13 ms·

Dear Ed Bott: No, Windows 8 is not the new XP

63 points by Toshio 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago
"Saying that the Surface is a combination of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 hardware savvy and its Windows Phone software savvy is like one of those jokes about a train engineered by Italians, serving English food, managed by Portugal and financed by Greece." Good analogy.
- josephlord 14y ago
  I think it is probably more than a little unfair although there is some truth which makes it funny. I independently commented quoting that sentence but deleted it when I saw you beat me to it.
natmaster 14y ago
This is the reasoning behind Win8 being so bad. Microsoft has abandoned the desktop in a fairy dream to chase the iPad.
- stinos 14y ago
  Do they really have abandoned the desktop? Not so sure about that. Also read discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4660072 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4660072. Is Windows 8 really that bad? Not sure either.. Opinions are at least mixed, so let's not start calling things a fact yet, for something that not even has been widely adopted.
crag 14y ago
"But he appears to be oblivious to a signifiant new problem facing Windows 8: people and businesses aren’t buying as many PCs as they once were. They’re buying iPads." I don't know what office you work in.. but no; iPads have not replaced PC's. Yet. There are too many applications that just don't work well enough on a tablet device. This will change of course. But not today. Granted a lot of people in the office have ipads, but most bought it themselves. And use it with a PC. Not in place of.
- rrrene 14y ago
  That's certainly true for the office. But, as the author points out later in the article, many PCs were bought to serve as cash registers and info terminals, and those are replaced by tablets more and more. So IMHO it's not that far fetched to say that individuals and businesses are buying less PCs than they were when Win XP came along. Doesn't say they aren't buying them anymore, just less.
  - crag 14y ago
    Really? I was just at the mail the other day, and I didn't see one iPad being used as a cash register. The only place I see people using their iPads to cash out are at the farmers market. And that makes sense since you are outside and need something portable. But I do agree, businesses are buying less PC's but not because they are replacing them with iPads. Because they aren't spending the money. The glut in the PC market is that everyone has one. It's saturated (I'm talking the Western World here, not developing countries). Now you buy one as a upgrade. And businesses only upgrade when they must. MS's job is to provide a compelling reason to upgrade. Time will tell if Windows 8 does this (I doubt it actually. Maybe when more apps are built for it).
    - stinos 14y ago
      "Really? I was just at the mail the other day, and I didn't see one iPad being used as a cash register." the comment above you also talks about 'tablets', not 'ipads'. Tablet-style things (ie rather small devices with a touch screen) have been used for cash registers and as controls in the industry for quite some time. A lot of them were merely PC's, running some sort of Windows. This might start changing now since tablets are getting more widespread, hardware getting cheaper etc.
    - randomdata 14y ago
      And businesses only upgrade when they must. Which must be a pretty slow cycle in this space. I recently shopped at a store that I hadn't been to in at least a decade. I was shocked to find they were still using the exact same orange screen terminals that they were using when I was a young child. That doesn't necessarily invalidate the original claim though. All new POS terminal installations could be using iPads or similar tablet devices.
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
> Microsoft needs to focus on what it is good at, and stop chasing Apple just because it wants to be good at what Apple is good at. But the author spent the first half of the essay arguing that the market Microsoft is good at is going away. If that's correct (and it's a big if), Microsoft has no choice but to learn to be good at different things. You can criticize how effectively Microsoft has done this - and that critique consumes the latter half of the essay - but you can't simultaneously argue that Microsoft needs to change what it does and that Microsoft needs to keep doing what it's good at.
- ek 14y ago
  That quote in particular is a huge WTF, since it disregards how the free market model works to advance the state of the art. A similar sentence is "Google needs to focus on what it is good at, and stop chasing Apple just because it wants to be good at what Apple is good at." The Nexus 7 and other 7-inch tablets that run Android, presumably originally developed to compete with iPad, are selling so well that it has prompted Apple to launch a competitive variant of iPad (not officially, but wait 24 hours). This is competition working the way it should, to the benefit of consumers and the general state of technology. Any claim that any company should not pursue a market in which it has the potential to be competitive simply because another company is currently more successful is a lie. When such statements involve companies with a large fanboy culture, their wrongheadedness is somewhat hidden, but I for one am excited to see where Windows 8 will take us, and take the Mac.
- jbooth 14y ago
  The thing is, Microsoft is doing what they're good at. They're good at giving a consistent experience across whatever hardware, no matter what, and damn any technical debt or consequences they incur in doing so. I think someone posted a video of them actually running the upgrades from Windows 1.0 through to 7 on youtube somewhere. Throwing touchscreen devices into the Windows wheelhouse and trying to write one OS that runs across them and desktop machines is actually very much a bet on MS's core competency.
  - Ntrails 14y ago
aufreak3 14y ago
"Windows Phone is doing so badly that Nokia, Microsoft’s largest and staunchest mobile partner, actually sold more of its abandoned legacy Symbian devices (3.4 million) than its new Windows Phone Lumia phones (2.9 million) in the last quarter." That stat actually looks relatively impressive to me. 2.9 mil Lumia phones in a quarter? Why is this stat presented as "doing badly"?
- pinaceae 14y ago
  sold units is meaningless without profit. iirc Lumias are being sold with razor thin margins (or even at a loss). see here for a more detailed analysis, courtesy of Horace Dediu: http://www.asymco.com/2012/10/19/nokias-lumia-brand-strategy-for-the-us/ http://www.asymco.com/2012/10/19/nokias-lumia-brand-strategy...
- dagw 14y ago
  I also imagine that after Microsoft officially announced that existing Lumia phones won't get upgraded to Windows 8, many people decided to hold off on buying a Lumia device until the next version came out. I know that is certainly true for me.
- bergie 14y ago
  2.9 mil Lumia phones in a quarter? Why is this stat presented as "doing badly"? 2.9mil smartphones is not a terribly good number if you consider how the market has grown, and how big Nokia used to be. In Q1 2011 they sold 24mil smartphones, and last quarter only about 6mil, over half of which were still Symbian. So, a pure-WP Nokia would now be only about 10-15% of what the company was in the "good old days". Samsung sold about 10mil Galaxy Notes in a year (so, ~2.5mil/Q), and that "phablet" is quite a niche device. And Verizon alone sold more iPhones in Q3 than Nokia sold Lumias worldwide. Maybe WP8 will change this, but I'm doubtful.
  - aufreak3 14y ago
    I understand that the 2.9mil figure is small compared to the figures for the other makers today, however, what were these figures for, say, the second or third generation of android devices? For a relatively new entrant, a market take up of 2.9mil in a quarter makes me think MS might rise in the phone space. Any economies of scale advantage that Apple might have bought itself would likely put Android makers and WinPhone makers on the same footing, margin wise. Can the market tolerate more than 2 major players? Quite easily, i think (given symbian is kn its way out). If you include a country like India where iphone calibre smartphones are not the dominant kind, it doesnt look like a lost game for MS. Besides, they have other assets to leverage off, like office sync (which i hear is good), azure, etc.
freehunter 14y ago
>buying new PC hardware bundled with the Windows 8 “we won’t say Tax but that’s what it is when you levy a fee on all products within a market because you exercise dominion over it as a quasi-authority”) Really? So does my car have a tire tax, just because it comes with tires on it? If you're buying a PC, 99.99% of all people expect it to come with an OS. In fact, it's cheaper to buy a PC preloaded with Windows ($35) than it is to buy an unloaded PC and buy a copy of Windows ($150). There are major manufacturers making Linux PCs. There are major manufacturers that will sell you a box loaded with FreeDOS. There's even a major manufacturer that sells pre-installed, well-supported, and beautiful Unix PCs (I've heard they're one of the richest companies in the world). It's not like Microsoft is literally taxing computers, they're charging an incredibly small amount of money and in return you're getting their OS preinstalled like most of the market wants. Can we get over the Windows Tax thing? It's pretty much akin to saying Micro$oft. Funny in middle school, but it makes your argument much less attractive now.
- karategeek6 14y ago
  > In fact, it's cheaper to buy a PC preloaded with Windows ($35) than it is to buy an unloaded PC and buy a copy of Windows ($150) It's also cheaper to buy a computer with Windows preloaded than a computer with no operating system (typically). This is especially noticeable in the laptop market. (Granted the market may have changed since I last bought a pre-built computer five years ago.) Anyway, I think the point of the statement you quote really isn't about the "tax" but an illustration of the fact that Microsoft more or less controls the PC market through Windows. If Microsoft arbitrarily decides to double their license fee, manufacturers (until recently) really have no choice but to comply.
  - rplnt 14y ago
    > It's also cheaper to buy a computer with Windows preloaded than a computer with no operating system (typically). I have not noticed this. But I have noticed that Acer laptops with Linux Mips are ~80EUR cheaper than same models with Windows.
  - freehunter 14y ago
the_ancient 14y ago
How many words do you need to write to say "Microsoft Bad-- Apple Do no wrong" over and over????? And all of those words and zero mention of Linux or Android...
- Synaesthesia 14y ago
  Daniel Eran Dilger is a massive Apple apologist and fanboy. And I say this as an Apple fanboy.
deleted 14y ago
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precisioncoder 14y ago
I am hoping that the same thing will happen with mobile devices as with pc's and you will be able to buy a device and load it with the software you choose. I don't like any of the mobile OS's they all feel too restrictive in terms of storing and manipulating files and turning on and off functionality.
josteink 14y ago
And today, you’re already seeing cash registers, terminal emulation, and other dummy tasks being performed by iPads rather than PCs. Not arguing against the entire point of the article, but that seems like a highly localized phenomenon. In fact, I haven't seen PCs used for this in over 10 years either. Maybe I'm missing something. Anyway. The article seem full of half-truths and inaccuracies intermixed with opinion to support his point. I'm not saying he's all wrong, but he has enough wrong to lose most of his credibility.
- stephengillie 14y ago
  In fact, I haven't seen PCs used for this in over 10 years either. I see them all the time, in Safeway, Albertson's, Wal-Mart, Kroger's, Rite-Aid, etc. They're running custom register software & a network-boot OS, but reboot them and they still run through the same bios POST and start-up messages as today's desktop PCs.
madoublet 14y ago
Windows 8 is simply better than what Apple and Google are offering now. Enthusiasts such as Bott are having a hard time explaining this because they are not use to Microsoft having a superior product. And, Apple apologists are beside themselves trying to figure out how Microsoft designed a better looking OS. It is funny that our loyalties to brands make it difficult to just step back and say "man, that is cool". So, let me do it for you: "man, Windows 8 is cool".
Sumaso 14y ago
Honestly I think even Microsoft fan boys don't think that windows 8 will be an immediate win. Windows 8 is the painful stepping stone that windows needs to step on in order to move forward and stay competitive.
- pmelendez 14y ago
  Have you tried it? Because I did installed it at home since the public beta and it is not painful at all. Actually it is very reliable and fast. We can argue whether it would be successful or not but I can't see how it is painful.
  - lotso 14y ago
    I agree. I don't see any reasons why I would choose to use Windows 7 over Windows 8. Even if you don't use the Metro interface for anything besides launching apps, it is still a better OS.
brudgers 14y ago
>" There is not going to be huge annual increases in PC shipments anymore. Everyone knows this." It might make sense to point out that what everyone knew a few years ago was that Apple was dead. It might make sense to point out that this week Microsoft will begin shipping a true post PC operating system, Windows RT, to hardware OEM's, and that Microsoft will have first mover advantage. Yes, it might make sense to point out these things, but everyone knows them.
neya 14y ago
Personally, I feel this author is far too biased. He spends too much time in bringing Apple into context even when unnecessary. His theory that there is a 'Post-PC' era and iPads are replacing computers is just plain BS. >Microsoft needs to focus on what it is good at, and stop chasing Apple just because it wants to be good at what Apple is good at. This line just destroyed his credibility. The false ideology that these writers have, that is, everyone is chasing Apple these days should be corrected. I think Microsoft is just trying to make their Windows Operating systems better by introducing a new UI. It is stupid to label anyone as a copycat of Apple just because they are trying to perfect their products. To support my arguments, here is another article explaining very well why there is no 'post-pc' era: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-rt-redmond-problem-144554 http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-rt-redm... It is actually not in support of Windows/Microsoft, but it explains very well why there is no 'post-pc' era. FYI: I own 2 windows based desktops, an iMac, an iPad and 4 Android phones. There are a lot of things my iPad will never be able to do like my PC.
- zerohm 14y ago
  I read the Post PC comments as the author explaining both sides. It is advantageous for MS to downplay Post PC and call everything a PC. It's advantageous for Apple to do the opposite. They both know they are playing semantics. But how can you deny that tablets (not just ipad) are replacing PC sales? Think of all the use cases that a tablet just makes more sense than a PC (e.g. as a mobile cash register or for casual media consumption)
- velodrome 14y ago
  I hate the use of the term "Post-PC Era". The PC is not going anywhere. The PC is a tool. It's like you were using Swiss Army knife all this time and now you have a dedicated Phillips head screwdriver and a real wrench now. We just have better tools now for specific scenarios: Are you going to use a spreadsheet on on your IPad? Are you going to use your laptop to make a call you are stuck on the side of the road? Both Jobs' Truck/Car metaphor and Microsoft's "PCs are everywhere" are both correct.
  - 14y ago
tatsuke95 14y ago
>"But it’s worse that that. iPad sales have hit conventional PCs so hard" This is so over-blown. Apple has sold something like 80MM iPads since the device was released. On the other hand, there were 90 million PCs sold in the first quarter of 2012. Tablets are great, but they aren't replacing PCs any time soon. For all we know, the market will be tablet-saturated after Christmas. >"Microsoft can’t command those prices anymore because of competition. Apple now hands out OS X upgrades for $29, forcing Microsoft to sell its new Windows 8 Pro upgrades for just $40." In 2001, Apple was selling OSX for $129. The low cost of operating system upgrades was something that happened gradually, over time.
deleted 14y ago
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SlipperySlope 14y ago
Microsoft-bashing zingers from the article ... "The problem with the PC isn’t that the market desperately wants a new version of Windows that looks different and has a higher version number. The real problem is that the well has run dry, and new versions of Windows won’t fix this. And really, if they’re too different, they’ll just accelerate the shift to Post PC devices." "There is not going to be huge annual increases in PC shipments anymore. Everyone knows this. What they don’t always seem to see as clearly is that you can have a personal computer without having a box under your desk blowing hot air away from an Intel CPU." "Windows Phone is not just unpopular, it’s so toxic it lethally crippled what was not too long ago the world’s leading smartphone manufacturer." "Not to worry, the Windows Enthusiasts tell us. Microsoft doesn’t need a lack of competition, high ASPs, expanding revenues, nor even any support via Post-PC devices. The legacy pile of PCs out there will magically blow money in Microsoft’s direction once Windows 8 hits because that’s what happened in the past." "There are tremendous problems facing the Surface. The first: it’s based on a lie. It’s called “Windows 8 RT,” but consumers associate “Windows” with two things: a familiar interface and the ability to run Windows apps. Surface RT supports neither." "The non-RT, Intel x86 version of Surface not only isn’t available yet, but it’s going to be too thick, expensive and heavy to compete with iPad, just like any other Ultrabook or previous Windows Tablet." "Saying that the Surface is a combination of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 hardware savvy and its Windows Phone software savvy is like one of those jokes about a train engineered by Italians, serving English food, managed by Portugal and financed by Greece."
netcan 14y ago
I would describe the danger to MS/Windows a little differently. Windows was fairly protected by being a big natural monopoly. Making a good OS is itself a difficult task. Making a good OS & getting an application market to grow around it in a deal-breaker rich environment is nearly impossible. There were no ways to climb the hill other than straight up the steep face. Smartphones/tablets are an angle of attack. An easier way to climb the hill. Android & iOS matured without having to compete with windows. Now two of MS's most dangerous competitors can both launch new smartphone derived PC (keyboard & mouse) operating systems with 80% of the work (in both OS building & in app ecosystem building) already done. Even worse, there may be room for new mobile OS' to get going. The market isn't tending to the same kind of monopoly as PCs. I predict that iOS, Android and/or yet-to-succeed OSs are going to hop from tablets & phones to TVs and other devices. Its only a matter of time before we see one gaining traction on laptops. Apple could probably release a $500 post-PC PC within a year that will double (in units) Apple sales out of the gate. Google could too (though it probably wouldn't hit the ground running as fast). Eventually, this market will fold in on itself and we will have several OS families. I would be surprised if any one (including windows) gets as firm a grip on any market as microsoft did. This doesn't mean that MS dies. They are (despite the criticisms) a very competent company. It just means they compete with 2-5 different companies for market share in a bigger market. consumers win.
bztzt 14y ago
(note: I work for Microsoft. but I certainly don't represent them and in fact I think they'd probably rather I didn't run my mouth here :) Also just because I work for Microsoft doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about when I talk about Microsoft either, it's hard enough to even keep track of what the specific team I'm on is really doing sometimes let alone the whole company so keep that in mind :) also I'm drunk :) ) The frustrating thing about reading Daniel Dilger's articles is that he's actually a good deal more knowledgeable than most tech pundits and occasionally even insightful, but his worldview is so Apple-centric that he's blind to having any idea what his blind spots are. This article is a case in point, almost everything factual in it about Microsoft is wrong, to wit: * Zune wasn't a low-budget project (it was actually funded fairly lavishly, in part because it was meant partly as a kind of pilot project for developing new Microsoft design aesthetics / patterns / practices) * Zune wasn't based on web technologies (it used Yet Another Internal UI Framework). Neither is Windows 8 really (there is a web-based UI framework, along with a native one, but they both sit on top of native APIs) Windows 8 has nothing in common with Zune codebase-wise, and UI/design-wise though there's a family lineage between them it was developed independently from the Zune->Windows Phone line (which itself has changed a lot over the years) and diverged quite a bit * he still apparently thinks the new Windows UI is a "thin layer" on top of old Windows, which I think he still imagines as Windows XP or whatever. in previous posts he was having fun comparing it to Bob. I think that's fundamentally wrong - while the new environment isn't really separate from existing Windows it's imo misleading to think of it as a "thin upper layer", because developing it involved making deeper changes & refactorings to every layer of the system (ARM support, window hardening, MoCOM, PLM, app model, async, etc.) * see, not only does his ignorance lead taking jabs at MSFT that don't make sense, it leads to him missing out on potential avenues of attack that WOULD make sense - he could make fun of the ridiculous UI framework fragmentation problem Microsoft has, which is an area where Apple actually has its shit together and has for some time.

63 points by Toshio 14y ago

mtgx 14y ago

"Saying that the Surface is a combination of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 hardware savvy and its Windows Phone software savvy is like one of those jokes about a train engineered by Italians, serving English food, managed by Portugal and financed by Greece." Good analogy.

josephlord 14y ago
I think it is probably more than a little unfair although there is some truth which makes it funny. I independently commented quoting that sentence but deleted it when I saw you beat me to it.

natmaster 14y ago

This is the reasoning behind Win8 being so bad. Microsoft has abandoned the desktop in a fairy dream to chase the iPad.

stinos 14y ago
Do they really have abandoned the desktop? Not so sure about that. Also read discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4660072 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4660072. Is Windows 8 really that bad? Not sure either.. Opinions are at least mixed, so let's not start calling things a fact yet, for something that not even has been widely adopted.

crag 14y ago

"But he appears to be oblivious to a signifiant new problem facing Windows 8: people and businesses aren’t buying as many PCs as they once were. They’re buying iPads." I don't know what office you work in.. but no; iPads have not replaced PC's. Yet. There are too many applications that just don't work well enough on a tablet device. This will change of course. But not today. Granted a lot of people in the office have ipads, but most bought it themselves. And use it with a PC. Not in place of.

rrrene 14y ago
That's certainly true for the office. But, as the author points out later in the article, many PCs were bought to serve as cash registers and info terminals, and those are replaced by tablets more and more. So IMHO it's not that far fetched to say that individuals and businesses are buying less PCs than they were when Win XP came along. Doesn't say they aren't buying them anymore, just less.
- crag 14y ago
  Really? I was just at the mail the other day, and I didn't see one iPad being used as a cash register. The only place I see people using their iPads to cash out are at the farmers market. And that makes sense since you are outside and need something portable. But I do agree, businesses are buying less PC's but not because they are replacing them with iPads. Because they aren't spending the money. The glut in the PC market is that everyone has one. It's saturated (I'm talking the Western World here, not developing countries). Now you buy one as a upgrade. And businesses only upgrade when they must. MS's job is to provide a compelling reason to upgrade. Time will tell if Windows 8 does this (I doubt it actually. Maybe when more apps are built for it).
  - stinos 14y ago
    "Really? I was just at the mail the other day, and I didn't see one iPad being used as a cash register." the comment above you also talks about 'tablets', not 'ipads'. Tablet-style things (ie rather small devices with a touch screen) have been used for cash registers and as controls in the industry for quite some time. A lot of them were merely PC's, running some sort of Windows. This might start changing now since tablets are getting more widespread, hardware getting cheaper etc.
  - randomdata 14y ago
    And businesses only upgrade when they must. Which must be a pretty slow cycle in this space. I recently shopped at a store that I hadn't been to in at least a decade. I was shocked to find they were still using the exact same orange screen terminals that they were using when I was a young child. That doesn't necessarily invalidate the original claim though. All new POS terminal installations could be using iPads or similar tablet devices.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago

> Microsoft needs to focus on what it is good at, and stop chasing Apple just because it wants to be good at what Apple is good at. But the author spent the first half of the essay arguing that the market Microsoft is good at is going away. If that's correct (and it's a big if), Microsoft has no choice but to learn to be good at different things. You can criticize how effectively Microsoft has done this - and that critique consumes the latter half of the essay - but you can't simultaneously argue that Microsoft needs to change what it does and that Microsoft needs to keep doing what it's good at.

ek 14y ago
That quote in particular is a huge WTF, since it disregards how the free market model works to advance the state of the art. A similar sentence is "Google needs to focus on what it is good at, and stop chasing Apple just because it wants to be good at what Apple is good at." The Nexus 7 and other 7-inch tablets that run Android, presumably originally developed to compete with iPad, are selling so well that it has prompted Apple to launch a competitive variant of iPad (not officially, but wait 24 hours). This is competition working the way it should, to the benefit of consumers and the general state of technology. Any claim that any company should not pursue a market in which it has the potential to be competitive simply because another company is currently more successful is a lie. When such statements involve companies with a large fanboy culture, their wrongheadedness is somewhat hidden, but I for one am excited to see where Windows 8 will take us, and take the Mac.
jbooth 14y ago
The thing is, Microsoft is doing what they're good at. They're good at giving a consistent experience across whatever hardware, no matter what, and damn any technical debt or consequences they incur in doing so. I think someone posted a video of them actually running the upgrades from Windows 1.0 through to 7 on youtube somewhere. Throwing touchscreen devices into the Windows wheelhouse and trying to write one OS that runs across them and desktop machines is actually very much a bet on MS's core competency.
- Ntrails 14y ago

aufreak3 14y ago

"Windows Phone is doing so badly that Nokia, Microsoft’s largest and staunchest mobile partner, actually sold more of its abandoned legacy Symbian devices (3.4 million) than its new Windows Phone Lumia phones (2.9 million) in the last quarter." That stat actually looks relatively impressive to me. 2.9 mil Lumia phones in a quarter? Why is this stat presented as "doing badly"?

pinaceae 14y ago
sold units is meaningless without profit. iirc Lumias are being sold with razor thin margins (or even at a loss). see here for a more detailed analysis, courtesy of Horace Dediu: http://www.asymco.com/2012/10/19/nokias-lumia-brand-strategy-for-the-us/ http://www.asymco.com/2012/10/19/nokias-lumia-brand-strategy...
dagw 14y ago
I also imagine that after Microsoft officially announced that existing Lumia phones won't get upgraded to Windows 8, many people decided to hold off on buying a Lumia device until the next version came out. I know that is certainly true for me.
bergie 14y ago
2.9 mil Lumia phones in a quarter? Why is this stat presented as "doing badly"? 2.9mil smartphones is not a terribly good number if you consider how the market has grown, and how big Nokia used to be. In Q1 2011 they sold 24mil smartphones, and last quarter only about 6mil, over half of which were still Symbian. So, a pure-WP Nokia would now be only about 10-15% of what the company was in the "good old days". Samsung sold about 10mil Galaxy Notes in a year (so, ~2.5mil/Q), and that "phablet" is quite a niche device. And Verizon alone sold more iPhones in Q3 than Nokia sold Lumias worldwide. Maybe WP8 will change this, but I'm doubtful.
- aufreak3 14y ago
  I understand that the 2.9mil figure is small compared to the figures for the other makers today, however, what were these figures for, say, the second or third generation of android devices? For a relatively new entrant, a market take up of 2.9mil in a quarter makes me think MS might rise in the phone space. Any economies of scale advantage that Apple might have bought itself would likely put Android makers and WinPhone makers on the same footing, margin wise. Can the market tolerate more than 2 major players? Quite easily, i think (given symbian is kn its way out). If you include a country like India where iphone calibre smartphones are not the dominant kind, it doesnt look like a lost game for MS. Besides, they have other assets to leverage off, like office sync (which i hear is good), azure, etc.

freehunter 14y ago

>buying new PC hardware bundled with the Windows 8 “we won’t say Tax but that’s what it is when you levy a fee on all products within a market because you exercise dominion over it as a quasi-authority”) Really? So does my car have a tire tax, just because it comes with tires on it? If you're buying a PC, 99.99% of all people expect it to come with an OS. In fact, it's cheaper to buy a PC preloaded with Windows ($35) than it is to buy an unloaded PC and buy a copy of Windows ($150). There are major manufacturers making Linux PCs. There are major manufacturers that will sell you a box loaded with FreeDOS. There's even a major manufacturer that sells pre-installed, well-supported, and beautiful Unix PCs (I've heard they're one of the richest companies in the world). It's not like Microsoft is literally taxing computers, they're charging an incredibly small amount of money and in return you're getting their OS preinstalled like most of the market wants. Can we get over the Windows Tax thing? It's pretty much akin to saying Micro$oft. Funny in middle school, but it makes your argument much less attractive now.

karategeek6 14y ago
> In fact, it's cheaper to buy a PC preloaded with Windows ($35) than it is to buy an unloaded PC and buy a copy of Windows ($150) It's also cheaper to buy a computer with Windows preloaded than a computer with no operating system (typically). This is especially noticeable in the laptop market. (Granted the market may have changed since I last bought a pre-built computer five years ago.) Anyway, I think the point of the statement you quote really isn't about the "tax" but an illustration of the fact that Microsoft more or less controls the PC market through Windows. If Microsoft arbitrarily decides to double their license fee, manufacturers (until recently) really have no choice but to comply.
- rplnt 14y ago
  > It's also cheaper to buy a computer with Windows preloaded than a computer with no operating system (typically). I have not noticed this. But I have noticed that Acer laptops with Linux Mips are ~80EUR cheaper than same models with Windows.
- freehunter 14y ago

the_ancient 14y ago

How many words do you need to write to say "Microsoft Bad-- Apple Do no wrong" over and over????? And all of those words and zero mention of Linux or Android...

Synaesthesia 14y ago
Daniel Eran Dilger is a massive Apple apologist and fanboy. And I say this as an Apple fanboy.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

precisioncoder 14y ago

I am hoping that the same thing will happen with mobile devices as with pc's and you will be able to buy a device and load it with the software you choose. I don't like any of the mobile OS's they all feel too restrictive in terms of storing and manipulating files and turning on and off functionality.

josteink 14y ago

And today, you’re already seeing cash registers, terminal emulation, and other dummy tasks being performed by iPads rather than PCs. Not arguing against the entire point of the article, but that seems like a highly localized phenomenon. In fact, I haven't seen PCs used for this in over 10 years either. Maybe I'm missing something. Anyway. The article seem full of half-truths and inaccuracies intermixed with opinion to support his point. I'm not saying he's all wrong, but he has enough wrong to lose most of his credibility.

stephengillie 14y ago
In fact, I haven't seen PCs used for this in over 10 years either. I see them all the time, in Safeway, Albertson's, Wal-Mart, Kroger's, Rite-Aid, etc. They're running custom register software & a network-boot OS, but reboot them and they still run through the same bios POST and start-up messages as today's desktop PCs.

madoublet 14y ago

Windows 8 is simply better than what Apple and Google are offering now. Enthusiasts such as Bott are having a hard time explaining this because they are not use to Microsoft having a superior product. And, Apple apologists are beside themselves trying to figure out how Microsoft designed a better looking OS. It is funny that our loyalties to brands make it difficult to just step back and say "man, that is cool". So, let me do it for you: "man, Windows 8 is cool".

Sumaso 14y ago

Honestly I think even Microsoft fan boys don't think that windows 8 will be an immediate win. Windows 8 is the painful stepping stone that windows needs to step on in order to move forward and stay competitive.

pmelendez 14y ago
Have you tried it? Because I did installed it at home since the public beta and it is not painful at all. Actually it is very reliable and fast. We can argue whether it would be successful or not but I can't see how it is painful.
- lotso 14y ago
  I agree. I don't see any reasons why I would choose to use Windows 7 over Windows 8. Even if you don't use the Metro interface for anything besides launching apps, it is still a better OS.

brudgers 14y ago

>" There is not going to be huge annual increases in PC shipments anymore. Everyone knows this." It might make sense to point out that what everyone knew a few years ago was that Apple was dead. It might make sense to point out that this week Microsoft will begin shipping a true post PC operating system, Windows RT, to hardware OEM's, and that Microsoft will have first mover advantage. Yes, it might make sense to point out these things, but everyone knows them.

neya 14y ago

Personally, I feel this author is far too biased. He spends too much time in bringing Apple into context even when unnecessary. His theory that there is a 'Post-PC' era and iPads are replacing computers is just plain BS. >Microsoft needs to focus on what it is good at, and stop chasing Apple just because it wants to be good at what Apple is good at. This line just destroyed his credibility. The false ideology that these writers have, that is, everyone is chasing Apple these days should be corrected. I think Microsoft is just trying to make their Windows Operating systems better by introducing a new UI. It is stupid to label anyone as a copycat of Apple just because they are trying to perfect their products. To support my arguments, here is another article explaining very well why there is no 'post-pc' era: http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-rt-redmond-problem-144554 http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-rt-redm... It is actually not in support of Windows/Microsoft, but it explains very well why there is no 'post-pc' era. FYI: I own 2 windows based desktops, an iMac, an iPad and 4 Android phones. There are a lot of things my iPad will never be able to do like my PC.

zerohm 14y ago
I read the Post PC comments as the author explaining both sides. It is advantageous for MS to downplay Post PC and call everything a PC. It's advantageous for Apple to do the opposite. They both know they are playing semantics. But how can you deny that tablets (not just ipad) are replacing PC sales? Think of all the use cases that a tablet just makes more sense than a PC (e.g. as a mobile cash register or for casual media consumption)
velodrome 14y ago
I hate the use of the term "Post-PC Era". The PC is not going anywhere. The PC is a tool. It's like you were using Swiss Army knife all this time and now you have a dedicated Phillips head screwdriver and a real wrench now. We just have better tools now for specific scenarios: Are you going to use a spreadsheet on on your IPad? Are you going to use your laptop to make a call you are stuck on the side of the road? Both Jobs' Truck/Car metaphor and Microsoft's "PCs are everywhere" are both correct.
- 14y ago

tatsuke95 14y ago

>"But it’s worse that that. iPad sales have hit conventional PCs so hard" This is so over-blown. Apple has sold something like 80MM iPads since the device was released. On the other hand, there were 90 million PCs sold in the first quarter of 2012. Tablets are great, but they aren't replacing PCs any time soon. For all we know, the market will be tablet-saturated after Christmas. >"Microsoft can’t command those prices anymore because of competition. Apple now hands out OS X upgrades for $29, forcing Microsoft to sell its new Windows 8 Pro upgrades for just $40." In 2001, Apple was selling OSX for $129. The low cost of operating system upgrades was something that happened gradually, over time.

deleted 14y ago

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SlipperySlope 14y ago

Microsoft-bashing zingers from the article ... "The problem with the PC isn’t that the market desperately wants a new version of Windows that looks different and has a higher version number. The real problem is that the well has run dry, and new versions of Windows won’t fix this. And really, if they’re too different, they’ll just accelerate the shift to Post PC devices." "There is not going to be huge annual increases in PC shipments anymore. Everyone knows this. What they don’t always seem to see as clearly is that you can have a personal computer without having a box under your desk blowing hot air away from an Intel CPU." "Windows Phone is not just unpopular, it’s so toxic it lethally crippled what was not too long ago the world’s leading smartphone manufacturer." "Not to worry, the Windows Enthusiasts tell us. Microsoft doesn’t need a lack of competition, high ASPs, expanding revenues, nor even any support via Post-PC devices. The legacy pile of PCs out there will magically blow money in Microsoft’s direction once Windows 8 hits because that’s what happened in the past." "There are tremendous problems facing the Surface. The first: it’s based on a lie. It’s called “Windows 8 RT,” but consumers associate “Windows” with two things: a familiar interface and the ability to run Windows apps. Surface RT supports neither." "The non-RT, Intel x86 version of Surface not only isn’t available yet, but it’s going to be too thick, expensive and heavy to compete with iPad, just like any other Ultrabook or previous Windows Tablet." "Saying that the Surface is a combination of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 hardware savvy and its Windows Phone software savvy is like one of those jokes about a train engineered by Italians, serving English food, managed by Portugal and financed by Greece."

netcan 14y ago

I would describe the danger to MS/Windows a little differently. Windows was fairly protected by being a big natural monopoly. Making a good OS is itself a difficult task. Making a good OS & getting an application market to grow around it in a deal-breaker rich environment is nearly impossible. There were no ways to climb the hill other than straight up the steep face. Smartphones/tablets are an angle of attack. An easier way to climb the hill. Android & iOS matured without having to compete with windows. Now two of MS's most dangerous competitors can both launch new smartphone derived PC (keyboard & mouse) operating systems with 80% of the work (in both OS building & in app ecosystem building) already done. Even worse, there may be room for new mobile OS' to get going. The market isn't tending to the same kind of monopoly as PCs. I predict that iOS, Android and/or yet-to-succeed OSs are going to hop from tablets & phones to TVs and other devices. Its only a matter of time before we see one gaining traction on laptops. Apple could probably release a $500 post-PC PC within a year that will double (in units) Apple sales out of the gate. Google could too (though it probably wouldn't hit the ground running as fast). Eventually, this market will fold in on itself and we will have several OS families. I would be surprised if any one (including windows) gets as firm a grip on any market as microsoft did. This doesn't mean that MS dies. They are (despite the criticisms) a very competent company. It just means they compete with 2-5 different companies for market share in a bigger market. consumers win.

bztzt 14y ago

(note: I work for Microsoft. but I certainly don't represent them and in fact I think they'd probably rather I didn't run my mouth here :) Also just because I work for Microsoft doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about when I talk about Microsoft either, it's hard enough to even keep track of what the specific team I'm on is really doing sometimes let alone the whole company so keep that in mind :) also I'm drunk :) ) The frustrating thing about reading Daniel Dilger's articles is that he's actually a good deal more knowledgeable than most tech pundits and occasionally even insightful, but his worldview is so Apple-centric that he's blind to having any idea what his blind spots are. This article is a case in point, almost everything factual in it about Microsoft is wrong, to wit: * Zune wasn't a low-budget project (it was actually funded fairly lavishly, in part because it was meant partly as a kind of pilot project for developing new Microsoft design aesthetics / patterns / practices) * Zune wasn't based on web technologies (it used Yet Another Internal UI Framework). Neither is Windows 8 really (there is a web-based UI framework, along with a native one, but they both sit on top of native APIs) Windows 8 has nothing in common with Zune codebase-wise, and UI/design-wise though there's a family lineage between them it was developed independently from the Zune->Windows Phone line (which itself has changed a lot over the years) and diverged quite a bit * he still apparently thinks the new Windows UI is a "thin layer" on top of old Windows, which I think he still imagines as Windows XP or whatever. in previous posts he was having fun comparing it to Bob. I think that's fundamentally wrong - while the new environment isn't really separate from existing Windows it's imo misleading to think of it as a "thin upper layer", because developing it involved making deeper changes & refactorings to every layer of the system (ARM support, window hardening, MoCOM, PLM, app model, async, etc.) * see, not only does his ignorance lead taking jabs at MSFT that don't make sense, it leads to him missing out on potential avenues of attack that WOULD make sense - he could make fun of the ridiculous UI framework fragmentation problem Microsoft has, which is an area where Apple actually has its shit together and has for some time.