

Microsoft's master plan to beat Apple and Google - salvadornav
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/17/technology/microsoft-windows-8/?source=linkedin

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skore
A ton of assumptions peppered with a pretty glaring lack of substance. So
"Microsoft is making radical changes"? You mean different from the last "too
little, too late" campaigns they had?

Reads like an ad for investors. Like something that is promised for the future
and we will enjoy if we only hold out and believe. Sounds like the tune
Microsoft has been whistling for decades now.

> _That's the world for which Microsoft is building Windows 8. It can run
> everything from a touchscreen app like Angry Birds to resource-intensive
> software such as 3-D games and video editing tools. That sounds simple, but
> it's an all-in-one approach Microsoft's rivals have chosen not to pursue._

No, actually that sounds almost entirely meaningless.

~~~
udp
_> it's an all-in-one approach Microsoft's rivals have chosen not to pursue._

They haven't persued it because nobody _wants_ an "all-in-one solution". My
desktop is not a tablet, and my tablet is not a desktop.

~~~
ge0rg
I _do_ want an all-in-one solution, like outlined in the article.

A smartphone with enough power to run "regular" applications and a dock I can
plug it into for charging, peripherals and a monitor.

Of course the current smartphone OSes are not suitable for that task, as is
demonstrated by the Transformer series, among others.

~~~
DanBC
A smartphone that is able to hook up to a keyboard and monitor and run a
simple word processor and spreadsheet; and some calendar / scheduling
software; and some email thing (either cloud based web client or traditional
server client) - that's a smart phone that many people would buy.

Supporting it in the enterprise environment would be tricky. You don't want
users loading their phones with malware and then bringing that infected phone
inside the network.

And, really, I'd be happy if the phone was decoupled from the rest of it. A
phone and something like Raspberry PI would do me fine.

~~~
freehunter
_Supporting it in the enterprise environment would be tricky. You don't want
users loading their phones with malware and then bringing that infected phone
inside the network._

This happens today even with corporate laptops. If they're allowed outside,
they will get infected. Working in information security, I send a few form
emails each month telling someone to call the helpdesk and get their computer
reimaged. If the company has a good enough network team to know how to
properly segment a network (and/or implement a reverse proxy) and a security
team with enough resources to monitor network traffic, the risk becomes
acceptable.

Basically what you describe is BYOD, and it gives me job security :) For the
record, I would totally buy the same desktop on three form factors if the same
apps and same data could be synced across all of them.

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brudgers
_"All the reviewers point out a key question mark hanging over Windows 8:
Developer support."_

Of all the things Microsoft does, the one it clearly does better than Apple or
Google is support developers. And all that support helps facilitate what is
almost certainly the largest development community among them.

Metro turns every corporate developer into a potential mobile developer. I
doubt adoption by developers will be the issue.

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tudorw
I don't hold any love for any of them, but I downloaded Windows 8 and it
recognised my 8 year old pro audio interface and it just worked, legacy
hardware is a big deal, people don't all have money to throw out all their
stuff.

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masnick
For years Microsoft has failed to deliver the great UX we've come to expect
from devices like the iPad and iPhone, and apps like gmail. I've heard Windows
Phone is pretty good, but it's hard to imagine Microsoft offering serious
competition to Apple and Google while they still think stuff like this is a
good idea: [http://gizmodo.com/5835814/th-new-windows-8-explorer-ui-
look...](http://gizmodo.com/5835814/th-new-windows-8-explorer-ui-looks-like-a-
mess)

~~~
m_ke
I like what they did to the xbox 360 dashboard. I don't understand why they
went with flat tiles in windows 8. (actually I do, but it's a shame that they
don't have an option to switch into it like aero) The depth and 3D elements on
the 360 made for a slick interface.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhBWbRXqIOw>

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Luyt
From the article:

 _we're in a "post-PC" world_

 _in five years, the PC won't be what it is today._

Allow me to be skeptical. Those statements sound just like 'the novel is dead'
from the 60's of the past century. It's now fifty years later, and we can
still buy books; and desktop PC's, desks and chairs won't disappear anytime
soon.

~~~
guccimane
Believe it. Everything without a touch screen is broken to the next generation
of users, and the entire PC industry is changing is big ways already.

------
zorbo
The thing is, Microsoft can integrate with its own products as much as it
wants, but I will never have _only_ Microsoft products. If it doesn't
integrate well with other products not controlled by Microsoft, I think their
strategy will fail. And let's face it, they've got a terrible track record in
that area.

~~~
salvadornav
Not so along ago (probably still now) Windows had the best software & hardware
compatibility. Apart from that, who's going to have an iPad/iPhone and a
Windows 8 laptop? Or a Macbook and Windows 8 tablet/phone? At least for the
Apple side it's pretty clear to me. Finally, part of what you mention is also
developers' responsibility rather than Microsoft itself; as someone says above
the company's investing quite a lot in getting developers aboard.

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___Calv_Dee___
If Microsoft is aiming for an all-in-one situation than they're doing it
right. I don't understand why I'm not yet able to have a truly unified
experience with all of my devices including smart appliances. I think a
hardware maker will have figured it out when they are able to deliver products
that provide a consistent interface, delivering smart-content on demand
without having to have a gazillion apps. Build devices so they are connected
with each other out of the box, not after downloading the remote app and TV
guide app and remote desktop app...

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joejohnson
_Macs integrate with iOS devices, but there's a clear schism in Apple's world
view: Mobile devices are for content consumption, Macs are for creation_

Yeah, this is true. But I don't think that Android, let alone Windows Phone,
are any different. Are developers going to start writing apps with their
phones? No. At least not anytime soon, and definitely not with Windows Phone.

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adrianonantua
Almost anything can be shed a favored light upon. Being slow and late can just
be called being patient.

