
Apple Can Finish What Microsoft’s Sinofsky Started - phaet0n
http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/11/18/apple-can-finish-what-microsofts-sinofsky-started/
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j_baker
It's worth pointing out that you should take Gassée's views with a grain of
salt. Gassée is a former Apple exec who led the Mac team, thus I'd imagine
that he still has a significant amount invested in Apple (although there is a
question of whether that investment is psychological or financial).

Ultimately, I think Gassée is taking the easy way out on this. It's far too
easy to jump on the "Windows 8 sucks" bandwagon with the likes of people like
Dvorak (who has _never_ wrongly predicted the demise of a tech product). Far
more difficult is to examine the reasons why Windows 8 is unpopular. I think a
lot of the reason why Windows 8 is unpopular is simply because it's different.
Was Sinofsky unfairly scapegoated for problems at Microsoft? I suspect so.
Will this give Apple a chance to "finish what Sinofsky started"? I think Apple
has its own set of problems to deal with that have nothing to do with what
Sinofsky did at Microsoft. Thus, I think linking Sinofsky's departure to Apple
is a disingenuous marketing plug.

~~~
Anechoic
_Gassée is a former Apple exec who led the Mac team_

Wasn't he fired from Apple?

edit: A quick wiki lookup indicates that he was "forced out" at Apple. The
article also reminded me of the issues he had when Apple made some changes to
Macs in the late 90's that made it difficult to dual-boot BeOS which caused
difficulties for Gassée (nevermind the whole issue of Amelio choosing to
acuire NeXT over Be).

I think there is just as much reason for Gassée to hold a grudge against Apple
as to be "invested" in Apple.

(of course his argument may be wrong/right on other grounds, but I don't think
it's certain that any allegiance to Apple really plays into the argument at
this point)

~~~
j_baker
Well, either way you look at it, it's hard to imagine that Gassée is unbiased
and objective. That doesn't mean he's _wrong_ , but it does mean that you need
to read it differently. Rather than accept the text as objective reality, you
should view it as a perspective on reality that a former Apple executive who
was forced to resign is willing to say publicly about Apple's relationship to
the firing of Steven Sinofsky at Microsoft (while conveniently not mentioning
Apple's firing of Scott Forstall). That is an incredibly shaky foundation to
build an opinion on, is it not?

~~~
contextfree
I have yet to encounter an unbiased and objective commentator. I think he's
wrong about this, but not because of his history with Apple. Actually I think
your whole mindset here is totally backwards. You don't need a reason to not
listen to someone on some topic, you just need to not have a reason to listen
to them. I don't know why we should think Gassee has any particular insight
into Microsoft today.

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ldesegur
Gassee is the only executive I know who will actually try something before
talking about it. It's evident that he reports on his personal experience with
products and software before writing about those. He walked to the Stanford
shopping center store to buy a copy (I did too and got similar experience.)
See his previous post on iOS maps with hands-on feedback. I like his witty
somewhat cynical (French?) writing style too. It reminds me of 'Mac the Knife'
column on MacWeek (Gassee's period at Apple). It makes me smile.

------
Steko
One of the best reactions to the Sinofsky departure I've seen has been from
Jim Fallows at the Atlantic:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/the-
wh...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/the-wheel-of-
karma-microsoft-division/265250/)

------
KaoruAoiShiho
It really doesn't matter how well Surface RT does. Windows 8, even if it's
another Vista, will sell a stupendous number. This will cause a tide a W8 apps
that will be RT compatible, dramatically raising its viability. RT sucks now
because it's a V1 and because Surface Pro's not out yet. When Surface Pro gets
penetration RT's time will come.

It's classic microsoft, to translate their monopoly in PC OS into tablet
marketshare.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I'm not convinced Surface Pro is going to be a hit. I think it will be too
close to "laptop" to convince people to purchase it over an ultrabook. With
its Intel processor, it will be faster, but heavier, hotter and will likely
have worse battery life.

I think the decision process will then be "is the touch screen and a little
less weight worth giving up the performance of a real laptop?" And (as much as
I love my tablet), I think the answer to that won't be a resounding "yes".

~~~
Breakthrough
Do you honestly think one of the largest players in this market (and arguably,
the smartest) would release a tablet that's heavier, hotter, and with worse
battery life than an Ultrabook? Have you even looked at the specifications of
the Surface Pro?

Microsoft knows _exactly_ what they're doing. And I agree, due to it's
similarity to a conventional laptop, they _won't_ sell as much as they could.
That being said, the Surface Pro is a bad-ass piece of machinery, and probably
going to be hard to beat any time soon.

Aside from those points, I agree with what you said. From my perspective
though, who in their right mind wouldn't want a tablet with a dual-core
hyperthreaded Core i5 with 4GB of RAM and a beautiful 1080p screen?

~~~
nilsbunger
I think the patent post probably meant hotter with worse battery life than
other tablets.

I would want a tablet with a core i5, 4gb ram and a 1080 screen, IF it still
feels light, runs cool, and battery lasts as long as an iPad.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
No way the battery's going to last as long as an iPad...

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kybernetikos
I think there's a window for developers to move en-masse to a new OS. It's a
shame that at just the same time as developers are finally waking up to the
fact that OSX and Windows are both moving in a worrying direction, there's no
clear champion with mainstream (dev) appeal in the linux/bsd firmament either.

~~~
antidoh
As long as Word/Excel are seen as required by business and consumers, Windows
will always be with us, and that's where the serious money will be for
developers and Providers of Enterprise Excess.

It's frustrating to me, because most of the Word documents I see do not need
or use the vast caverns of Word utility. I'm guessing 90% (probably 99%) or
more of docs I see and produce could be satisfied with text, or rtf at most.
We spend hundreds of dollars individually on Office and get locked into
Windows because we might someday need to do a mail merge.

Similar for Excel. Excel is an excellent product that most people don't need.
Most of what we produce with Excel could be done with csv and a basic
presentation layer. For the serious stuff, we would have been better off with
SQL databases and presentation products decoupled from the database.

------
contextfree
His chronology is wrong; Windows 8 was planned as a "reimagining" from the
start of the project in mid-2009. It was never intended to be an incremental
update.

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programminggeek
You know, Win 8 and OSX are both moving towards a merged mobile/desktop OS,
while Ubuntu and Android are going to stay quite separate. I think it might
actually work out to Ubuntu's benefit over time to just stick with the
desktop.

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recoiledsnake
Meanwhile, Windows 8 sold 4 million upgrades in four days. And surpassed
Android in web traffic in just 10 days. So much for the post-PC world.

[http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/30/3576512/windows-8-upgrade...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/30/3576512/windows-8-upgrade-
sales-four-million)

[http://www.techspot.com/news/50745-statcounter-data-says-
win...](http://www.techspot.com/news/50745-statcounter-data-says-
windows-8-has-overtaken-android-in-web-traffic.html)

~~~
w1ntermute
> surpassed Android in web traffic in just 10 days

The fact of the matter is, there's a huge number of people who aren't aware
you can browse the web on a smartphone (Android or iOS), or just don't use the
feature very often. I know a lot of people who spend pretty much all their
time on their phone inside the Facebook app, some games, and the SMS app. Many
of them were very surprised to learn that there was a full-featured browser
available on their phones.

~~~
recoiledsnake
Perhaps, but a core premise of the post-PC world is that people will be
increasingly using tablets and smartphones to surf. I doubt that many Windows
RT/8(which is supposed to be not selling) tablets have been sold, so it must
be PCs(which are supposedly dying off) a few of which were upgraded overtaking
the biggest mobile OS in a matter of days. And it must be consumer PCs too,
since enterprises aren't deploying Windows 8 in any large number.

~~~
Aaronontheweb
"And it must be consumer PCs too, since enterprises aren't deploying Windows 8
in any large number."

Former Microsoftie as of August - this is not true. We had already sold tens
of millions of Windows 8 licenses prior to 10/26 as part of our Enterprise
Agreement (EA) process with big enterprises. Ballmer mentioned this onstage
during his //BUILD keynote too.

~~~
magicalist
Yep, and recoiledsnake's article actually backs this up, since Windows 8 web
traffic was already quite high _before_ the 10/26 launch date (according to
that statcounter graph, at least).

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drivebyacct2
So, we use reviews from 4 months before the stable release to then dovetail
into a completely disjoint "apple can do it better" rant that somehow involves
Snap and iCloud? What? Seriously, I'm just in awe that this is on the front
page.

~~~
brianpan
I read it more as "Apple has an opportunity to do it better". He points out 2
areas of weakness that Apple still needs to overcome in order to do it better-
usability of multitasking (Windows does it with Snap), and cloud syncing
(Apple's iCloud offering leaves something to be desired). Both seem me like
relevant things to point out.

