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Microsoft's "New Coke" Moment?
theodp writes "Remember New Coke? Twenty-eight years ago, Coca-Cola replaced the secret formula of its flagship brand, only to announce the return of the "classic" formula just 79 days later. Had it launched in 2013, Coke's Jay Moye suspects a social media backlash would have prompted it to reverse itself even sooner. In a timely follow-up, ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols points out that Microsoft is facing its own New Coke moment with Windows 8. 'Does Ballmer have the guts to admit he made a mistake and give users what they clearly want?' Vaughan-Nichols asks. 'While it's too late for Windows 8, Blue might give us back our Start button and an Aero-like interface. We don't know.'"
More like Old Joke. (This has happened before, you know.)
Seems like Microsoft already had their 'New Coke' moment with Vista.
Two failures in three OS launches is going to be a lot more difficult for the shareholders to get over.
Remember Microsoft Bob?
Apparently, neither did anyone at Microsoft.
Rarely ever will a CEO admit a mistake. It's the user's fault for not loving it.
I'll debate that while New Coke didn't work out, the aftermath resulted in Coke classic dominating the cola wars with a solid lead for decades now.
If it wasn't for new Coke, Pepsi would have overtaken Coke in the mid 80's and never looked back.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Windows 8 doesn't suck because of the lack of a start button.
It doesn't suck because of a lack of an Aero like interface
The Metro interface doesn't suck
Windows 8 sucks because it flips between the classic and the metro interface seemingly at random. Yes, we computer folks know that it depends on whether the program has been written as a metro program or a classic one, but from the start screen there is no way to tell what interface you'll end up in when you click on a program. And I'm pretty sure that consistency is one of the central tenets of good UI design.
Here's your cheque.
I switched to OSX about a year ago, and while it has its shiny moments, it also has lots of blunders and I wouldn't really say that it's a better desktop than Windows 7. Besides, calling "standard desktop OS" something that has ~10% market share is ... funny.
To say this is a "New Coke" moment is to fail to identify Microsoft's slow but irreversible decline. It's just another punctuation on the way down.
The problem with the "LOW MARKET SHARE!!1!!" comments is that you're talking about a company having a 10% of a market worth billions of dollars. I will take 10% of a billion dollars any day of the week.
Apple *is* getting converts in key sectors and if Microsoft continues to blunder and do whatever the fuck they want they will get more. Microsoft won't go anywhere - there are too many Microsoft zombies in upper management - but to roll out the "low market share" argument is absurd here when Apple has more cash on hand than the federal government.
The whole point of the Metro interface is to be inconsistent with the old UI.
How else can you charge developers for writing an application they could have just as easily have written using the old interface for free?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
What these critics all miss is that Microsoft is now betting on the tablet market, and doesn't give a damn what its PC users think.
I loved the flavor of new Coke. The Edsel was an innovative automobile. I still have Vista installed on my PC. I plan to upgrade to the Windows 8 experience. I am insane.
Depends on what the companies who pay a lot of money for licensing are saying. MS dont give a real shit about the consumer but the Enterprise - who by far are the ones MS depends on - are saying no, they dont want W8 or Metro.
Ya think MS are going to stand there and stick to their guns when Enterprise says fuck it and refuses to upgrade?
They don't need to backtrack very much. Add a button during initial user setup that lets you enable boot to desktop if you want it. When that's on, boot to desktop and show a start button. At a bare minimum that button could just bring up the Metro Start Screen, which as long as it had a clear way to close it (like an X at the top right when on a PC) would mollify a lot of the complaining.
Bringing back the full start menu would solve more of it, but I'm not convinced that's entirely necessary. In my experience most users actually start programs by clicking icons on the desktop and don't use the start menu much at all anyway. What they really need is just a more familiar way to do what they need to do.
For the more serious people that really want a full start menu back, there's stuff like Start8.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Apple *is* getting converts in key sectors
No its not...and it won't Apple will never be a serious contender for the Desktop, it simply costs too much. Sales dropped 22% last quarter...and shrunk a more manageable 2% this, but any pretence of world domination, or mass exodus to Apple simply aren't happening.
The reality is Apple could buy Dell (about 22 times), or they could License their OS, but if anything they have got used to relying on Microsoft being so awful..they get to roll around on wads of cash...and even though the salesman is dead, Cooky seems indent on second guessing what a dead man will do.
I love the idea of Apple going for Microsofts throat, but they Love the incredibly profitable Duopoly. It looks like companies are putting bets on Android...and Linux is sneaking market share.
OS X may be "much better than both Windows and Linux desktops" but it will never be the "standard desktop OS". Apple's business model presents itself as the premium option, not the standard one, and Apple would just as soon see OS X die in favor of iOS.
A desktop line consisting of gimmicky miniature, an all-in-one, and and overpriced, functionally obsolete deskside doesn't make for standard even if it makes for the standard for you.
I'm a full time Linux user and admittedly a basher of windows, but I am generally quite impressed with windows 8. The tiled environment, though different, is something I could get used to. The problem is they've missed the point of it; when you still have to go to a traditional desktop to do pretty much anything, why bother?
You can't be serious. Windows 8 makes it damn near impossible to run a multi-windowed environment - which is what the OS was named for. It is pretty clear that Microsoft panicked with the tablet boom and forced a tablet onto a desktop. Yes, tablets are probably going to be used for a single app at a time, but I still need a desktop that let's me access multiple windows at once since I normally run about 13 applications at once.
Windows 8 sucks at every single level. Even the Metro interface, while the design is interesting and unique, ultimately isn't all that use friendly. Very few applications have actually done something useful with live tiles, and the whole pastel colour thing goes to hell when other apps choose to make multi colour logos instead of the style Microsoft uses. Install a few apps and the whole metro screen looks dreadful and unwieldy and unusable. It's like Android widgets, clever idea but I haven't seen anything beyond weather widgets that you would really want on your home screen. And it's now so quick and simple to get to much used apps or Google Now, and sharing is so easy in Android, widgets seem pretty superfluous except as shortcuts to apps.
That is on top of the other issues. The one reason I haven't switched to Macs until now is that the easy familiarity and efficiency with using Windows will take some time to learn on a Mac. Windows 8 kills that argument, a few minutes with it and I realize if I am learning something new I might as well move to Mac. And maybe if Windows 8 followed Vista we would be more open to it. The problem is Windows 7 is so amazingly good at staying out of the way and letting you get things done, it makes Win 8 even more jarring.
Windows 8 is also being pushed out on the same cheap laptops with low res screens and awful touchpads, where a gesture based interface is no fun to use. I got one for my mother, and I regret not just getting a chromebook. As soon as Google get proper offline editing of MSOffice files, chrome will become a better option for so many people.
They are actually only charging developers for being on the Windows store. There's a metro version of Chrome for instance. You can actually flip-flop back and forth between the two interfaces depending on what you are doing. Which can be kind of nice. It's kind of interesting that it took tablets for us to realize that full screen, and I mean every pixel, not full screen, minus task bar, minus title bar, minus menu bar, minus a tool bar can actually be quite nice to use in many situations.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I've been in the business since DOS4 and Windows 3.0 were the currently shipping versions. Windows 8 is the only version I have seen where people around you will spontaneously chime in and tell you how much they hate it. Even WinME wasn't like that.
I hope not. I hope they stick to their guns. Look, I am not the biggest MS fan, but Windows 8 is probably the most innovative and certainly the boldest thing MS has done in years. Maybe, ever.
the start button is an afterthought, it was something to get rid of how we used Windows 3.11 (which was permanantly opened folders). It was neat, it worked, but that is the past. The part people don't seem to grasp is that window with all those boxy icons IS the start menu. it is just visulazed now.
they will cave, because that is what MS does, but they shouldn't. Windows 8 is fantatic, and MS should grab their users and drag them out of 1995.
Have you tried using w8/2012 over a low bandwidth link? The suckiness is terrible to behold. Visual prettiness may belong on a tablet where big icons are needed to accommodate big fat sausage fingers, but how useful is a touch screen going to be on a server where you need to create a new account or something useful?
The way I get around w8/2012 is much like w7 - hit the windows key and start typing what I want. w8 is _so_ much slower to give me the answer so i'm less productive.
Ask any computer professional or any focus group of moderately intelligent users and you'll get the same thing. Bring back the start menu, leave the new features that are actually beneficial, dump UEFI, and ditch Tile Land. That's it. After that, it's all set to go. I'd even concede the BIOS-embedded license key because I'm sick of other repair shops than mine playing games with Windows 7 licenses to save money. 1 license = 1 motherboard and enforce that for everyone and I can accept that.
I switched to OSX about a year ago, and while it has its shiny moments, it also has lots of blunders and I wouldn't really say that it's a better desktop than Windows 7. Besides, calling "standard desktop OS" something that has ~10% market share is ... funny.
I don't think he meant it like that, i.e. in terms of market share. You are too stuck in the MS fanboy idea of Windows, Excel, Word etc. and their market share making them 'Industry Standards'. He probably meant more like that OS X is becoming more of a benchmark/reference point to measure your own Desktop OSes usability against than Windows is, i.e. that people are more likely to steal ideas from OS X than Windows 8. Of course you may disagree on whether OS X is the best UI ever made. Having used both I'd say it's better than Windows if only because OS X has a lower UI friction factor, although Windows 7 made major strides in that department so it's less of a factor than it was in the time of XP and Vista. I don't think anybody will be using Windows 8 as a usability reference UI any time soon. If OS X was discontinued tomorrow my next choice would probably be Gnome 3, bugs and all rather than either Windows 7 or 8.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Yep, nothing says "innovation" like confusing the hell out of your users and removing the ability to have multiple programs on screen at once.
Because nobody who uses Windows multitasks, right?
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
And if you think they will, look at when Microsoft originally wanted to EOL WinXP, and when they actually did.
Vista did suck when it came out for quite a lot of people, but the core problem wasn't Vista. The problem was that the driver model changed and there was a lot of immature drivers out there. But for your average home user, all they understand is that the computer has Vista and isn't working as well as their older XP one did.
Windows 7 didn't share that problem because by time it came out the drivers had matured.
Windows 8's problem is that it's two UIs that don't play nice together in the same place, and people who know how to use Windows 7 (or XP) don't want to learn the new one and figure out when they're going to switch back and forth. It's a blunder on Microsoft's part that the two don't play together more nicely.
That, and what moron thought moving the "shut down" button into such an obscure location was a good idea? Yes, people do in fact turn PCs off fairly regularly.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Apple has more cash on hand than the federal government.
That is a fairly low bar, I have more cash on hand than the federal government as I don't run a deficit.
Time to offend someone
I think Microsoft is like a WW II giant warship. Helpless against modern warfare still takes hours or days to sink. In the meanwhile it is still a sitting duck firing big rounds against anything that moves.
Please die and don't make more damage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamato
"I am altering the OS, pray I don't alter it any further."
— Darth Ballmer.
Quote: "Windows 8 sucks because it flips between the classic and the metro interface seemingly at random"
Exactly. Metro on a phone is not bad at all. I KNOW I don't know, so I'm OK with exploring the interface. But Win 8 gives me a lot of "WTF - when did $X go?" Is it in the metro interface, or in a new location in Control Panel, or was it dropped, or...."
Place nail here >+
Why would anyone want a "start" button that completely changes their context and covers up what they were doing?
Windows is barely functional enough as it is for getting real work done, with its insane raise-on-focus making it almost impossible to look at two applications simultaneously (try reading from one large window while typing into another one, without two screens) - but Metro makes it fucking unusable. Nobody asked for it, and clearly, from the sales, nobody wants it.
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
At least Intel spends about 25% of its revenue on R&D. That kind of justifies the 70% margins. Actually, Intel shows 58% gross margins in Q2 2012, but that is still really high. http://www.intc.com/financials.cfm
Every single level? That's a bit over the top. I hit Windows-D to see the standard desktop and suddenly things are more familiar. When I want to launch something that I don't have a link for already on the traditional desktop, I hit windows and start to type the name of the program. It quickly finds it, I hit Enter and it launches. Maybe I'm more keyboard-centric than the average user, but I've found Win8 to be non-issue. If users are simply shown how to get away from the metro interface, it's really not so different.
If you have web software that requires IE on Windows to work, the problem is on your end.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The problem is the trend of being cool because you can complain has left . Can't find the start button? Yes it's damn annoying I agree, but New Coke sucked all around. Windows 8 isn't all about a single button. A keyboard you aren't used to will ruin your life much more miserably, but do you call Dell and tell them the computer should go in the garbage? It's time people got used to this mess. Yes as a hardcore 24 hours a day user it is definitely a mess and why we can't get to the shutdown or log off screen with a click is frustrating. You are not going to sell businesses on this model the way it is right now. But it is not going to make anyone go out and change their life. Let the insane and moaners do whatever makes them feel better. I will donate a leper to your cause.
You don't seem to get it. Microsoft is a business that is attempting to sell a rather expensive (~$100 and up) product to consumers. If you want to sell your product, you have to listen to what your customers want. You can't just brush off their complaints by saying that they will eventually get used to it. Well, you can, but you'll lose a ton of business that way, and shareholders will start to get unhappy.
It may be an exaggeration to say that "the customer is always right" – sometimes individual customers really are unreasonable – but if thousands of customers are telling you the same thing, then you should damn well listen.
My laptop started chugging on Windows 7. I noticed a performance increase on my netbook when I previously tested Windows 8, so I thought I would give it another try,
I have to admit, it works wonderfully. The system definitely performs better and the interface on Windows 8 is nice.
Here comes the obvious: Metro is pretty shit.
The full screen apps are useless and the main interface has no appeal. You know what my biggest problem is? The thing that bothers me the most? When I search for a program, there is no default "Show All". First it only shows programs installed, and then "Settings". Often I'm using it to find windows components like Device Manager, and it requires additional mouse clicks and movements to get there. Likewise on a tablet, it would require more touches. It's the simplest, most obvious thing, and if they overlook little things like this I don't have much hope for the rest of Metro.
The OS itself it pretty nice though.
Also, they seem to have the "good 10%". The part of the computer market that actually doesn't mind spending a little extra money to get a well built product. They are making lots of money in profits. They have ignored the $300 laptop market for a reason. There is very little profit to be made in that sector. Their cheapest laptop is around $1000 for the Mac Book Air. Saying that 10% market share is doing badly while still making tons of profits is just stupid.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
And if you think they will, look at when Microsoft originally wanted to EOL WinXP, and when they actually did.
Hell, I'm not convinced that MS is even going to EoL XP on the scheduled date in 2014. There are still a lot of big companies (and not a few governments!) stuck on XP, and I think many of them are asking MS how big a dump truck of money they have to drive up to their door to get the expiration date pushed back indefinitely.
Metro would be ok as a concept at least if it was a Windows component you could choose to install.
Look at Windows Media Centre for example - outside of a media PC there will be many Vista and 7 owners who never use it, and aren't affected by it even being installed. There are others, such as myself, who use WMC daily in the lounge, on a PC that is sat inside a AV cabinet operated by a remote control.
This is critical to understanding why Metro is such a failure. People with desktop computers will likely be sitting some distance from their monitor, and it would be uncomfortable in most cases for them to operate its touchscreen when it sits vertical on the desk. Notwithstanding that usability issue I would assume that it is still the case today that the vast majority of Vista/7 users do not have touchscreens, and in my experience Metro is pretty underwhelming without one. The use of a touchscreen is antithetical to using a desktop computer for the most part, yet MS seemed to think that the transition would be fluid and that the marketplace was just crying out for someone to fill this void.
This would all be just a misstep if it were possible to get to the main Windows desktop and stay there and retain all of the functionality you had in Windows 7 (Start button, etc). Instead Metro apps and utilities drop you to the old desktop seemingly on a whim and without warning, which is quite jarring, and you can't even really choose to stay there if you wanted to with ease (at least not without third party utilities to help you recreate the old UX). It is quite a shock to drop from Metro to the old desktop, the UX is completely different - which is fine for a seasoned user but is it really the experience MS wanted people to have?
That W8 drops you to desktop with a totally different UI smacks of MS really not having a clear direction or dedication to Metro, which is something you can't really say of Apple for example. Apple are notorious for having a walled garden approach to their software, and the OSX UX is very much "they'll take what we give them", but Apples customer base is used to that UX, they are familiar with it, and it is not change for changes sake.
Metro would've imo made a great Windows component in the same vein as Windows Media Centre - something you can choose to install or even boot to IF you want to, as it is it's an affront.
I don't care for Windows 8 as much as the next guy, but they're not going to reverse field; Microsoft is all in on this.
I'm sure if you had asked Coke executives in May-June 1985, all of them would have said they were "all in" on New Coke. People generally don't attain high-level executive positions by being indecisive or publicly showing doubt. But when customers don't want to buy the product you're selling now, and they want to buy the product you used to sell but don't any more, then it doesn't take a marketing genius to figure out what you should do. And if you don't make that decision on your own, then eventually someone higher up will do it for you. If not the leader of the Windows team, then Ballmer. If not Ballmer, then the Board of Directors. And if not the Board, then ultimately Wall Street.
"better than both Windows and Linux desktops"
Hey - that sounds like something good. But, please, tell us: better than WHICH Linux desktops, precisely? And, tell us what metrics you are using to measure these desktops.
I'll be fair here - I've never owned an OS X computer. I don't have the background to make real comparisons.
I've run every version of Windows from Windows version 1. Every one of them. Some were pretty cool for their time. Two have positively sucked. Windows 8 is shaping up to be even suckier than those first two suckers. Win2k and XP were pretty solid operating systems, though they've aged and aren't much to brag about today. Win7 is pretty solid.
Linux? I do a lot of distro hopping. Some are great, some are less great. Ubuntu's Unity is kinda sucky - but hey, that is only one of a multitude of distributions. Depending on what I need a machine to do - there is a Linux distro pretty much tailored to that need.
So, please, tell us what metrics you used to determine that OS X is better than anything that might compete against it. Is it the price? Is it the pretty? The reliability? Uptime? Support? Market share?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
They are also alienating their core high margin markets eg Music and Media have been worried for a long time now that Apple will throw them under the bus in the pursuit of the lower margin consumer market.
Still doesn't make OS X the standard. And Microsoft is in the enterprise not because of "Windows Zombies" but because they offer the enterprise tools. OS X server is a joke, especially since the further dumbing down in 10.8.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
what the hell takes 5X more clicks? you put the things you use on the start screen, and it's always 2 clicks no matter what you need, and it's big enough to put everything normal users need on there. And on the desktop you can still pin your most used applications on the taskbar and open them in a single click, so unless you used to be able to open 5 applications in a single click, and now no longer can, i wonder where the hell your 5X number comes from -_-.
And yes, with everything that is new there will be people complaining and getting lost. Doesn't mean it is worse, it just means it's a change, any change will trigger that...
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. I'm head IT manager so let's use my company as an example. I checked when our bosses wanted to get a mac for media editing (which is comical by itself). It works with exactly zero of our software suites. ZERO. No CRM, no office, no database apps, nothing. In fact, Firefox and Safari don't work with our ASP software either. Macs are toys for clueless rich people and have no place whatsoever in a professional environment. Forget compatibility, just go with cost. It's an idiotic choice.
lol.
"Doesn't work in my environment" != "in any professional environment."
This is /. - your "head IT manager" credentials are just a drop in the bucket here. As another "head IT manager," I support an increasing number of Macs and iPads alongside a long standing Windows setup, in a diverse company that covers several industries. Beyond the initial learning curve, I'm finding the Macs are a lot easier to support and maintain. And, in 2013, compatibility is becoming increasingly less of an issue as so many business apps are moving to the browser.
What's an idiotic choice for your narrow section of the world doesn't make it an idiotic choice for everyone. And so long as Apple keeps with their separate plan for what is a desktop OS and what is a mobile OS, I think they'll be on track to displace a number of traditional workplace PCs. Meanwhile, Microsoft's garbled inconsistent half hybrid will becoming increasingly insignificant.
It took me 15 minutes to figure out how to shut down my computer in Window 8. Windows 7, you press the windows button and there's a shut down option.
This industry can turn on you in an instant (Well a decade-long instant, you really have to not be paying attention.) Look at Sun, no one ever thought anything would take them down. A decade before Sun went under, I attended a Linux con in Denver and had some SGI rep try to convince me that his company was crapping daisies and unicorns. I asked him point blank why I should buy a storage solution from him when I knew for a fact that IBM would be here two decades from now. He then tried to blow some marking smoke up my ass, but their company sank shortly thereafter. I started seeing the same writing on the wall for Sun later on, and they were gone a couple years later. I really feel like these guys believed their marketing and thought nothing could take them down. Well these days Microsoft's competitors are VERY quick on their feet and can take over emerging markets before Microsoft's lumbering behemoth even realizes there's something to take over. So they're coming in against already-established and VERY popular players. So unless Microsoft loses the complacency and learns how to compete in this new era, the gutted remains of their company will join Sun and all the others in the "Also-Ran" bin of history. This is not an anti-Microsoft rant. This is a warning.
My guess is the future will be pretty robust competition between an Android-based Google OS and OSX. Though I'm still not sure about Apple without Steve Jobs' vision to keep them rolling. Plus, once they exhaust the world's supply of brushed aluminum, things will get difficult for them, too.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Deficit refers to cash flow and not cash on hand. It's entirely possible to have cash on hand and still run a deficit. What you're thinking of is debt, not deficit, but even then it's still possible to both be in debt and have cash on hand.
I checked when our bosses wanted to get a mac for media editing (which is comical by itself).
Media editing is actually one of the areas where Macs excel. There is a wide variety of software available, and they have been favored by creative professionals for quite some time.
It works with exactly zero of our software suites. ZERO. No CRM, no office, no database apps, nothing. In fact, Firefox and Safari don't work with our ASP software either.
Firefox and Safari for OSX are standard web browsers. If they don't work with your "ASP software" then that means the software is crap (probably designed to be IE-specific) and needs to be fixed. It's not a problem with the OS or the browsers. Why a media editing system would need CRM or database apps isn't clear to me, but you certainly can get MS Office for OSX if you need it.
http://www.classicshell.net/ I recommend this to everyone who's complained to me about Metro. For a bonus it customizes the Start Menu and Explorer. No Windows 8 isn't bad, just the forced mobile GUI was a bad choice. You lost the mobile war M$. Foisting your mobile GUI on desktop users isn't going to increase the love.
FTFY.
You are too stuck in the MS fanboy idea of Windows, Excel, Word etc. and their market share making them 'Industry Standards'.
I run into this problem frequently. Windows is a zombie where I work because no one knows that there are alternatives. There is no official policy, yet the whole place has turned into a Microsoft shop for no reason. Apple seems completely uninterested in competing in the business world and so it goes, Microsoft claiming huge "market share" simply because it is familiar and fairly well supported/integrated at many places of employment. I chose to use OS X and Linux at work because I do a lot of work with command-line tools and Mac-only vector drawing programs. (And let's face it, farting around on Slashdot.)
What kills me is that, when I refuse to use our stupid Oracle calendar system because the native OS X client is several years out of date and buggy, and syncing it with my phone is harder than a shuttle launch, the zombies all chant "switch to a PC." (Where PC means our in-house Windows XP installation.) Their argument isn't that it is better, but that it has "more market share for a reason" and that it is "the industry standard" and "why do you have to be different anyway?" Arrrrgh.
Actually, I wrote my thesis on life experience.
The other 2 central principles of Discoverability and Visibility, Metro fails at both of these as well. I accidentally opened a PDF in metro and after 5 minutes had to google how to close the app.
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. I'm head IT manager so let's use my company as an example. I checked when our bosses wanted to get a mac for media editing (which is comical by itself). It works with exactly zero of our software suites. ZERO. No CRM, no office, no database apps, nothing. In fact, Firefox and Safari don't work with our ASP software either. Macs are toys for clueless rich people and have no place whatsoever in a professional environment. Forget compatibility, just go with cost. It's an idiotic choice.
Dude, you need to calm down. Every single one of your complaints is about cross platform issues If you designed your infrastructure with only Windows in mind and didn't factor in portability needs you have only yourself to blame. You might as well be complaining that pickup trucks are crappy pieces of equipment because they have zero parts commonality with your companies bulldozers.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Apple has more cash on hand than the federal government.
That is a fairly low bar, I have more cash on hand than the federal government as I don't run a deficit.
No... In reality you don't have more cash than the government, because you are the government. People forget that anything that is done by the government is done in their names, whether they like it or not. So that deficit... yeah, it's your deficit too... Maybe if more people understood this we would have better government.
It took me 15 minutes to figure out how to shut down my computer in Window 8. Windows 7, you press the windows button and there's a shut down option.
And, as I've posted previously, there's a good chance you didn't really shut down the computer - instead you just logged out and hibernated. (Which is what "shutdown" does now.)
Actually shutting down the computer all the way involves a hidden setting somewhere in the power options - you have to "change what the power buttons do" and then uncheck "fast startup." Only then will shutting down the computer allow you to do a clean boot at a later point in time.
As an additional exercise, figure out how to log out. Remember how it always used to be an option in the shutdown menu? It's not any more.
The answer: turns out your account name on the start screen can be clicked on. I never noticed it was even there until it was pointed out to me, because my use of the Windows 8 start menu was almost exclusively "press start key, type search terms" - which makes the username vanish.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
The truth of the matter is, beneath the surface, Windows 8 is a respectable improvement on Windows 7. Even as an outspoken hater of Windows 8, I have to admit this after having run both OS's side by side on a number of machines.
Windows 8 has a lot of optimization in it, so it performs better than 7 - especially on older/marginal hardware. (I suspect the effort was made in this area because Microsoft was concerned that Win 8 adoption would suffer if people decided their older machines weren't going to handle the upgrade very well.)
For example, I have an old Dell Latitude D420 here... one of the early attempts at an "Ultrabook". It only has 2GB of RAM in it, and its hard drive is a SLOW drive of the same type Apple used in the iPod Classics. It was designed for Windows XP. Interestingly, it runs Windows 8 pretty well. The slow hard drive means you have to wait a little while for it to do the initial boot -- especially if you just performed some Windows updates and it's grinding through the final stage of those during the subsequent boot. But other than that, you almost wouldn't realize you're not using it on a much newer, more capable machine.
The *real* reason most of us (myself included) can't stand using 8 is the Metro UI they insisted on bolting onto the front of it. Everyone I talk to who tries to defend Win 8 talks of the ways to patch it to boot to the Windows 7 style desktop and/or put back a START button. I'd say that's generally not a bad work-around, except the reorganization of configuration settings on the sliding side menus is really annoying too. I don't see how any of that improves the user experience. It only forces people to re-learn how to get to all the functions they've had years to get used to.
So all MS needs to do here, if they can admit they screwed up, is to back out all the Metro stuff. If they simply gave users the OPTION to run an update that allowed a "Windows 7 style" configuration for 8, or the new style -- that would be ideal, IMO. I'm sure some people do like the tiled interface and Metro apps, and there's no reason to throw out all of that code completely. Just let each user decide which way they prefer to set it up.
I spent plenty of years in corporate IT, sorry. Interoperability was always a big thing - even bigger now with smart phones and tablets and all kinds of other ways to get at apps and data.
You remind me of a guy at a local company I used to do work with here. He ran the company on an AS/400 and couldn't understand why people weren't happy getting their reports as TIFFs. I was able to get his data out of the AS/400 and into an actual database that folks could connect to using odbc from their desktops, allowing them to not only run the same reports themselves but also pull the data into Excel and manipulate it further.
It doesn't take infinite money - hell, the server I set up to run it was pulled from the trash bin (literally) and reconfigured with FreeBSD in about an hour. It went down one time in 3 years when someone tripped over the power cord in the server room.
I know how to run IT, and I also know how to explain patiently to "upper management" why it might make sense to spend an extra $10 now for longer term benefits. These are skills you should learn.
Do you have ESP?
In the case of web apps, I'd start by asking the vendor what their commitment to using open standards is and what browsers they officially test with and support. A good answer to that question would be that they are committed to using open standards and they support the most widely used browsers. Any answer other than that should set alarm bells ringing.
You can and should do your own testing on top of that. You can even stick to IE if you don't like version numbers incrementing every other week, but the important thing (to me) is not to get locked in to the point you can't jump ship to something else later down the line.
So what you're saying is that it's Apple's fault your company sucks?
Anyway, don't think you're safe just because your IT department uses Windows. You'll run into trouble when someone in the executive suites wants to do business on his iPhone or iPad. "Our system doesn't support it" is generally not an acceptable answer in these cases. Maybe you should start looking for a job with an organization that doesn't have its head firmly lodged up its ass?
Then why did they switch to 100% HFCS 6 months prior to introducing New Coke?
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
OP is not at all wrong, and it's bullish of you to suggest that a business should simply change its entire operating strategy to account for the limitations of the install base of the operating system. I worked as a CTO for a niche retail business (wine) which had certain custom measures to track in order to maintain basic levels of inventory management (e.g. multiple vintages and sizes use the same SKU). The stores had already deployed Macs for their POS due to the business decisions of my predecessor. I spent months trying to find a POS system that could handle anything beyond the "my first retail system" level. I found three retail POS systems at all. One of them we were already using -- and it didn't work, one of them was similarly barebones and locked down all of the database material so I couldn't export to something like Quickbooks, and then there's Lightspeed, which is big, costly, and spends more time and energy on advertising "It Works on Mac!" than it does providing any utilitarian function whatsoever. I gave up and installed Windows 7 on the systems through BootCamp, opening up at least 30 wine-retail specific POS systems for my pleasure.
Nearly all cross-platform software suites don't talk to one another. Quickbooks won't talk between Mac and PC. More specialized office applications and database applications won't talk to one another. There might be a FEW that will provide interoperability, though it's often buggy beyond belief, and most don't provide critical features necessary to certain businesses. Try and find an actually usable service-based POS (QSRs and restaurants). There are none. I'm sure that's because the Mac hardware is not touchscreen, which makes the OSX unusable to an entire industry.
If the general topic is about replacing your fleet of bulldozers with pickup trucks, parts commonality between the trucks and bulldozers is a pretty important metric.
Well, unlimited in theory, but in practice it is "only" limited to the EXPECTED future taxable income. Expected: They can spend money today and create an IOU and the expectation is that (hopefully because of good government investments, e.g. in key infrastructure instead of wars, which are just spending with no real ROI) the people will have more income in the future, which the government then can tax to pay back the IOU.
Anyway, even while some IOUs are being paid, you DON'T WANT the government to pay off all debts - your money IS the debt! Please read up on what modern money actually IS. A simple google search will suffice to give you enough to read for a few months. Anyone repeating this stup|d stuff about the government debt needs to get an education. What that debt DOES do - in the long run - is a redistribution of wealth, of course - from tax payers to those holding government debt.
I'm not ripping Windows 8 because of the start screen, even though I don't see the wisdom in covering an entire screen while I type in the command I want to run on a small text bar.
I'm ripping Windows 8 because I constantly step on the land-mines called "apps" that run full-screen, non-windowed, on fucking WINDOWS.
I shouldn't have to spend a ton of time tracking down all of these apps & removing their icons just o use the OS.
I'm really pissed about this because I believe the core OS improvements are GREAT compared to Windows 7, but even though I have Windows 8 on two of my laptops, I still get more done on the one that runs Windows 7 because the UI of Windows 8 fucks up my workflow, and they took away any option for me to run it like Windows 7.
Tell me a good reason why I should accept taking more time to do things in Windows 8, and I'll switch everything over.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Mac sales are going down too, just so you know. It seems the general population is moving towards Android and iOS, with the majority of people using their smartphones for all their computing needs.
I use Windows 8 every day, and spend the large majority of that time on the *desktop.* Sure PC sales are flagging, and MS has to be more present in the tablet area. But the number are... anyone. Huge. They better get WITH IT! Because we Linux nerds know marketing, sales and what the people really want sooooo well. Also, when we all get into an echo chamber, the sound gets really loud! That means what we're all saying must be true! By Shona Ghosh Posted on 2 May 2013 at 11:18 Read more: Microsoft sold as many Windows tablets as all its partners combined | News | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/381583/microsoft-sold-as-many-windows-tablets-as-all-its-partners-combined#ixzz2SXEDxYcE http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/381583/microsoft-sold-as-many-windows-tablets-as-all-its-partners-combined "Including sales from Acer, Asus and other manufacturers, total Windows tablet sales came to 1.8 million, meaning Microsoft sold as many tablets as all of its partners combined." All you have to do is get off your asses and do the smallest amount of research to see that your positions of alarm for MS are debatable at best. I love when nerds get their panties in a bunch about an operating system that has already blown all Linux distributions into the weeds. Windows 8 is great. I think the Start Button replacement start screens are much better than searching through lists (click click click click click click). When people get used it, they'll start complaining about something else. Meanwhile, whatever PCs and Tablets with Windows and Windows RT will keep selling, way, way more than all desktop users using Linux. We should make a yearly "Microsoft is Going to Die Because _________," event where Slashdotters can carry signs that say, "The End of the World is Coming!"
This conversation is a lot of grumpy old men complaining about things changing too much.
I hated Win 8 until I saw one of my friend's kids using it on a tablet. If you haven't seen a "touch native" use it yet, track one down. This kid was great, he was doing things with shocking efficiency. His dad was telling me he wouldn't use the (substantially more powerful) desktop anymore because "it's too slow".
We are not the market segment Win 8 was built for, and we're not going to drive the market maybe ever again. This is the kind of thing we're going to need to get used to. It was only a matter of time before technology changed so substantially that even technophiles got future shock.
In the end, it doesn't matter that Win 8 is a market failure. Our first computers were DOS or Windows 3 boxes. Our kid's first computers are cell phones and tablets. They're going to want an operating system similar to the one they grew up using the most.
You setup a server in such a way that someone could trip over the power cord, and we're supposed to take your IT background serious? Really? For your sake, I hope there is much more to the story, because that's some seriously bad stuff.
You talk about interoperability as an important thing...sure, it's important on some levels. Having said that, it's hard to convince the stakeholders that they can't get the product they want because our homogenized MS environment supports it fine, but we're concerned that we wont be able to run it if we potentially decided to switch to Linux in an undetermined amount of time. I'm sure that would go over REAL well. Obviously you're correct about smartphones and tablets being game changers. The difference between the mobile revolution and the Linux/Apple revolution is....wait for it....the mobile revolution actually happened. I don't care how much you like Linux or Apple, their market share in the enterprise is miniscule.
Now, if I was developing a public facing website, I'd make damn sure that it supported every browser and device that I reasonably could.
You setup a server in such a way that someone could trip over the power cord, and we're supposed to take your IT background serious? Really? For your sake, I hope there is much more to the story, because that's some seriously bad stuff.
I did the software setup as an outside consultant. Someone else placed the server in its room. I would have never done that.
And, if you think that's bad - I had another client one time that had their Sun e450 plugged in to the same power strip as their laptop. They nearly lost their web site when they accidentally pulled the plug on the 450 instead of the laptop one Friday evening. Oh, and no backups.
I do what I can...
Do you have ESP?
It appears that you don't actually do anything significant with your laptop. That's what the OP was commenting on. His experience is consistent with my own except I have used low profile PCs rather than laptops.
Macs are less thrilling once you want to put them under load.
That so called "quality" is just superficial fluff for hipsters.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If I have a keyboard, I want a shortcut that allows me to write the command I want to start.
Once you use the shortcut, a list of completions of the command that you are typing should appear. The problem with the Windows 8 Start screen is that a full-screen list of completions completely obscures what you're working on. This change in visual context leads to a memory loss analogous to doorway amnesia, as another Slashdot user pointed out.
We don't buy everything Lenovo makes. We certify 4 laptop models and 2 desktop models, all models from their business lines (includes out-of-band management hardware) which makes support and maintenance of the God awful Windows driver model even possible on a large scale. We get a contract from Lenovo that says the exact same model will continue to be available until the next major product refresh comes along, so we don't get surprised by a switched out NIC or some other pain in the ass. We then match up the equipment to the user's job.
Sure, we can (and have done in the past) the same thing with Dell or HP, but when we last did our service auction, Lenovo came in with the best price / performance scores in our analysis. However, because we lock in with a contract that also includes favorable pricing, that means we absolutely will not be changing up tomorrow.
Try again.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.