Windows 8 diet exposes Microsoft's weak ARM Microsoft has put Windows marketing on a diet, cutting the number of packaged editions from six under Windows 7 to just three main versions for its latest OS, which is due later this year. In the past, when Microsoft announced SKUs for new versions of its PC client it was forced to justify so many editions for a simple piece …
It is if you know it's ABOUT to break (or to use the first post, you know the track's blocked ahead) and you need to do something to prevent it all coming apart/crashing. While most views about Windows 8 and Windows RT have been mixed, others are noting that Microsoft's taking the long view because it believes the PC market is about to fundamentally shift: mostly due to consumers and enterprises rapidly embracing non-x86 tech that falls outside Microsoft's field of strength. In time, non-x86 tech will likely creep into mainstream computing (because they have more room to improve than x86 does), placing it into a sink-or-swim situation.
... this:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/all-three-versions-will-be-shit,-promise-microsoft-201204185136/
"...One major development is the absence of the 'Start' button, which was removed on the grounds it gave people the impression that something may actually happen...."
You don't always have a choice. This is why Microsoft's strategy has always been to ensure that any computer sold always comes bundled with Windows even if you don't want it.
There was even a snitch programme where OEMs were paid to inform about customers who asked for a PC without Windows (because Microsoft don't sell Windows separately do they, doh!).
I think you mean...
2 Enter sudo apt-get install windows7-session-fallback
3. Warning, removing windows8_start_screen will break dependencies in explorer, internet explorer, cmd, wmp, xcom, activex, driectx, iss, networking, csrss, dwm, winlogin do you want to proceed y/n?
Did they also announce that the tablet version of WIndows 8 bears very little in common with the PC version of Windows 8, and that if you buy a Windows 8 tablet thinking it will be able to run Windows applications, you will be SORELY disappointed..
Of course they didn't mention that, Windows is is gearing up as a disaster in the making.
PC users will be disappointed to find that their 22in widescreen monitor is hobbled with a user interface designed for a 4in mobile phone screen.
Tablet users will be disappointed to find that it's not really Windows, it doesn't have a resizble Windowing system (everything aside from a couple of cut-down Microsoft apps forced to run as a tile), and it doesn't run Windows apps either.
I'm guessing once you break the clingfilm wrapper and discover all this, it's too late for refunds... And Microsoft know that.
> Any manufacturer worth their salt has Arm tablets
When netbooks first came out they were cheap devices with Atom CPU, DVD player screens, flash memory and Linux. They could not run Vista so did not threaten the MS 'discounts' that their PC sales relied on to make any profit at all.
MS revived their zombie XP just for netbooks and the threat that the OEMs may have to pay retail price for OEM Windows for every PC they made. Result: no more Linux netbooks, eventually no more netbooks.
WOA/Windows RT is a rerun. Many OEMs were trying out tablets with Android, Linux, Meego and WebOS. ARM based devices could not run Windows so did not threaten PC profitability. Now MS _does_ have an ARM OS. WebOS may have been the first casualty of 'Netbooks II, the ARMs Race'.
I doubt that MS cares if ARM lives or fails, as long as it kills off significant quantities of Android and Linux. They want the public to choose between ARM/WindowsRT tablets and x86/Windows 8 tablets _only_, and they would make more money from the latter.
Oh no, here we go again with the old favourite - "M$ KILLED LINUX ON NETBOOKS".
The truth is slightly different - the purchasers of netbooks were confused and bemused by Linux, and its inability to run their beloved Windows apps, and voted with their wallets. You see, here in the real world people don't care about operating systems - all that matters is apps, which Linux has always been sadly been lacking in. Well, unless you count hopeless broken abandonware OpenOffice/Libre Office, and of course the execrable Firefox which oddly enough also began as abandonware, suggesting that the Open Source world is absolutely incapable of building a major app.
I wonder whether MS are releasing RT just to try to kill the ARM tablet market.
We know it won't run anything apart from crippled MS apps, but Joe public will be looking to install their existing software on a tablet. The cry will become "but it's Windows, so it should work!"
To which the PC World drone will say, "Well sir, here is an Intel tablet which WILL load your software"
Windows RT is Microsoft's attempt to kill the ARM tablet marketplace.
Must love how all the fanbois have down-voted you, even though your post was largely accurate - with the primary exception that LibreOffice (and possibly OpenOffice as well) is NOT abandonware. LibreOffice is still being developed by the vast majority of the original development community for OpenOffice prior to Oracle giving the community the finger. As to OpenOffice, it's been attributed to Apache now, but little news on the site so I can't speak for certain to the state of it's development.
> inability to run their beloved Windows apps
So you agree that Windows RT is dead before it is born then.
> broken abandonware OpenOffice/Libre Office
I am not sure why you think that it is broken nor why you claim it is 'abandonware'.
> Firefox which oddly enough also began as abandonware
Firefox was a version of the Mozilla project. It seems that you know nothing.
At one time it would have been (a) so they could keep up with whatever Redmond were doing next (b) so they get the bestest discounts on their Windows licensing.
I'm not sure these motivations apply as much as they used to. The desktop PC market and the tablet/smartphone market have little overlap, and the Wintel monopolist's efforts to try to use their desktop muscle to achieve any level of significance outside their desktop homeland look at risk of being doomed to insignificance.
Almost certainly equals no good reason for me to prefer it to a Android / iOS tablet at work.
I think we're likely to have sorted out the management of these devices before Microsoft comes along with anything useful in this regard and once we've put the effort in they will struggle to win us back.
Customers seem to want iPads (apart from one who is sold on RIM's PlayBook for some reason) and if there's nothing given to us to make managing Windows devices better and cheaper we're going to give them what they want.
"Giving the ARM version of Windows 8 the same name as the programming framework for building the UI of all Windows tablets suggests either that WinRT is just for ARM, or that Microsoft just wasn't thinking strategically"
WinRt is just one off Microsoft's runtimes. I think the decision to include only WinRT in the ARM version is a good one. It makes the Os lean and clean. To build devices like the iPad you don't need APIs like Win32 or COM. WinRT is everywhere and Microsoft is heavily investing in it.
"yes you can get Office on ARM but not on x86/64, but legacy apps run on x86/64 and not on ARM."
Well you get Metro Office on RT, not the full office we are used to. Not sure how much fun doing spreadsheets will be.
And for x86/64 you get more than just legacy apps. You get all the future applications that will not have metro versions. So any power apps or AAA games are unlikely to come to metro and therefore Windows RT.
Essentially with Windows RT, Microsoft are creating a different OS which will not have the guaranteed support it would if it had an x86 emulator. Sure it comes with a cut down version of Office, but that's it. It is even more locked down than android.
So again this is all fine for people who want to use touch while on the go, but still is not a replacement for the desktop and desktop apps.
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