
Windows 8 Plans Leaked: Numerous Details Revealed - Flemlord
http://msftkitchen.com/2010/06/windows-8-plans-leaked-numerous-details-revealed.html
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sgk284
I work on the Windows team and was front row at the big Win8 planning meeting.
It was good fun with Steve Ballmer shouting right in front of me (I'd never
experienced that before... he's amazing at getting a crowd going).

I can't say much... but these slides are laughable (and _if_ real, designed
for some other company's execs/marketers) I joined Microsoft this past
September having never been a Windows person. I've done most of my
professional development on linux, and you can pry my macbook pro from my cold
dead hands.

With that in mind, Win8 is looking awesome and it's something that I want to
use right now. Microsoft is really getting their shit together. Win8, if it's
even a fraction of what is planned, is going to change things permanently.
This is a good thing considering Steve Jobs seems to have given up on the
desktop as of this most recent WWDC.

~~~
mkramlich
The thing about Microsoft, speaking as a fan of Linux and Mac, is that it
doesn't really matter if they get their shit together. Mac and Linux already
exist, and they can beat Windows in the premium/shiny and cheap/utility
departments, respectively. Those two right there are going to satisfy a lot of
people's needs. About the two biggest factors in Microsoft's favor remaining
are (1) selling home consumer PC's to folks who want/need something cheaper
than a Mac, and (2) legacy application inertia. iPad and Linux desktops can
somewhat attack (1), and the advantage of (2) will slowly wear away over time
I think as more and more ppl/bizs find acceptable replacements on Mac, iPad or
Linux.

~~~
smikhanov
The biggest factor in favor of Microsoft is (and will be for some years at
least) the bulk of orders from BigCos that are placed for hundreds of HP or
Dell machines with Windows preinstalled. Apple's (or Linux's) share in the
corporate segment is still tiny.

~~~
fierarul
> Apple's (or Linux's) share in the corporate segment is still tiny.

Yes, but ever since the iPhone it's growing. My old Java/.NET corporation now
has teams doing iPhone/iPad applications. This is huge! Long ago it was all
Windows with Linux/Solaris on the server. Now they are actually buying macs
for developers.

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jcapote
It's so telling that a slide like this is needed somewhere at MSFT:
[http://msftkitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/All-
Eyes-o...](http://msftkitchen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/All-Eyes-on-
Apple.png)

~~~
TeHCrAzY
It looks like this slide isn't intended for internal Microsoft use, so likely
they are trying to get across the intentions/direction of focus to the
audience.

~~~
contextfree
More specifically, I think they are trying to convince Dell/HP that _they_ can
build an Apple-like brand without leaving the Windows ecosystem (e.g. in favor
of buying/building their own OS, e.g. via Palm). That's what the hardware-
manufacturer-branded app stores are also about.

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mr_justin
According to one of these slides, "humans" is short for "mainstream
consumers".

[http://msftkitchen.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/Windows-8-...](http://msftkitchen.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/06/Windows-8-Consumer-Target-Audiences.png)

~~~
drewcrawford
I giggled at the "Why Humans Matter" on the right:

1\. Substantial in size

~~~
nopassrecover
Erghh meant to upvote this. Stupid little unchangeable close arrows on a touch
interface...

~~~
drewcrawford
Granted, it's not terribly insightful.

~~~
nopassrecover
True, but it didn't deserve a downvote either

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jraines
I wonder if they will call it Windows 8, given that Windows 7 is a homophone
for "Windows Heaven" and Windows 8 is thisclose to "Windows Hate".

Just my personal tinfoil hat marketing conspiracy theory.

edit: removed unnecessary potshot.

~~~
lazugod
Change Windows 8's name. Not that big of a deal.

~~~
chrisbolt
Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, ...? Could they be more inconsistent?

~~~
josefresco
iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 .... naming means nothing, every
company gets wooed by slick marketers and pro _naming people_ who mess up any
consistency.

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grandalf
The one feature that would make me consider using windows again is if it
supported bash as a first class shell option and had a built in x server.

~~~
iamelgringo
Powershell, isn't bash, but it's pretty kick ass.

Instead of piping text from one command to the other, you pipe entire objects
back and forth. A lot of bash commands are aliased to Powershell commandlets
out of the box. And, as of Powershell 2.0, you have remote scripting similar
to SSH.

I choose to do Python Web development on Windows, and I spend my whole day on
the PS command line, and I'm really pleased.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_PowerShell>

~~~
mhw
> And, as of Powershell 2.0, you have remote scripting similar to SSH.

What, instead of actually using the ubiquitous, widely installed SSH? Some
things don't seem to change.

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code_duck
That's my problem with PowerShell. No matter how good it may be, I don't
really feel like relearning everything just to accomplish the same things,
only on Windows instead.

~~~
yread
Are you sure you are in the right business if you don't like relearning?

~~~
vetinari
Yes, throw away everything you know every now and then, instead of building
knowledge on top of knowledge.

That will get you far, right?

~~~
mey
Who says you have to throw away everything you know? I don't magically stop
knowing C++ when running around in Ruby or SQL.

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Silhouette
I thought it was telling that many of the slides are full of the same kind of
meaningless waffle you see in management or sales/marketing presentations at
other big companies. I'm actually a little surprised at that. For all its past
transgressions, Microsoft does have a reputation for hiring smart technical
people, and in recent years a lot of the technology it has produced has been
respectable again. I somehow assumed the people running the show would be of
the same calibre, with clear ideas and well structured plans for realising
them, but that doesn't appear to be the case if whoever wrote the
presentation(s) used here is representative.

~~~
derefr
Windows seems to happen as a bottom-up thing. Feature teams conceive, design,
and implement features, and a bunch are put together and shipped. Thus, any
top-down view will be necessarily meaningless until the details float in from
the teams actually doing the work.

~~~
aneesh
At the same time, you _need_ some top-down direction. You can't just tell a
team of thousands of engineers to go build something, and expect it all to
have a unifying theme, and work well together.

It works well for small teams, but breaks down pretty quickly as team size
grows.

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erlanger
The eMac is back!

