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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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Interesting discussion I came across as I was researching something else:

Is Microsoft On The Verge Of A Sudden Collapse Or Just A Long, Slow Decline?

Thanks for the link. The author has a very nice, succinct way of encapsulating the history of what has actually occurred into a single sentence ...

Demerjian goes on to say that even though Microsoft is willing to pay developers to port applications for Windows 8, the sentiment in the developer community is very negative. The company has taken their 12% share of the mobile phone market and Nokia‘s 30% and rolled it into Windows Phone’s current 2%. Even more damning, analysts are calling for a decline in PC and laptop sales for the holiday season (and Chinese New Year) on the heels of the release of Windows 8. That’s not what’s supposed to happen when there is pent up demand for a new product.

That is very nicely stated. :thumbup

Then he quotes the subject of the article, Demerjian, verbatim ...

He ends on a note of doom:
“In the end, the death spiral for Microsoft is in full effect, and management is expending a lot of effort to speed it up. Anyone who dares point out that the entire system is collapsing, or worse yet suggests an alternative, gets Sinofsky’d. Or was it Guggenheimer’d? In any case, Microsoft is unwilling to change, and that is very clear. Even if they wanted to, they are culturally far beyond the point of being able to. What was a slow bleed of marketshare is now gushing, and management is clueless, intransigent, and myopic. Game over, the thrashing will continue for a bit, but it won’t change the outcome. Microsoft has failed."

Quite the phrase turner. I'm glad to see this one because so many Wall Street related articles are simply junk, they have no understanding of "Windows" or a "GUI" or even the personalities involved. It's not perfect by a long shot, but far better than most. If Wall Street and all the related outlets ever focused on the problems at hand with the consumer and the products, rather than the books and earnings, Microsoft would be finished.

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We had a big scare today over the future of this thread. The end result is that we are now in a different subforum. Let's hope that our new location offers as much public exposure to the analysis we're offering, as we have enjoyed all along.

A big THANK YOU to all, in whatever their roles, who helped to save "Deeper Impressions"!!! :thumbup

--JorgeA

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OK, now that we're rolling again -- here's something I came across while doing research on something else. It speaks to the efforts by Microsoft to pull its customers into the Cloud with its low-storage capacity Windows 8/RT tablets and the revamping of Office into an online service:

Electronic Communications Privacy Act

The (ECPA) has been met with criticism through the years, including its failure to protect all communications and consumer records, due to the law being outdated with the current way in which people share, store and use information. For instance, under the ECPA it is relatively easy for a governmental agency to demand service providers hand over personal consumer data that has been stored on their servers.

For instance, email that is stored on a third party's server for more than 180 days is considered by the law to be abandoned, and all that is required to obtain the content of the emails by a law enforcement agency, is a written statement certifying that the information is relevant to an investigation, with absolutely no judicial review required whatsoever. When the law was initially passed, emails were stored on a third party's server for only a short period of time, just long enough to facilitate transfer of email to the consumer's email client, which was generally located on their personal or work computer. Now, with online email services prevalent such as Gmail and Hotmail, users are more likely to store emails online indefinitely, rather than to only keep them for less than 180 days. If the same emails were stored on the user's personal computer, it would require the police to obtain a warrant first for seizure of their contents, regardless of their age. When they are stored on an internet server however, no warrant is needed, starting 180 days after receipt of the message, under the law.

(emphasis added)

This should give pause to anybody who relies on Outlook.com, Gmail, and similar online-only e-mail systems, and leaves their e-mails on the servers indefinitely. Why make it easier for snoops and busybodies to get the intimate details of your life so that you can be properly sorted, stamped, and approved?

Here's another angle, with apologies ;) to British readers: imagine if the King of England had had access to the communications that the American Revolutionaries sent to each other via the Committees of Correspondence. Had Microsoft (and yes, Google) been around back then, they would have made things a lot easier for the "swarms of Officers" that the King "sent hither"...

--JorgeA

Edited by JorgeA
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I got a chance to wander around the Neowin site for a bit this morning, and here's what turned up.

More woes for the phone version of Windows:

LG says it has no plans to return to Windows Phone

A month ago, there were unconfirmed reports that LG was planning to launch new Windows Phone 8-based smartphones, after previously releasing phones that used Windows Phone 7. Now an LG spokesperson has said those rumors were just that: rumors

CNET reports that they spoke to the unnamed LG representative at the Mobile World Congress who claimed the Korean-based company has no plans to make any Windows Phone 8 smartphones. The reason? LG doesn't see enough of a demand for such a product at the moment. LG did seem to give itself a little bit of wiggle room to change its mind, with the spokesperson saying, "When there's a significant market for it, we will be on board."

(emphasis added)

More reason to be wary of depending on the Cloud for your e-mail service:

Microsoft Outlook.com and Hotmail down for some users [update]

Of course, anybody who uses e-mail will necessarily depend on some server somewhere to deliver the goods. The difference, though, is that if you download your e-mail then it's available anytime you need it, whereas if you keep it stored in the server then you're outta luck if the server happens to be down when you need to access (for example) an old message.

And a brave soul who decided to stick his hand in the hornet's nest:

I don't care for Windows 8

Didn't read through the whole thread, but the first several replies were suprisingly mild or even sympathetic.

--JorgeA

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In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell

Please keep up the homeric work gentlemen.

Love that quote!!

And, thanks for the encouragement.

--JorgeA

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We had a big scare today over the future of this thread. The end result is that we are now in a different subforum. Let's hope that our new location offers as much public exposure to the analysis we're offering, as we have enjoyed all along.

A big THANK YOU to all, in whatever their roles, who helped to save "Deeper Impressions"!!! :thumbup

I just made a comment over here. I have no idea what this is all about but it looks completely ridiculous on the surface. I don't like the arbitrary-ness of this and it smells bad.

EDIT: I have thought of a possible edited title to this thread as a suggestion, and we'll see if it goes back on-topic and gets restored to its original home ...

Title: ... Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

Subtitle: ... and related controversy and rants

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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Quoting bphlpt from What happened to Deeper Impressions thread ? because I think it fits in with recent discussions here:

I also believe that it has been getting special privilege in a way for quite a while since I'm not aware of another thread here where as much "bashing" and making fun of any company has gone on for this long without moderator interference.

It's not just here, it's just about everywhere that has traffic of any significance. However, at many other places it's the commenters who do not wish to hear Microsoft criticisms and thus they forced the issue. Recent events excluded, the MSFN community seems to be satisfied with a laissez-faire approach, which is almost unique across the Internet, which surely had a part in how this topic became so well known.

But as much as many of the thread participants have derided Neowin and certain "journalists" as being MS fanboys, it almost seems that the Deeper Impressions thread became the opposite, or "anti-MS", and much, much broader in scope than just Window 8.

I agree that "deeper impressions of Windows 8" is not an accurate handle for this topic. However, I would argue that the thread is cohesive nonetheless and that people who haven't been following since the start are finding their way by referral. In that case, topic name is basically irrelevant. In fact, I don't think I was even immediately conscious of the thread topic until the discussion of topic arose, and I've been reading for months. If I were asked, I'd refer to it as something like "that really long thread at MSFN that talks about Windows 8 and Microsoft's recent behavior". I feel this is a more "business & strategy" type discussion than "technical" but I'd also rather the topic to be positioned for maximum audience. Maybe there's no effective difference with what's been done; I can't answer that.

On becoming "anti-MS" I don't think it can be denied but the accusation of it being an "anti-Neowin" in more than spirit is inaccurate. Most of the posts in this thread are better written and more information dense than top-level articles at Neowin and many other sites. Nearly everyone directly references or refers to something previously referenced, and multiple sources are referenced routinely, which, again, is rare even for articles. This is miles away from one-liner bashing and flamewars seen on most discussion forums.

I can only speak for myself, but I claim to be tech-agnostic, which means once I become convinced that a particular technology offers advantages I will adopt it. Admittedly it would take a while for Microsoft to convince me that they have righted the ship, especially after they demonstrated that good products (Windows 7) are still possible in a sea of failure, but were Microsoft to consistently release high value products I would change my opinion. This attitude differs from "picking a team" where one needs to become emotionally involved and champion all aspects of his preferred corporation, which I become weary reading about, even regarding companies I generally think do a reasonable job.

To put it another way, I feel a strong skeptical base aids a company and its products far more than cheerleaders, and, again, I feel this way even about healthy companies. For years I felt Microsoft qualified as a company that handled criticism well by addressing large portions of it with every new release. Furthermore, Microsoft was at one point well ahead of its time by embracing "social media" before such had a name. Before the WWW was big they sought feedback and collaboration on newsgroups (have a specific reference in mind but can't locate it), and for years they set the standard for development and beta testing transparency. I feel people like me are posting in this topic, which is why I follow the discussion.

I don't mean to derail regular discussion with this aside, but I did want to justify the discussion within the topic itself as being more than simple mudslinging. The thread which originated the quote is a good place for followups: What happened to Deeper Impressions thread ?

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No argument from me about the above, and it was very well stated. Thank you. My referenced post was mainly to explain why I don't have a problem with why and where the thread was moved, I just wish the move had been executed better. As stated in the other thread, "I, too, do not care for Win 8 in general and I think that MS has made some very bad decisions for questionable motives that seem doomed for failure due to their refusal to listen to their customer base." Pointing out those mistakes, especially with multiple references and examples, is indeed very enlightening and I hope that will continue here in the thread's new home. It truly is a fun read.

Cheers and Regards

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PC, Windows 8 Manufacturing To Lag Through Q2

There's "little excitement" in the PC supply chain, and some manufacturers might be "trimming their PC-Notebook portfolios" in Q2, which would be "another supply head wind to already weak PC demand," according to a research report Tuesday by Sterne Agee analyst Vijay Rakesh.
Rakesh's note also has bad news for Microsoft (MSFT) Windows 8 software and its new Surface tablet. Few manufacturers want "to build the high-priced Windows 8 tablets," Rakesh wrote.

The Windows 8 Surface tablet isn't getting very good customer feedback, either, according to Rakesh. Sterne Agee went to local retailers, including Best Buy (BBY) stores, to get feedback from users.

Could it be that the retailers and manufacturers have a better handle on users' wants and needs, as after all they sell to customers directly whereas Microsoft's connection to users is mostly indirect. And it sounds like what customers are telling them is that "touch" technology just isn't worth the added expense; while the Surface is a strange hybrid that's also overpriced in whichever category it tries to compete.

--JorgeA

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