And yet MS is still raking in the cash over patents they claim Linux is infringing...
If they're raking in cash then that means Linux units are shifting. What is better for Linux, more mindshare from more Windows licenses in the field or a paltry patent fee and less mindshare due to a Linux unit in the field and the Linux using OEM gets a share of the profit.
B&N did and apparently it worked out pretty well for them.
By the time the patents have run out they will be obsolete and will have been replaced with something else that MS is claiming they own.
True that but every Android or Linux unit that shifts may be 5-15 dollars in MS' coffers but it represents one atomic unit of less direct influence they have over the market. I'd rather they get a patent fee than an in the field Windows license.
there's a quality/features/innovation hole in the PC lineup
Which in no way automatically implies that you are talking about a PC analog of the iPad. Not to mention the logical inconsistency of how were PC OEMs supposed to compete with the iPad using Windows 7 which was all they had to work with from MS anyway.
I can't understand why you guys are having such a tough time with that concept.
What I'm having a tough time with is reading your mind and figuring out what exactly it was that the OEMs were supposed to do without a touch based OS and ecosystem. You need to work on your presumptions.
Yeah and those 90 something million Wiis Nintendo moved outselling XBox and PS3 by 50 percent all run DirectX too. Yep, OpenGL is dead in the water./s.
I figured it would have been apparent, but I was talking about their desktop/laptop hardware business in particular.
It's not so much that it wasn't apparent but it's helpful to remind people sometimes that pretty much none of the OEMs just make computers or even depend on them in a huge way. PCs either scrape by or lose money for many manufacturers and they'd probably be better off just getting out of the market anyway.
The problem with Steam's plans for linux is that no one, and I mean no one, installs Steam because they want to *only* play Valve games.
Well, Gabe Newell seems pretty committed to the whole Steam on Linux thing and he has expressed desire to get all Steam games working on Linux. And with a billion dollar company backing the effort it can be done. With a sufficient amount of polishing, those games that aren't truly native could be run on a translation layer behind the scenes and you would never even notice the difference.
If Steam on Android is any indication, they won't.
Steam on Android isn't an indication of anything as it isn't made to play games with but to interact with Steam and buy games for later playing on your regular computer. I'm not really sure why you brought it up.
When Gabe says "all Steam games" I think "that's nice, but you're spouting BS, and where the hell is my HL3?"
I'm not saying this is the route he's going to take with it but throw enough talent and money at it and Wine would be a seamless behind the scenes solution on Steam for Linux. Scoff all you want but as a community effort it plays a lot of stuff.
that looks like any ordinary small pc, with a touch screen.
It's like the Asus Transformer. Keyboard dock with removable tablet. You can think of it kind of like the Surface Pro except you will actually be able to type on it for more than a few minutes at a time without tearing your hair out in frustration.
you seem to think that acer couldn't do anything without microsoft for the last three years. that they couldn't do anything without win8. well not only did they not even try, but they also didn't step up to microsoft and offer to help with the hardware.
Okay, what do you propose Acer do? Remember we're talking within the MS space here as that's the context of the entire story, e.g., the article title is 'Negative For The Whole PC Industry'. Acer is a relatively small company so if they were to somehow persuade Intel or AMD to deliver a chip and chipset that is competitive, i.e., a Core chip not Atom and at least 8 hours of battery life, how do you propose they build a touch based software ecosystem to rival the iPad? How do they make Windows 7 touch friendly beyond the first layer? Create some kind of skin? And for their hypothetical touchbased ecosystem, how do they get developers to buy in since it will only work on Acer products? What about media content? So on and so forth. Let me give you the short answer. Acer can't pull any of that off much less all of it to a degree that they don't go broke in the process of trying. It's ludicrous for you to even suggest that they could do any of that without MS' support. I realize that conceptually we can walk through all of these different scenarios and come up with what seems like a workable solution but that's just dreaming.
and I'll bet that microsoft spent a few months and went from partner to partner, including to acer, asking someone to put real money into innovating a tablet. acer didn't. acer said: we're not going to take any such risk. we're going to combine a dozen other companies' technologies and put our sticker onto it. it'll be an intel chip, a microsoft operating system, and we'll just get it all off the shelf.
I already linked you to a picture of the W510 that is a cleanly designed Windows 8 tablet with a dockable keyboard. What else do you want them to do? Paint racing stripes on it? That's their tablet right there and I don't see how the Surface is supposedly so superior. Because it has a kickstand? A keyboard case so you can front like you have an ultrabook all the while wishing you had a real keyboard so you could actually get some work done? The W510 has that and the Surface Pro don't.
I think that even if microsoft is wildly successful with the surface, they'll let companies like acer buy back in.
Which one? Both? The Pro is DOA as it will cost too much and that W510 will be on the shelf right next to it for a lower price. The RT version? The iPad has 200,000 tablet apps already and people are in love with it.
Depends on what you mean by "under $1000". Do you mean as in $995? Or $799? If you had the former in line then it won't be flying off of any shelves since the $699 commodity Windows 8 tablets sitting right next to it will be the ones doing all the shelf acrobatics. That's the way it goes with Windows. Price rules and there will be no time to market advantage for the Surface Pro as far as I know.
Well, the whole thing beyond Win8 in general and Surface in particular is the attempt to widen the appeal of tablets for more scenarios - that's why it comes with that keyboard cover. It's a big bet, and I personally am not convinced that many people will buy into it
At the price point MS is shooting for on the Surface there is no way it will shift a ton of units. They might move a few million but that's nothing. Samsung moved 2.4 million Galaxy tablets in the last quarter.
But nevertheless if tablets are bound to fail
Don't worry, they won't. The only thing that could kill the tablet is an even more convenient computing device. Anybody that thinks tablets are just a fad and we'll all be moving back to our laptops/ultrabooks in a year two isn't facing reality.
People are more likely to have an iPhone but they're more likely to be using Android. Whether they are aware of the name of the OS is immaterial. I know people that couldn't tell what brand of car they drive. Seriously people that mix up Hyundai and Honda. Yet Hyundai still chalked that up as a sale. I'll betcha that.
If it didn't work during the Vista fail why would it work now?
The pieces aren't quite in place for it to work now either but if MS upsets the apple cart too much, the OEMs have to go somewhere. Back in the early netbook era, Linux came on pretty strong even with the anemic distro called "Linpus" that shipped on the original Eee PC. It came on so strong that MS noticed and extended XP and dropped the price to 15 dollars or so. XP was familiar and would run on the little laptops (they weren't really netbooks anymore) and MS recovered the market pretty quickly. Fast forward to today and the OEMs have probably learned a thing or two from the Linux netbook situation. Also bear in mind that there are several interesting developments in the OS space of late. ChromeOS, Android, and the continued polishing of Ubuntu. Google is very hungry for a slice of the desktop pie especially now that they've got mobile covered. And Valve blessing Linux with real games in the near future can't hurt. And the real clincher in all of this is the fact that the iPad has solidly vindicated the notion that computing can happen for the everyman without Windows. Maybe not all of it but enough that the boat is rocked. We'll see.
Calling it a full on revolt at this point is a bit of hyperbole but the situation is noteworthy. Acer while not the highest flying PC OEM is still important and far from a bit player are voicing strong dissatisfaction with the direction MS is moving in with Windows. A direction that will definitely have some effect on all the OEMs in some way. Steam is one of the most important game distribution platforms and again due to dissatisfaction with Windows 8, this time from an ISV perspective, they have announced pending support for another rival platform and it is silly to make hay out of them only announcing l4d2 so far as it is obvious that is the test mule for the Source engine port and more games will follow. Gabe Newell has expressed his desire to get all Steam games to work on Linux and while that's a tall order it isn't impossible by any stretch. Before you argue that point think about it real hard. Blizzard hasn't announced any plans to support Linux but one thing you've always been able to count on for a long time now is that the WoW client always works in Wine. That isn't a coincidence as the game is too complex to just work without a hitch by chance. Something is happening in the MS ecosystem and they aren't nearly as strong in the market as they used to be with the surge of mobile devices and consumer acceptance of the iPad. So don't get too cocky.
Samsung and Asus' Android tablet sales have more than doubled in the second quarter so Acer struggling is their own fault. At a minimum they need to work on making more attractive hardware. Their stuff just looks cheap whether it is or not.
Why? So they could be laughed at? If you are going to try to argue for Windows 7 on a consumer tablet forget it. That ship sailed and it's called the USS iPad.
or asked for win8
Really? 3 years ago? It didn't exist. And even if it did, where would they get the touch based ecosystem? Or are you laboring under some delusion that traditional mouse/keyboard apps are going magically to start appealing to consumers on a tablet.
they still don't have a tablet for win8
So, what is this? CGI mock up? That took 10 seconds to dig up on Google. And with that I'm bored with this as you obviously have no idea what you are talking about and are making it up as you go along.
Maybe so but Linux went though the copyright trial by fire against some very powerful enemies and when it was done and over, Linux came through looking better than ever. So when the FUD slinging starts, this is an easily cited IP victory.
Probably amused them more just to bleed them dry in court. IBM's patents have patents so I doubt they give a shit about a toy company like Santa Cruz Operations.
If they're making scandalous sums off of android and Linux that just means android and Linux are worth scandalous sums of money and then some. It legitimizes the platforms just that much more. Patents run out so the racket can't last forever and when it's over Linux will still be there. How much are they making off of windows phone again?
Microsoft gave Acer the last three years to come up with a consumer tablet. And Acer didn't.
How did Acer have three years to come up with a tablet for Microsoft with no OS from them to run on it? Windows 7 on a tablet in the face of the iPad is doomed. What good would throwing money down a hole, e.g., marketing something like that against the iPad have done?
So after this many years of the iPad being basically the only marketed tablet, I can respect Microsoft's choice to step up. ..since no one else seems willing to do so.
Microsoft are "stepping up" because they think they have something now that actually has a chance. How do you expect Acer would have gotten Windows 8 from 2 years ago? A time machine?
And if those tablets are relatively successful, Microsoft will turn it back to Acer-like partners.
Do you think Acer won't be making Windows 8 tablets from day one? They are locked out of WinRT tablets but that doesn't have anything to do with the x86 version. There is nothing for MS to "turn over" unless you are referring to the aforementioned WinRT stuff and if you think that's going to do anything against the iPad you need to ask HP who refused to even try to compete with ARM Windows because they know better.
So next time, Acer, try to actually innovate products yourself, instead of yelling at those who try. And stop complaining when someone steps forward to do something that you specifically avoided doing yourself.
Again, how the hell was Acer supposed to make a touch screen Windows and accompanying ecosystem? Steal the source code and work on it themselves? None of what you are saying makes a lick of sense.
And if you try to come back talking about their Android efforts I'm going to laugh at you as you led with "MS gave Acer three years" which doesn't have a good goddamned thing to do with Android.
The best open source office suite is a decade behind MS, the best linux distro is still a headache for nerds let alone normal people, tons of peripherals like printers act pants on head retarded or flat out crash the print server, and never mind you cant even force people from XP to a newer version of windows let alone something that's going to break all their shit.
As unthinkable as it once seemed, a consumer computing product has set a precedent for an alternative to what MS offers. I'm not saying the iPad would suffice as a full-time replacement for a laptop for most people but it doesn't do any of the things you mentioned yet many people use them a lot more than their Windows computers. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch for people to just simply not upgrade their laptops and start buying alternative OS devices.
What are you going to replace it with, that wont drive away normal, average, everyday customers?
Little crappy Linpus gave Microsoft the devil for a short time a few years ago until they did an emergency extension for XP and dropped the price through the floor. Fast forward to today and you have very hungry Google with ChromeOS and Android that more and more is getting desktop-esque features. You also have Ubuntu waiting in the wings and Valve that is porting their game service over. All that may not add up to what Windows represents to most users but all that with the old laptop in the corner and some miracle developer support might surprise you.
Google makes Android hardware, why isn't anyone complaining about that?
Because Google has made their intentions clear in regards to Motorola and apparently their OEMs have faith that they will live up to their words. They've said Moto gets operated like a separate company and gets no special favors. They aren't worried about Moto getting early builds of Android as Google has agreed to give all the OEMs early builds in the upcoming months to a new release starting with the post Jellybean version. As far as the Nexus devices, Asus is making a lot more money off of the Nexus 7 and Samsung makes a lot more money off of the Galaxy Nexus phone despite the co-branding with Google so that pretty much squelches any complaints in that area. Also bear in mind that Android is open source and much Android gear gets made that Google doesn't sanction. If Google pissed their partners off too much they just download the source code and tell Google to get bent. That balances the power considerably. Just look at Amazon.
If you remember right after Google announced the Moto acquisition, there was much murmuring amongst the OEMs but apparently Google set them at ease so of course they aren't worried enough about it anymore to care. In MS' case with Surface they even admitted in their SEC filings that Surface has the potential to damage their OEM relationships. And that's coming from the horse's mouth in a legally binding document. Their OEMs are scared shitless right now.
Um, what "hole" are you referring to? There are PCs at every quality level and price range from 200 dollars up to 2000 dollars and more. The problem is the mainstream market for PCs tops out at around 600 dollars and the real action is in the 3-5 hundred dollar range. Do you think the Surface tablet is supposed to change that in any way? How are MS to stop the thundering herd of consumers rushing past their overpriced tablet for the cheap stuff the OEMs have on offer that do essentially the same thing? People don't care about quality and this has been shown quite clearly in the marketplace. I'm not sure how MS intends to change that. If they rock the boat too hard they leave an opening for alternatives like Linux in the netbook days that they only averted by extending XP and lowering the price to the basement.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet MS is still raking in the cash over patents they claim Linux is infringing...
If they're raking in cash then that means Linux units are shifting. What is better for Linux, more mindshare from more Windows licenses in the field or a paltry patent fee and less mindshare due to a Linux unit in the field and the Linux using OEM gets a share of the profit.
Someone needs to call MS's bluff
B&N did and apparently it worked out pretty well for them.
By the time the patents have run out they will be obsolete and will have been replaced with something else that MS is claiming they own.
True that but every Android or Linux unit that shifts may be 5-15 dollars in MS' coffers but it represents one atomic unit of less direct influence they have over the market. I'd rather they get a patent fee than an in the field Windows license.
There is no iPad competitor
What you said above was:
there's a quality/features/innovation hole in the PC lineup
Which in no way automatically implies that you are talking about a PC analog of the iPad. Not to mention the logical inconsistency of how were PC OEMs supposed to compete with the iPad using Windows 7 which was all they had to work with from MS anyway.
I can't understand why you guys are having such a tough time with that concept.
What I'm having a tough time with is reading your mind and figuring out what exactly it was that the OEMs were supposed to do without a touch based OS and ecosystem. You need to work on your presumptions.
Yeah and those 90 something million Wiis Nintendo moved outselling XBox and PS3 by 50 percent all run DirectX too. Yep, OpenGL is dead in the water. /s.
I figured it would have been apparent, but I was talking about their desktop/laptop hardware business in particular.
It's not so much that it wasn't apparent but it's helpful to remind people sometimes that pretty much none of the OEMs just make computers or even depend on them in a huge way. PCs either scrape by or lose money for many manufacturers and they'd probably be better off just getting out of the market anyway.
The problem with Steam's plans for linux is that no one, and I mean no one, installs Steam because they want to *only* play Valve games.
Well, Gabe Newell seems pretty committed to the whole Steam on Linux thing and he has expressed desire to get all Steam games working on Linux. And with a billion dollar company backing the effort it can be done. With a sufficient amount of polishing, those games that aren't truly native could be run on a translation layer behind the scenes and you would never even notice the difference.
If Steam on Android is any indication, they won't.
Steam on Android isn't an indication of anything as it isn't made to play games with but to interact with Steam and buy games for later playing on your regular computer. I'm not really sure why you brought it up.
When Gabe says "all Steam games" I think "that's nice, but you're spouting BS, and where the hell is my HL3?"
I'm not saying this is the route he's going to take with it but throw enough talent and money at it and Wine would be a seamless behind the scenes solution on Steam for Linux. Scoff all you want but as a community effort it plays a lot of stuff.
that looks like any ordinary small pc, with a touch screen.
It's like the Asus Transformer. Keyboard dock with removable tablet. You can think of it kind of like the Surface Pro except you will actually be able to type on it for more than a few minutes at a time without tearing your hair out in frustration.
you seem to think that acer couldn't do anything without microsoft for the last three years. that they couldn't do anything without win8. well not only did they not even try, but they also didn't step up to microsoft and offer to help with the hardware.
Okay, what do you propose Acer do? Remember we're talking within the MS space here as that's the context of the entire story, e.g., the article title is 'Negative For The Whole PC Industry'. Acer is a relatively small company so if they were to somehow persuade Intel or AMD to deliver a chip and chipset that is competitive, i.e., a Core chip not Atom and at least 8 hours of battery life, how do you propose they build a touch based software ecosystem to rival the iPad? How do they make Windows 7 touch friendly beyond the first layer? Create some kind of skin? And for their hypothetical touchbased ecosystem, how do they get developers to buy in since it will only work on Acer products? What about media content? So on and so forth. Let me give you the short answer. Acer can't pull any of that off much less all of it to a degree that they don't go broke in the process of trying. It's ludicrous for you to even suggest that they could do any of that without MS' support. I realize that conceptually we can walk through all of these different scenarios and come up with what seems like a workable solution but that's just dreaming.
and I'll bet that microsoft spent a few months and went from partner to partner, including to acer, asking someone to put real money into innovating a tablet. acer didn't. acer said: we're not going to take any such risk. we're going to combine a dozen other companies' technologies and put our sticker onto it. it'll be an intel chip, a microsoft operating system, and we'll just get it all off the shelf.
I already linked you to a picture of the W510 that is a cleanly designed Windows 8 tablet with a dockable keyboard. What else do you want them to do? Paint racing stripes on it? That's their tablet right there and I don't see how the Surface is supposedly so superior. Because it has a kickstand? A keyboard case so you can front like you have an ultrabook all the while wishing you had a real keyboard so you could actually get some work done? The W510 has that and the Surface Pro don't.
I think that even if microsoft is wildly successful with the surface, they'll let companies like acer buy back in.
Which one? Both? The Pro is DOA as it will cost too much and that W510 will be on the shelf right next to it for a lower price. The RT version? The iPad has 200,000 tablet apps already and people are in love with it.
If it's under $1000 it'll fly off shelves.
Depends on what you mean by "under $1000". Do you mean as in $995? Or $799? If you had the former in line then it won't be flying off of any shelves since the $699 commodity Windows 8 tablets sitting right next to it will be the ones doing all the shelf acrobatics. That's the way it goes with Windows. Price rules and there will be no time to market advantage for the Surface Pro as far as I know.
Um, you do know Acer sells more things than just PCs right? Hell, they even own a chain of stores in Taipei.
Well, the whole thing beyond Win8 in general and Surface in particular is the attempt to widen the appeal of tablets for more scenarios - that's why it comes with that keyboard cover. It's a big bet, and I personally am not convinced that many people will buy into it
At the price point MS is shooting for on the Surface there is no way it will shift a ton of units. They might move a few million but that's nothing. Samsung moved 2.4 million Galaxy tablets in the last quarter.
But nevertheless if tablets are bound to fail
Don't worry, they won't. The only thing that could kill the tablet is an even more convenient computing device. Anybody that thinks tablets are just a fad and we'll all be moving back to our laptops/ultrabooks in a year two isn't facing reality.
People are more likely to have an iPhone but they're more likely to be using Android. Whether they are aware of the name of the OS is immaterial. I know people that couldn't tell what brand of car they drive. Seriously people that mix up Hyundai and Honda. Yet Hyundai still chalked that up as a sale. I'll betcha that.
If it didn't work during the Vista fail why would it work now?
The pieces aren't quite in place for it to work now either but if MS upsets the apple cart too much, the OEMs have to go somewhere. Back in the early netbook era, Linux came on pretty strong even with the anemic distro called "Linpus" that shipped on the original Eee PC. It came on so strong that MS noticed and extended XP and dropped the price to 15 dollars or so. XP was familiar and would run on the little laptops (they weren't really netbooks anymore) and MS recovered the market pretty quickly. Fast forward to today and the OEMs have probably learned a thing or two from the Linux netbook situation. Also bear in mind that there are several interesting developments in the OS space of late. ChromeOS, Android, and the continued polishing of Ubuntu. Google is very hungry for a slice of the desktop pie especially now that they've got mobile covered. And Valve blessing Linux with real games in the near future can't hurt. And the real clincher in all of this is the fact that the iPad has solidly vindicated the notion that computing can happen for the everyman without Windows. Maybe not all of it but enough that the boat is rocked. We'll see.
And Intel started the Ultrabook thing for a reason.
That reason must have been to fail in the marketplace because that's what's happening. Consumers don't want expensive Windows machines.
Calling it a full on revolt at this point is a bit of hyperbole but the situation is noteworthy. Acer while not the highest flying PC OEM is still important and far from a bit player are voicing strong dissatisfaction with the direction MS is moving in with Windows. A direction that will definitely have some effect on all the OEMs in some way. Steam is one of the most important game distribution platforms and again due to dissatisfaction with Windows 8, this time from an ISV perspective, they have announced pending support for another rival platform and it is silly to make hay out of them only announcing l4d2 so far as it is obvious that is the test mule for the Source engine port and more games will follow. Gabe Newell has expressed his desire to get all Steam games to work on Linux and while that's a tall order it isn't impossible by any stretch. Before you argue that point think about it real hard. Blizzard hasn't announced any plans to support Linux but one thing you've always been able to count on for a long time now is that the WoW client always works in Wine. That isn't a coincidence as the game is too complex to just work without a hitch by chance. Something is happening in the MS ecosystem and they aren't nearly as strong in the market as they used to be with the surge of mobile devices and consumer acceptance of the iPad. So don't get too cocky.
Samsung and Asus' Android tablet sales have more than doubled in the second quarter so Acer struggling is their own fault. At a minimum they need to work on making more attractive hardware. Their stuff just looks cheap whether it is or not.
Acer could have used win7
Why? So they could be laughed at? If you are going to try to argue for Windows 7 on a consumer tablet forget it. That ship sailed and it's called the USS iPad.
or asked for win8
Really? 3 years ago? It didn't exist. And even if it did, where would they get the touch based ecosystem? Or are you laboring under some delusion that traditional mouse/keyboard apps are going magically to start appealing to consumers on a tablet.
they still don't have a tablet for win8
So, what is this? CGI mock up? That took 10 seconds to dig up on Google. And with that I'm bored with this as you obviously have no idea what you are talking about and are making it up as you go along.
Maybe so but Linux went though the copyright trial by fire against some very powerful enemies and when it was done and over, Linux came through looking better than ever. So when the FUD slinging starts, this is an easily cited IP victory.
Probably amused them more just to bleed them dry in court. IBM's patents have patents so I doubt they give a shit about a toy company like Santa Cruz Operations.
If they're making scandalous sums off of android and Linux that just means android and Linux are worth scandalous sums of money and then some. It legitimizes the platforms just that much more. Patents run out so the racket can't last forever and when it's over Linux will still be there. How much are they making off of windows phone again?
Couldn't agree more.
Microsoft gave Acer the last three years to come up with a consumer tablet. And Acer didn't.
How did Acer have three years to come up with a tablet for Microsoft with no OS from them to run on it? Windows 7 on a tablet in the face of the iPad is doomed. What good would throwing money down a hole, e.g., marketing something like that against the iPad have done?
So after this many years of the iPad being basically the only marketed tablet, I can respect Microsoft's choice to step up. . .since no one else seems willing to do so.
Microsoft are "stepping up" because they think they have something now that actually has a chance. How do you expect Acer would have gotten Windows 8 from 2 years ago? A time machine?
And if those tablets are relatively successful, Microsoft will turn it back to Acer-like partners.
Do you think Acer won't be making Windows 8 tablets from day one? They are locked out of WinRT tablets but that doesn't have anything to do with the x86 version. There is nothing for MS to "turn over" unless you are referring to the aforementioned WinRT stuff and if you think that's going to do anything against the iPad you need to ask HP who refused to even try to compete with ARM Windows because they know better.
So next time, Acer, try to actually innovate products yourself, instead of yelling at those who try. And stop complaining when someone steps forward to do something that you specifically avoided doing yourself.
Again, how the hell was Acer supposed to make a touch screen Windows and accompanying ecosystem? Steal the source code and work on it themselves? None of what you are saying makes a lick of sense.
And if you try to come back talking about their Android efforts I'm going to laugh at you as you led with "MS gave Acer three years" which doesn't have a good goddamned thing to do with Android.
If only the surface had been released 20-25 years ago, everything would be much better today.
Er, if by much better you mean we'd all be running BeOS on affordable commodity hardware then, well, I guess...
The best open source office suite is a decade behind MS, the best linux distro is still a headache for nerds let alone normal people, tons of peripherals like printers act pants on head retarded or flat out crash the print server, and never mind you cant even force people from XP to a newer version of windows let alone something that's going to break all their shit.
As unthinkable as it once seemed, a consumer computing product has set a precedent for an alternative to what MS offers. I'm not saying the iPad would suffice as a full-time replacement for a laptop for most people but it doesn't do any of the things you mentioned yet many people use them a lot more than their Windows computers. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch for people to just simply not upgrade their laptops and start buying alternative OS devices.
What are you going to replace it with, that wont drive away normal, average, everyday customers?
Little crappy Linpus gave Microsoft the devil for a short time a few years ago until they did an emergency extension for XP and dropped the price through the floor. Fast forward to today and you have very hungry Google with ChromeOS and Android that more and more is getting desktop-esque features. You also have Ubuntu waiting in the wings and Valve that is porting their game service over. All that may not add up to what Windows represents to most users but all that with the old laptop in the corner and some miracle developer support might surprise you.
Google makes Android hardware, why isn't anyone complaining about that?
Because Google has made their intentions clear in regards to Motorola and apparently their OEMs have faith that they will live up to their words. They've said Moto gets operated like a separate company and gets no special favors. They aren't worried about Moto getting early builds of Android as Google has agreed to give all the OEMs early builds in the upcoming months to a new release starting with the post Jellybean version. As far as the Nexus devices, Asus is making a lot more money off of the Nexus 7 and Samsung makes a lot more money off of the Galaxy Nexus phone despite the co-branding with Google so that pretty much squelches any complaints in that area. Also bear in mind that Android is open source and much Android gear gets made that Google doesn't sanction. If Google pissed their partners off too much they just download the source code and tell Google to get bent. That balances the power considerably. Just look at Amazon.
If you remember right after Google announced the Moto acquisition, there was much murmuring amongst the OEMs but apparently Google set them at ease so of course they aren't worried enough about it anymore to care. In MS' case with Surface they even admitted in their SEC filings that Surface has the potential to damage their OEM relationships. And that's coming from the horse's mouth in a legally binding document. Their OEMs are scared shitless right now.
Um, what "hole" are you referring to? There are PCs at every quality level and price range from 200 dollars up to 2000 dollars and more. The problem is the mainstream market for PCs tops out at around 600 dollars and the real action is in the 3-5 hundred dollar range. Do you think the Surface tablet is supposed to change that in any way? How are MS to stop the thundering herd of consumers rushing past their overpriced tablet for the cheap stuff the OEMs have on offer that do essentially the same thing? People don't care about quality and this has been shown quite clearly in the marketplace. I'm not sure how MS intends to change that. If they rock the boat too hard they leave an opening for alternatives like Linux in the netbook days that they only averted by extending XP and lowering the price to the basement.