, Red Hat is tha last distro you should be using. You can't say "Linux won't..." when Red Hat is what you're familiar with. Try Mandriva or Ubuntu. But not on your sever, of course! The right tool for the job.
Free Martian Whores!
better and prettier. I find it shocking that "the box" is all you can get. Oh yeah, you can get a box attached to the bottom of your screen, a mini box, a maxi box, a shiny box, a black box, but what happened to creativity, to DESIGN, and i don't mean the layout of pieces inside the box, i mean the actual shape , texture, color and feel of the container. there is so much that could be done, but it seems no one is trying, blothering or caring about it. They just want some shiny Apple crap and call that design???
wanders off mumbling...
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
It is entirely possible that you are talking to someone who is using an older distro, not upgraded, because they "hate/ cannot use" one of the newer DEs. So they have stayed with gnome 2 or K3 or reverted to X or LX when we both know that the choices are innumerable. I also realize that as Linux user base increases slowly we will begin to see the users from the Windows base come online without the learning that we went through: by distro-hopping, hacking, failing, messing things up, digging our way out, etc. They expect to just download, install and everything is done. True enought for starters, but 2 years later, if you have just stayed in that one place, things look old and clunky.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
To me both Kino and KDENLive seems like perfect for casual users. But hey, that's my opinion. You've honestly not even used them the last four or five years have you?
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
To me both Kino and KDENLive seems like perfect for casual users
Really? Most "casual users" today have cameras and camcorders that record in 1080 or 720 AVC, which Kino can not edit. How do you expect most "casual users" to use Kino? Transcode the 1080 or 720 AVC to standard def DV-AVI? Why on earth would they want to drop all that resolution?
Kdenlive is another matter. It has a good set of features and it can use a decent variety of video formats. This is great. I could see my self using Kdenlive in a pinch if I needed to edit video on Linux. It has an identity problem though. For the casual user, the iMovie guy, Kdenlive is simply too difficult to start out with. It isn't particularly user friendly, and the casual user is going to get lost and give up, returning to iMove, Sony or any of that ilk. This means, as it is now, Kdenlive would find an audience in the Premiere Pro, Vegas Pro crowd. There it can't compete. Not even in the same sport.
The main developer for Kdenlive seems to be good, and he's had some opportunity to work exclusively on Kdenlive. I will be paying attention since having a good video editor on Linux would ease my day. It can't replace my Premiere Pro at the moment though. That'll take a lot of work.
Well, there's your problem right there. Red Hat is NOT a good desktop distro
I know it isn't, and I should have been more elaborate in my response. The software is running on JBoss, my dev environment is Ubuntu.
Try Mandriva or Ubuntu
Neither of which can edit video or photo without an application, which currently doesn't exist.
Another problem crops up, and that's upgrading to a new version for an older machine. You usually don't have that problem with Windows, because you have to pay for the new version of Windows, while Linux (at least my distro) notifies that a newer version of the OS is available. One click and one reboot and it's done. I'm going to have to downgrade the OS on my old Linux box, because the upgrade to 12.1 broke Flash on it (the newer Flash is probably more to blame than Linux, the latest Flash bug fix on my Win 7 machine made Flash crash at least five times a day when I'm listening to KSHE over the internet on it).
Free Martian Whores!
It's funny that I have seldom noticed (and I say that on purpose, because I worked with the earlier iterations of linux that were hard to deal with and just built in practice that kind of doesn't notice crashes as much as someone used to things "just working." I am not someone who cares too much for the idea of having linux rule the desktop, or what ever. I don't advocate linux for most users, even though my wife, daughters, son and some other family members use it in preference to other things. It still takes a little work, it just takes less work to run our home network that it used to in Windows.
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.