Why do MS keep getting it so wrong?

Admiral Huddy

Admiral Huddy

Admiral Huddy

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Feb 2003
Posts
29,640
Location
Chelmsford
http://www.techspot.com/news/56827-8-inch-surface-mini-reportedly-delayed-at-last-minute.html

Doesn't surprise me really. They seem to be years behind everyone else on everything. By not keeping up with the market place will be their demise which is a worry given their dominance in the market place. After playing around with a high end Mac the other week, i'm not surprised that the everyday home user is turning it's back on PCs and MS.


I'd dump MS today had they not such a hold on DX. Linux mint offers a decent alternative front end OS which is free.. yet MS's still continues to charge home users and future plans for subscription based windows 9 is absurd. Home user licences should be free of charging only for professional and enterprise solutions. Who else can they maintain the market place if they don't?

This news today only demonstrates just how out of touch they really are.
 
Some of the google chrome books are really good now as well, we have a bunch of different ones in the office and as a general lappy for web etc they are very slick.
 
Just bought a Chromebook as a present, and yeah the screen is slightly lacking colour, but it is very slick for anyone who does generic web browsing and very good value for the price. I find the trackpad as one of the best outside of a Macbook.
 
Well if they had put out a 8" tablet that wasnt up to scratch people would be ****ging them off. So maybe they are giving it some time to get it right, or see if a mini prov version is possible?

That and lots of other OEMS are offering 8" tablets with W8 on them so its hardly a market gap, and the Pro 12" version is something im MUCH more interested in.

Fact is MS are turning a HUGE corner, more so than any other company, and they are still making that turn, between phone, tablet, desktop and console, dont know of any other company trying to tie so many product lines under the one banner.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
http://www.techspot.com/news/56827-8-inch-surface-mini-reportedly-delayed-at-last-minute.html

Doesn't surprise me really. They seem to be years behind everyone else on everything. By not keeping up with the market place will be their demise which is a worry given their dominance in the market place. After playing around with a high end Mac the other week, i'm not surprised that the everyday home user is turning it's back on PCs and MS.


I'd dump MS today had they not such a hold on DX. Linux mint offers a decent alternative front end OS which is free.. yet MS's still continues to charge home users and future plans for subscription based windows 9 is absurd. Home user licences should be free of charging only for professional and enterprise solutions. Who else can they maintain the market place if they don't?

This news today only demonstrates just how out of touch they really are.
Click to expand...

How will it be the demise of a company who have only just entered the hardware market? It won't. MS's core offering is Software, for virtually any modern day computing task. Sure, their hardware offerings might die off, but its unlikely.
 
cu3ed said:
Fact is MS are turning a HUGE corner, more so than any other company, and they are still making that turn, between phone, tablet, desktop and console, dont know of any other company trying to tie so many product lines under the one banner.
Click to expand...

They maybe turning a huge corner .. but it's a corner behind everyone else. The procurement of Nokia is further evidence of this.
 
so you use a mac and suddenly the everyday user is jumping ship?

Is everything they do fantastic? no, but they are a good thing and have contributed massively to everything computer related - it's a bit quick for the end of the world speech.

The move into tablet could have been done better, no doubt about it, but when they do finally get their act together, it will provide more competition and variety in the market.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
They maybe turning a huge corner .. but it's a corner behind everyone else. The procurement of Nokia is further evidence of this.
Click to expand...

Im not sure your making sense.

A unified market between Phone, Mobile, tablet, Desk and Console? all made under the same roof? How on earth is buying Nokia any proof of anything that they are behind in the curve. Buying one of the best know engineering wings in Mobile devices that are still actually making interesting new technologies in phones and not rehashing the same thing each year?

And unified user experience across all touched based devices not only in OS touch but also software services?

You think MS are behind?...the slowness comes with that kind of change, like I said, theirs no other company on the planet that has as much as MS to do to make this change happen because they do THAT much.

Imagine in ( the now very close) time they get it all under one roof, absolutely everything deved up from one platform to the other with minimal effort exporting to another. Yes they are going to get wrongs, like the piles of things Apple and Google have got wrong ( dont we ALL jsut LOVE G+?), isnt everyone happy the short support Apple give to its OS versions and how they have cosied up to the Cable suppliers in the US to help do away with Net Neutrality?
 
You're right that they could bring a common experience across mobile, phone, tablet and desktop. But Windows Phone is already a third rate tenant for their own in-house applications, so it's pretty clear that nobody at MS really takes their own mobile platforms that seriously. See also: Windows RT needing a desktop environment because the Office team couldn't be brought into line to actually make a touch version.

Apple are closer to unifying their phone, tablet and computer experiences than MS are.
 
Well theirs a few things about that, one, when it does come to WP or the likes theirs usually quite a few more integrated bits and pieces put into the OS to work with it, so their is that. The time between them hasn't been massive. Though yes theirs been a big attitude between many departments at MS, but the shake up looks to have solved a lot of that in house fighting.

WinRT having a full desktop and a proper windows management system is one of the best things about it IMO and experience. Especially plugging up any USB device to drag and drop etc.
Apple don't have a Tablet experience, they don't have a fully operational touch based OS working on a tablet, OSX isn't going to work on a touch based device, so are stuck really with iOS which is looking older and older and more and more restrictive. It boggles my mind I can sit and watch TV on the RT side by side whist browsing yet havnt seen any other Media consumption tablet do it the same way.

And yes, before someone says it, I was completely living Apple in iPhone, iPad and iMac, was a release getting rid of it all, though I did the change over of everything in one lare swoop, and wouldnt dare be going near them again.
 
Personally.. I think small tablets will die out ... just like ebook readers

Have touch screen monitors taken off big style? It's just that the concept of standardization is fine but I just don't see a long term large pool of items to fall into the group.

Subscription based windoze? sounds like yet another license control attempt.

Chromebooks are fine, even I have been tempted, but the limitation of internet connection is the real killer. Probably why, as mentioned in the link supplied above, they are so popular with schools... account use control.
 
I've actually become something of a convert to 8" Windows tablets though for casual/everyday users its probably not the friendliest of ways to work with a tablet - infact the best thing they could probably do with it is make it so that it can run android over the top (just replace the whole start screen with an android layer and put the old start menu back on the desktop side lol).

Was given a toshiba encore 8 recently for a project and while I hate Windows 8 having tweaked the desktop experience to work better on a 8" touchscreen I'm really liking having a full desktop environment in the palm of my hand and the ability to properly interface with USB stuff, etc. its not perfect by a long shot but it easily could be - especially if they can get the form factor down a little more closer to the Xperia Z styling.

The performance isn't bad either - about equivalent to a mid-range 2007 desktop PC the CPU pretty much competes with a core 2 duo MHz for MHz with the advantage of having 4 cores for where that counts, RAM performance likewise is similiar to a core 2 duo era PC and the GPU is somewhere around the old 6800 territory but with full shader/DX11 support - which is a bit dissapointing compared to the CPU but still quite useable.
 
I only hold onto Windows because of gaming. Once the devs start writing for Linux and/or porting over to Linux then it's bye bye Microsoft for me.
 
cu3ed said:
Well theirs a few things about that, one, when it does come to WP or the likes theirs usually quite a few more integrated bits and pieces put into the OS to work with it, so their is that. The time between them hasn't been massive. Though yes theirs been a big attitude between many departments at MS, but the shake up looks to have solved a lot of that in house fighting.
Click to expand...

Nothing's been solved yet - the Remote Desktop app for Windows Phone is still a preview, iOS and Android have had full releases. If MS aren't putting things out on their own platform first then it sends the wrong messages.

cu3ed said:
WinRT having a full desktop and a proper windows management system is one of the best things about it IMO and experience. Especially plugging up any USB device to drag and drop etc.
Apple don't have a Tablet experience, they don't have a fully operational touch based OS working on a tablet, OSX isn't going to work on a touch based device, so are stuck really with iOS which is looking older and older and more and more restrictive. It boggles my mind I can sit and watch TV on the RT side by side whist browsing yet havnt seen any other Media consumption tablet do it the same way.
Click to expand...

Apple do have a tablet experience, they practically defined the tablet experience. Windows on tablet is a desktop experience with a touch front-end, and an app store for touch-first applications that hasn't really taken off. The marketing around Surface 3 continuously compares it to a laptop, all the emphasis is on running desktop applications, all the screenshots show desktop apps running at a very high resolution with tiny touch targets. They don't showcase one single Metro app on their own website for the product.

If you want a product that is clearly intended to be used as an awkward laptop that requires the keyboard to be purchased separately then it's a great product. There is room for a third tablet OS with a fresh take on the form factor, shoehorning the Windows desktop onto it with all of the Windows update / control panel / registry that comes along with it is lazy. And now MS seem to be firmly aiming Surface at people who want desktop apps I feel they've given up on the idea of touch-first.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
Snip
Click to expand...

There is no other operating system that is as compatible as Windows in both hardware and software.

Windows just works - yes you want to get rid of the associated price tag but don't forget that high-end Apple you worked on probably cost 3 times as much as an equivalent and better spec'd Windows based machine. With Apple you still pay for updates, etc. and you've paid for the base OS licence as part of the hardware.

Windows got it wrong with the 'one' experience. There used to be choice (i.e. Windows XP Tablet Edition) and a proper OS if you wanted it. That's where it needs to be - if you're going to develop something for touch then do that but don't force it on people who have mice - this makes the experience a little odd as it's not aimed for one or the other.

I, personally, will stick with a Microsoft based OS for as long as I can see ahead - everything for me just works, I can do, nigh on, anything any other platform can do.



M.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom