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PC Makers Plan Rebellion Against Microsoft At CES
Velcroman1 writes "Fearing rapidly plummeting sales of traditional laptops and desktop computers — which fell by another 10 percent or so in 2013 — manufacturers are planning a revolt against Microsoft and the Windows operating system, analysts say. At the 2014 CES in Las Vegas, multiple computer makers will unveil systems that simultaneously run two different operating systems, both Windows and the Android OS that powers many of the world's tablets and smartphones, two different analysts said recently. The new devices will be called 'PC Plus' machines, explained analyst Tim Bajarin. 'A PC Plus machine will run Windows 8.1 but will also run Android apps as well,' Bajarin wrote. Another analyst put the threat to Windows bluntly: 'This should scare the heck out of Microsoft.'"
Who the fuck wants this? Sure, Windows sucks but why would cramming a shitty OEM version of Android make things better?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Microsft gets paid for Android installs too.
Laptops and Desktops don't need "apps" and people aren't going to buy them to play Angry Birds and Snapchat all day.
If you want to make a move away from Windows give them an OS that can actually do something useful. Nobody is trying to replace their phone with a laptop.
Microsoft, past giant of the operating system industry, will die not to OS X, not to Ubuntu, not to FreeBSD, Redhat, not to ReactOS, Plan 9, Gentoo, Hurd, BeOS, the vengeful ghost of OS/2, but to an OS designed for cell phones.
Well, okay, I guess.
A dual boot Windows 8.1 and Steam OS machine. I'm not really feeling the need for Android on a PC. Anyone else?
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
Any movement away from a Microsoft dominated software market is probably a step in the right direction. As for the question of whether anyone will use these features, I will withhold judgment until I can actually see them.
If they want to scare MS then they need to get behind a linux distro. Any of the polished ones it doesn't really matter.
You've got Steam pushing a linux gaming line... why would you go for anything besides linux IF you're trying to unseat MS?
This is idiotic and doomed to tragic failure.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Well, some of slashdot cheers and some of it just kind of kvetches about something with Android not being perfect either and why can't everything run Arch or Gentoo.
I'm generally a strong open source advocate but I haven't found an open source window manager that works as well for my needs. I think having a heterogenous mix of open source and proprietary in your environment is a good thing.
I see it as the only way to compete with android. Just give it out, completely free. Still charge for the server level OS's and support, but for a desktop, MS makes money from plenty of other areas. Office is still a cash cow. Xbox is a profit center.
Google makes its money from their "free" OS through the app store. They also have a pretty neat ecosystem and various ways app makers can make money (in app advertising) They control the entire ecosystem. If MS could do the same with windows, I think we'd see the desktop come back.
Ford Motor Company announced they will be marketing a car that runs on both steam *and* a giant key that you turn to wind it up.
Seriously - wtf?
Sure, Windows sucks but why would cramming a shitty OEM version of Android make things better?
Because there are a LOT of Android developers now, who would be very tempted to write for this...
But also from the user side, presumably you could play Android games, buying them at Android prices instead of Windows prices (or playing them for free, the dark unfortunate secret of Android).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
100% FUD article that doesn't examine the fact that computer hardware is just lasting a lot longer than it used to. I bought a new laptop just last week to replace the hulking piece of shit that was my first generation macbook air.
People don't usually buy new computers until their old ones stop doing what they need them to do. So if a computer from 6 years ago is still working as intended people will not buy new ones. Duh.
The problem isn't Microsoft or Windows, it's the method of consumption. People are more than happy to consume on cellphones and tablets, and desktop OS's don't fit into that paradigm. If Metro was more powerful/open and had application support, it would be a good idea to allow people to access all their purchases(media, applications, etc) across desktops and mobile devices, but it's not. I guess that's a Microsoft problem, but Android(and every other mobile OS) is equally bad as a desktop OS and none of the dedicated desktop OS's are any good as mobile/touch OS's(fuck you, Ubuntu/Unity).
The reality is that desktops are dying for a typical person's use and consumption. They're going to return to being workstations for the most part.
Why would Microsoft allow this? The PC manufactures must have forgotten about Microsoft shutting down the selling of machines that dual boot Windows and BeOS from the factory. Or also how Microsoft doesn't allow vendors to even advertise machines with non-Windows operating systems. (Ask Dell why they don't advertise their Ubuntu machines.) Microsoft runs the show here, unless the manufactures plan to give up their rights to sell Windows.
Android is not a desktop OS. Chrome OS is designed for the desktop. I fail to see why a desktop or laptop maker would use Android and not Chromium OS. Anyone who has used an Android device with a keyboard and mouse will tell you it is a very sub-par experience. Whereas Chromium OS is basically just Google Chrome with a thin wrapper around it. I wish more PC makers aside from Google would ship Chromium devices it might drive better hardware support and a cleaner install of the platform.
I'm sure if the big manufacturers banded together, they could get enough demand for windows 7 licenses...
how exactly android behaves with keyboard and mouse input?, it should be a lot worse than the win8 modern applications.
According to Microsoft, they own Android - and they have ~$2 Billion in extortion money to prove it (just not ever in a court of law).
Android would make for a decent lightweight platform, but one of the big advantages of the desktop are workflows. Pop a screenshot of one program, switch to Word to paste it, grab some results from Excel, fetch a picture from DropBox, crop it in Photoshop, then make a PDF and attach it, as well as another picture to an E-mail. This is doable on iOS and Android, but the workflow switching is a lot harder than on a multitasking, multi-window OS like Windows, OS X, Linux, AIX, *BSD, etc.
What would be interesting is a computer that can function similar to the Motorola Atrix -- have different CPUs and operating systems that function at the same time. This way, I could use the Android side for Web browsing (since it is a lot harder to compromise a Web browser running under ARM in its own space and running with few to no extensions), then flip to the Windows side for gaming or some attempts at actual work.
Posting AC -- I fear SuperKendall's replies.
Currently people don't seem very keen on buying touch-screen laptops. But lots of laptop makers also bundling Android means suddenly there's a kind of compelling case to get one, where at least there is a selection of software you could run.
Either one apart is not selling that well, but perhaps together they can combine into a Voltron like force to take on Apple.
It will be very interesting to see how these devices end up managing the division.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
also from the user side, presumably you could play Android games, buying them at Android prices instead of Windows prices (or playing them for free, the dark unfortunate secret of Android).
99 cent tetris vs. $40 Far Cry yay
N/T
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Yep, MS will be terrified about manufacturers trying to sell more devices that include an MS operating system. Wait.......
Windows 8 is JokeOS. To me it seems like the last OS on which I'll run SolidWorks is Windows 7 64 bit. Fuck everything, I'm not using Windows 8.
Why the hell would this scare Microsoft?
Microsoft is ALREADY making billions off Android royalties.
Plus these vendors are already contractually obligated to pay the Microsoft tax REGARDLESS of what OS they load onto a system.
This would be a perfect trifecta for Redmond. Microsoft will just look at this and go "We'll get a royalty? WIN! We'll still get our OS tax? WIN! We don't have to support it? WIN!"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Why would you run two tablet operating systems at the same time? I think that's the kind of disgusting computational miscegeny they lecture you about at the Church of Stallman.
MS need to build in ModernMix and have the start menu come back to save windows 8
Harvey Norman here in Australia are selling an Android based desktop system.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
From CES 1914:
"Fearing rapidly plummeting sales of traditional horse drawn carriages, multiple cartwrights will unveil wagons that run on eight wheels instead of four."
99 cent tetris vs. $40 Far Cry yay
I'm switching right now! Who needs to spend hours downloading mods for Bethesda games, when I can play Angry Birds! WOO! Those birds are Angry! LOLOLOLOLOL. ...Seriously, can't tell if GP simply doesn't play video games and thus doesn't understand the market at all, or if GP is a delusional, completely cracked Fandroid.
This is the most surreal troll (?) post I've ever seen.
Just a re-negotiation. MS has to give up a few inches (read money) and it will have these idiots by the balls, again. It's Windows 7 that they want? Fine... it looks like that's where the next version of Windows will, finally, be able to provide a proper desktop where it's needed and a touch interface if the hw supports that. Yay! They/we won! Right?....Guys?....
I'm not getting my hopes up. HW manufacturers are a bunch of pussies.
Cover of The Wizard of ID #3:
Voice of alarm outside the window "The peasants are revolting!" and the king, inside "You can say that again."
Even if the idea was indeed good, you expect anything software related made by those hardware giants to be anything but awful? These are the guys that load crapware on every single machine they make. This smells like it is only a grab for doubling their crapware revenues.
Give me something that can do Windoze, Any Good Linux Distro, *and* XBMCBuntu simultaneously. I'd set aside my usual run-it-till-the-hardware-fries mentality for that.
captcha: empowers
Of course it scares MS. If it didn't, why did they even release Win8 with the UI previously known as Metro?
The purpose of Metro is obviously to get a 30% share of all application sales - with Android Google gets this share and MS want it.
If the purpose was to make a mobile UI - why try to force it on desktop users? And why force developer to sell through MS? No, the only answer is that Metro is a land-grab for a 30% sale "tax" on all applications. MS could prove this wrong by simply allowing third party installs with Metro apps but they don't do that.
buying them at Android prices instead of Windows prices (or playing them for free, the dark unfortunate secret of Android).
That's Window's secret, too!
While I see android multiboot as a dubious value proposition, I see steamos as doubly so. If you have windows, then windows provides a strict superset of the gaming selection of SteamOS. There's no exclusive content for SteamOS right now. There is some android exclusive content, but not much of consequence
One of the greatest advantages of a laptop over a tablet is having a nice keyboard, but lately laptops I've seen in stores all have horrible flimsy chicklet keyboards. They're so bad Officeworks for example has taken to selling Logitech keyboards alongside the laptops. Defeats the whole point.
Until laptop manufacturers wake up they can look forward to falling sales on top of the whole Windows 8 fiasco. Meanwhile I'd rather type on glass.
Tetris is a much better game. And at a lower price, its a bargin.
If there was some kind of demand for Android apps on a desktop, people would already have been ecstatic about the new Windows 8 tablet style interface.
'This should scare the heck out of Microsoft.'? More like "This should make Microsoft collectively fall out of their chairs from laughing."
We heard you hate the Windows tablet interface, so we installed a dual-boot Linux tablet interface alongside your Windows one so when you get tired of hating Windows, you can reboot and start hating Android!
I'm genuinely not sure whether I would give the Android one a boot before laughing maniacally, obliterating the partition, and installing a real Linux distro.
Oh wait...they're trying to make it impossible to do that, too. Maybe I'll just go off and shoot myself instead.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Android as a platform is certainly adequate and content is similarly good enough for most people, enabling hardware designs and software licensing cost points to drive lower priced devices.
However, if the customer has to buy Windows license and the hardware deisgn must accomodate that, android adds next to no value. Most of the popular android applications have native windows ports or are reimplementations of things that were more full featured in windows to begin with.
Soon we'll be multibooting to several different OS if this takes off. Linux is sure to benefit.
God spoke to me
I can only assume Microsoft will jack up their OEM license prices, and then we'll see who's laughing.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
At first I thought they would allow dual boot -- Windows or Android. Then, I could buy one and just boot Android and leave it there. On the rare occasions when I needed Windows, (for instance, to run Adobe Lightroom, which hasn't yet been ported to Android) I could boot into that.
But according to TFA, this is Android on Windows, or the ability to run Android applications on Windows 8. This sounds less like "two operating systems at once" and more like the Android API running on Windows.
This is exceedingly uninteresting. The problem with Windows 8 is the revolting GUI, and this does not fix that. Wake me when you release a tablet that will run Windows apps on Android.
Moreover, this is no particular threat to Windows. It perhaps gives a boost to the Windows 8 ecosystem by tying in whatever Androids applications happen to run (you know it won't be 100%), but the box still runs Windows, and doesn't run anything other than Windows. This is no threat to Microsoft at all, and is not a "rebellion".
Kevin Kline voice: DisapPOINTed!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I take it you thought these devices are dual boot, Windows OR Android. They are not. Instead, the run BOTH simultaneously, so it runs Android and Windows applications on the same screen. I started to say the same desktop, but of course Microsoft has thrown out the desktop metaphor in a return to Windows 3.1 style single-tasking.
"This is doable on iOS and Android, but the workflow switching is a lot harder than on a multitasking, multi-window OS like Windows"
Still after al these years it looks to me like most people, are single tasking, fullscreen windows on MS Windows (tm). So there not a big difference.
The problem is MS current ad campiagn that pushes windows everywhere. This does not help the hardware bods, they can get stuff free (android) rather than paying MS. This does not help MS with an OS that sucks on anything other than a touch machine. MS is ignoring it;s corp customers, It thinks it can get off with it, and it will for now (one release of the OS) but is now on trial with the corps who are now concered about ms's comitment to them. I work in a SME (the core market for MS) and we are likely to nuke our last MS server and machine when XP support ends. Apple in some places and linux everywhere else. They play well with each other.
It's about the fact that a touch-centric interface does not scale well to the size of a desktop - regardless of the OS. I gave Win 8.1 an honest try, and the closest I could come to making it usable was to install Classic Start, disable all the side-screen bullshit, and booting to Desktop - and even then it found ways to disable Classic Start and kick me back to that godawful Start screen thing.
A desktop UI is a desktop UI, and a tablet UI is a tablet UI.
I remember my first "Windows" flip phone, where Microsoft had the brilliant idea to scale the Windows 2000 interface down to an inch and a half and call it done. It didn't work that way, and it doesn't work in the opposite direction either. They never learn.
And Microsoft loses its customers.
It is already happening - that is one reason Chromebooks are selling so well.
People people people! Read TFA! These laptops are running Windows and not anything but Windows. This "two OSs at once" crap is just that. They support the Android API, so (some) Android apps will run on Windows. That's all. There's a lot less here than meets the eye.
So there's no use saying they should have picked Chrome OS or Linux or some other OS to run in conjunction with the Windows OS, because they're not running anything but the Windows OS. Sorry to be a buzzkill.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Is this finally it? The year of Linux on the desktop? Remember that Android is essentially just a Linux that runs the GUI on Dalvik (Java). It can be fairly easily rooted and the existing kernel and ABI interfaces employed to make X etc. run on the Android's Linux base. This could mean that people can fairly easily install a one-download "upgrade" on their off-the-shelf Windows PCs, and employ the full Linux ecosystem without loosing any of their pre-existing Windows features and applications.
multiple computer makers will unveil systems that simultaneously run two different operating systems, both Windows and [...] Android
That's right! We're going to revolt by continuing to ship their OS to customers! That'll show 'em.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
IIRC... android -is- a linux distro.
A pretty nicely polished one to boot.
Questions:
Did the Atrix really have two CPUs?
Is it harder than a browser on x86/x64 running few to no extensions? What about in a locked down linux OS?
How do you handle shitty mobile versions of sites?
What about it autodetecting you are on a "mobile device" and refusing to allow you to, say, watch hulu?
How much of that is the underlying technology, and how much that mobile browsers are/were a less enticing target?
Doesn't that also mean Google will view your entire browsing history?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Android would make for a decent lightweight platform, but one of the big advantages of the desktop are workflows. Pop a screenshot of one program, switch to Word to paste it, grab some results from Excel, fetch a picture from DropBox, crop it in Photoshop, then make a PDF and attach it, as well as another picture to an E-mail. This is doable on iOS and Android, but the workflow switching is a lot harder than on a multitasking, multi-window OS like Windows, OS X, Linux, AIX, *BSD, etc.
What would be interesting is a computer that can function similar to the Motorola Atrix -- have different CPUs and operating systems that function at the same time. This way, I could use the Android side for Web browsing (since it is a lot harder to compromise a Web browser running under ARM in its own space and running with few to no extensions), then flip to the Windows side for gaming or some attempts at actual work.
Posting AC -- I fear SuperKendall's replies.
Android has actually been available for Windows before there were commercial Android devices - in the form of the developer kit emulator. So Android within Windows isn't such a stretch.
As for OLE-style tricks, one of the advantages of Android over the earlier Java mobile platforms for me was, in fact the way stuff could hand off. I hated losing the "search everywhere" abilities of PalmOS when I went to Windows Mobile. However, it's true that there's nothing actually like full OLE in Android - it's geared towards handing over simple messages or data services, not entities that are semi-freestanding. It has been enough of a strain just getting a decent set of cut-and-paste gestures for Android.
For browser isolation, the long-recommended solution for that has been to simply run a browser in a VM. Extra CPUs and OS's are more than is required. Preferably using a snapshot image so that changes don't extend past the current VM session.
Don't forget that in 2015 PC and component makers will no longer be allowed to give you the option to disable SecureBoot, so really Microsoft doesn't care, because starting then they will have a total, legal monopoly over all computer hardware, whether you buy a PC or just a motherboard - it will have to run Windows.
[citation needed]
I just wonder how much more money MS would make off a Windows/Android system?
With the money they make from Android. Might be another source cash for them.
Google merely has to pick and support a desktop shell windows environment, and it is "game over" for Microsoft. Microsoft's obscene behaviour with Windows Vista, Windows 8, and current Windows XP users has just about alienated every intelligent fan of Windows. Only the brainless, rabid fanboys, the vile corporate shills, and the representatives of people who make good coin supporting the putrid MS infrastructure are left cheering Microsoft.
Not to say that every recent Android move by Google hasn't been somewhat troubling. Google stands at a rare fork in IT history where they can either fully replace Microsoft and Windows, or cleave so closely to their NSA agenda that their locked-down spyware riddled versions of Android become the ONLY versions of Android and thus fully lose the hearts and minds of those that would love an alternative to MS on the desktop.
At this time, either SteamOS or Android could take almost all of Microsoft's desktop market within a few years, if either Valve or Google take a desktop developer-centric approach to their respective versions of Linux. A rock solid OS, up through a multi-window desktop environment, should not cost a penny (upfront) to the user, and should NOT be made obsolete every two years or so simply to sell new versions to the sheeple.
It's about damn time they start standing up against Microsoft and their continuously, horrendous operating systems that are terrible from the ground up. XP and 7 are the only real usable ones(barely). Vista and 8 are complete garbage and everyone hates them, not just the techies like us that know better. Unfortunately, Android on a PC is far from useful as well...but it's a start. Eventually, I'd hope to see a wide arrangement of Linux and even BSD options installed right from the manufacturers. Suck it Microsoft :P
The Atrix had two cores; but the linux 'desktop' it popped up when put into the "lapdock" accessory wasn't really a separate system (except in that there was absolutely no meaningful integration between the Android side and the 'desktop' side). It was just some Ubuntu-on-ARM stuff running as a less-impoverished-than-usual native linux userland on an Android system.
You can do much the same on basically any non-lockdown Android system; but there tends not to be much point. Getting access to pure linux applications from the Android environment is a bit awkward (X servers and terminal clients exist; but are generally aimed at talking to external hosts) and any android-related stuff (contacts, SMS, etc.) is in a more or less opaque blob as far as the linux userland is concerned(again, it can be done, and various Android tweaker/power-user modding does commonly involve hitting the Android system from the perspective of the root user on the linux system it lives on; but there is essentially zero useful integration).
Especially if you have a recent x86 to work with, I can't imagine why you would choose android as the 'lightweight VM for specific tasks' OS. VMs are absurdly useful; but android is a pretty mediocre experience on anything not designed as touchscreen hardware, usually without a keyboard or mouse.
it's the year on the Android Desktop!
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
I can't dual boot my computer already?
Did I break something to make it do that? ... I'm slightly confused.
playing them for free, the dark unfortunate secret of Android
Which used to be the dark unfortunate secret of DOS and Windows' success.
Is Tetris, where infinite spin is the rule, really a game anymore? In fact, Tetris has been solved.
i disagree, if you champion a competitor just because it's different, you're not rewarding the behaiour and features you want to see. If someone made an OS that wasn't a piece of shit designed to lock you into a giant advertising company, and lock you out of most of the code by putting it in proprietary software like google play or search (i don't know like normal full blow linux); then you should reward them with sales, but just because ther arn't microsoft, regardless of their worthyness is stupidity.
Come on android is a piece of crap, we tolerate it on our phones because we don't have a proper choice, don't tolerate it on your computers when we do have a choice.
Having an OS that is ready to go in under 6 seconds is pretty damned handy.
Any OS can do that as long as your hardware supports suspend. My laptop, for instance, runs Xubuntu. I open the lid, and in four seconds I'm staring at the password prompt.
What makes Android better than any other distro?
Google Play Store has a large selection of Android applications, especially in categories that free software tends not to touch, such as games and video-on-demand players. Other distros might catch up should more games and clients for VOD services get ported to SteamOS (and thus to GNU/Linux), but that isn't guaranteed to happen.
"I'd like to be able to type the first X letters of a program, have a self-shrinking list of all executable on my computer narrow down as I type (the start menu functionality)" - same as Win 7. Hit the windows key and start typing.
I'd like to be able to do this while still being able to see at least some of the applications that are already running. Often, a task involves more than one application, and Windows 8's Start Screen covers up what I'm working on. Context matters, and for this reason, I've installed Classic Shell, whose Start Menu preserves context.
just say'n.
It's not that you won't find anyone who wants it. Surely some people will welcome the chance to play with a version of Android running on more powerful desktop class PC hardware.
But the idea this will somehow scare Microsoft? That's the part where I'm lost.... Pretty much 0% of the critical business apps in use all across corporate America have Android versions right now, and I'd say it'll be an awfully small percentage of them that get a full rewrite to offer an Android edition. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious Microsoft won't be porting the stuff they sell like Microsoft Office, Great Plains accounting, SQL Server, etc.
The machines in question aren't even threatening to sell this Android OS in place of Windows either... only in addition to it. So basically, those needing Windows for the applications they already purchased and rely on will keep on doing things as per usual, only users now possibly have to be aware of one small extra step; when powering on the PC, make sure not to select the "Android" boot option.
And due to it being open source, a decent window manager would be made within the year
They tried that. Google refused to certify its use on devices that can access Play Store, citing an assumption that Android applications are currently allowed to make about screen sizes never changing.
It won't
If they were serious about a revolt, or serious about sending a message to MS, they should go to CES with all of their PC's running Windows 7 / Full Featured Linux / ChromeOS, ETC... or nothing but Android Tablets.
Adding android on an OS that's already got a Tablet interface is akin of adding spinner rimmed wheels to the hood of a car because people don't like standard rims. It's Basically Splashtop OS for 2014. It doesn't solve any problem, hell it probably makes it worse since Android isn't exactly designed for desktop use either
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
What advantage is there to 2 crappy OSs? Get a clue! Get a Mac!
tell me about it...i set up a wordpress install for a non-profit org's website, showed one member of the board how to edit pages...next day i got an email: how do i save my changes?-\
Love to be able to go into a retailer and get a laptop with no Windows on.
So OEMs will now offer me the option to boot directly to their crapware without even having to boot windows, i can guarantee these are never going to be on my shopping list
tbh the only reason i even have windows installed is to play games i'm really hoping SteamOS can get enough games running under it i can finally cut my ties from microsoft completely.
Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. - Linus Torvalds
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Why don't they got for a Linux distro instead? Fucking retards.
Just in case you didn't like the shitty tablet UI, we included a second shitty tablet UI.
So... hooray... options?
Growth of Windows PCs has stalled. People aren't buying it. A great many are repulsed by Windows 8.x and determined to tough it out with what they've got. A new Windows PC is too expensive and complicated, doesn't give good value.
People are buying Android and ChromeOS devices. Quick, easy, inexpensive Android and ChromeOS devices.
OEMs want to sell Windows devices, people want to buy Android and ChromeOS devices. Naturally OEMs are going to come up with the answer that all they need to do is sneak some expensive complicated poor-value Windows onto the popular Android and ChromeOS devices and they're good as gold. They really are that stupid.
That is not how it works. You are trying to sell the worst of both worlds.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Their OS is too patent encumbered to be free.
It fixed most of what was wrong with Windows 8. Plus the 'getting used to it' factor is about over. The problem for Microsoft isn't Windows 8 so much at this point - it is that a huge percentage of their user base are doing more and more from their smart phones or tables - and Windows isn't a solid player in that area. And... frankly at this point it's going to be extremely difficult for them to make much headway into the market. That boat has sailed and the big time mobile players have already filled their ship with Microsoft's PC customers.
Nah, they'll leave the OEM license price alone, but point out that there's another OEM license for the patents used in Android, and that has its own price. Ka-ching!
After MS started this whole MSDN certified shop philosophy they realized that they could trap people into their ecosystem. Nearly every product they have come up with since has not been a very good product but another attempt to lock people in. Sharepoint would be a near perfect example. It seems to be designed to be a MS glue that where you needed MS SQL, MS Server, MS Office, MS Outlook, MS Explorer, and MS Windows to make it work. Take any bit away and no more sharepoint. There would be no slowly migrating away from that one. MS probably looked at how they killed WordPerfect and Novell and said, "We won't let anyone get a thin edge of a wedge into our ecosystem like we did to them."
But they let things stagnate so much that when mobile came along all they could think about was protecting their eco system. So instead of coming up with a lightweight tablet they made the surface that integrates with their eco system.
So basically it seems that MS has become a company that is entirely based upon fooling people into making bad decisions.
But this might seem like a good idea to keep customers from leaking away. The problem is that when they do leave they leave entirely and are never coming back unless their new system sucks even more. Where this is real problem is that the MS system can really suck without losing too many customers due to inertia. But as history has repeatedly shown people don't leave one stagnant tradition for a slightly better one, they leave for something completely new and often quite different.
An interesting example from history was the end of whale oil; it was around $1900 per barrel (today's prices) while crude oil was around $90 a barrel. This put more and more pressure for people to figure out how to extract useful replacements from crude. When they did still people kept on with Whale oil but then suddenly "petroleum" products wiped out the whale oil industry almost overnight. Once the trend started there was nothing the whale industry could do; it was over.
I would say that MS is in a very bad place. Customers who switch to mobile are entirely eliminating MS from their minds. Not out of hate or revenge but simply they don't see an use for MS products in their lives. Of course some people are still using MS office to type a bit and Excel to add up a few numbers but the vast majority would be perfectly happy with Office 97.
So as I say MS has a business model based upon people making bad decisions. But now many people aren't even seeing MS as one of their options.
The article states that this initiative is designed to expand the touch-based app ecosystem of Windows 8. I don't see a lot of desire for touch-based apps on a desktop, this probably will make Android look bad more than it will scare MS, since touch based apps on a desktop will provide a terrible experience.
Twinstiq, game news
The MS Office requirement used to be a big deal for me, until I recently gave CrossOver a whirl. It supports "only" Office 2010, not 2013, but I found that it works perfectly well, no bugs yet (and I use it a lot). So, for me, CrossOver solved the last hurdle requiring Windows.
This is another lost opportunity for Linux operating systems. By Linux operating systems i do not mean OSs with a Linux kernel, which is not a real Linux OS, but one that has the full standard userland as well. I believe many of the main Linux developers have themselves to blame for the failure to capitalize on Microsoft's ineptness. This especially includes failing to realize that hardware support is the big thing that holds up Linux being a viable Windows replacement and the fact that accepting the fact we need to make it easy for users to use Binary drivers and provide a stable ABI for binary drivers. Instead Kernel developers lie through their teeth. One lie is that drivers in the kernel source tree are better than binary drivers. Yet there is a long list of binary drivers that perform much better than the ones in the kernel source tree. Another is that its reasonable to ask hardware vendors to provide open source drivers, when in fact many cannot because they license their driver source from third parties, furthermore, hardware companies cannot be expected to make huge concessions to Linux communities when the user share is still small. The fact is many hardware vendors will never open source and no amount of wishful thinking will change that. Linux people who think that somehow its a privelege for hardware vendors to develop drivers for Linux and will make huge concessions to do so are fooling themselves, if anything, they are doing us a favor and we would have to convince them to do so, including by having a well documented driver API.
The lack of a well documented driver API is a serious problem itself. Part of the problem is the fact Kernel developers practice what are generally regarded as poor habits by failing to document their code and properly document interfaces. Microsoft has better driver API documentation than Linux. I have looked into the documentation myself and it is extremely hard to find any. Most companies will just throw up their arms and not continue if they cannot find clear documentation. They are clearly not going to root around some kernel hackers source code to try to backengineer the API from the source code.
Everytime I see "doomed" in Slashdot these days, I expect a big hit around the corner...
Actually, it seems, many home users don't need full-blown MS Office and Photoshop, and are very happy with modest apps and casual games. If not more happy, because the full-blown desktop OSes give them headaches. An antivirus? System update that takes 45 minutes? My mom doesn't see how that helps her. These people love their iPads and the ChromeBooks are selling like hotcakes.
And MS is scared of ChromeBooks, enough that they've released a series of anti-ChromeBook ads.
Selling a laptop dual-booting Ubuntu is pointless (and I say that as a 100% Ubuntu supporter): but dual-booting Android indeed gives the laptop a different experience, with superfast boot and simple use, that many users will enjoy. If the laptop does touch, too, then you get a nice Android tablet, too, which is far more functional than a Win8 tablet: indeed, PC+.
Also, let me educate you: Android *is* a Linux distro.
And what exactly is stopping you from saving the .swf file locally?
the system libraries and desktop environments do not have such concerns
This is probably Linux's biggest downfall at the moment.
A friend and I have been working on a free game, which we develop in Linux because we both like Linux, but the Linux version we provide for download is strictly a "lucky for you if it works" version, whereas we actually care if the Windows version doesn't work for some reason.
We were careful to use only BSD-licensed and public domain libraries, and so we're able to statically compile the Windows version, and so it works on any version of Windows XP or later and no one has to download any dependencies to run it. It just works, like you expect a program to just work.
We wanted to do the same for the Linux version, but when using "-static" we get the error "warning: Using 'getaddrinfo' in statically linked applications requires at runtime the shared libraries from the glibc version used for linking." After looking into this, I found that we actually aren't even allowed to statically link glibc because it's LGPL-licensed and the LGPL requires that it be possible to use the game not only with the glibc we compiled it with, but also with any glibc anyone might care to replace it with. Between that and the fact that "-static" doesn't work anyway, I decided not to even worry about it. The vast majority of the people who play the game use the Windows version anyway, and the Windows version also runs just fine in Wine, so we don't have a lot of reason to care.
So, while we provide a Linux download, it's just the one we happen to create when developing the game. It only works with the particular glibc I have since it's dynamically linked to glibc, but were it not for that, everything else is statically included, and so it would otherwise be something anyone could download and expect it to just work.
We're also looking into adding sound support after having previously been under the impression that the best soundtrack was your own MP3 player, but realizing some sound effects were desirable. However, I suspect that if we even wanted to try to use ALSA, we'd run into a similar problem. ALSA has no ABI since they expect you to use the system library, as they've decided to take the microkernel approach and do all of the audio mixing in userspace (rather than the monolitic approach the kernel takes with every other issue) and you can't do that unless everyone is running the same software which knows how to cooperatively share the resource (as if we didn't learn anything from the days of cooperative multitasking). So I suspect we'd once again be unable to statically link due to technical issues, and probably ALSA is LGPL as well, though I've found no licensing terms on the ALSA web site. Indeed, the ALSA web site doesn't want to tell you much of anything -- it's difficult to find documentation and examples as well. Instead the web site seems to exist primarily to praise ALSA.
Finding documentation and examples for OSS is a piece of cake, and indeed I had no problems using OSS ten years ago when I insisted on writing all of my Linux software in assembly language. However, these days most distributions disable OSS in their kernels, and so using it isn't an option. So between the unknown licensing terms of ALSAlib and the lack of information about its licensing terms, we've decided that only the Windows version will have sound. In particular, we already tell Linux people to just run the Windows version in Wine anyway, and the Windows sound APIs work just fine through Wine as well, so it's definitely the easiest way to go, even if it means we're primarily creating an executable for an operating system that neither of us likes to use. Besides, I eventually some day plan to put more effort into learning FreeBSD where adding audio support should be rather simple given that FreeBSD uses OSS.
It's about 20 years too late.
the users will boot into the Android portion and forget about the broken Windows partition. You used to see this effect with AOL. They wrote custom Modem drivers for every modem they could get their hands on, and for years where the #1 choice for a lot of people because when the Windows Modem driver broke they could still connect to AOL.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Microsoft is a disease and Microsoft hatred is well deserved. Some years back I used to be amazed at why such a shitty OS commands 99% of PC market. The answer is simple: underhanded deals and leveraging their monopoly. Even now they collect $5 racketeering fee on every Android device sold. What's not to hate?
... but you can't buy a Windows 7 license anymore.
Sure, Windows sucks but why would cramming a shitty OEM version of Android make things better?
Because there are a LOT of Android developers now, who would be very tempted to write for this...
But also from the user side, presumably you could play Android games, buying them at Android prices instead of Windows prices (or playing them for free, the dark unfortunate secret of Android).
And there are a few hardware-assisted breakthroughs thanks to a freshly designed Android mentality. We probably never stopped to think 10 years ago how much shareware, paid or even free software suffered due to the *fragmentation* presented by wintel PC *diversity*
I just realized this: un-needed smartphone peripherals starting with the iPhone and Android era gave birth to a multimedia 2.0... different from the nineties' version in that there are no more drivers, sound cards, CD roms, modems, cameras and microphones to install.
Also, simplified file management and transfers to others (no need for CD burning or shady Windows shares if you have Wifi, certain apps or just bluetooth. For better or worse. It is saddening the knowledge contrast in proficient users who only can upload photos from phone GUIs, but get teary-eyed when you show remind them the 5000+ picture archive on the Windows PC won't attach itself to their emails or flat to Facebook. People do NOT want to have to deal with file sizes, folder locations AND the concept of Windowed desktops when they have an emergency to share with the world.
Back on point, devs gave us unexpected products that PCs and laptops equipped with similar hardware still have no binaries for. Things like personal barcode scanning, radio song identification, GPS and compass-assisted augmented reality that lets you
* avoid paying 100+ USD minimum for dying GPS devices
* find where you parked
* track down miles walked for personal exercise efforts
* overlay star and planet information over the night sky as you point the camera
* translate some signs on the fly
Hybrid machines would mean some hardware changes that might spur a new age of desktop based software that you can distribute for Windows Stores.
There is a loss of the power and control that they use to keep profitable in the long run. They already have plenty of money.
Windows8 needs to have a second os installed just to r
"Let's move from one monopolist to another!"
So I get two crappy systems for the price of one? Shut up and take my money...
GNU/Linux is a real OS, Android/Linux is a dumbed down, moderately functional pain in the ass. I am very exited to hear someone standing up to MisroSoft and their wretched, shitty-ass malware-masquerading-as-an-OS, but including something along with Windows is like someone hitting you in the head with a hammer, but NOW after hitting you in the head with a hammer, he hands you an aspirin tablet. Why not just NOT hit us in the head with a hammer, and why don't these guys offer every system the sell, optionally WITHOUT MS-Win/DOS, for cheaper, so that those of us who don't want to, don't have to pay the fucking MisroSoft Tax?
If MisroSoft balks, and tells them as it has done that they can't sell anything with any software (really malware) from MisroSoft if they offer that alternative, they can all get together, and STOP OFFERING NEW COMPUTERS WITH MS "SOFTWARE" AT ALL. Tell MisroSoft to go fuck themselves, and end this fucking monopoly finally! I am happy and proud not to be using MisroSoft's wretched operating system, or applications software on my computer. I use GNU/Linux, Calligra, Firefox, etc... and everyone should too, if for no other reason than that the reason so many people, even those who HATE all the artificial, deliberately-introduced problems with their Windows "OS", continue to use it is because "everyone else does". Kind of like women wearing high-heels. Many do because they're expected to, if NONE did, they wouldn't have to anymore... the "makes legs look better" thing is bullshit, by the way.
(I conducted a study of women's legs with and without high-heels, and I found that sure enough, the breasts look just as warm, soft, and kissable whether or not the woman is wearing high-heels.)
I didn't RTFA, but as a full dual-boot system (NOT VM-based), this could be useful for me. I like to be able to work occasionally AND have access to a mature app ecosystem which we don't have for Windows so far (and may never have in the future). I wan't real dual-boot because an Android VM will be too resource-hungry compared to native Android.
You can already buy Android netbooks for about 130 Euros. That's the way forward as these machines do not contain any Wintel crapola.
See ebay.com or google for a chinese vendor of Android/ARM based netbooks.
Microsoft and Intel really deserve to be humbled. The IT industry and the customers want players who COMPETE, rather than DESTROY AT ALL COST. Karma does indeed exist and both MS and Intel have destroyed theirs very conclusively.
That doesn't mean I am playing the Google shill here. We really need the ability to use any of several vendors and technologies. Mac OS X is already showing people there are ALTERNATIVES. Linux, xBSD, L4, LibreOffice, LaTeX, AbiWord, MS Office, the Android office packages, - let these projects truly compete and assure each other's honesty.
We the IT specialists need to explore these alternatives and show them to our customers. Explain the pros and cons. That is in my opinion the Way Forward.
You are confusing TPM with SecureBoot.
It was TPM that was set to be mandatory after 2015.
CBA for citations. :P
The article says Android, but I rather suspect that they'd use ChromeOS with the ability to run Android apps. It wouldn't make sense, otherwise. Also, I suspect that the gesture is mostly symbolic at this point. The vendors don't mean for it to replace Windows.
That said, this might be, more or less, fitting with Microsoft's strategy. Last year, Microsoft stated that as a company they intended to migrate away from software and into hardware and services. Windows and Office are their crown jewels, but at the same time, they're looking at how to walk away from them gracefully.
I thought Steve Bennett was the king of Symantec. But seriously, shutdown is right that the snap functionality in Windows 8.1 is more flexible than window management allowed in the Android CDD.
Have you ever used a miniPC running Android?
I've used Android in an emulator on a regular PC, and I've used Android on a Nexus 7 tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard and USB mouse. Does that count?
What could you do with the extended hardware a regular PC could offer and good desktop applications?
It would first require Google to change the API+CDD to provide a well-defined way for applications to opt into a mode with resizable windows and visible scroll bars.
"Microsoft is ALREADY making billions off Android royalties [businessinsider.com]."
You are quoting some analysts speculation as fact. Great job spreading rumors.
That's true, Windows 3.1 did allow multiple apps on screen, which was useful for copy-paste or cross referencing. Windows 8 is less functional is some ways.
Still, it's funny to compare early Windows vs Mac of the same vintage. Windows would be a footnote in history had Apple licensed their OS to other manufacturers.
Try running those programs on Windows 8. You won't like it, that much is certain.
This would have been the perfect chance for Lindows/Linspire to have struck. It was a decade too early!
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Also WTF brought up "emulation"?
In this post I was referring to the device emulator bundled with the Android SDK, which lets a developer test applications that use the NDK on a PC. Sure, a developer could recompile an NDK app for Android/x86, but that wouldn't help with tracking down bugs caused by ARM-specific undefined, unspecified, or implementation-defined behaviors.
Ubuntu spyware? No thanks.
Microsoft makes Windows 8 more like a tablet interface, everyone hates it, so now PC makers are going to put an actual tablet OS on their desktops? The inmates are officially running the prison. P.S. the little icon that hides everything I used to be able to just click on may work great on my phone but sucks on an actual website. Stop trying to make everything look like Android.
Seriously, can we stop with "the PC is going away" bullshit? The PC isn't going away, the reason sales are down is because PC's are *FAST ENOUGH* for most people for their daily jobs. As a *geek* I'm still running a 3 year old system and have no desire to upgrade. Nothing I do is slow on the system. Every game I run can run full screen on my 24" monitor with my GTX465's in SLI.
The #1 reason PC sales have slowed is that there is no demanding new technology forcing upgrades. In the past, every year a new system would drive me to want to upgrade because the speed boosts were noticeable and meaningful.
People people people! Read TFA! These laptops are running Windows and not anything but Windows. There's a lot less here than meets the eye.
BlueStacks has been around since 2012, funded in part by AMD, pre-installed on some PCs, and has not been a game-changer.
Fire Fox has an OS that runs on portable devices. So far, they haven't brought up the idea of using it to run a PC. I'd like to see them do it since my XP system will be a "Death Panel" candidate in about four months. Meanwhile, we will continue to be held hostage to the MS "Alternation": OK-crap-OK-crap as in WIN 95, WIN 98 (better), Me (crap), XP (better), Vista (whale poop), WIN 7 (pretty good), now the Eight Ball. Hopefully, my employer will skip 8 and wait for 9. Yes, I'm dreaming; it's a government agency.
Not saying Android for the desktop is a good idea. But there are already non-mobile Android systems that can easily be repurposed as a mom-and-pop desktop (i.e. a Chrome OS-like system primarily for web browsing). Google or search Amazon, Ebay, etc for Android media players (Apple TV sized kit) or Android HDMI dongles (thumb-drive sized kit).
You can't run x86 programs on those ARM puppies, but with some pain you can install or chroot a full Linux desktop on them. Lighter distros like Debian or Arch are advisable over fancier distros like Ubuntu or Fedora.
And that "put away" "pick up" "put away" ... you also need to do so with your mouse in your windows, you can't have focus in all them at the same time, you have one and later the other.
With a multi-window enviroment, you can have two or more things displayed at once, so you can glance back and forth instead of looking at the taskbar, moving the mouse, clicking, and looking back at the window that just popped into view. Don't think of it as 1920x1080; think of it as dual 960x1080. For example, if I'm reading an e-book and writing a book report, I could have the book open in half of the screen and the word processor open in the other half. True, this doesn't scale to several windows spread across several virtual machines, but it scales to typical personal computing workloads a lot further than the "all maximized all the time" policy of popular tablet operating systems.
And I don't know any browser, for desktops or mobile environment showing more than one page mixed, this doesn't exist. They offer tabs but you need to choose what to see each time.
Firefox for Windows doesn't show two HTML documents mixed, but it does show two documents side by side in separate windows. In Windows 7 or 8, if you drag the title bar to the far left or right side of the screen, or you press Windows+Left or Windows+Right, the window will "snap" to fill half the screen. Then right-click a tab and choose "Move to New Window". Firefox for Android, on the other hand, can't even do that despite my tablet's screen being bigger than that of two phones combined.
This tool has no user interface but only a text based interface and/or some type of API access layer.
What funds the continued operation of the API access layer? And how would, say, an interactive image browsing or manipulation program or a map program work with a text-based interface?
If you are a "power user" that doesn't depends on a GUI to perform a specific task, why not to use a text command? Even a robot can do it
Robots can't look at advertisements. Or would you prefer paywalls?
> but android is a pretty mediocre experience on anything not designed as touchscreen hardware, usually without a keyboard or mouse.
I've had a mouse and keyboard hooked up to my phone (with an OTG adapter). I honestly didn't find it bad at all. The scroll wheel worked, avoiding having to click and drag to scroll. Everything else worked as expected... Really, the only thing that was a bit weird was 'swiping' down from the top to get my notifications and stuff.
That may have been a dealbreaker at some point, but with Windows 8 around it's now no worse than the flagship OS from the world's largest software company. At least I'm familiar with the Android gestures...
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Window's and Linux Android and Apple is nothing more than a payola gateway for the Apps makers to bleed money out of their fan base at every turn. Want extra users? you get 3 extra for $2.99 and above. game tools you pay out the yang for. more board play? pay for it. It's getting ridiculous. Soon the masses will start paying attention to their bank accounts and see all those apple purchases and realize they are not worth it. I stopped dishing out the same month I was purchasing. Why? because many of those games are rigged. Watch your games when you first play without the pay you have moves you can do the game stays the same level through out your play. As soon as you put money down the game gets harder and very difficult to win. Even Rovio is getting in on the payola bandwagon. it won't last, and I don't see this move by the manufacturers being a win for anyone, including them. All anyone has done so far is let these Apps get out of hand. They soon will be making money by charging 99 cents just for you to download their stuff. Gone will be free. They will use such jargon as this allows you to receive updates or some crap they think up.