

Windows 8 tablet freezes in Microsoft keynote demo - fvbock
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/19/microsoft_demo_trouble/

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ugh
So, uhm, I’m not a fan of Windows 8, but why exactly is this in any way a big
deal?

It's not finished. It will break. You have a backup device (or two) ready when
you present it in front of a crowd.

Apple does it (I remember keynotes where they had to switch to their backup
Mac), Microsoft does it, everyone does it.

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mitchty
I'm an Apple fan, and I agree, stuff breaks. This is a non-news story.

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ArthurLozinski
"We're essentially enabling you to break the electronic concrete of the past
and move your business to the future, by connecting your people, by enabling
your people to communicate and collaborate in real time, and by taking all the
wealth of communication, collaboration, and social networking opportunities,
and apply those into very specific business scenarios."

Now that sounds good! What would be even better, is if you build the whole
thing on web-standards ;-)

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jaems33
"Luckily, there was a second tablet available on stage that was working, so
the changes for the hypothetical app were successfully written to the pretend
database, and all was well."

That's not luck. I would think that a backup is almost always a must for any
presentation.

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sigvef
"Windows 8, which Microsoft touts as the first operating system to run across
multiple devices"

Doesn't Linux already do this? Or does it not count, as it is only a kernel?

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freehunter
It's marketing speak, and no one of importance to Microsoft is going to call
them on it. I would imagine their line of thinking would be Ubuntu doesn't
ship on tablets or phones. OSX doesn't ship on tablets or phones. What they
run are stripped down and re-imagined versions of the parent OS.

Approval of the magnitude of this claim is up to the reader.

~~~
rbanffy
Still, Linux runs on just about everything between a 68000 and an IBM
mainframe. As does NetBSD.

I find the propensity to lie disturbing.

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freehunter
This could get into deep discussions about what is an OS (versus a kernel),
what constitutes the "same" OS (versus a modified version of the OS) and even
what can be put in the same class as Windows.

I think what Microsoft is getting at is, OSX and Ubuntu don't run the same
code on their mobile devices. Windows 8 will. It's marketing, and NetBSD
doesn't even cross their mind.

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rbanffy
It all depends on where is the line defining what's an OS. A Linux machine
doesn't need X to be a Linux machine - Unix machines have been serving
terminals for decades. So much, in fact, I joke that, in order to be a serious
computer, one has to have no monitor, keyboard and mouse ports - if you really
need a physical console, a serial port will do. So, I've seen Linux running
programs on a very broad selection of hardware, from ARM to zSeries (68020+
has always been more of a curiosity, albeit there were serious Unix machines
using them).

Really, it's marketing. Not truth.

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firefoxman1
Has anyone figured out why exactly Microsoft makes such buggy software? Is it
a company culture thing?

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freehunter
Massive company. Massive software projects. Massive amount of end users.
Massive amount of use cases for their software. Time restrictions on their
development.

The wording you used makes it sound like they make buggy software on purpose,
which makes no sense.

~~~
firefoxman1
Oh, sorry. Yeah I meant why they end up producing buggy software when
competitors like Apple have proven it's possible to both ship _and_ make
stable software. And Apple does both hardware and software.

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stevejabs
I seem to recall an iOS presentation where people were told to turn off their
wifi or Jobsy wouldn't continue...

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Zirro
Which had absolutely nothing to do with buggy software.

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Radzell
Lol, maybe Microsoft hasn't changed. I like windows on desktop, but I love
android on tablet. I guess I'll sticking with android for now.

~~~
freehunter
Android never freezes or crashes. Come to think of it, neither does iOS or
OSX, or Linux.

Oh wait, almost all software crashes.

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twargoth
No iOS product would crap itself like that during a keynote demo. Sure, I've
had them panic and reboot on me in real world use, but Apple takes the time to
make sure the demo runs smoothly.

When you can't or don't make your demo run smoothly during a high visibility
presentation, it makes you look careless, either in the development of your
product or of your demo. In either case, it reeks of incompetence. This might
not be a justified impression (accidents happen), but that's how life is.

~~~
dangrossman
No iOS product comes close to the complexity of a Microsoft Dynamics product
either, nor are developers at Apple expected to develop and demo such complex
products on pre-beta operating systems created by a different group.

~~~
twargoth
You're right about apple developers not being expected to demo apps on pre-
beta software. Because doing that makes your software look shitty.

Don't do that. Or script out the demo really carefully.

PR exists to make the products look good.

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conradfr
Classic Microsoft :)

