5 ms·

I would have bought one of those damn things too, if only they didn't lock them down. Why the hell did they even do that? Were they really concerned that peop

by jlgreco 13y ago

I would have bought one of those damn things too, if only they didn't lock them down. Why the hell did they even do that? Were they really concerned that people like me would buy them and then not use windows on them? I don't see that being much of a threat to their business.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
I always thought that their angle was going to be that they would sell (the product ecosystem) to content providers as a trusted platform, same to businesses; who might want that to some degree. If they could do that, and get the trust of the copyright mafia, then they might have been able to sort of monopolize distribution of movies and music. Maybe even keep their monopoly on office productivity apps (I hear that people use those on their tablets?). I agree that there can't be enough geeks willing to buy one just to install Linux on it for MS to worry.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Eh, maybe. My impression is that only the ARM ones were locked down though. I think the Surface Pro lets you install Linux or whatever.. I haven't really looked into that since that device doesn't really seem interesting to me. If their angle was that they needed to keep it locked down to secure slick media contracts, I would expect both to be locked down so that they could keep some semblance of feature parity between the two.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    Yeah, well, I'm no Steve Ballmer, so I couldn't pretend to fully understand their business strategy for the last decade.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Ha! True. Trying to figure out why they do things the way they do is likely an exercise in futility.
- MBCook 13y ago
  The odd thing is that they weren't selling the RT to businesses. Despite being a Microsoft tablet with a "real" copy of Office, it couldn't join a domain and thus didn't fit the most obvious business case. I figured it was because they were copying the iPad model, which actually makes a ton of sense. If all the apps are locked down to their own little sandboxes, the support costs go way down and the machine becomes nearly trivial to administer. It reduces so many headaches, I think it really was a good win. They didn't need to require signed stuff, but the sandbox model has been proven to work on the iPad. That said, I don't think anyone would complain if it looked like an iPad. Having the Metro interface was all they needed. Instead they put the full Windows desktop on there because they weren't far enough to replicate all functionality in Metro. I'd also guess that Office wasn't ready for Metro. So what you got, instead, was the equivalent of an iPad that looked like occasionally fell into OS X, but wouldn't actually let you install any OS X programs. Truth is, Apple was very smart to make iOS look completely different from OS X. Among other things, it gave them a clean break to change expectations of how computers work and how much control & administration the end user will do. There were plenty of other bad decisions. I'd say the low end model (storage wise) probably should have just been cut so they didn't end up with those "I only get 4 gigs on my 32 gig tablet" problems. They featured a keyboard as the key differentiator in their ads, but neglected to mention that was a $120 add on instead of a pack in.
tzs 13y ago
My guess is that they locked down ARM (and only ARM) to allow for subsidized devices, in case someday they might have to match subsidized devices being offered by competitors, or in case they might want to offer subsidized devices at a loss to grow the market for their software.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Yeah. I guess I just don't get why allowing for the possibility of subsidized devices requires a locked down bootloader. If they are going for some sort of razor blades model then they would lose money every time somebody buys one and doesn't use their OS / shop at their App market, but people that do that are undoubtedly a miniscule minority. On the other hand, I guess because they are a miniscule minority then they aren't going to care about them... Meh, I don't know. I kind of get the feeling that they locked down the bootloader just because doing that is the "Cool thing to do"(tm) and didn't with the Pro only because it would be unprecedented for x86.

by jlgreco 13y ago

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

I always thought that their angle was going to be that they would sell (the product ecosystem) to content providers as a trusted platform, same to businesses; who might want that to some degree. If they could do that, and get the trust of the copyright mafia, then they might have been able to sort of monopolize distribution of movies and music. Maybe even keep their monopoly on office productivity apps (I hear that people use those on their tablets?). I agree that there can't be enough geeks willing to buy one just to install Linux on it for MS to worry.

jlgreco 13y ago
Eh, maybe. My impression is that only the ARM ones were locked down though. I think the Surface Pro lets you install Linux or whatever.. I haven't really looked into that since that device doesn't really seem interesting to me. If their angle was that they needed to keep it locked down to secure slick media contracts, I would expect both to be locked down so that they could keep some semblance of feature parity between the two.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Yeah, well, I'm no Steve Ballmer, so I couldn't pretend to fully understand their business strategy for the last decade.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Ha! True. Trying to figure out why they do things the way they do is likely an exercise in futility.
MBCook 13y ago
The odd thing is that they weren't selling the RT to businesses. Despite being a Microsoft tablet with a "real" copy of Office, it couldn't join a domain and thus didn't fit the most obvious business case. I figured it was because they were copying the iPad model, which actually makes a ton of sense. If all the apps are locked down to their own little sandboxes, the support costs go way down and the machine becomes nearly trivial to administer. It reduces so many headaches, I think it really was a good win. They didn't need to require signed stuff, but the sandbox model has been proven to work on the iPad. That said, I don't think anyone would complain if it looked like an iPad. Having the Metro interface was all they needed. Instead they put the full Windows desktop on there because they weren't far enough to replicate all functionality in Metro. I'd also guess that Office wasn't ready for Metro. So what you got, instead, was the equivalent of an iPad that looked like occasionally fell into OS X, but wouldn't actually let you install any OS X programs. Truth is, Apple was very smart to make iOS look completely different from OS X. Among other things, it gave them a clean break to change expectations of how computers work and how much control & administration the end user will do. There were plenty of other bad decisions. I'd say the low end model (storage wise) probably should have just been cut so they didn't end up with those "I only get 4 gigs on my 32 gig tablet" problems. They featured a keyboard as the key differentiator in their ads, but neglected to mention that was a $120 add on instead of a pack in.

tzs 13y ago

My guess is that they locked down ARM (and only ARM) to allow for subsidized devices, in case someday they might have to match subsidized devices being offered by competitors, or in case they might want to offer subsidized devices at a loss to grow the market for their software.

jlgreco 13y ago
Yeah. I guess I just don't get why allowing for the possibility of subsidized devices requires a locked down bootloader. If they are going for some sort of razor blades model then they would lose money every time somebody buys one and doesn't use their OS / shop at their App market, but people that do that are undoubtedly a miniscule minority. On the other hand, I guess because they are a miniscule minority then they aren't going to care about them... Meh, I don't know. I kind of get the feeling that they locked down the bootloader just because doing that is the "Cool thing to do"(tm) and didn't with the Pro only because it would be unprecedented for x86.