

Windows 8: Is Microsoft flailing? - mrsebastian
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/99967-windows-8-is-microsoft-flailing

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untog
_"Dukhon has in effect told current users to “take one for the team,” arguing
that eventually, once everyone converts to the new system, and all the
developers rebuild their applications for it, everyone will benefit. This
arrogantly assumes that everyone is in the same boat as those at Microsoft —
addicted for life to Windows and willing to put up with yet more years of
change and inconvenience, to get to some future nirvana."_

That's exactly the approach that Apple takes time and time again- pushing
forward, being innovative, and telling everyone (particularly app makers) to
catch up.

When they do it they are being "bold", yet when Microsoft does it is
"flailing". I don't understand why.

~~~
raganwald
_When they do it they are being "bold", yet when Microsoft does it is
"flailing”._

There are two ways to answer that question. One is to suggest that there is no
difference between Microsoft and Apple’s design and implementations, and it is
simply a question of prejudice.

The other is to suggest that on balance, Apple’s changes pay off positively
for users while Miscrosoft’s do not. In which case they are both doing the
same thing in theory, but different things in practice.

Are you arguing either of these cases?

~~~
wanorris
It seems clear that there are _some_ differences between Microsoft's designs
and implementations and Apple's. But if you compare, say, DOS, Windows 3.1,
Windows 95, Windows XP, and Windows 7, it seems difficult to make the case
that Microsoft's changes to Windows have not paid off positively for users on
balance over the years. Certainly there have been missteps, but those missteps
have, to date, always been overcome over time, and almost never by
backtracking to the previous state of affairs.

Perhaps there have been sufficient missteps, though, that people feel they
have both license and cause to second guess major changes.

Whether Win 8 itself ends up being successful or not is still an open
question, of course. But I will be happy to wager that (A) there will be a
major next successful version of Windows, and (B) it will look a lot more like
the Win 8 Developer Preview than it does like Win 7.

~~~
huxley
> DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows XP, and Windows 7

Not that I disagree with you, but it would be fairer to include Microsoft's
serious missteps like DOS 4, Windows 286, Windows ME, and Windows Vista.

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TomOfTTB
This article basically sums up the opinion I walked away from Build with.

The biggest problem I have with Metro is Microsoft doesn't seem to know how it
scales up. When asked how you'd make applications like Office, PhotoShop or
even the file explorer their response is "use the old Windows 7 interface with
a ribbon". Meaning the only answer they seem to have is to force the user to
work with two different usability paradigms indefinitely.

So Metro is more of a Widget platform than it is an Application platform.

That said I'm not sure it matters. I'm part of the .NET community in the 2nd
largest city in the US and I literally don't know a single person who has
started a new desktop app in the last year (or who plans to start one ever
again). Meaning Metro's inefficiencies are probably moot.

~~~
barista
I watched build a little bit but never got an impression that Microsoft was
ever pushing metro as a ui standard for desktop apps. It was always menat to
be for tablet and other mobile apps. If you don't see anybody starting a metro
looking desktop app its because it's not suppsosed to be.

~~~
TomOfTTB
That's my point. Users don't want two different UIs. If Metro can't scale up
then it will never be an appropriate desktop UI

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raganwald
A must-read: “Fire and Motion” by Joel Spolsky

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html>

And a not-so-must-read: “Imagine if your house had Windows:”

[http://raganwald.posterous.com/imagine-if-your-house-had-
win...](http://raganwald.posterous.com/imagine-if-your-house-had-windows)

~~~
xutopia
I think your post is easier to read than Joel's.

~~~
raganwald
Thanks! Joel’s essential point speaks to developers in the ecosystem, who have
to keep up with OS upgrades while simultaneously competing with Microsoft. I
was making a much simpler point about using the OS, so of course I had an
easier task :-)

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dangero
It seems Microsoft knows that computing is moving more mobile and into touch
screens, and they also know that the standard Windows UI doesn't translate too
well in those situations, so they made this new metro UI paradigm. In a way
they had to do something like that to stay relevant.

Unfortunately, I think they're pushing the Metro UI too hard for Windows 8.
Metro UI to me will probably be about as useful as Launchpad is on my Mac with
a mouse. (Not at all)

The only difference I see is that all the PR surrounding Windows 8 is about
Metro while Launchpad wasn't completely the focus of the Lion PR, and it's
also not enabled on by default. You have to start Launchpad from the dock
before it affects you in any way. My solution is to just not do that.

I wish Windows 8 PR was mainly focused on performance improvement and then
they mentioned, "Oh we added Metro UI too if you want to use it." Better
performance is always an easy sell for me, while new UI's I don't need aren't.

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ebzlo
I'm very skeptical as well, but Microsoft is not a company without the
resources to make something like this work.

Microsoft is the leader in two major markets: browser and desktop. They are
losing traction (albeit slowly) and are being dominated in the mobile phone
market. This kind of maneuver is obviously the result of a company that knows
it's dying.

From a long term point of view, this is probably the right move; mobile and
desktop appear to be converging and Microsoft's desktop OS could not be more
different than their mobile OS. The same can no longer be said for Apple's Mac
OS X and iOS (they're still not the same, but with launchpad and app store,
it's not hard to see what Mac OS X is headed towards).

It has the potential to be very good and they could step on a lot of people's
toes. It'll be interesting to see how this all pans out for them.

~~~
ensignavenger
They also are a leader (especially in terms of revenue) in servers. They are
strong competitors in gaming, controlling 2 of the major platforms (Windows
and xbox). They are the leader in office productivity software (This last one
might not fit with the others as well, because it office is not as much of a
platform as the others).

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iaskwhy
It's one of those rare cases where the comments make more sense than the
article itself. Those 2% can easily disable Metro's Start Screen and get their
Start Menu back.

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shriphani
"Microsoft, instead of dealing with the pain of their existing users directly,
has trotted out pages of surveys, charts, tables, and even some college-level
calculus formulas to prove why the new system is, in theory, an improvement.
It gives you the feeling the whole new interface was designed by computer, or
by committee."

The author is very proud of his ignorance and has evidently not used windows.
Not worth your time.

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BrokerChange
You do realize you can turn off the Metro UI, and default to the legacy
screen, right?

~~~
rjd
You can completely turn windows off as well. God bless hyper visors.

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S_A_P
My opinion after messing about with the developer preview is that the Metro UI
is usesless with a mouse driven setup. I found many things frustrating, as in
there was no way I could find to "kill" the piano app in the preview. I had to
ctrl alt del to kill it, there was no "X" or "close" or virtual "home" button
to press that I saw. Granted, I was running this via virtual box, so its
possible that there are some quirks that way. I just dont see a use for a
"touch" style ui with a mouse. I have a magic trackpad that I would have loved
to try, but I havent installed the boot camp drivers yet.

~~~
emehrkay
I couldn't find a keyboard shortcut, but you have to drag from either edge.
That motion will bring up the other active windows(?) in your stack, switching
you out of the app. It took me a while to figure that one out

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tkiley
For three decades, Microsoft carried the torch of backward compatibility and
feature preservation. Unfortunately, this means that Microsoft has willfully
cultivated a customer base that is downright curmudgeonly when it comes to
forced changes.

Meanwhile, many of the people who might actually tolerate and applaud these
changes are already running OSX.

~~~
astrodust
Microsoft will still own the PC platform for decades to come. The only thing
is, the PC platform will be only a fraction of the total space.

