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More on Windows 8: 1) A recent Forrester survey adds to fears of poor enterprise adoption. Only...
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Wednesday, October 17, 2012, 12:12 PM ETMore on Windows 8: 1) A recent Forrester survey adds to fears of poor enterprise adoption. Only 1/3 of respondents said they expect/plan to use Windows 8, compared with 2/3 who said the same about Windows 7 in '09. 2) Shipping times for the $499 Windows RT Microsoft Surface model have risen - Microsoft reportedly ordered 3M-5M Surface units for Q4. 3) Windows RT and its pre-installed apps consume 12GB of storage (12x more than iOS).
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Although I do think it's mitigated enough by the lower cost relative to the iPad, it's still rather startling. I wonder how it looks without some of the Microsoft Apps/Office.
This is going to be interesting.
It's all about personal preference in what device form-factor you want to carry around.. what you want to simply consume media on... what device do you want to use as a workhorse content creation device. In all scenarios, having a common platform and an integrated experience, tied to cloud services (as an added benefit) are what Windows 8 is all about.
Disclaimer: In case you couldn't tell (ha!), I'm long MSFT. I'm also employed by them, though in an unrelated capacity.
Unless this is the ribbon argument all over? People kicked and screamed. Now, all except for a few dinosaurs would never go back to Windows 1.0 style menus.
http://bit.ly/VaySyB
TechRadar rating
4.5/5
FOR
On the right hardware, it's sleek, fast and fun
Huge security improvements
Better battery life, faster boot
Great for touch
AGAINST
Start menu gone
Can't boot to the desktop
You'll want a touchscreen/trackpad gestures/Touch Mouse
Modern UI will annoy some
Some older CPUs won't run it
Personally that list of "Against" items reads like an indictment. Almost like MS has a death wish.
Trying to completely change the user experience for an install base that is still running XP is a disaster in the making. Especially after that POS Vista, many of us will have a hard time trusting MS and upgrade.
Creative and brave but man does it ever seem dumb.
Not having a "start" button and the desktop that we all see when we first login is going to be a gigantic shock to a generation of users.
Read this page to get a very detailed view:
http://bit.ly/S3RnRn
Also Walt Mossberg did a review here a couple of days ago:
http://dthin.gs/TuOB4J
"If you don’t have a touchscreen, Windows 8 will still work, but more clumsily.
Bottom Line
Microsoft deserves credit for giving Windows a new, modern face. And the company will surely please existing users by maintaining the old one and the ability to run older apps. But the combination will require re-learning the most familiar computing system on the planet."
I think it sounds like a really cool platform overall but it will be interesting whether a conservative audience will embrace a somewhat radical new approach especially when it comes with all of the bugs that MS is famous for giving us in their initial launch. Usually takes about 2 years before their OS's get stable.
Do any of you miss Windows 3.1? Yet there were people who were "concerned" when they saw Windows 95. But it didn't take long to get comfortable with the changes, even though they were initially frustrated. This happens with every new release of every software and hardware product ever created. Ever. :) We fear change.
I don't fear change. I fear another Vista - one of the worst pieces of crap ever foisted on an unsuspecting public.
XP was a superior product and rock solid once the SP's were done.
I like MS and I am trying to offer some ground level, customer feedback which I generally suspect MS ignores at its peril.
As a tech guy, you have to appreciate the difference between evolution and revolution and I think this borders on the latter which means it could succeed wildly or flop around like a fish out of water.
In any event it is a big risk and uncharacteristically bold for MS. I hope it succeeds.
As far as XP goes, it gradually grew to hate it and all of it's limitations - and though Vista had it's problems, it was sitll better than XP. And Win7 is so much better than either XP or Vista that I cannot see why anyone would still run XP unless they had an old 32 bit processor.
The fact that Windows 7 is so great, however, and reason BSODs are a thing of the past, is largely because of the engineering investments in Windows Vista. Those investments were carried into Windows 7 and 8. It wasn't like Microsoft went back and scrapped everything they did in Vista -- they just improved it.
Another issue with the Windows "ecosystem" circa Vista was that Microsoft made some bets based on where hardware was headed. Only, the economy started getting bad and people stopped buying new hardware. They wanted better performance from their existing hardware. Microsoft didn't deliver this until 7 & 8. E.g, investments in making SSDs work in Vista and 7 are only now starting to pay off for Microsoft as they start to move into mainstream.
Of course, to your point, Joe Consumer doesn't know these facts or care. But the only way Windows 8 could be another Vista is if Microsoft had gone and redone all the engineering and driver things they had done in Vista all over. That isn't the case at all. Windows 7 drivers generally work on Windows 8.
The Desktop itself is still there in all of its glory. You can get to it by clicking on its Live Tile or by pressing the Windows key on your keyboard. Everything runs exactly like it did in Windows 7 once you're at the Desktop. The Windows 8 Metro interface is not intrusive, and if you don't like it, you will never have to see it except when launching a program (which, again, takes seconds). I really don't know why people are up in arms over the new design. It works perfectly fine with or without touch and can be as new or as retro as you want to work.