Opinion: Even if You Hate the Idea, Windows Users Should Want Windows 10 S To Succeed (arstechnica.com)

Last week, Microsoft unveiled Windows 10 S, a new variant of its desktop operating system aimed largely at the education space. While time will tell how this new edition of Windows fares, if early reactions from enthusiasts are anything to go by, Windows 10 S is in for a tough ride ahead. For one, Windows 10 S only permits installation of applications from the Windows Store. If that wasn't a deal-breaker, several popular applications including Google's Chrome are missing from the Store. Amid all of this, reporter and columnist Peter Bright has an op-ed up on ArsTechnica in which he argues that despite the walled-garden offering, people should want Windows 10 S to succeed as it could make Windows better for everyone else. From his article: This [forbidding execution of any program that wasn't downloaded from the Windows Store] positions Microsoft as a gatekeeper -- although its criteria for entry within the store is for the most part not stringent, it does reserve the right to remove software that it deems undesirable -- and means that the vast majority of extant Windows software can't be used. This means that PC mainstays, from Adobe Photoshop to Valve's Steam, can't be used on Windows 10 S. [...] Some of the arguments against this are bizarre. Notably, the complaint that Microsoft has now erected a paywall -- "you have to pay $50 to run Steam!" -- is very peculiar when one considers that, in general, Windows licenses have never been free. [...] The Windows Store makes bad parts of Windows better: I'd argue, however, that Windows users should want Windows 10 S to succeed. Windows 10 S isn't for everybody, and Windows 10 S may not be for you, but if Windows 10 S succeeds, it will make Windows 10 better for everyone. The Store in Windows RT required developers to write their apps from scratch. With negligible numbers of users, developers were uninterested in doing this work. The Store in Windows 10 has Centennial. In principle, Centennial should make it easy to package existing Win32 apps and sell them through the Store, and if developers of Windows apps adopt Centennial en masse then the Store restriction shouldn't be particularly restrictive. Widespread adoption will be good for Windows users of all stripes.

Comments

Re:M$ not eating dogfood until VS is on Store

[MightyYar]

Exactly - for me the acid test is how well they do with the Office port. In theory it is due in June.

Peter Bright

[Anonymous Coward]

A well-known Microsoft's shill. Just read some of his articles on Ars Technica, they sound like vulgar TV commercials.

Very limited perspective on Windows 10

[mykepredko]

The author seems to want Win 10S to succeed because it will result in better Windows Store apps, with a simple install process, which can be used by all Windows users.

Right off the bat, doesn't this place an unreasonable amount of confidence that anything coming from the app store will not be evil?

Secondly, all my problems with Windows 10 have been outside the Windows Store experience that I don't see endearing the product to the education market. I have a couple of Win10 machines with 32GBytes of eMMC; doing an update is hell as it requires an external USB thumb drive and takes multiple hours - something that can't be tolerated in a classroom environment where there are dozens of PCs. I've bitched about my problems with the Win10 Bluetooth stack and I don't see anybody in Microsoft fixing that, even as the need for BT is growing with different external devices.

Next, I feel like Microsoft is going to continually look for opportunities to monetize the platform. Office 365 revenues flat lining? Say, let's start charging all those kids using Win 10S machines, the schools are just wasting money on hot lunch programs that should be going to Microsoft.

Finally, there is the privacy issue. Win 10 seems to be designed around collecting user data and exploiting it. Is this something parents want to have happen to their children? You can say that Google and Chrome do the same thing but it doesn't seem to be a core part of their business model. I wouldn't be surprised coming home to a kid that is demanding an Windows OS'd phone because the computer at school told them how much better it is than their stupid Android or iOS phone.

I know I'll get replies from numerous AC's who feel that I'm being unreasonably harsh towards Microsoft and what they're doing with the Windows 10 S platform, which is much better than ChromeOS even though nobody's seen it before but I just don't see Microsoft having the right stuff or approach to take on the education market in way that is positive for students and not completely exploitative.

As usual Microsoft misses the point

[zerofoo]

Clearly Microsoft is chasing Google again in a half-assed way.

The draw of Chromebooks was not simply cheap laptops. Schools (like us) are drawn to the fact that the supporting cloud infrastructure is stupidly easy to manage.

Local apps don't matter. The few people in our school that need local apps get by on Mac OS or Windows. Everyone else gets a chromebook - their data and apps live in the cloud.

Even if Microsoft built a robust App Store - it wouldn't matter as that's not what draws schools to Chromebooks in the first place.

Very limited perspective on Windows 10 - Part Two

[mykepredko]

Sorry, as soon as I walked away, I realized there were more issues in regards to the perspective on Windows that are a problem:

Edge. Sorry, I don't think it's reasonable to have to maintain a web page for Edge and IE because Microsoft won't use Webkit/be compatible with everything else out there. Companies need to provide responsive pages for tablets and smartphones - they shouldn't need to do the same amount of work for Microsoft browsers (that aren't even fully compatible with each other).

All that crap information on Windows 10 (and 8). If ANYBODY involved with Windows 10 S has ever seen how kids work in a classroom, then they should be clearing off the time/news updates/sports updates/weather/etc. that is in the Win10 scrawl at the bottom. This is just a distractor for kids which takes their attention away from the class material - unfortunately getting rid of it will get rid of potential Microsoft revenue streams so it's not going.

So, why do we want Windows 10 S to succeed?