Comparison is all well and good for dick waving, but in the real world, whining about 50MB vs 90MB on a machine with multiple GB of RAM, and when 16 GB can be obtained for under $100 is pretty irrelevant.
Yup. However when you have the MD wanting to run the business from home using his iPad the funding and priority for such projects magically seem to appear:D
Furthermore.... need a RAM upgrade on your VDI desktop? Sure, I can give you up to 192 GB. That's a couple of clicks in View manager. Need 8 cores of processing for a week? Another few clicks.
You've clearly never dealt with enterprise hardware and the enterprise software stack, so I'll spell it out:
Again, I'm using the iPad merely as an example because that's what I have, but the platform is irrelevant really, so long as it can run a View client or RDP/ICA client.
Processing power difference is pretty irrelevant for the 90% of corporate users who's needs would be filled by a a modern smartphone - any heavy CPU work is done on the cluster, anyway. You don't need a 128 GB ipad if you are running via VDI - 16 GB is plenty - you aren't storing bulk data on the end device. You don't need an external drive either.
You DON'T (for the vast majority of corporate users) require a "real operating system" on your end device. The grunt work is done by your highly available, backed up VMware cluster that is sitting on fast SAN storage (which you already had most of anyway).
If the end user's desktop gets fragged, it is rebuilt from a template. Or even rebuilt every login on the fly with the view composer.
If the end user device dies or is stolen, it is remote wiped, user's password changed, and another one issued. There's no screwing around capturing the end user's data, re-imaging and restoring. They are back up and running in 5-10 minutes.
All you need is a tablet, input peripherals and a monitor, and either an ipad android or other mobile device can do a good desktop impression when run using VDI. Without the ongoing maintenance costs, which are what kills a PC's TCO.
Yes, it requires a network connection. No it won't be a 100% solution for every single use case. But the majority of office people [b]can[/b] work this way today.
I'm not specifically talking about the internet. I'm including private cloud computing in my assertion. And yes there will be niche cases where a network connection is undesirable. But they will be uncommon. The move is to central management of data, be it via a third party cloud provider, or an internal cloud.
Add a keyboard and monitor adapter and it becomes a fairly capable portable computer. Especially combined with PCoIP or terminal services (be it Windows via RDP, Unix via X11 or whatever). You then gain the benefit of complete data protection (central backup, archive, etc).
I spent a week using only an iPad for my system admin job (including typing up documents, using the above mentioned accessories) and it was workable. Yes there were some minor annoyances (bugs in the keyboard behaviour in a couple of apps), but there were no fundamental deal-breaker type problems. I have no doubt these problems will be resolved in short order or maybe even do not exist in other tablets.
Whether it is an iPad, Android tablet or something else (dumb terminal for PCoIP or web forms perhaps running ChromeOS) - Windows on the client is on borrowed time.
If your bean counters don't evaluate based on TCO, then fire them and hire professionals.
So what ends up happening: mostt busienss apps moved to HTML, core accounting (and other, Windows only niche) package run via centrally managed/backed up/stored VDI desktop, and deployed over the network to the accountants who need it to whatever device they happen to be working on via PCoIP.
This is the way we're going due to pressure from upper management to want to BYOD (MD is a mac fan, as are the majority of upper management).
Agreed. However, with the advent of BYOD, tablets, smartphones and the desire (from upper management, no less) to access corporate data from anywhere, on any device at any time - most newer applications are being developed with a browser in mind. This is reducing the relevance of Windows significantly.
Sure, you're going to have edge cases where some particular app needs Windows to run on. But it's trending towards becoming the exception, rather than the norm.
By the time Windows 7 is EOL'd, I very much suspect that the end user operating system/device is likely to be irrelevant for many users, even in business.
Our upper management can already get most of their day done on an iPad - as what they actually do involves talking to people, looking at their calendar, answering/writing email and reading reports.
Once a device becomes popular with upper management, it eventually ends up trickling down, first to the next lower level of management down and IT (to support it), then eventually to the rest of the staff. It's happened at my company already with smartphones. Once apps are re-written to run on the boss's iPad/Android/whatever, the bean counters will see that "we can run this on a $500 tablet that costs essentially $0 in maintenance and ensure the master copy of all data remains on our server, or we can buy a $1000 PC" and change will likely happen.
Again, it likely won't be 100% of users, but I'd wager that it may approach 90% who won't need Windows on the client within Windows 7's life cycle.
Moving the steering wheel also helps you to actually be able to see to overtake safely when driving on the correct side of the road. And gear shifter/gearbox is in the middle of the car. Hand-brake can vary.
Pretty much. the other big problem is that Windows 7 is "good enough". The jump from 98 to 2k or XP, and XP to Vista onwards was significant in terms of changes to the audio system, drive subsystem, security model, 64 bit support, etc.
The jump from 7 to 8? Minor incremental improvement, tempered with a loss of functionality, workflow familiarity, compatibility, etc. On balance, it's just not worth it even if it was a free upgrade (as it IS for me due to enterprise volume licensing agreement. Tried it in test for a month, more trouble than it's worth - and I'm not just referring to the start menu).
It wont ever be year of the Linux desktop. It will be year of the web delivery revolution and end user device irrelevance. It won't be iPads, Androids or any single end user device which kills Windows. It will be the end user device becoming irrelevant, and people using whatever the fuck they like.
So you mean to say i need to upgrade my OS, lose compatibility with a number of apps, go through testing for the rest of everything I use, and install some third party crap from some developer i've never heard of that may break with a service pack just to get the functionality I already have? I could just spend the money on some more RAM or an SSD instead.
I switched to OS X on my desktop. For what I do, pretty much all the apps I need are available. Most of them cheap off the app store or actually free or included in the OS.
If i was bound to an existing bit of hardware, I'd migrate to Linux, but I'm not... like the Mac hardware and happen to like the OS, too. ALL operating systems have their problems/trade-offs, OS X is the least annoying for me.
I get ~200 megabit up to about 10 feet away, ~70 megabit (on 2.4ghz) at the other end of my 4 bedroom brick house (>17m err... 50+ feet through a number of walls away).
Around about 20 feet and a couple of walls to get through, 2.4ghz tends to give equal perfromance assuming no contention from competing wifi networks (I live in a new area so pretty lucky with that), beyond 20 feet and a few walls, 2.4ghz gives better performance than 5ghz due to the better penetration through walls that comes with lower frequency.
It also doesn't help that my Airport Extreme is doing double duty as a gigabit switch for my media centre and is stuck next to a wall on a shelf inside a TV cabinet - if it was mounted somewhere less shrouded by various walls and other obstructions I'm sure performance would improve.
Yes and no. I don't think they'll find the volume they'd lose if apple stopped buying from them. Smart TVs typically aren't using 256GB + of flash, like MBAs, rMBPs, iMacs. Hell, i doubt they're using even 32GB which is a mid-range iPad.
I'd bet a large quantity of money that Apple have taken precautions for the day Samsung refuses to sell, etc and already has second sources, a backup plan, etc for when the day comes.
If Samsung is going to try and play hardball with flash, I don't think they're going to do themselves any favours either - they're only going to lose their biggest NAND customer.
If we also include NEXT (which was steve's spin off which was reintegrated into/became the new apple), you can include the first real Object Oriented rapid application development platform (interface builder), first desktop OS with a built in TCP/IP stack, first workstation with CD quality audio, etc.
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Sounds like you want ZFS, so there is no FSCK.
If that's "always" the case mate, give up, and go back to burger king. You guys are just shit at it.
Comparison is all well and good for dick waving, but in the real world, whining about 50MB vs 90MB on a machine with multiple GB of RAM, and when 16 GB can be obtained for under $100 is pretty irrelevant.
Yup. However when you have the MD wanting to run the business from home using his iPad the funding and priority for such projects magically seem to appear :D
Furthermore.... need a RAM upgrade on your VDI desktop? Sure, I can give you up to 192 GB. That's a couple of clicks in View manager. Need 8 cores of processing for a week? Another few clicks.
Again, I'm using the iPad merely as an example because that's what I have, but the platform is irrelevant really, so long as it can run a View client or RDP/ICA client.
Processing power difference is pretty irrelevant for the 90% of corporate users who's needs would be filled by a a modern smartphone - any heavy CPU work is done on the cluster, anyway. You don't need a 128 GB ipad if you are running via VDI - 16 GB is plenty - you aren't storing bulk data on the end device. You don't need an external drive either.
You DON'T (for the vast majority of corporate users) require a "real operating system" on your end device. The grunt work is done by your highly available, backed up VMware cluster that is sitting on fast SAN storage (which you already had most of anyway).
If the end user's desktop gets fragged, it is rebuilt from a template. Or even rebuilt every login on the fly with the view composer.
If the end user device dies or is stolen, it is remote wiped, user's password changed, and another one issued. There's no screwing around capturing the end user's data, re-imaging and restoring. They are back up and running in 5-10 minutes.
All you need is a tablet, input peripherals and a monitor, and either an ipad android or other mobile device can do a good desktop impression when run using VDI. Without the ongoing maintenance costs, which are what kills a PC's TCO.
Yes, it requires a network connection. No it won't be a 100% solution for every single use case. But the majority of office people [b]can[/b] work this way today.
I'm not specifically talking about the internet. I'm including private cloud computing in my assertion. And yes there will be niche cases where a network connection is undesirable. But they will be uncommon. The move is to central management of data, be it via a third party cloud provider, or an internal cloud.
Add a keyboard and monitor adapter and it becomes a fairly capable portable computer. Especially combined with PCoIP or terminal services (be it Windows via RDP, Unix via X11 or whatever). You then gain the benefit of complete data protection (central backup, archive, etc).
I spent a week using only an iPad for my system admin job (including typing up documents, using the above mentioned accessories) and it was workable. Yes there were some minor annoyances (bugs in the keyboard behaviour in a couple of apps), but there were no fundamental deal-breaker type problems. I have no doubt these problems will be resolved in short order or maybe even do not exist in other tablets.
Whether it is an iPad, Android tablet or something else (dumb terminal for PCoIP or web forms perhaps running ChromeOS) - Windows on the client is on borrowed time.
If your bean counters don't evaluate based on TCO, then fire them and hire professionals.
Someone page me when there's a $599 laptop worth actually purchasing, that has equivalent spec, quality of build and included software.
So what ends up happening: mostt busienss apps moved to HTML, core accounting (and other, Windows only niche) package run via centrally managed/backed up/stored VDI desktop, and deployed over the network to the accountants who need it to whatever device they happen to be working on via PCoIP.
This is the way we're going due to pressure from upper management to want to BYOD (MD is a mac fan, as are the majority of upper management).
CLANG / LLVM is funded by Apple, btw, specifically so they can get away from GCC.
Agreed. However, with the advent of BYOD, tablets, smartphones and the desire (from upper management, no less) to access corporate data from anywhere, on any device at any time - most newer applications are being developed with a browser in mind. This is reducing the relevance of Windows significantly.
Sure, you're going to have edge cases where some particular app needs Windows to run on. But it's trending towards becoming the exception, rather than the norm.
By the time Windows 7 is EOL'd, I very much suspect that the end user operating system/device is likely to be irrelevant for many users, even in business.
Our upper management can already get most of their day done on an iPad - as what they actually do involves talking to people, looking at their calendar, answering/writing email and reading reports.
Once a device becomes popular with upper management, it eventually ends up trickling down, first to the next lower level of management down and IT (to support it), then eventually to the rest of the staff. It's happened at my company already with smartphones. Once apps are re-written to run on the boss's iPad/Android/whatever, the bean counters will see that "we can run this on a $500 tablet that costs essentially $0 in maintenance and ensure the master copy of all data remains on our server, or we can buy a $1000 PC" and change will likely happen.
Again, it likely won't be 100% of users, but I'd wager that it may approach 90% who won't need Windows on the client within Windows 7's life cycle.
That's "driver subsystem"...
Thing is, the people involved with creating/funding laws don't want that, because it means that when THEY do it, it is unambiguous.
Moving the steering wheel also helps you to actually be able to see to overtake safely when driving on the correct side of the road. And gear shifter/gearbox is in the middle of the car. Hand-brake can vary.
Pretty much. the other big problem is that Windows 7 is "good enough". The jump from 98 to 2k or XP, and XP to Vista onwards was significant in terms of changes to the audio system, drive subsystem, security model, 64 bit support, etc.
The jump from 7 to 8? Minor incremental improvement, tempered with a loss of functionality, workflow familiarity, compatibility, etc. On balance, it's just not worth it even if it was a free upgrade (as it IS for me due to enterprise volume licensing agreement. Tried it in test for a month, more trouble than it's worth - and I'm not just referring to the start menu).
It wont ever be year of the Linux desktop. It will be year of the web delivery revolution and end user device irrelevance. It won't be iPads, Androids or any single end user device which kills Windows. It will be the end user device becoming irrelevant, and people using whatever the fuck they like.
So you mean to say i need to upgrade my OS, lose compatibility with a number of apps, go through testing for the rest of everything I use, and install some third party crap from some developer i've never heard of that may break with a service pack just to get the functionality I already have? I could just spend the money on some more RAM or an SSD instead.
Uh.... i gather you're referring to apple with the price rises.... but their prices have been falling pretty much since they switched to intel?
If i was bound to an existing bit of hardware, I'd migrate to Linux, but I'm not... like the Mac hardware and happen to like the OS, too. ALL operating systems have their problems/trade-offs, OS X is the least annoying for me.
You can turn off scaling and run 2880x1800 native if you want.
I get ~200 megabit up to about 10 feet away, ~70 megabit (on 2.4ghz) at the other end of my 4 bedroom brick house (>17m err... 50+ feet through a number of walls away).
Around about 20 feet and a couple of walls to get through, 2.4ghz tends to give equal perfromance assuming no contention from competing wifi networks (I live in a new area so pretty lucky with that), beyond 20 feet and a few walls, 2.4ghz gives better performance than 5ghz due to the better penetration through walls that comes with lower frequency.
It also doesn't help that my Airport Extreme is doing double duty as a gigabit switch for my media centre and is stuck next to a wall on a shelf inside a TV cabinet - if it was mounted somewhere less shrouded by various walls and other obstructions I'm sure performance would improve.
5ghz performance drops rapidly with obstructions.
Intel = bad, AMD = good. OpenCL = apple = bad, Linux = good. LLVM = apple = bad. Oh what spin should the /. groupthink put on this?
Yes and no. I don't think they'll find the volume they'd lose if apple stopped buying from them. Smart TVs typically aren't using 256GB + of flash, like MBAs, rMBPs, iMacs. Hell, i doubt they're using even 32GB which is a mid-range iPad.
I'd bet a large quantity of money that Apple have taken precautions for the day Samsung refuses to sell, etc and already has second sources, a backup plan, etc for when the day comes.
If Samsung is going to try and play hardball with flash, I don't think they're going to do themselves any favours either - they're only going to lose their biggest NAND customer.
If we also include NEXT (which was steve's spin off which was reintegrated into/became the new apple), you can include the first real Object Oriented rapid application development platform (interface builder), first desktop OS with a built in TCP/IP stack, first workstation with CD quality audio, etc.