Microsoft Targets The iMac With New All-In-One Surface PCs, Reports Say (networkworld.com)

New submitter Miche67 writes: Two reports say Microsoft is working on an all-in-one (AIO) PC under the Surface brand. If that's true, it would put it in competition with HP and Dell, which have their own AIO lines, as well as put it in competition with Apple's iMac. Network World reports: "Both DigiTimes and Windows Central picked up on the story, each citing their own sources. DigiTimes, a Taiwan-based publication with connections to the PC industry over there (but also a very mixed record of accuracy) said the new devices would come in the third quarter of this year. Windows Central, which is a little better when it comes to rumors, said it did not have a solid release date." Business Insider was able to find a patent filing by Microsoft for a desktop PC that supports the rumored AIO design. "The device is evidently targeting a 'modern and elegant' design and is meant to be something akin to a premium appliance or furniture," Windows Central wrote. Intel's release date of the new Kaby Lake line of processors around Q3 of this year complicates things. While Kaby Lake is said to be more mobile-friendly with less power consumption and heat, they would make for a good choice for an AIO machine. However, it would be pushing it for Microsoft to release its AIO machines in the same quarter that Kaby Lake is due. On a semi-related note, a programmer at Building 88 recently confirmed that Microsoft will release Surface 5 devices next year powered by Kaby Lake processors. He posted pictures of four device holders marked "2017" on his Twitter account.

Comments

Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[mpapet]

Things must be desperate inside Microsoft. They are attacking their own customers. (Dell, Asus, etc.)

Re:Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[93 Escort Wagon]

Things must be desperate inside Microsoft. They are attacking their own customers. (Dell, Asus, etc.)

They've already been doing that for a few years, now - ever since the first Surface portable was announced.

I suppose the good news for their partners is - Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing a particularly good job of competing with them. I'm a Mac guy; but, if I were in the market for a Windows portable, it'd probably be something more like the Lenovo Yoga line. I've used a few different Surfaces, and even the pricey keyboard cover absolutely blows chunks. Of course Lenovo has a few little issues of its own...

Re:Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[Njorthbiatr]

But I mean, at least Lenovo can figure out that laptops need ventilation holes.

Re:Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[ShaunC]

The obvious and overdone product placements for the Surface are very off-putting as well. A couple of times during the NASCAR race this weekend, they'd cut to a trackside reporter who'd start out their segment saying "Looking here on my Microsoft Surface, I can see..." [some statistic they could easily have viewed on any device]. I've seen sideline reporters do the same thing during NBC coverage of NFL games, except amusingly the NFL hosts kept referring to them as iPads.

When your product has so little brand awareness and/or consumer goodwill that you purchase blatant product placements like this, I personally find that to be a sign of an undesirable product. Product placement, as opposed to just buying a normal TV commercial, reeks of being sneaky and underhanded. Then again that describes Microsoft's image in general these days; "sneaky and underhanded" probably ought to be the official motto of Windows 10.

Re:Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Even before the Surface, they had the Zune which was billed as an iPod alternative, but ended up attacking Microsoft PlaysForSure partners

Re:Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[Gumbercules!!]

No, Microsoft are not screwed. Microsoft's partners are screwed.

If Microsoft starts pushing out equipment that people want and emulates Apple - then there's no need for Dell. Anyway, who is Dell going to get an OS from? Apple? Dell has to keep selling Windows because its consumers need it (enterprise and business). Linux is not an option.

It's not just hardware partners Microsoft is screwing over - channel partners are in deep shit, too. All those millions of little IT shops days are numbered, too. Office 365, Azure integrated AD, etc. All spells a lot of trouble for people who have spent the last 10 years selling SBS boxes and PCs to small businesses.

Re: Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[Bing Tsher E]

Back in the early years of the Mac, Microsoft Word and Excel were two of the main reasons to own a Mac. Macwrite? Don't kid around like that.

Re: Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[Anonymous Coward]

And that abomination of an OS that is called Windows 10 is not a Toy?
After all, it sends everything you do back to Mommy.

Re:Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[hairyfeet]

Oh please, twist history to fit your narrative much?

MSFT thought they could keep on bloating forever, when at the time they had already bloated so damned much that laptops had fans that sounded like jet engines thanks to all the shit MSFT had running. Asus and Dell got a "hell of a deal" (Because we know now Intel was product dumping trying to create a new market) on a shit ton of Intel Atom chips, slap a small screen and some solid state storage or a small hard drive and voila! A netbook, cheap as hell to make and anybody in retail would tell you cheap small and light laptops are easy to move...so what does MSFT do? Release Vista which was a giant bloated hog! You ever try to run Vista RTM on a netbook? Its actually quite funny, you can practically measure boot time in days.

So no shit they went Linux, MSFT wouldn't give 'em the normal bulk rate on XP (because MSFT wanted to push their new hotness whether people wanted it or not....gee why does that sound familiar?) and they sure as fuck wasn't gonna stick Vista on a netbook so they either bought or rolled their own Linux. When MSFT realized they couldn't force the OEMs to take a bloated corpse of an OS to install on fricking netbooks they caved and offered WinXP and voila! Within 8 months they were all running XP and MSFT made sure their next release wasn't so bloated it would run like shit on laptops and even came out with an ultra light version for netbooks.

Of course then they jacked up the price of a copy of Win 7 to kill the netbook...but that is another story. As for Windows 10 Ultimate Spyware Edition being SaaS? Wow you must not know the history of MSFT very well. You see the Ballmernator wanted MSFT to be a bad Apple ripoff and when they punt kicked him they replaced him with....a guy that wants the company to be a bad Google ripoff.

So while Ballmer tried to do everything Apple did but hamhanded and piss poor (see Zune, Kin, buying Nokia so they could make their own handsets) we now have Nutella trying to do everything Google does but hamhanded and piss poor. all the datamining shit is the same that Google is doing but unlike Google MSFT is about as subtle as a raging bull with the shits charging through Sunday Mass so its getting massive backlash. Its just SSDD with MSFT, still 2 steps behind and tripping over their own feet.

Re: Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[NotAPK]

I loaded up a big nasty Excel 2007 spreadsheet in Libreoffice and was pleasantly surprised to find everything working.

I'm sure there are some bits missing, but it's closer to 99% than to 50% feature-complete.

Re:Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[DogDude]

No. Microsoft is selling the Surface and this proposed product as a super premium offering. People obviously don't want Apple, otherwise they'd be buying Apple. To get work done, people will continue to buy Dells and HP's, and whoever else sells regular computers.

Re: Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[bigman2003]

I think you are giving Apple way too much credit.

Both companies do a good job of taking other ideas, refining them, then using their size and resources to bring products to market.

Regarding Bing- yes, there is a need for it. If you only look at consumer search functionality Google serves that purpose, and is generally better than Bing. (I am a lonely Bing user...) But- do you recommend that nobody else compete in this space? More importantly, Microsoft owns the index/search technology they use for other products- such as Cortana. Indexing huge amounts of information is a very important function moving forward. Microsoft reps have stated many times that the primary importance of Bing is not the direct consumer space.

Apple has had its share of 'me too' products. I bought more than my share of 'Performa' macs, which were just absolute crap. Their Apple Watch is crap. They have had many others. Hell, I owned an Apple III, when everyone with any sense was buying IBM.

Apple has had a few blockbuster successes, which have led to them being a hugely successful company. But that does not elevate them to some incredible status where they do no wrong or are just better than other companies.

Re: Microsoft's Customers are Screwed.. Again

[Wdomburg]

Development on Microsoft Word started back in 1981 by the ex-Xerox employee behind Bravo, a WYSIWYG document editor created in 1974. MacWrite didn't hit the scene until 1984.

Does it run macOS?

[Applehu Akbar]

If not, it doesn't compete wit the iMac.

Re: Does it run macOS?

[Austerity Empowers]

Not if it runs Windows. If it ran Linux or macOS? Tempting, providing MS invested the same effort in mfg quality as Apple, I'd even pay more.

Re: Does it run macOS?

[another_twilight]

A large number (most?) of people who buy a computer are never going to repair or upgrade it. Of those machines that are opened up, a large number will be repaired or upgraded by a technician or support staff and even then, the vast majority are only going to have RAM increased. Gamers and people with a technical bent like to be able to access their machines, but for almost everyone else, they are appliances and accessibility just adds space and cost.

I'd also love to see something between the mini and the Pro in a tech-friendly format, but both of us belong to a very small market sector and one that Apple has no interest in.

Macs used to remain useful for longer than Windows PCs. Part of that was OSX, part of it was different users and use cases. AIOs made no sense in the PC world, where you'd need to be throwing the whole thing away every couple of years, rather than upgrading components. It was a better proposition on the Mac side of things. These days, however, a 5 year old mid-level PC is still useful. A Windows/PC AIO isn't as bad a choice as once it was. Microsoft can make decent hardware, but suffers from coming late to markets with products that are as good as _but_no_better_ than those already in the field. If it can avoid playing catch-up with Apple and the iMac a Microsoft AIO isn't necessarily a bad concept.

Lot's of 'ifs'.

Re: Does it run macOS?

[narcc]

That's cute, but there are innumerable reasons why MacOS maintains a tiny fraction of the desktop market (Various sources place this between 5 and 10 percent currently). Equally so for Linux (though they hold a smaller fraction of the desktop). Use whatever you like, but neither of those alternatives are, apparently, suitable for options for many users. At this point in time, alternatives like those are some people can, at best, "get away with running".

Even Apple's tiny share, in OS terms, might be in question. Back in early 2006, when the Intel Mac was still a hot topic, some 39% of Mac users planned to install boot camp, one survey reported. I can't find any current numbers (I suspect Apple wouldn't want us to know) but it seems that the ability to run Windows on a Mac is pretty important to Mac owners, given how much time and effort Apple has invested in that feature.

Linux is king of the server, but no one seems to want it on the desktop. It's free, and handles common tasks well, but that simply isn't enough to drive users to adopt it. Too many "can I ..." and "I want ..." questions are still answered by even the most committed Linux advocate with a "you can't, but..." response.

Whatever your personal feelings, Windows is, without question, the more useful desktop OS for the majority of users. That may change in the future, but I can't see it happening any time soon.

Re: Does it run macOS?

[macs4all]

Whatever your personal feelings, Windows is, without question, the more useful desktop OS for the majority of users. That may change in the future, but I can't see it happening any time soon.

Useful? More like Entrenched.

And Mac Users that install BootCamp generally do it because they want to; but rather because their work environment forces Windows on them.

Windows is more like a self-replicating virus than a reasonable OS these days.

And I develop Windows business Applications; so I spend quite a bit of time in their OSes.

Makes me appreciate macOS all the more...

Microsoft is never going to get ahead

[surfdaddy]

...by continuing their Apple and other company envy. They need to do some ground-breaking things that are unique for themselves AND are wildly successful in the market. Not be a clueless follower:

Mac OS, so then Microsoft creates Windows

iPod, so then Microsoft creates Zune

Google search, so then Microsoft creates Bing

Google does ads, so then Microsoft has to do ads

Apple app store, so then Microsoft creates an app store

Apple stores, so then Microsoft has to have stores

Apple provides free OS updates, so then Microsoft has to provide a free OS update

Apple high-end hardware, so then Microsoft has to have high-end hardware

Apple all in one PCs, so then Microsoft has to make all-in-one PCs

Re:Microsoft is never going to get ahead

[Proudrooster]

They have done a few ground breaking things.

1. XBOX Kinect
2. The BING search engine featuring pretty background images.
3. The Developers, Developers, Developers song by Steve Balmer, ex CEO.
4. Visual Studio, Visual Basic, and .NET
5. And who could forget Clippy and Microsoft Bob?
6. The Ribbon Interface.

and let's not forget about Microsoft Movie Maker. but they still didn't include it in Windows 10. :(

So while it is a mixed bag, they are trying and experimenting. Oh and don't forget they own MINECRAFT now!

Re:Microsoft is never going to get ahead

[GoChickenFat]

Your list is true but of course, MS does more than PCs and PC hardware. If Apple were so awesome we'd all be using them at work but those of us old enough know that Apple failed at the business market in the 80's and 90's and is still not a competitor for enterprise. They still don't have a competing email server or office productivity suite or DB or enterprise domain management or robust user access controls or server OS or print servers, file servers, collaboration environment, web server, development language, etc.
btw, I HATE my surface 4. It's massively flawed, primarily due to the Intel Skylake failures with sleep mode that they're still trying to fix with UEFI updates. I HATE going from the doc to tablet and back. I always have to reboot just get the screen resolution back AND I have to continually resize the windows. The doc has an weird 10 second time out for wireless adaptors that causes missed keystrokes and delayed mouse response - solution is to move the adaptor to the tablet. It's maddening, especially considering it performs rather well as a PC once all the annoyances are dealt with and it's portability and keyboard cover are nice and very usable.

Re:Microsoft is never going to get ahead

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Microsoft's motto should be, "Wait For Us, We're The Leader!"

Re:Microsoft is never going to get ahead

[Killall -9 Bash]

WHOOOOOOSH!!!!!

Re:Microsoft is never going to get ahead

[macs4all]

A home OSX server with 2 macs and another windows user is not an enterprise level environment.

Things get really tricky when you have multiple LDAP forests with 2 way trust and require fine grained workstation control with group policies. As far as I am aware the Microsoft platform is a lot more suited for this than Apple's. Apple has traditionally always catered for the general consumer and their products and software reflect that.

Here's the point: For every business that is the size that needs to have "multiple LDAP forests and 2 way trust that require fine grained workstation control and group policies" (and, more importantly, the attendant Computer Priests to utter the proper incantations and shake the incense burners over their server racks), there are 1,000,000 homes and small businesses that could get by just fine with a Mac mini server QUIETLY tucked away on a shelf.

Not every business is a Fortune 500 multinational. In fact, only 500 businesses are, eh?

Re: Microsoft is never going to get ahead

[cyber-vandal]

VS is also free.

Good lord these things are ugly.

[jpellino]

I mean sheet 4 of the drawings takes the cake, and all of them pretty much look like they got creative with a spare parts bin from several other appliance companies. Frankly I was shocked NOT to see a 1950s pull-lever ice cube tray as part of one of the designs.