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Octavean
MVM
join:2001-03-31
New York, NY

Octavean to aurgathor

MVM

to aurgathor

Re: [poll] What will happen with Win8?

I'll refer back to what I said on page one of this thread:
quote:
said by Octavean:

I think all of this has been outlined in tech articles. Presumably,....

Windows Blue will be released in mid to quasi mid 2013.

Windows Blue will be low cost or free.

Windows Blue will maintain the Windows 8 nomenclature (like OS X)

Windows Blue will include a "UI change" (something many have been requesting but what form this change will take is unknown)

Windows Blue will have a unifying SDK with Windows Phone 8

Windows Blue will start the annual OS release cycle (again, like OS X)

I think all of the above is likely true simply because it makes sense,....IMO,....but then Microsoft doesn't always make sense,....soooo,.....


If Microsoft adopts the annual OS upgrade cycle I don't really see much room for Service Packs but who knows,...

When I said "we have some idea based on what has happened in the past" I was kind of referring to Vista going to Windows 7. I personally didn't notice much of a difference between the two and considered it a minor upgrade. A small difference in the OS equaled a big difference in PR, acceptance and mindshare,....along with a new name for the OS,.....

Minimum effort for maximum gain,...

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

For all we know they may move to a subscription based model like they're trying to push with Office. It kind of makes sense based on the societal shift to disposable / junk computers with a 3 year shelf life.

Kramer
Mod
join:2000-08-03
Richmond, VA

Kramer to Octavean

Mod

to Octavean
I think you are pretty much right on the money. IDC came out with a scathing report last week describing certain aspects of Windows 8 as flawed.

"There were certain decisions that Microsoft made that were in retrospect flawed. "

»www.tomshardware.com/new ··· 461.html

This is the principle reason why Microsoft is going to change the UI:

One of the biggest roadblocks Microsoft likely faces is that mainstream consumers are reluctant to change. At first glance, the overhaul is too radical to the point that even corporations are reluctant to update, unwilling to spend time and money re-training employees. The move of overhauling the experience to satisfy a tablet audience has seemingly shunned the core mainstream desktop audience.

Where Microsoft fails most importantly is in the business market for operating systems. The above paragraph completely describes what I have seen. This isn't going to stand. Microsoft has some intelligent people running the company that are obviously capable of making big mistakes, but I also believe they are quite capable of correcting them. If I had any MS stock right now, I'd be really ticked off. No one talks about the shareholders, but I would imagine they will have some impact.

Microsoft has pretty much lost the consumer market. Ironically Windows 8, may hasten the move away desktops and laptops running Windows, to touch sensitive devices not running Windows. Street chatter regarding Windows 8 isn't positive and when people are ready to buy a new PC, they may just throw that idea away and get a new iPad or Android tablet.
bgraham2
join:2001-03-15
Smithtown, NY

bgraham2

Member

I think Microsoft has 2 problems right now and you addressed these in your first paragraph.
"One of the biggest roadblocks Microsoft likely faces is that mainstream consumers are reluctant to change. At first glance, the overhaul is too radical to the point that even corporations are reluctant to update, unwilling to spend time and money re-training employees."

At home and at work I am not going to update to Win8 because I see no advantage of paying Microsoft whatever $$'s Win8 costs to have a new OS that does nothing to improve productivity and just gives me a bunch of grief and a 30 day learning curve where I am less productive.

MS's only way to sell Win8 is by shoving it down new computer buyers throats.

The problem with that business model is that little me at home and corporations pay a lot more for Win8 than the OEM computer builders who are probably forced into Win8.

Me at home and the large corporations are not going to donate a few hundred $$'s to Microsoft every other year unless Microsoft actually does something to improve productivity in the home or corporate world.

At work, XP works and we have no issues with support or updates ending. At home I updated to Win7 on a couple of new machines. OK, since they came with Win7 and the learning curve was not that great and there are a few features that I like.

To me, a computer is something that you pay for and it has to provide some service to the user or the corporation that makes the cost worthwhile. I think Microsoft feels that a computer is a throw away item as soon as the "new model" comes out, and they are entitled to their piece of the pie.

I don't understand how MS thinks that they can sell me a OS called Win8 that might work OK on a phone or a tablet computer, when I have a desktop or laptop with no touch screen.
BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium Member
join:2000-01-13

BlitzenZeus to Kramer

Premium Member

to Kramer
I made a comment about their stock prices a while back, and looks like the stock hasn't been doing well. Clearly it dropped quite a bit around october when Win 8 was released, and never recovered.

There was no need to put out a device like this, or at least to do it so poorly. Shunned by consumers, and businesses, clearly they thought they knew their customers.

Maybe Apple will pull their head out of the sand, and allow osx to be sold on more than their proprietary packages which would provide some real competition for Microsoft instead of the free nix as the only other option for most.
dave
Premium Member
join:2000-05-04
not in ohio

dave

Premium Member

said by BlitzenZeus:

Maybe Apple will pull their head out of the sand, and allow osx to be sold on more than their proprietary packages which would provide some real competition for Microsoft instead of the free nix as the only other option for most.

Seems implausible: Apple is a hardware company. Selling the OS for 3rd-party hardware will cut into their profitability.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

said by dave:

said by BlitzenZeus:

Maybe Apple will pull their head out of the sand, and allow osx to be sold on more than their proprietary packages which would provide some real competition for Microsoft instead of the free nix as the only other option for most.

Seems implausible: Apple is a hardware company. Selling the OS for 3rd-party hardware will cut into their profitability.

I agree. Apple makes the OS for the computers they manufacture, whereas Microsoft makes the OS for everyone else's computers.

Back in the day, one of the reasons so many people complained about "Windows is so unreliable I'm switching to Linux" is because they had low-end hardware with all the wrong BIOS settings. Mac OS seems so reliable because there's a standard of quality and there's not so many settings a user can hose to make their system unreliable.

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor

Member

While back in the 9x days many of the crashes may have been Windows' fault, the NT lineage of code (kernel) is very reliable. I don't have any hard numbers to back this up, but based on my observation, the great majority of crashes are due to drivers (usually 3rd party) or various malfunctioning hardware (often memory), and the OS can't do much about those, although error handling and reporting can most certainly be improved.

Apple only need to test their code on their own machines (a much-much smaller set) and I think they also have somewhat more control over 3rd party hardware that can go into Apples. So it shouldn't be a big surprise if the Mac OS may appear to be more reliable.

urbanriot
Premium Member
join:2004-10-18
Canada

urbanriot

Premium Member

said by aurgathor:

I think they also have somewhat more control over 3rd party hardware that can go into Apples.

Yep... if only Microsoft could have banned PCChips back in the day...

aurgathor
join:2002-12-01
Lynnwood, WA

aurgathor

Member

amungus
Premium Member
join:2004-11-26
America

amungus to aurgathor

Premium Member

to aurgathor
Valid point above about memory / Macs...
To this day, the Pro still uses ECC. Almost no Windows desktops do, unless you've built your own and use such hardware.

Late to this party (thread), and haven't reviewed everything, but here's my 2 cents...

As one poster on p1 said, not much, like Vista. It proved to be their platform for 7 (and a good portion of 8), which was (is) obviously a success.

I'm kind of sad they didn't put in the same ("under the hood") improvements as with Server 2012.

"9" will surely have some of these, if not most, and probably an option to skip to a 'normal' desktop.

Business-wise, we're not going for it. If we did, every desktop would have "classic shell" defaulted to boot to desktop, and we'd have to set up some other basics to make it more familiar to users.