A Win8 and a Surface review

[GreyGeek]

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/wind...d-power-users/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...ne/9775675.stm

[vw72]

I just finished helping somebody with a new laptop with Win8 on it get it up and running. It was definitely a frustrating experience. The funny part was to just play solitaire, you had to download it, it wasn't pre-installed (but that might be the manufacturer's fault, not Microsoft's). Then, every time they wanted to play it, it asked for her x-box id. This 70 year old woman does not have an x-box or said id!

There are parts of Win 8 that are actually nice, but the overall implementation is very poor. I don't like Ubuntu's Unity, but I would take it any day over Win8.

[GreyGeek]

mmm.... It makes one wonder just how much of Win8's shortcomings will be explained away as the OEM's fault?

[buckeyered80]

This one is an epic fail for MS.

[SteveRiley]

This one is an epic fail for MS.

Something they've gotten very good at lately...

[tek_heretik]

There's that thousand sun hate heat again, lol, phew, somebody open a WINDOW, lol, and turn on a fan!

Edit: lol @ "Windows app store is more empty than Soviet grocery store shelves". This doesn't surprise me since MS was peeving a lot of developers off, secrecy, confusion and misinformation.

[whatthefunk]

There's that thousand sun hate heat again, lol, phew, somebody open a WINDOW, lol, and turn on a fan!

Edit: lol @ "Windows app store is more empty than Soviet grocery store shelves". This doesn't surprise me since MS was peeving a lot of developers off, secrecy, confusion and misinformation.

I think this is going to be the nail in the coffin. These mobile devices really come down to the apps available. Apple and Android have a huge number of apps while Microsoft has very few. Because of this, the Microsoft market share is not going to increase much and because the market share wont grow, theres no point in developers spending their time to port their apps to Windows.

[tek_heretik]

I think this is going to be the nail in the coffin. These mobile devices really come down to the apps available. Apple and Android have a huge number of apps while Microsoft has very few. Because of this, the Microsoft market share is not going to increase much and because the market share wont grow, theres no point in developers spending their time to port their apps to Windows.

True and MS is chronically late to the 'game' almost everytime, if not everytime, then what they put out just doesn't have the same 'cool factor'. This ALMOST makes me feel sorry for them, lol, NOT! Eventually everybody gets what they deserve, that's karma for ya.

[vw72]

mmm.... It makes one wonder just how much of Win8's shortcomings will be explained away as the OEM's fault?

I think that is a safe bet. Remember, they released the "surface" because the OEMs weren't building the right tablets for Win 8. Now they will be blamed for not implementing it correctly. Win 8 has a real identity crisis -- is it a tablet OS forced on a PC or a PC OS forced on a tablet? On either platform, it makes too many compromises for the other platform to be effective.

[james147]

Personally I love windows 8

It pissed off the CEO of Valve so much they ported Steam to Linux. Cannot hope for anything more from a windows OS

[buckeyered80]

All of the above comments I agree with. Now, I will admit that Windows did do decent job with Win7. But, how long can they last with the momentum of Win7 success? Mobile and facebook have become so popular that most people are just checking all their updates on mobile. Win7 is still obviously a standard now in the business world, but to home users, they are moving to mobile and Win8 tried to get in on the market. Well Microsoft, you just can't have everything.

[vw72]

All of the above comments I agree with. Now, I will admit that Windows did do decent job with Win7. But, how long can they last with the momentum of Win7 success? Mobile and facebook have become so popular that most people are just checking all their updates on mobile. Win7 is still obviously a standard now in the business world, but to home users, they are moving to mobile and Win8 tried to get in on the market. Well Microsoft, you just can't have everything.

I think Microsoft could have had the best of both worlds. Keep the Windows 7 base, which would please the corporate world and add something akin to KDE's plasmoids so that the web stuff could be displayed on the screen as part of the desktop.

The way it is now, it is extremely difficult to use efficiently in a business environment (maybe in a few years that will change, once new software has caught up). Yes, you can get to something that resembles the traditional desktop metaphor, but only in appearance, it doesn't function that way at all. And in a home environment, it is only slightly more useable, unless your total requirements revolve only around twitter, facebook and web browsing. Gnome-shell and Unity tried to force a tablet interface onto a desktop and it hasn't been well received. Microsoft should have learned from their example. Instead they took the worst parts of what they did and built on that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, KDE has the best implimentation -- the same core underlying technology that allows a UI to be built to fit the form factor at hand.

[GreyGeek]

Remember when VISTA turned out to be such a stinker? Microsoft was trying to force everyone to upgrade to it, but people refused and opted for PCs with XP installed. So many, in fact, that to fight the tide of migration to Linux and Apple, Microsoft extended the life of XP, which was the best version of Windows up to that time.

Well, I suspect that the failure of Win8 on PCs will force Microsoft to extend the life of Win7, which is now the best version of Windows ever released. I suspect that Win7 could be called WinLast, because I predict that Microsoft will do vanity and cosmetic upgrades to it to minimize the ongoing migration to Linux.

They'll just cycle the version number and churn the treadmill for more cash, without making any fundamental changes to Win7, while trying to claw their way out of the smartphone/tablet marketshare basement. So far, innovation and technical brilliance isn't doing it for them, so they are moving to their more tried and trusted methods of "competing".

[tek_heretik]

Remember when VISTA turned out to be such a stinker? Microsoft was trying to force everyone to upgrade to it, but people refused and opted for PCs with XP installed. So many, in fact, that to fight the tide of migration to Linux and Apple, Microsoft extended the life of XP, which was the best version of Windows up to that time.

Well, I suspect that the failure of Win8 on PCs will force Microsoft to extend the life of Win7, which is now the best version of Windows ever released. I suspect that Win7 could be called WinLast, because I predict that Microsoft will do vanity and cosmetic upgrades to it to minimize the ongoing migration to Linux.

They'll just cycle the version number and churn the treadmill for more cash, without making any fundamental changes to Win7, while trying to claw their way out of the smartphone/tablet marketshare basement. So far, innovation and technical brilliance isn't doing it for them, so they are moving to their more tried and trusted methods of "competing".

You took the words right out of mouth sir, well said, we know them oh so well. The giant is on one knee, one more major blow, the villagers should run, lol, or they will be pinned under an ugly monster.