Posted on 09/20/2011 12:15:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Microsoft's obituary has been written plenty of times. There was no place for the software mammoth in a tech world designed -- and dominated -- by Apple. CEO Steve Ballmer was unable to steer the company to a position of growth, leaving Microsoft selling PC software in a post-PC world. So often has Microsoft been written off as irrelevant that investors have largely stopped believing in the stock, which has spent the bulk of the past ten years in a tight range between $25 a share and $30 a share. On Monday, the stock closed around $27, which is where it traded around this time of the year in 2008, in 2006, in 2004, in 2001 … you get the idea.
In the past five days, however, Microsoft's (MSFT) shares have risen by 5%, following the presentation of its latest operating software, Windows 8, to developers. Designed as a fresh start for Windows, it attempts to bridge mobile devices, tablets and traditional PCs. That modest uptick is a sign that investors that have so long written off Redmond's stock may be doing so at their own peril.
In early reviews, Windows 8 received perhaps the strongest praise ever for a version of its operating system and opened up the possibility that Microsoft could in fact become relevant in the so-called post-PC world.
Jean-Louis Gassée, a former Apple (AAPL) executive, wrote that the touch-based Metro user interface added to Windows 8 "is a step along the 'Windows Everywhere' road that leads to a single, elegant UI for all Microsoft-powered devices, whether they're PCs, smartphones, or tablets." TechCrunch called it "actually quite cool and quite intuitive." Even John Gruber, an influential Apple blogger, conceded "it could utterly fail as an iPad competitor, but still be a successful OS."
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.fortune.cnn.com ...
Then FIRE his worthless ass. In any other company he might have been let go by now. Why are they keeping him on? He is an embarrassment to Microsoft, in more ways than one.
Windows Phone 7 has not been a sales success, but its user interface is considered by some to be superior to iOS and Android.
MS is building on that with Windows 8.
The question is: Can MS deliver?
If the system is reliable and can offer a seamless experience between phone, pc and XBox while leveraging their technology with voice commands, facial recognition and gesture recognition (from Kinect), they could end up at the top of the heap.
Let’s not forget their partnsership with the biggest mobile phone maker in the world — NOKIA.
NOKIA is slowly abandoning the Symbian OS to go with Windows Phone.
If this partnership succeeds, Microsoft will have captures close to 30% of the market.
Such high praise, lol.
Microsoft has a history of not getting it right when it brings a product out the first time, and then learning from its mistakes and succeeding (sometimes killing the competition on the way).
Count them -— Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows Vista. All of them failures in one way or another.
Her first forays into Games were not successful as well.
And yet, here we are in 2011, and she is still the most dominant OS in the world and a major player in the Games business.
I have a strong feeling she isn’t done yet, even with the paltry acceptance of Windows Phone 7.
A friend is an Apple junkie. He doesn’t think the Ipad is all that hot. He has one and says it is really not much more portable than his apple laptop and significantly inferior in ease of use. Another friend has one and uses it all the time - to let his toddler play games while the rest of us talk.
Internet Explorer 1, 2 , and 3.
I was thinking of upgrading my XP machine to Windows 7. So I go to Costco and Sams club and every single version is an upgrade from vista. I don’t want to even think how much it costs as a “non-upgrade”. Meanwhile, at this point I’ll just wait for 8. Might even be a good time to just upgrade the computer. I could retire the Win2000 machine and replace it with the XP machine and replace the XP machine with a new 8 machine.
Does he think his Windows tablet is all that hot?
I just thought the quote was funny, following up all the breathless panting by saying that Windows 8 could flop like everything Microsoft has done for the past several years, and still be a successful OS. Define success, lol.
That’s called damning with faint praise. Or a backhanded compliment.
Mark me down as “I’ll believe it when I see it”. Microsoft’s long-standing problem is that it tries to be all things to all people, and all at the same time. Meaning you can find it everywhere, but it’s seldom (if ever) the best choice for any particular purpose.
From what I’ve heard regarding Windows 8, this is unlikely to change. There are some neat elements to it, but the OS as a whole seems unlikely to live up to the hype being generated around it.
For kicks I just priced windows 7 pro. It’s $300. I might as well just buy a prepackaged machine with win 7 pro.
Or keep using my XP machine - which is fine so far...
HAHAHA. I can get a screamin pc with windows 7 WITH office 2010 for a stinkin’ $800.
It’s like they throw in the PC for free if you buy the software!
Sorry about the spam...
From my limited experience as an amateur, it’s much better to upgrade the computer so that all the components work together at peak capacity with the OS. And it allows for you to keep some programs you like on the old computer that might not work well with the new OS. At least until you can upgrade those.
Windows 7 dropped Outlook Express, in case you use that one.
Over the weekend, I installed it to various vitual machines, running on Hyper-V, VMware, and SunBox. The one that ran the best was on Hyper-V. Family, I guess!
I installed it directly to hardware yesterday, and it rocks! It boots up from a powered off machine to logon prompt in 12 seconds!!!!
The Metro interface sucks without a touch screen, though. You can use the mouse to scroll and select but it's not a smooth. I find it impossible to close or stop a Metro app unless I use task manager to kill the process. Anyone knows how to do so; PLEASE reply!
Tomorrow I'm going to try to boot to a VHD with Win 8. This is lots of fun!
I’ve been building my own computers since around 1994. I upgraded one from windows 95 to OS2 Warp, back to 95 and finally win2k. It was a good thing I didn’t install win2k until sp2 was released because sp2 fixed an incompatibility with my video card. My laziness paid off. I got it at the microsoft store so I didn’t buy it because I was in a hurry. Actually, I bought it because it was based on NT, but that is another story.
Since I lost my Microsoft connection, I don’t ever upgrade my OS any more. Each of my computers goes down with the brain with which it was originally given the breath of life.
Of course, that means you have to transfer your user account and data (Windows Easy Transfer will do this) and then reinstall all your applications onto the Windows 7 machine. It's actually not as hard as it sounds, LOL!
Try NewEgg. They have OEM verisions for $100.
“I find it impossible to close or stop a Metro app unless I use task manager to kill the process.”
I’ve noticed this too, but I think it’s a feature not a bug. I think Metro apps are just meant to sleep when they’re not in use, so you don’t close them.
Same with Windows 8, really. It’s not obvious how you shut it down (ctrl-alt-del!) but that’s probably because you don’t want to shut it down. Just snooze and resume.
I DID find the shutdown in the Settings app. It will power down. Hibernation actually does work. Both Vista and 7 had lots of problems with it when they first came out (the betas, on my equipment anyway).
8 in Alpha is a real smoothie so far....
We are not in a post-PC world. We will be in a few years I suspect. But that is then. This is now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.