Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[jaclaz]

You'll learn how often in Italy anything that is "temporary" becomes actually "perpetual" and anything that is "permanent" will be changed within a short period of times.

Sounds like what it would be like to live in a surrealistic film...

Naah, that's part of the fun.

The original quote is by Giuseppe Prezzolini:

In Italia nulla è stabile fuorché il provvisorio.

from a book published in 1921, "Codice della vita italiana" a perfect snapshot (largely valid still today) of the defects (and features) of the Italians (and consequently of Italy), Chapter VI, 40.

Available here:

http://neapoliscallsnapoli.ilcannocchiale.it/?TAG=Codice%20della%20vita%20italiana

the Google translate is not that bad (or at least it is good enough to appreciate most of the humour and tradegy):

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fneapoliscallsnapoli.ilcannocchiale.it%2F%3FTAG%3DCodice%2520della%2520vita%2520italiana

Microsoft's Surface Pro Shortage Sham ( Dvorak 2013-02-12 )

Almost forgot this one, now a few days old. Dvorak comments on the obvious marketing stunt with the Surface Pro.

If I may, most probably because it didn't fit on the paper sheet a sentence has ben cut out off the above article, the original read (maybe ):

That said, I am sure that if readers dig around, they can probably find a Surface somewhere to buy.

There is no reason to panic.

And not a single one to actually wanting to buy that thingy.

jaclaz

Edited February 15, 2013 by jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

It just so happens that Paul Thurrott has a few articles up where he comments on some of the exact same stories I have recently posted above ( the HP double-cross, Yahoo CEO on Bing, Office 2013 modified EULA ).

WinInfo Short Takes: February 15, 2013 ( Thurrott 2013-02-14 )

With Friends Like These …

Microsoft’s biggest PC maker partner HP is prepping a new line of Android-based tablets, according to a report by ReadWrite that cites anonymous sources. If true, this will be the worst betrayal since Boromir tried to steal the One Ring from Frodo at the end of “The Fellowship of the Ring.” HP, which also recently announced plans for a Google Chromebook-based laptop, is apparently working with NVIDIA’s upcoming Tegra 4 chipset and is also exploring a potential Android-based smart phone release. I fondly remember the days when HP would follow Microsoft blindly down every technological rabbit hole it cared to dig, but those days are clearly over. Maybe Microsoft should pump a few billion more into Dell and put HP out of its misery.

Okay, I think we have found the absolute pinnacle of MicroZealot statements, no more entries please! Now seriously, who talks like that, unless they are actually on the payroll? What person not on the payroll would be so wrapped up in Microsoft like that? Only the penultimate Fanboy. Really. How dare a competitor of Dell ( especially in light of the Microsoft-Dell deal ) dare to even offer a competing product. Seriously! ... Certified Fanboy-of-the-Decade Award Winner

Yahoo CEO Unimpressed with Microsoft Search Performance

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said this week that her company’s search partnership with Microsoft has not delivered the expected market share or revenue gains, strongly hinting that Yahoo wants to make changes. That, of course, would be devastating to Microsoft, which derives a huge chunk of its search traffic from Yahoo. (In December, Microsoft had 16.3 percent of the search market, with Yahoo controlling 12.2 percent.) But the Microsoft/Yahoo search deal is for ten years, and we’re only in year three, so Mayer may need to figure out a way to work with Microsoft, rather than against it. Which should be interesting, since Mayer is a former Google executive.

Office 2013 Gotcha: Standalone Products are for One PC Only ( Thurrott 2013-02-14 )

Subtitle ...The standalone versions of Office 2013 aren't necessarily a good value

Not so with Office 2013. In a bid to nudge customers to subscription offerings like Office 365 Home Premium, Microsoft has revised the licensing for standalone Office products. And not in a good way.

First, there are no more multi-PC installs. So Office Home & Student 2013 can only be installed on a single PC, not on three like its predecessor.

Second, that single PC license is for the lifetime of the product: You can’t uninstall any standalone Office 2013 product and reinstall it on a second PC later. So if your current PC gets replaced, you will need to buy Office again.

Even most of his commenters are having a tough time with this. Several of them called Microsoft support and got different responses, they're worth a read.

Clearly this policy is designed to force people into Office 364, but what does that say about their cynical tactics? I ask any non-Zealot MicroDefenders still left out there: is there anything left that Microsoft can do to get you to wake up and realize they have turned the corner from a software company to simply a huge corporate conglomerate with no concern for any customer and are capable of anything and everything now?

[Formfiller]

Oh my God, Microsoft's new licensing terms for Office could be even worse than I thought.

Some say that the HARD DRIVE constitues a new PC according to MS support:

http://winsupersite.com/office-2013/office-2013-gotcha-standalone-products-are-one-pc-only

I inquired with them on a sales chat. They said I could re-install on the same machine, but not if I changed just my hard drive

...

Ian: How do you define a new PC? Can I re-format my PC and reinstall? What if I upgrade to an SSD?

John Y [MS REP]: Yes, you can reformat and reinstall. Basically if this is a new hard drive or completely new PC you cannot transfer the software

--------

MS usually defined the motherboard as the main PC piece. If you changed that, you got a new computer. But as anyone with a bit of IT knowledge knows, hard drives have usually a shorter life than mainboards. Of all PC components, hard drives are also the most sensitive to physical hits, shaking, jolting (entirely possible with a notebook). If it's true what the sales rep said, then MS has decided to tie Office to the most unreliable piece in a computer. Genius move!

[vinifera]

main question is, why would anyone sane even use new office at all ?

[loblo]

main question is, why would anyone sane even use new office at all ?

Fear!

[JorgeA]

With Friends Like These …

Microsoft’s biggest PC maker partner HP is prepping a new line of Android-based tablets, according to a report by ReadWrite that cites anonymous sources. If true, this will be the worst betrayal since Boromir tried to steal the One Ring from Frodo at the end of “The Fellowship of the Ring.” HP, which also recently announced plans for a Google Chromebook-based laptop, is apparently working with NVIDIA’s upcoming Tegra 4 chipset and is also exploring a potential Android-based smart phone release. I fondly remember the days when HP would follow Microsoft blindly down every technological rabbit hole it cared to dig, but those days are clearly over. Maybe Microsoft should pump a few billion more into Dell and put HP out of its misery.

Thurrott's statement makes zero sense on its own terms. If I read this correctly, he's saying that HP should follow Microsoft blindly down every technological rabbit hole (Thurrott's words). Umm, last time I checked, "blindly following" someone down a "rabbit hole" implied that it was a bad/stupid thing to do. So Paul, tell me exactly why HP should keep doing this??

Far from a "betrayal," it's a sign that HP finally got tired of going along with Microsoft's folly and is at long last coming to its senses.

I'm going over there to see what people have said about this. Maybe I'll even register on his site so I can make this point.

--JorgeA

[Formfiller]

My fruitful discussion about the Office 2013 licensing on channel9:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Monopoly-Microsoft-was-more-customer-friendly-than-todays-friendly-Microsoft?page=3

I guess you will like that.

Don't forget, I am wastingtimewithforums there.

[Formfiller]

The discussion there got interesting. I urge you to read the channel9 thread. Evildictaitor is fanboyish, but apparently quite the insider at MS (I think he has friends there).

If you want to know the future of Office, read the thread!

Edited February 15, 2013 by Formfiller

[HalloweenDocument12]

Welcome to the discussion!

Thanks, long time reader of this thread.

Windows 8 may well manage to kill the PC -- but it would do so because so many people would rather hang on to their current PCs with an acceptable OS, than buy something preloaded with Windows 8.

Speculation: were Microsoft to discontinue sales of Windows 7 or put enough barriers in place to make it practically unobtainable, look for a significant rise in piracy. Bootlegging Microsoft stuff will become the new "OK" thing to do, like Napster was in the 90s. This would continue until the end of 7's viability, which could take a number of forms, including corrective behavior by Microsoft.

Thing is, they have lost the trust of their core developers. People like me. When that trust is gone, people like me will not develop for their platform. With Windows 8, they sealed the deal.

The Verge started a rumor that Windows 8 API will be obsolete as soon as this summer:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/28/3693368/windows-blue-update-low-cost

Once Windows Blue is released, the Windows SDK will be updated to support the new release and Microsoft will stop accepting apps that are built specifically for Windows 8, pushing developers to create apps for Blue.

It's unclear whether or not this change involves more than a recompile. Simple recompilation would ordinarily be a logical default assumption, but given Microsoft's recent behavior one almost needs to assume that it is a radical change.

[HalloweenDocument12]

Regarding Steam, I posted these thoughts on another forum, with an expletive changed to comply with this site's profanity clause. I left in the word 'tard' because I think its meaning is reasonably understood in this context and can't think of an alternative. 'Fanboy' isn't close enough in my opinion, and I see 'tard' is used elsewhere in this thread.

When the rumors first started floating around (over a year ago?) I thought the idea was ridiculous. Then Newell chimed in with specific complaints against Windows 8 and its ecosystem; I thought he was half right, half tard. Now, though, I actually think Steam on Linux is a good idea. I don't expect it to generate significant sales nor do I think it is intended to but it does offer something of an exit strategy if/when Microsoft ups the ante regarding its "app" policies and/or the potential removal of desktop altogether.

In fact, Steam is potentially the best thing to ever happen in terms of creating a de facto Linux base. If this goes anywhere you can expect to see "Steam standard" distros that other developers will need to target if they expect their software to be used. They'll like it, too, because now they won't need to release 100 versions of RPM, DEB, and tar.gz files.

There's even potential of displacing X and crappy video drivers if it gets big enough. The end result would basically be a Steam-on-top-of-Linux platform like Android but with more "grassroots" origins, which may or may not appease the tard purists. Probably not once they see where things are going. Stallman will complain loudly for sure. Sorry guys, you had your chance to take SDL (which was gifted by the last big porter of Linux games, Loki) and make it into a GPLed Steam but of course without the corporate entity it never went anywhere and is basically the same now as it was in 1999.

The worst is reading about all this on tard websites. They've been wrong for 15 years but are right about this one thing (Steam for Linux exists) and they're all over themselves about it. Even a squirrel finds a nut and all that.

However, these guys are just too excited over the availability of 10+ year old relics like the original Half-life and its derivations like Counter-Strike. Come on, that's not exciting at all. Team Fortress 2 is available now, but that's still over 5 years old.

[HalloweenDocument12]

Microsoft's Surface Pro Shortage Sham ( Dvorak 2013-02-12 )

Almost forgot this one, now a few days old. Dvorak comments on the obvious marketing stunt with the Surface Pro.

The discussion on Thurrott's site on launch day was atrocious. One person after another from all over the U.S. posted to say they called every Best Buy and Staples in the state with all of them saying they received zero or one 128 GB Surfaces and/or two or three 64 GB models. One apologist went as far to assume that every big box retailer in the country received 150, the number received by some Microsoft Stores, and proclaimed that Microsoft moved over half a million units the first day. Thurrott himself was fuming at the people who did their due diligence and couldn't find a retailer within a 200 mile range that received more than a handful of the things.

It's sad we even need a wealth of articles crying "hoax" to see through this.

[HalloweenDocument12]

WinInfo Short Takes: February 15, 2013 ( Thurrott 2013-02-14 )

With Friends Like These …

If true, this will be the worst betrayal since Boromir tried to steal the One Ring from Frodo at the end of “The Fellowship of the Ring.” [...] I fondly remember the days when HP would follow Microsoft blindly down every technological rabbit hole it cared to dig, but those days are clearly over. Maybe Microsoft should pump a few billion more into Dell and put HP out of its misery.

[...] Now seriously, who talks like that, unless they are actually on the payroll? What person not on the payroll would be so wrapped up in Microsoft like that?

It's so deluded it doesn't even make sense. HP doesn't just sell desktop computers or whatever. Their revenue is $120 billion! "A few more billion" isn't nearly enough to take on a company like this. Microsoft itself pulls in $74 billion by comparison. HP's profitability is down but that doesn't mean you can bully it around. Assets between the two are close enough: $109 billion for HP vs. 121 billion for MSFT. This is like saying ExxonMobil should put Shell Oil out of its misery. Not gonna happen!

And since when is blindly following someone around a virtue? I have news for him: it's not "blind", HP did it because it was profitable. Now that it isn't, they're doing something else. Hard concept to grasp, I know.

The Boromir quote reveals the kind of person he is. Viewing that act as straight up betrayal is myopic at best. Thurrott seems to be the kind of guy that would put you on his enemies list if you borrowed a pencil and forgot to give it back. Graphite Betrayal: A Tale of a Wooden Friend Disappearing into the Ether.

Edited February 15, 2013 by HalloweenDocument12

[HalloweenDocument12]

Office 2013 Gotcha: Standalone Products are for One PC Only ( Thurrott 2013-02-14 )

Subtitle ...The standalone versions of Office 2013 aren't necessarily a good value

[...]

Even most of his commenters are having a tough time with this. Several of them called Microsoft support and got different responses, they're worth a read.

I liked the first comment:

$99.99/year is simply too expensive for your regular consumer. Mom and Pop don't know what "licensing agreements" are. They'll just see the price tag and subscription and compare it to spending ~$60 for 3 apps that they'll have forever. Office at that price is too much of a difficult sell for your average non-techie consumer.

The real fear here is that Microsoft has waited so long to deliver Office as their "Halo" app on other platforms on the misguided notion that that would somehow stop the growth of said platforms that consumers have simply "moved on" to lighter, cheaper apps such as Google Docs or iWork. Honestly, I believe that Office is still strong, especially in enterprise, but has lost so much mindshare in the consumer space that asking for $100 a year is simply too much.

The part about losing mindshare resonates especially. Over the past decade, Office has become something enshrined in the business user's ivory tower, and the "mom & pops" that have it either bummed it off friends or family in IT or their nephews got them a "don't ask" copy. People used to ask for Office whenever they bought a new computer but they're so used to it being a pain that they've given up.

Microsoft is really losing a core group of people: "natural evangelists" who push their stuff up into a corporation and to the general public because the product quality is good. The way to get these people is to sell personal licenses on the cheap. That Microsoft is going in the opposite direction shows how out of touch they've become. It's probably too late to get these people back. In fact, I think part of the tablet-mania craze is that the exploratory group of IT users have nowhere else to go. They've even moved on from desktop Linux after 20 years of statistical insignificance. Mac OS is also stale, and over there people are also complaining about the OS becoming dumbed down and moving away from content creation in favor of content consumption, with even the flagship product Final Cut Pro jumping the shark.

[HalloweenDocument12]

My fruitful discussion about the Office 2013 licensing on channel9:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Monopoly-Microsoft-was-more-customer-friendly-than-todays-friendly-Microsoft?page=3

I guess you will like that.

Don't forget, I am wastingtimewithforums there.

Does "Steve Jobs Head" post in EVERY topic on Channel 9? I swear he's been there every single time I've been linked for the past five years. Anyway...

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Monopoly-Microsoft-was-more-customer-friendly-than-todays-friendly-Microsoft/7ea74cae5de143ea977aa1660137dd0c

This isn't about deprecating Office in favour of Office 365. It's about deprecating shrinked wrapped CD installs in favour of OEM and MSDN web installs.

This can be done quite easily with account-based licensing and web downloads. Simply stop manufacturing the CDs. No draconian licensing scheme required. Hasn't this guy ever heard of iTunes or Steam?

Edited February 15, 2013 by HalloweenDocument12

[Formfiller]

You should read further. The masks come off so to speak.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Monopoly-Microsoft-was-more-customer-friendly-than-todays-friendly-Microsoft/0de55fa6f1424377a4d6a166015d1c77

Edited February 15, 2013 by Formfiller