They have no direction. All the smart people left and either retired or went to work for Google or Apple. Microsoft are just blindly firing money in all directions hoping to hit something at this point, but with design-by-committee products like this, they're not likely to get anywhere.
It runs a full-blown desktop OS, and has a hardware keyboard, which makes it an ultrabook competitor
And this is why it will fail. You'd think microsoft would have looked at the hundreds of millions of iOS device sales and figured out that most people DON'T WANT a full blown desktop OS with all the associated problems that come with it. They don't want some shitty half-assed excuse for a keyboard. They don't want 4 hours of battery life, they want much more.
Compared to an ultrabook, the surface has a crap keyboard and can't be used on your lap due to the flimsy link between keyboard and screen (no fold resistance) and kickstand. Compared to a tablet it just has no battery life.
The average person could quite happily get away with an ARM cpu in their desktop, let alone a portable machine that is going to be used for lightweight stuff like email, internet browsing, facebook, etc.
They do not need or want a full x86 CPU in such a device. It is a waste of money and a waste of the power budget.
Kill the Core CPU in it, drop in an atom, drop RAM down to 2gb, trim Windows 8 down to 2gb or so for a base install and drop the price down to 600 bucks.
It will still run Office just fine, the CPU will be plenty fast enough and they'll actually sell at that price, I suspect.
Okay, here's your article about why Linux failed on the desktop. Explanation is simple. Microsoft has had a powerful entrenched monopoly on the desktop. The phenomena of software lock-in is very real. IBM learned this in the 60's. Competing desktop OSes never stood a chance. Does that answer your question about Linux on the desktop? It doesn't matter how good any competitor is against an entrenched monopolist.
This is why OS X market share is growing in percentage terms, when paired with "Expensive hardware", Windows is in decline, and Linux hasn't gotten anywhere on the desktop in the last 10 years despite being FREE.
Linux isn't getting anywhere on the desktop because for the average PC user, for desktop usage, the Linux desktop experience is still crap. Yes, it can do a million things other operating systems can't with the super tweak-able GUI. However it can't remain with the same UI paradigm for more than 5 years at a time, continually deprecates/breaks applications from release to release and doesn't have enough polished, high quality software available for non-nerd usage (graphics, video, music, etc).
If you buy a decent laptop with decent trackpad and keyboard (apple, or higher end PC gear) then you don't need to lug a keyboard and mouse around. The keyboard and trackpad on the MBA 11" are pleasant to use, for example.
Yup, and this is exactly what you get when a device is designed to have maximum feature tickbox coverage without any thought as to what it will be used for. In an effort to include everything, it sucks at everything.
The iPad may have more battery life, but it can't replace a laptop. Pro Surface can, and that is it's killer feature.
The iPad isn't INTENDED to replace a laptop. It doesn't matter how laptop-replacement-worthy your tablet is if it has 4 hours battery life when you need something to work away from an AC power outlet for a day or more. The surface pro is not good enough. You can't use it in the field without being tethered to a power outlet at least twice per working day.
Plenty of people seem to be failing to understand that a tablet is not and never will be a laptop replacement for doing laptop style things. Including microsoft it would appear, who are designing products by committee/feature tickbox sheet without any thoughts as to what it will be used for in the real world.
Yes I've used Windows 8 since the beta. Yes it is terrible. It is NOT superior to iOS or any other OS on the market in terms of UI consitency if you are running the "pro" version which is, lets be honest the only version that has any sort of advantage over any other mobile OS due to the ability to run office/windows software.
With our enterprise license, upgrading is essentially free for me (other than lost time in reinstalling). I'm running it in a VM and still not keen on the idea.
If you're installing hundreds of patches to get every box up to speed, you're doing it wrong. Roll out a pre-patched image, every 6 months update the image with the missing updates. With 7 it is even easier as you can use the offline servicing tools to inject the updates into your image without even needing to spin it up and recapture.
Also... the company I used to work at was like that. No support, no budget for hardware, etc.
It doesn't save money. An end user working at half speed for a few weeks will pay for a new system easily in lost productivity. The systems are a tax write off for the business over the 3 years we are allowed to depreciate them over. They can run newer, more secure operating systems, reducing the loss of company data leakage, whch could be the difference between us winning or losing multi million dollar contracts.
There's zero business case to push machines way beyond their design life.
That is entirely dependent on the developer porting to Linux. Steam will make it easier, sure, but it is still up to the developer to decide whether or not the numbers are worth the effort.
LOL. Mod down for telling the truth. I hate to break it to you Linux fanboys, but you won't get the instant games library you are thinking steam will bring. Unfortunately, steam is only a content delivery platform, not some game engine that will magically port everything. I say that as a Mac owner and Linux user of some 15 years - the number of OS X games actually available is very small indeed.
So if I don't forbid users from compiling malware on my OS, i'm just as guilty as the guys writing the malware?
By that thinking someone should be suing the shit out of Linus, because the vast majority of skript kiddie exploits out there use Linux as the host OS to launch them from.
? HDs? Handbrake uses all 8 virtual cores on my i7 at 100% if i'm transcoding with it. It is very well threaded, and the task it is performing (video transcoding) is one of those highly parallel tasks.
Yes, i'm fully aware of linux being able to be customized - i've spent the past decade and a half building bare bones linux and FreeBSD boxes for use as network monitoring/firewalling/application servers, but if you compare the desktop distributions that people use on the desktop, they are no different to Windows or OS X in terms of bundled software.
I can remove any of the apps i don't want in OS X by just dragging them to the trash - a lot easier than building a Linux box from the command line installing only the software i want with apt-get.
In fact, due to app bundles being self contained on OS X, its a lot easier to install/keep only what you actually want as they don't generally have dependencies.
My point was : bundled software you don't use is different to software that sits in the background consuming resources, spying on you, etc. I'm not sure there's an official definition of "Crapware", but I'd use it to classify useless resource hogging trial software and adware.
Oh i agree they need to keep on their toes and make sure they aren't made irrelevant from underneath like Sparc, MIPS, etc.
But, worst case - intel have the best fabs in the world. Absolute worst case... they license arm and punch out better ARM cpus than any one else can produce. Until a competitor gains the upper hand in fabrication technology, intel have little to worry about.
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They have no direction. All the smart people left and either retired or went to work for Google or Apple. Microsoft are just blindly firing money in all directions hoping to hit something at this point, but with design-by-committee products like this, they're not likely to get anywhere.
And this is why it will fail. You'd think microsoft would have looked at the hundreds of millions of iOS device sales and figured out that most people DON'T WANT a full blown desktop OS with all the associated problems that come with it. They don't want some shitty half-assed excuse for a keyboard. They don't want 4 hours of battery life, they want much more.
Compared to an ultrabook, the surface has a crap keyboard and can't be used on your lap due to the flimsy link between keyboard and screen (no fold resistance) and kickstand. Compared to a tablet it just has no battery life.
The average person could quite happily get away with an ARM cpu in their desktop, let alone a portable machine that is going to be used for lightweight stuff like email, internet browsing, facebook, etc.
They do not need or want a full x86 CPU in such a device. It is a waste of money and a waste of the power budget.
Kill the Core CPU in it, drop in an atom, drop RAM down to 2gb, trim Windows 8 down to 2gb or so for a base install and drop the price down to 600 bucks.
It will still run Office just fine, the CPU will be plenty fast enough and they'll actually sell at that price, I suspect.
but you can plug in a shitty keyboard now!!!!
This is why OS X market share is growing in percentage terms, when paired with "Expensive hardware", Windows is in decline, and Linux hasn't gotten anywhere on the desktop in the last 10 years despite being FREE.
Linux isn't getting anywhere on the desktop because for the average PC user, for desktop usage, the Linux desktop experience is still crap. Yes, it can do a million things other operating systems can't with the super tweak-able GUI. However it can't remain with the same UI paradigm for more than 5 years at a time, continually deprecates/breaks applications from release to release and doesn't have enough polished, high quality software available for non-nerd usage (graphics, video, music, etc).
If you buy a decent laptop with decent trackpad and keyboard (apple, or higher end PC gear) then you don't need to lug a keyboard and mouse around. The keyboard and trackpad on the MBA 11" are pleasant to use, for example.
Yup, and this is exactly what you get when a device is designed to have maximum feature tickbox coverage without any thought as to what it will be used for. In an effort to include everything, it sucks at everything.
The iPad isn't INTENDED to replace a laptop. It doesn't matter how laptop-replacement-worthy your tablet is if it has 4 hours battery life when you need something to work away from an AC power outlet for a day or more. The surface pro is not good enough. You can't use it in the field without being tethered to a power outlet at least twice per working day.
Plenty of people seem to be failing to understand that a tablet is not and never will be a laptop replacement for doing laptop style things. Including microsoft it would appear, who are designing products by committee/feature tickbox sheet without any thoughts as to what it will be used for in the real world.
Yes I've used Windows 8 since the beta. Yes it is terrible. It is NOT superior to iOS or any other OS on the market in terms of UI consitency if you are running the "pro" version which is, lets be honest the only version that has any sort of advantage over any other mobile OS due to the ability to run office/windows software.
I run a momentus XT in my home laptop (SSD at work). It's a very good trade-off. Next desktop I buy i'm going to RAID a bunch of them.
Computer backups are not free. They take time, storage space and recovery time WHEN something fucks up is a waste of my day.
Call the system vendor, say "it's fucked, send an engineer with a replacement".
Yeah, and this is the reason OS X and android have had such a massive impact in the enterprise.
See: Gnome 3.
With our enterprise license, upgrading is essentially free for me (other than lost time in reinstalling). I'm running it in a VM and still not keen on the idea.
If you're installing hundreds of patches to get every box up to speed, you're doing it wrong. Roll out a pre-patched image, every 6 months update the image with the missing updates. With 7 it is even easier as you can use the offline servicing tools to inject the updates into your image without even needing to spin it up and recapture.
Also... the company I used to work at was like that. No support, no budget for hardware, etc.
It doesn't save money. An end user working at half speed for a few weeks will pay for a new system easily in lost productivity. The systems are a tax write off for the business over the 3 years we are allowed to depreciate them over. They can run newer, more secure operating systems, reducing the loss of company data leakage, whch could be the difference between us winning or losing multi million dollar contracts.
There's zero business case to push machines way beyond their design life.
We were talking about servers.
Pay? This is what warranty is for. Board/cpu fails - cluster takes up the load, i get an email and get the vendor out to replace.
That is entirely dependent on the developer porting to Linux. Steam will make it easier, sure, but it is still up to the developer to decide whether or not the numbers are worth the effort.
LOL. Mod down for telling the truth. I hate to break it to you Linux fanboys, but you won't get the instant games library you are thinking steam will bring. Unfortunately, steam is only a content delivery platform, not some game engine that will magically port everything. I say that as a Mac owner and Linux user of some 15 years - the number of OS X games actually available is very small indeed.
So if I don't forbid users from compiling malware on my OS, i'm just as guilty as the guys writing the malware?
By that thinking someone should be suing the shit out of Linus, because the vast majority of skript kiddie exploits out there use Linux as the host OS to launch them from.
First time you plug the phone in, it ASKS YOU what you want to do with the device when you plug it in. Try again.
? HDs? Handbrake uses all 8 virtual cores on my i7 at 100% if i'm transcoding with it. It is very well threaded, and the task it is performing (video transcoding) is one of those highly parallel tasks.
Yes, i'm fully aware of linux being able to be customized - i've spent the past decade and a half building bare bones linux and FreeBSD boxes for use as network monitoring/firewalling/application servers, but if you compare the desktop distributions that people use on the desktop, they are no different to Windows or OS X in terms of bundled software.
I can remove any of the apps i don't want in OS X by just dragging them to the trash - a lot easier than building a Linux box from the command line installing only the software i want with apt-get.
In fact, due to app bundles being self contained on OS X, its a lot easier to install/keep only what you actually want as they don't generally have dependencies.
My point was : bundled software you don't use is different to software that sits in the background consuming resources, spying on you, etc. I'm not sure there's an official definition of "Crapware", but I'd use it to classify useless resource hogging trial software and adware.
Oh i agree they need to keep on their toes and make sure they aren't made irrelevant from underneath like Sparc, MIPS, etc.
But, worst case - intel have the best fabs in the world. Absolute worst case... they license arm and punch out better ARM cpus than any one else can produce. Until a competitor gains the upper hand in fabrication technology, intel have little to worry about.