Posted on 06/18/2012 9:15:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
This is going to be a huge week for Microsoft. Today, the company is expected to announce its first tablet, which will be designed to compete with the iPad.
On Wednesday, we're expecting Microsoft to give us details on the next major version of its Windows Phone operating, which will likely be very similar to Windows 8.
Here's you need to know:
* Microsoft will announce its own tablet. This will be the first time Microsoft builds the hardware and software for a tablet.
* The tablet will run a special version of Windows 8 called "Windows RT." Windows RT is designed to run on devices with ARM processors. Those are the same types of processors found in smartphone and tablets (like the iPad) today. Windows RT won't be able today's traditional Windows apps, only apps from the Windows 8 app store.
* Microsoft may also announce a tablet that runs the full version of Windows 8. According to All Things D, there's a possibility Microsoft will announce a tablet powered by processors that allow it to run the full version of Windows 8. That means you'll be able to access the Windows 7-like desktop mode and run older Windows apps.
* There's a rumor Barnes & Noble will be involved (but don't believe it). According to TechCrunch, Microsoft's tablet announcement will be for a Nook-branded device made by Barnes & Noble. Microsoft recently invested $300 million in Barnes & Noble, so it's possible. However, Barnes & Noble shot down the Nook rumor.
* Microsoft may show off the next version of Windows Phone on Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
However, it will be slightly heaver than an iPad.
What’s “Barnes & Noble?”
Will be interesting if anyone comes up with a "Monopoly" or "anti-competitive" class action lawsuit. It's hard to compete in the marketplace with an entity that can charge you $85 for WinRT while their cost is Zero - yet you all have similar hardware costs. The $85 per unit cost savings places MSFT at what some would call an unfair advantage.
Now, if MSFT were the sole purveyor of these WinRT tablets, one could argue that they are merely another Apple type of supplier. But, unlike Apple, MSFT is selling their OS to tier suppliers such as Dell, HP and others.
Going on record as saying I’m not thrilled about this. MS is designing an OS around tablets and smartphones, and while is probably in their best interest for the current market, leaving desktop and laptop users out of the mix might be seen as a move to force people on to tablets and smartphones.
Mea culpa: I completely understand that there will be a standard MAK desktop available, but according to my sources, it will not be enabled by default. This, I believe, will change before release, or the installation option for OEM/retail disk packages will be guided to allow the user to choose their default input option. Windows 7 does this to a lesser degree by having tablet support enabled by default.
Overall, Microsoft is getting better with their operating systems, but they are trying to cater to too many market segments at a time. Windows RT sounds too much like CE to me, and we all know how well that did.
When do we see the first patch?
I think Windows 8 is going to be train wreck. I can’t see business adopting this without undergoing some painful reworking of procedures and training.
A bookseller. They are saying that WinRT may have the Barnes and Noble "Nook" e-reader software built into the OS, thus allowing them to compete against the iPad (iBooks, Kindle and Nook e-reader software) as well as the entrenched Kindle and Nook e-readers.
I flatly do not know if the Kindle supports the Nook e-reader, or if the Nook allows you to load the Kindle e-reader software (although I doubt they would). I do know that neither the Kindle nor the Nook have iBooks (Apple's e-reader); and that the Apple iPad has apps availble for Kindle and Nook.
Kinda surprised that MSFT isn't hopping on the book retailer bandwagon like Apple did.
Suits under the Sherman Antitrust Act have nothing to do with profit margins...only market share. While loosely defined in the Act, subsequent interpretations suggest that you need to have 2/3 of the market to be considered a monopoly. MS is a LONG way from having that. Indeed, I doubt they will ever have that kind of share in the tablet market.
When you "log in" to what? I've heard that it will be necessary to "log in" to some microsoft site just to be able to use the OS. If that's true I'll stick with Windows 7 forever.
I was actually being facetious. Brick-and-mortar bookstores (B&N et al.) are dinosaurs. Figures that Microsoft teamed up with them.
IOW this author is wasting our time with mere guessing.
That may or may not be true. I'm not a lawyer. But, when I used to work for Intel; Intel made processors and chipsets. Intel stated categorically that although they made motherboards and the processors that went with them, they had no interest at all in putting them together in a box and making a PC - due to anti-trust and anti-competitive allegatiosn that would surely follow. To this day, Intel makes chipsets and processors - yet will NEVER put them in a box and sell that box to the consumer.
Ugh!
I don’t use any of the content of those tiles in the course of my day other than perhaps messaging and presumably Windows Explorer in order to find everything else I’m going to need.
Is there a way to configure that interface for those of us who use a computer as a tool and not as an entertainment device?
microsoft bough the nook device.
They don’t need the bricks.
I agree. I've been working with the Beta for Visual Studio and it was bundled with W8. I hated it so much, I took it off my system. My biggest complaint is that the op system is so dumbed down that I can't get anything done. (I do a lot of program development.) What takes a few clicks in W7 takes 5 times the effort with W8. I can't even imagine someone who is a casual Windows user wading through the interface trying to get to their word processor. Gees, even Microsoft's Bob op system made more sense than this one does.
LOL...sorry...can't help myself...but Nook e-readers is somewhat of a double entendre.
Although I detest the Metro color scheme (hope they allow it to be customized), I am SLOWLY warming to the Metro App screen...but it’s been long coming - many a night spent cursing at the screen, trying to figure out how to open and close apps.
They really should place a tile on the Metro screen with a how-to video entitled WATCHMEFIRST, or something like that.
Any predictions, based on past tech timelines, when Windows Phone 8 will be available at the consumer level?
I’m limping by with the electronic equivalent of two tin cans and a string right now....
Here's Everything You Need To Know About Microsoft's Big Windows 8 Announcements This Week |
Think of it as just one great, big blue tile.
Message to Microsoft: 80% of us are NOT habitual upgraders (witness the 19 inch TV with the rotary tuning dials which sat in my living room until guys like you forced my hand by taking television digital).
I would add “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”, except this IS Microsoft we’re talking about.
SO, if the content on the tiles is dynamic, that means CONSTANT data traffic, LOTS of apps running: short battery life and a heavy duty data plan commitment/WiFi discipline.
AND, it’s MS.
Gotta love my Samsung Android devices.
Start Barfing.
Bye Windows. I’ll stay with everything up to 7. That, and I don’t want to be forced to log in to email just to use an operating system. Screw that.
If I were them, I wouldn't either because they would likely come close to the 2/3 market share. I think things get a little fuzzy when one of their chips is second-sourced, like AMD has with many of the Intel chips. While AMD licenses the microcode from Intel, Justice might argue that Intel still benefits from AMD's sales and, therefore, AMD's market share should be counted in some way as part of Intel's, too. Also, Intel's strength is in chip development and likely doesn't want the thin margins found in the box maker's market.
iZune
This. Win 8 is cartoonish crap. In a word: "non-professional"
I have 7 on my laptop and hate it. It is a resource hog that uses twice what XP used. Having said that, there was room for improvement, but overall XP has been the least trouble for me.
And I agree with the other poster who said this is the nudge to tablets..
You sound like a “progressive”. A Microsoft-funded progressive.
Lame on a tablet, even lamer on a desktop. Apparently they’ve run fresh out of good ideas and this is the crap we’re stuck with. Sorry, if that’s the best you can do, I ain’t buying it. Do they hand you a $50 check with every copy, uh, “sold”?
From the look of it, I’m assuming ‘Metro’ refers to the metro-sexuals who will adopt this?
If Microsoft would release an updated OP, “XP 2012”, and it was Windows XP with updates to drivers and any security holes, I’d bet on HUGE sales.
I know I’d buy it in a heartbeat. I’d pay well over the Windows 7 or 8 price...
So, what system or OS should I be supporting or liking, in order to sound like a conservative or a republican?
You don't sound like a conservative. You sound like an idiot.
This is why we should all strive to keep the name-calling out of these tech threads. Once it starts, it rarely gets better.
We need to remember that it is always better to comment on the tech itself, rather than make generalizations about the users of said tech.
I could say that the new interface appears to me to be rather infantile. I wouldn't say that only infantile people would use it. Flame the tech, not the user.
Ha! Ya noticed my weasel word. From what I've seen and heard of it, it doesn't look like something that would suit the way I work. I'm a Unix/Linux, not Mac guy. I like multiple desktops spread across multiple monitors to allow me to move from program to program quickly and efficiently. No current (or from the looks of things, planned) version of MS-Windows suits the way I work. Every time I have to use a windows computer, it makes me feel like I'm being handcuffed when I want to do actual work, so I'm not really a good choice of a person to give an opinion one way or the other on the new interface, because until someone holds a gun to my head, I won't use it beyond possibly installing a copy of vmware workstation on it so I can load up a real OS and get some work done.
My previous post was really just an example. I really dislike the name-calling that many of these tech threads degenerate into. I don't think it serve any valid purpose I can see. I don't care what type of computer you use, as long as you're not interested in forcing me to use it. I'd like people to focus on the tech and not make it personal. It's difficult though, because a lot of people (on each side) can sometimes have too much invested ni their own personal choices, and take an attack on their tech as an attack on themselves, when it probably wasn't meant as such.
Standard dumb ass reply.
You don't like my comment so you call me a "liberal."
Really? Are you posting from mommy's basement?
Dream on with your 600 million adoption figure, this metrosexual interface is destined to join WinCE, WinME and Vista in the MS halls of shame.
There appears to be quite a bit more to W8 than just the RT/Metro interface.
I'd think a Unix/Linux guy would be more interested 2012 Server Core.
No, no, that's the name of the IBM tablet.
Oh, wait.... yeah, didn't they used to make computers?
And that's why it'll do well with the "dumbed-down" young-and-modern crowd Microsoft is aiming this tablet at.
This is not an interface for business professionals, much less computer tech types.
This is an interface for kids, and by that I include up to about age 30.
Personally I hate it on a desktop or laptop. But on a tablet it has a decent chance of success precisely because it is infantile.
It merely sounded like a technical opinion.
I really am in awe.
You've convinced me, Windows 8 is the best OS mankind will ever see.
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