Windows 8

[Tale]

There is so much fail oozing from this.

...sales of the company’s first tablet “are starting modestly.”

Ballmer also said that the supply shortages were a “good sign.” He added that Microsoft will “fix this problem quickly” as the company increases capacity, which is part of its overall strategy.

In July, Ballmer said that Microsoft’s goal was to sell a few million units in the next 12 months.

Apple has sold 100 million iPads.

[Ingmar]

Well obviously anything that doesn't equal those numbers is a failure.

[Numtini]

All they need to do is patch in a way to "opt out" of metro and bring in a start menu of some sort and it will be fine for business use.

I think everyone agrees on that, but they're not going to do that and without it, the interface is a disaster.

[Zetor]

See also: what happened to Nokia when they decided to ditch Symbian (yeah yeah I know, but it was still the #1 smartphone OS in terms of sheer volume) entirely and switch over completely to Windows Phone.


edit: at work we're still using Windows XP SP3. Upgrading to W7 or W8 would need us to upgrade our hardware and it'd be expensive as fuck overall... also kinda pointless for the work we're doing (ITsec evaluations and research).

[Tale]

Well obviously anything that doesn't equal those numbers is a failure.

Well obviously not, but Surface is a failure if it doesn't get a significant market share. Because it runs a new operating system built with tablets in mind. There are other companies with significant market share, but they're all using Android. There's no point in Windows 8's UI unless the Surface gains a significant following.

Let me divert you to some excellent Windows 95 tips: http://windows95tips.tumblr.com

[Quinton]

Well obviously anything that doesn't equal those numbers is a failure.

Well obviously not, but Surface is a failure if it doesn't get a significant market share. Because it runs a new operating system built with tablets in mind. There are other companies with significant market share, but they're all using Android. There's no point in Windows 8's UI unless the Surface gains a significant following.

To be fair, I think you're allowed to take a few years to build up some market share -- I mean Android certainly took a few years to ramp up to over 1M device activations a day -- even iPhone sales took a while to ramp up to the really crazy numbers (the front end of the growth curve actually looks quite similar to Android, just shifted forward a year or two).

Microsoft is in the weird position of seemingly being unable to decide if it's going to go completely vertical with device manufacturing (Apple model) or rely on many manufacturers (similar to Android and WinCE).  It is awfully particular about how manufacturers build WinPhone devices and how they customize the software (less appealing to OEMs than Android -- fewer ways to differentiate, no matter what Elop says), but it also has given up on guaranteeing upgrades (which it made a lot of noise about early on, comparing to Android, but later discovered that it's actually hard!) for OEM devices.  Kinda feels like a worst of both worlds approach.

On the *other* hand, when Microsoft decides they want to be in a market, they're willing to spend billions of dollars a year, year after year, to get there.  Which sometimes works for them (Xbox), but other times not so much (Bing -- though they haven't given up yet).

They do seem to be flailing around a bit, but they've got a lot of money in the bank, aren't afraid to spend it, and I think it'd be silly to count them out just yet.

[Ingmar]

Well obviously anything that doesn't equal those numbers is a failure.

Well obviously not, but Surface is a failure if it doesn't get a significant market share. Because it runs a new operating system built with tablets in mind. There are other companies with significant market share, but they're all using Android. There's no point in Windows 8's UI unless the Surface gains a significant following.

Let me divert you to some excellent Windows 95 tips: http://windows95tips.tumblr.com

The first wave of Android tablets were pretty much all massive failures, no? I mean I was reading all kinds of articles about sales barely over 100k for stuff like the Xoom. If Microsoft only sells a couple million that will be a runaway success comparatively speaking, not a failure at all.

EDIT: And this is one of those things that is just going to take time to break into as well - they have to overcome being 3rd to market and the fact that everyone already owns a bunch of apps for their iOS stuff or their Androids that won't work if they switch platforms, so they'll have to buy their Angry Birds all over again, etc. It is going to take a while even if it is a success, so I would hesitate to forecast gloom and doom based on what happens in the first few months.

[Nerf]

Well obviously anything that doesn't equal those numbers is a failure.

Well obviously not, but Surface is a failure if it doesn't get a significant market share. Because it runs a new operating system built with tablets in mind. There are other companies with significant market share, but they're all using Android. There's no point in Windows 8's UI unless the Surface gains a significant following.

Let me divert you to some excellent Windows 95 tips: http://windows95tips.tumblr.com

[Quinton]

The first wave of Android tablets were pretty much all massive failures, no? I mean I was reading all kinds of articles about sales barely over 100k for stuff like the Xoom. If Microsoft only sells a couple million that will be a runaway success comparatively speaking, not a failure at all.

EDIT: And this is one of those things that is just going to take time to break into as well - they have to overcome being 3rd to market and the fact that everyone already owns a bunch of apps for their iOS stuff or their Androids that won't work if they switch platforms, so they'll have to buy their Angry Birds all over again, etc. It is going to take a while even if it is a success, so I would hesitate to forecast gloom and doom based on what happens in the first few months.

Definitely true -- Android tablet momentum is getting there, but it didn't happen overnight, and there are still gaps.

I think the tablet market may actually be easier for Microsoft to get into than phones -- assuming they either address the performance issues on WinRT or x86 Win8 tablets are competitive, they are the only player that really has their hooks into corporate America (and elsewhere) and has what many consider to be *the* office software solution -- neither Apple nor Google have something that really competes head to head with Office. 

[Zetor]

They are pretty good at absorbing and killing former phone market leaders (Nokia) in order to get their sub-2% market share, though. 

[Vaiti]

  Nokia

I remember earlier this year around E3 being on a flight home with one of the guys from Microsoft who was working with Nokia to get Windows 8 working it's best on their tablets. It was AMAZING.
He showed me the dev devices he had and it looked super cool. Even had a button to switch between the old desktop/start menu and Metro. And it seemed to work seamlessly then. I had been planning to dump my stocks with Nokia till then, but that made me decide to stick it out a little longer. Up to that point I was worried about Nokia's future due to the still rather recent news then of them going exclusively Windows going forward.

Seeing how well it appeared to be getting implemented, I was rather impressed. Was a bit  when that feature wasn't around at launch. But as has been pointed out here, flagship feature is Metro. So yeah, they aren't going to hide it. (ok, well maybe, just maybe they might backtrack on that now)

Now this is the point where you all think I am going to go all  because I've been bashing Windows 8 a bit, and by bashing I mean just pointing out flaws I've noticed and weird design choice and behaviour.
Let me set the record straight. I've no problem with Windows 8, the bits that work good, work good. Just the broken bits are really broken. From such a large company it is a headscratcher for me at times.

For those saying Windows 8 tanked Nokia tho I am kind of at a loss. That statement doesn't jive well with reality. NYSE 6m timeline

Dip was around E3 back in June. But really only on the NYSE, DOW, NASDAQ and S&P 500 are pretty level.

[Jeff Kelly]

The problem is that they significantly lose market share of the feature phone market quarter over quarter as the China OEMs are starting to eat Nokia's lunch.

This has always been Nokia's cash cow because although it yields little margins for profit it was offset by the sheer volume of phones Nokia sold in its heyday. They had 80% of the feature phone market at one time.

The feature phone market however is dying in the developed countries due to the shift to smart phones. In the emerging and developing countries the China OEMs are digging into Nokia's share of the feature phone market.

That leaves the smart phone market and with respect to that the prospects of Nokia look dire.

Nokia currently only has a 4% share of the global smartphone market that's also shrinking quarter over quarter and has for the first time dropped out of the top 5 behind ZTE and HTC.

Going Windows Phone only is a huge gamble for Nokia that so far hasn't paid off at all

[Miasma]

Microsoft has created, hyped and then brutally/suddenly killed too many devices and technologies for me to take any risks on purchasing something new from them like a tablet.  The only way I would seriously consider buying one is if it becomes a huge success first, which isn't likely.

[KallDrexx]

As much as I do like Windows 8, I do not think ARM tablets are going to gain much marketshare at all.

I do feel like all the x86 tablet<->laptop convertible systems have a chance to gain marketshare, although I don't know if they would necessarily count towards tablet marketshare.

[Fabricated]

It's depressing that I have to care about Microsoft's failures now because the alternative is Apple, which is an even shittier company.*

_{*Before anyone says it Linux will never ever in a million fucking years be a viable alternative for the general public. I would put real money on this.}

[Numtini]

On the pure tablet, it seems to me that you either need to be better or cheaper than the industry leader. I don't see that Windows 8/surface is either.

[Sky]

Pico

de gallo

[HaemishM]

The whole tablet/touchscreen interface is funny to me, because it's so OBVIOUSLY a transitional technology. It's trying very hard to build UI's for a motion-based (i.e. Kinetic style) interface on a virtual (holographic/cybernetic) "desktop/surface" and that whole idea is in its absolute infancy. I'm quite positive when the Apple geeks came up with the iPhone interface, they were really trying for a Minority Report holographic interface as their end goal and anyone in the design phases of the 3 big players (Apple, Android/Google, Microsoft) who isn't thinking of that long-term is ensuring they will be the RIM/Blackberry.

As such, Windows 8 tablets and Surface are all about having something to sell for a few years while perfecting UI concepts to go to the next step whether that be wearable hardware or cybernetic implants using virtual surfaces or something else entirely.

Look at Windows 8 with that filter and you realize there's another reason it's a piece of shit besides every other Windows systems being pieces of shit. They are pieces of shit because they are innovating concepts for things that don't even exist yet.

[Merusk]

All this discussion gets a reset since nobody's mentioned yesterday's announcement that Sinofsky is out at Microsoft.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/21329/sinosfkys-out-and-microsoft-still-faces-tough-pathway-windows-8-adoption

There's rampant speculation about Windows 8 being a failure and causing it, but I think the NPR analysis I heard had a better take on things as it being a combination of reasons.  1) Sinofsky was reportedly very hard line and uncompromising.  Something that can't happen as Windows needs to morph to fit more platforms than the PC in the way Android and iOS has done.  2) He's at a stage in his career where the only way to advance is to leave.

If we see massive changes to Win8, then I'd agree on the failure aspect.  If they instead soldier on and announce a more refined multi-platform OS then clearly it was the latter.

[Miasma]

I mentioned it, two days ago.

At any rate it just sounds like he's just an arrogant douchebag that most people hated, they would have fired him earlier but they didn't want it to impact the Windows 8 timeline.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/14/technology/at-microsoft-sinofsky-seen-as-smart-but-abrasive.html

[Merusk]

Missed it, apologies!

[luckton]

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chuckw/archive/2012/11/14/directx-11-1-and-windows-7.aspx

Internet Explorer 10 for Win7.  Also known as: Service Pack 1a w/DirectX 11.1 Lite for Win7

 

[Vaiti]

The whole tablet/touchscreen interface is funny to me, because it's so OBVIOUSLY a transitional technology. It's trying very hard to build UI's for a motion-based (i.e. Kinetic style) interface on a virtual (holographic/cybernetic) "desktop/surface" and that whole idea is in its absolute infancy. I'm quite positive when the Apple geeks came up with the iPhone interface, they were really trying for a Minority Report holographic interface as their end goal and anyone in the design phases of the 3 big players (Apple, Android/Google, Microsoft) who isn't thinking of that long-term is ensuring they will be the RIM/Blackberry.

As such, Windows 8 tablets and Surface are all about having something to sell for a few years while perfecting UI concepts to go to the next step whether that be wearable hardware or cybernetic implants using virtual surfaces or something else entirely.

Look at Windows 8 with that filter and you realize there's another reason it's a piece of shit besides every other Windows systems being pieces of shit. They are pieces of shit because they are innovating concepts for things that don't even exist yet.

Oh man, you nailed it.

[calapine]

That sounds very persuasive as theory, but aren't such input methods as mentioned 20+ years away?

[Merusk]

Of course not. They were 20 years away 20 years ago, so they're due any moment.

[calapine]

You mean like fusion power and my university degree? 

[Lantyssa]

One of my friends got hers after 11 years.  You can do it!

(but yes)

[rattran]

Windows 8 is designed for the holographic controller on your jetpack?

Well, makes as much sense as any other reasons I've heard about why it sucks so hard, I suppose.

[HaemishM]

That sounds very persuasive as theory, but aren't such input methods as mentioned 20+ years away?

Very likely - but then I was a bit surprised by the motion controls on the Wii so who the fuck knows?

Windows 8 is designed for the holographic controller on your jetpack?

Well, makes as much sense as any other reasons I've heard about why it sucks so hard, I suppose.

Actually kind of. It's a research project masquerading as a marketable product - kind of like smartphones with touch displays or tablet computing. Do you really think those devices will be used in their current form 20 years down the line?

[calapine]

Actually kind of. It's a research project masquerading as a marketable product - kind of like smartphones with touch displays or tablet computing. Do you really think those devices will be used in their current form 20 years down the line?

That comparison isn't quite valid though. Of course they will change over the time, but smart-phones are very usable and obviously very marketable. PCs changed a lot since MS DOS 4.0 days, that doesn't mean they were a research project.

[Engels]

I don't think that touch screen tech is just a stepping stone to holographic mid-air interfaces. The experience is viscerally so different that I don't think  devs have that in mind when coding for a tablet platform. Never mind that we already have that with the Xbox kinect, WII etc, and that, although cool, isn't really as precise a gui interface as needed for serious business. I would love to see a board meeting with a power point presenter flailing their arms about. That would be awesome.

I'm gonna get yelled at, but I liked playing with the Windows RT tablet at the MS Store here in Seattle. I did not experience the typing slowness in Word that others experienced. I did need a bit of instruction on how to close apps, and get around a bit, but other than the hilariously high price that blocks entry and is gonna drive people in droves to Apple, its a fine device for what it purports to be.

I'm gonna wait on the new 8 Pro version and see if that's better, in terms of power, battery life, display and of course, 3rd party non app-store programs.

[calapine]

I don't think what you say is controversial. Lot's of comments about metro include something to the extent "It's nice on tablet/touchscreen but just doesn't make sense in an office environment/with keyboard&mouse input."

As customer it feel neglected by Windows 8, it seems the focus behind it is entirely on non-PC environments. I remember a quote by some MS dude: "We do not want to be chained to the dying desktop". Which is very worrying as MS is the only source of desktop OSes around. It's not like phones were you can shop around.

Edit: That phone example made me think of something. It's very possible that a company totally misses the direction when it comes to development. See Nokia. Now imagine a world were the entry to phone production were so that Nokia was the world onliest producer. We'd be all using 3310's (and a few freaks with Blackberries(Linux)).

Addendum: That such things are possible history shows. OS/2 2.1 vs MS-DOS 6.0. Both released within a month of each other, but worlds apart.

[Engels]

I'm highly skeptical of anyone saying the desktop is dying, and it is indeed worrisome that that's being talked about at higher levels at MS. We went through this before. MS unlocked the potential for desktops, and that they perceive it as being 'chained' seems very short sighted.  People LIKE having the power to run ArcGIS or CAD from their desktops, not having to rely on some app server in the sky that's paid for through some institutional/corporate licensing.

There's a narrow band of coders/modelers/designers that require the CPU power of a cluster environment, but they've been using that shit for years anyways. I don't think that people are going to flock to a Windows 2013 server cloud cluster for their high end computing needs now.

[Merusk]

And that gets in to the guts of it, I think, Engels.  People don't NEED it but good luck getting in to the office environment otherwise.  Microsoft is THE business OS. What hope of entering that market does any other developer have at this point? None.

So instead, you take a different tack.  You enter the market by selling 'cloud' services your customers don't need.  "The PC is dead! Move to the cloud, any old $300 machine with an internet connection can run any program!  No more viruses, overhead costs for IT or hardware costs.  Just a simple monthly fee for access!" 

What bean counter wouldn't buy that idea? 
What software company wouldn't trade 'sell one copy to a client ever x years' for a 'client pays me $x a month for access' model?

So the "pc is dead" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  MS thinks it's time to move to an interface that supports this cloud idea now before it gets away from them and kills their business OS. Time to explore other options!

[Salamok]

There's a narrow band of coders/modelers/designers that require the CPU power of a cluster environment, but they've been using that shit for years anyways. I don't think that people are going to flock to a Windows 2013 server cloud cluster for their high end computing needs now.

You are right they aren't going to flock to Windows 2013 server cloud cluster.  They will instead, as Merusk says, flock to the cloud cluster service being provided by the 3rd party software they are using.

Pretty much the last true foothold desktops have are for content creation.  The user experience of consuming content via phone, ebook, tablet and tv is becoming better, enough so that it is just a matter of time before the desktop is only used as a backup device (if at all) for this.  I would consider myself in the top 5% of computer users and I love my desktop but I use it less every year.