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Here's how I see it playing out, Microsoft will be successful with the Surface if they take it seriously and update it often and fast. They have a lot of catch
by jarjoura 14y ago
Here's how I see it playing out, Microsoft will be successful with the Surface if they take it seriously and update it often and fast. They have a lot of catching up to do and it's a seriously great start to something different and unique. I suspect it will move in the direction of how people use it and want it to work.
When Apple brought OS X out to the world for the first time, it was extremely slow, basically unusable, hideous to look at, and Microsoft fans laughed at the effort. In fact, the industry jumped on Windows XP and IE 6. However, Apple rev'd, and rev'd and rev'd and polished and brought things to OS X that were innovative and eventually surpassed Windows as an OS people actually wanted to live in all day long. All the while Microsoft seemingly sat around and watched it happen.
So for the Surface, at this point, it comes down to execution. Can the Windows team rev and rev and rev? Can marketing push it in a way that gets people buying it? Can evangelism bring enough top-tier designers and developers on board to write grade-A apps for it? If they can do that, then this sloppy launch will be simply labeled a turning point for Microsoft. Otherwise, it will be another failed product that just deserved a tiny pat on the back.
- sukuriant 14y agoI was going to come on to argue that you were wrong here about the Windows XP / OS X timing. I thought OS X came out years later; but, I was very wrong. Wikipedia says: OS X Initial Release: March 24, 2001 Windows XP Initial Release: October 25, 2001 It certainly has been a very long time...
- mrich 14y agoBut it does not make much sense to compare these versions - Windows started being a modern OS with Win 2000 and arguably already Windows 95. These were the releases that won them the desktop dominance. That's probably why you are feeling Windows is "older".
- gurkendoktor 14y agoAnd because you still see people using XP from time to time, but how many % of the tech population have ever seen OS X 10.0? I got into Macs seven years ago, and I only know the 10.3 installer because I'd intentionally bought an "oldtimer Mac" later on (iMac G4). Everything before that is a web of myths to me.
- rsl7 14y agoEnough of them do. When OS X 10.0 was released I went to a powerbook users group install party and installed that sucker on my graphite iBook DV. I still have my Public Beta disc.
- krichman 14y agoIMO you still see people using XP because that was the peak. It was certainly better than Vista, I cannot give an unbiased review of Win 7.
- gurkendoktor 14y agoI think XP might really have been the peak in usability, but under the hood, I can only guess that Windows 7 has gotten much more secure. After all, improving security is pretty much the only thing Microsoft has done between XP and Windows 7.
- krichman 14y agoThat's probably right, I know they have improved security greatly in the last few years.
- ww520 14y agoWindows NT was much older, from the early 90's, which was the basis for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and Win7. The subsequent releases were mere upgrade and fixes of the original OS.
- mrich 14y agoYes, but Windows NT never was popular outside out business.
- trhtrsh 14y agoWin2K was marketed to businesses as the last version of NT before consumer-pro unification. WinXP picked up consumers from Win98 who skipped WinME.
- tallanvor 14y agoSo starting with OSX, Apple has introduced 9 versions and Microsoft has introduced 4. Now, granted, you can't actually have upgraded from 10.0 to 10.9 because of the dropped hardware support, but it would be interesting to compare the cost of upgrading through all the versions.
- codinghorror 14y agoI agree. The tech, despite this article, is really solid and actually innovative -- it just needs more polish and iteration. If Microsoft can show us that they're willing to rev quickly and fix and improve things, it could be pretty amazing. First order of business, the absysmal default Mail app. That is just painfully awful. If they move quickly to update it to non-terribad status, that will be evidence that they can make this work.
- vondur 14y agoMac OSX was never hideous to look at. The interface may have been slow, but the multi-tasking on it was awesome at the time. I remember being able to play DVD's and browse the web and download large files at the time and the system never blinked, and no frames were ever dropped on the DVD playback. Regarding the Surface, the hardware is nice, and the software can fortunately be fixed. The question is will enough people buy it?
- jkn 14y agoThat is of course a matter of taste, but early OS X versions were very unappealing to me. Here's a screenshot of 10.3 (Panther): http://iindigo3d.com/macos/macosx103.jpg http://iindigo3d.com/macos/macosx103.jpg
- bruceboughton 14y agoWhile maybe not quite so attractive as later OS X versions, it compares rather favourably to Windows XP.
- lokedhs 14y agoSo you prefer the way the calendar application looks now?
- jarjoura 14y agoCheck out this article. LOL, 10.0 also suffered from a mixture of poorly blended UIs. Brushed metal, pin-stripes, and old Carbon hybrid UIs with tiny fonts. http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments/mac_os_x_105_leopard_interface/ http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments/mac_os_x_105_leopard...