Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Releases Windows 8
Orome1 writes "Microsoft today announced the global availability of Windows 8. Beginning Friday, Oct. 26, consumers and businesses worldwide will be able to experience all that Windows 8 has to offer, including a new user interface and a wide range of applications with the grand opening of the Windows Store. Launching at the same time is a new member of the Windows family — Windows RT — designed for ARM-based tablets and available pre-installed on new devices. In addition to Microsoft Office 2013, Windows RT is designed exclusively for apps in the new Windows Store. In addition to the range of new Windows-based devices available, consumers can also upgrade their existing PCs. Through the end of January, consumers currently running PCs with Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 are qualified to download an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for an estimated retail price of US$39.99." Also at Slash Cloud, where Nick Kolakowski writes: "If the operating system and its associated hardware capture the attention (and dollars) of mobile-device users, Microsoft will have successfully expanded the Windows brand to a new and rapidly growing market segment. But if it fails, and Apple and Google continue to rule the mobility space, then Microsoft is left with few alternatives."
Isn't being 'stuck in your ways' the point of continuing to use Windows? I know a good number of people who got unstuck in their ways and moved to OSX about the time Vista came out. Microsoft stands to lose as much as they gain from that thinking. Maybe a new Mac to compliment that iPad you have, rather then a new Surface to compliment the Win8 PC you bought.
It's not that 'Metro' can't be figured out, it's that Metro is a backward step in usability on the desktop. Here is an example I posted on another site...
"You are surfing the web and click to read a PDF file. It opens the 'metro' default PDF viewer which takes up the entire screen (no viewing the webpage and pdf unless you have multi-monitors). When you are done reading the pdf, what do you do now? There is no X. You can use the hot spot in the upper left to go back to the desktop, but the pdf doesn't close. Or you can ALT+F4 which closes the PDF viewer, but now you are at the metro interface not your original webpage so you have to take an extra step of going back to the desktop."
How the defaults work out of the box are very different from what people are used to. Yea, you can install foxit/adobe and default that, but that first impression of suck is going to stick.