Microsoft's ARM blunder: 7 reasons why Windows RT was DOA
Industry doomsayers were circling Windows 8 like buzzards before it even launched, but they picked the wrong carcass. Microsoft's real 2012 roadkill was Win8's ARM-powered cousin, Windows RT. The chattering class's comparisons of Windows 8 and Windows Vista are premature – it will take several more quarters before we can gauge …
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Re: Surface Pro will also fail
"I can't see spending a thousand bucks for a tablet when you can get a great laptop for that price"
I think you are making much the same mistake that Microsoft is making.
You don't buy a tablet because it is cheaper than a laptop. You buy a tablet because it is easier and quicker to pick it up to check emails and the latest news on El Reg than it is to do it on a laptop.
Re: Surface Pro will also fail
> It's obvious you are not aware that the Mac OS and therefore all mac os software is also based on open source code called Darwin.
People are "not aware" because Apple does it's best to hide it. It's like a Tivo. It's like a tree falling in a forrest. If no one actually hears it, is it really there?
Anything the user sees on an Apple system is strictly proprietary and is for Apple brand hardware only.
Re: Surface Pro will also fail
"Full USB support" is no selling point for any Microsoft device. My PHONE has "full USB support". The rest of your post is similar marketing nonsense that's simply out of touch with reality. You need to step outside of the Redmond echo chamber and so does the upper management at Microsoft.
Re: @Eadon - openness selling Android
> If I was looking to get something simple for my parents to use I would go for the iPad
That's a common fallacy: that it has to be crippled to be easy. The opposite is actually true.
Developers need to be completely free to innovate on the platform. THIS is what leads to a more usable product. A more open environment is what allows the same platform to address different use cases all at the same time. It prevents a system from being "for rubes only". The tyrant is not perfect. They have missed something. They may not be agile enough to adapt quickly.
It's like communism/fascism versus capitalism. Central management will always be less effectve. The thing that gets rejected in committe might end up being your killer app.
Assuming that "rubes need an Apple device" may end up actually being a disaster.
Re: Microsoft can't win
Yeah, the lack of AD and Outlook is killing it. The one thing everyone, even the staunchest fanperson, has to give them is that they have, rightly or wrongly, got business and the enterprise sewn up, and a key part of that is AD. Not having AD integration is throwing away their key advantage, allowing iOS and Android to entrench themselves further in the market.
@Daniel B 06:21
Oh I agree that the mobile landscape can shift rapidly, but this is a problem for Android far more so than it is for iOS. And yes, an opportunity for Microsoft, though they will probably continue to do nothing with it.
There are some people who are locked in to iOS due to apps spending, but that is massively overrated as a reason for people to stick with Apple. Is even $50 in sunk costs in apps going to change your mind if you have a reason to switch platforms? Only a tiny fraction have spent more than that. The reason people have own iPhones purchase another isn't because they're "locked into the ecosystem" due to sunk costs for apps, but because they're just happy with their iPhone. The surveys that show high satisfaction rates among iPhone owners and high "would you buy another iPhone" rates prove it. Most won't see a need to switch to something other than Apple unless they decide they REALLY want a much larger screen or REALLY want to spend a lot less on their next phone. For the average consumer, those are the only things that differentiate phones beyond the name on the back. They don't care if a phone has NFC or a SD slot or a quad core CPU or has a sassy assistant named Siri.
Now the same is true for a lot of Samsung customers who have been happy with their Galaxy phones, they will buy another Samsung, not because it is Android, but because they were satisfied with their last Samsung purchase and see no compelling reason to switch. That fact is a potential disaster for Google because Samsung has no allegiance to Android and in fact appears that they are planning to go their own way with Tizen to better monetize their customers rather than allowing Google to make all the post-sale money from them. Samsung could switch from Android to Tizen and take half the Android with them! Only those who specifically chose Android when they bought Samsung might abandon them if they switch to Tizen, but that's a very small percentage of all of Samsung's customers.
The other problem Android faces is on the very low end, like emerging market China and India, where a lot of the new Chinese companies most of us have never heard of replacing feature phones with "smartphones". Android's Microsoft tax means that a cheaper competitor like the Firefox OS could quickly steal that low end where even $5 per phone makes a difference. This really doesn't matter except for market share perception, since these people are not providing any after-sale value, but if the people see Android's market share drop by 75% over a year or two, the market perception would be devastating.
Google is so busy worrying about Apple, which due to its focus on the high end could at best win only a little bit more market share, that it seems to be ignoring the very real potential it could lose a large majority of the Android market in just a couple years.
Google thinks they can be like Microsoft, and Android can be like Windows. But Windows had lock in, while Android has none. People didn't choose Windows any more than they choose Android, they chose Dell or HP. Microsoft had enough power thanks to Office to force out all the competition aside from Apple, but Google does not have any killer app they can leverage into a monopoly (no, search isn't, because there is Yahoo/Bing) Microsoft could not have built their desktop monopoly if the web had existed back then, because being Windows compatible wouldn't have mattered if you could run web apps like Google Office.
Re: @Daniel B 06:21
> Microsoft could not have built their desktop monopoly if the web had existed back then, because being Windows compatible wouldn't have mattered if you could run web apps like Google Office
The web did exist 'back then', perhaps you missed it. When Windows 3.1 was grabbing market share due to AARD code and illegal 'per box pricing' Netscape was inventing web apps using Java and Javascript. MS had to buy in IE from SpyGlass (and forgot to pay them) in order to cut off Netscape's air supply and strangle 'the cloud' before it could establish itself. It has taken a couple of decades for the natural order to recover from MS's holding back the industry.
> go their own way with Tizen to better monetize
I am not sure how you think they will do this: their own app store to sell Tizen apps ? their own search/maps/earth/docs/etc which they advertise on or charge for ? renting their customers out to Bing ?
It seems that to be successful Tizen should be able to run existing web apps and Android apps like BB10 will do. It would also be useful if Tizen could run GTK+ and Qt so that it can run Gnumeric, Abiword and even OpenOffice like Nokia's N800/N900 can.
Re: Dell marketed and sold linux
Sold, perhaps, if you were determined enough.
Marketed? no. It was a dirty secret, not offered with any enthusiasm.
@Richard
Yes, I know the web existed back then, but you're on crack if you think it would have been useful for running remote apps in 1993. What existed back then was about as useless as WAP was (even Apple haters should thank Apple for driving a stake in WAP's heart) with simple menus that worked like operating a mainframe decades ago. It wasn't until IE6 (yeah, as much I hate to admit that) that the proper interfaces existed for making anything like a real web app. Previously all attempts were based on Java, and well, we know how well that worked. It is only 5 or 6 years ago with "Web 2.0" hype that it became something web developers could expect cross platform browsers to handle.
As for Tizen, why wouldn't Samsung set up their own app store? Amazon did. They can make it compatible with Android apps, at least at first, and with them owning half the Android market every major Android app would be sold on Samsung's store within a year. That's immediate revenue going to Samsung rather than Google. Then they can enhance Tizen in ways that aren't compatible with Android apps, but with Samsung owning half the market, developers will develop not just for iOS and Android, but iOS, Android and Tizen. Sorry, WP8 and BB10, there won't be room for you. And what's wrong with renting their customers out to Bing? Do you really think that the average person cares who serves them their search results? If they do, they could always download a Google Search app - given that Google did one for Apple, surely they'd do one for Tizen.
Re: @Richard
> It wasn't until IE6 ...
Netscape supported Java and Javascript for remote apps in 1995 (prior to Win95 release). IE6 was, what, 6 years later.
I refer you to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_applet
"""Java applets were introduced in the first version of the Java language in 1995,"""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
""" Netscape considered their client-server solution as a distributed OS, running a portable version of Sun Microsystems' Java."""
It was Netscape's starting to implement 'the network is the computer' that spurred MS to get IE and to kill Netscape.
"""Developed under the name Mocha, LiveScript was the official name for the language when it first shipped in beta releases of Netscape Navigator 2.0 in September 1995, but it was renamed JavaScript[9] when it was deployed in the Netscape browser version 2.0B3.[10]"""
Re: @Eadon
"Google probably realizes the Chrome desktop needs a lot of polishing before they want to throw this out in front of people"
You can't polish a turd.
Re: Surface Pro will also fail
Rubbish. Nobody apart from a few thousand geeks give a toss about "openness" - it's a meaningless term anyway. Ask one million tablet owners what it means and I'm willing to bet that only a handful can come up with any sort of answer.
I'll tell you exactly how Android is taking market share away from Apple. People buy the best they can afford (or think they can get away with hence droid sales to date), so most people have bought Apple, and now that droid devices are beginning to come close to what Apple offer they are starting to buy those, hence rising sales. This will continue until Apple trounce them yet again with the thing they have been working on for the last 2 years while Samsung et al were playing catch-up. It's likely not going to be a tablet though,making this entire market moot.
I realise that reality is an inconvenvenient truth for most people but you really should make an effort to get used to it.
HP? no-one cares about HP any more than they remember what IBM once were.
Re: You can't polish a turd.
How apt on a Surface/WinRt thread!
Re: @Eadon - openness selling Android
I work with data warehouses and since microsoft isn't shipping power view without sharepoint it's a bit of a mess. Really would like to know about 3D modelling in Linux and if they are web based animated graphs?
Re: Surface Pro will also fail
Winner of the down vote contest! Just goes to prove the truth hurts.
Re: Surface Pro will also fail
>>RT does nothing that and android or is device can't
Well, it has much better handwriting recognition, for example.
Re: SO IT'S OFFICIAL
No, its a little too ZUNE to be sure of that...
Re: @Eadon - openness selling Android
Do you realize that while the kernel is Linux, the libc is BSD-derived? Android isn't really Linux-based, at all.
Re: @Eadon - openness selling Android
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
Shows that Obj C isn't that far off from Java.
Re: Surface Pro will also fail
Killed the iPhone? Were you in a coma when the 5 came out? Everybody medium was wall to wall with free advertising for Apple.
Android and the iPhone have different business models. The iPhone is all about profit, otherwise they'd licence iOS to other manufacturers. It's like saying Ford are killing Mercedes after looking at nothing other than the market share figures.
Re: Surface Pro will also fail
I also have a Surface tablet and disagree with most of your assessment. I've written up what I thought of it in detail here: http://decadecity.net/blog/2013/01/22/hands-on-with-the-microsoft-surface-rt/
here comes the onslaught
I thought a comment on slashdot recently specifically on the topic of the dual UIs was excellent.
they cited this microsoft paper
http://www.sigchi.org/chi96/proceedings/desbrief/Sullivan/kds_txt.htm
"The Windows® 95 User Interface: A Case Study in Usability Engineering"
"Separate UI for Beginners
The first major design direction we investigated was a separate UI ("shell") for beginning users. The design was quickly mocked up in Visual Basic and tested in the usability lab. (See Figure 4.) While the design tested well, because it successfully constrained user actions to a very small set, we quickly began to see the limitations as more users were tested:
If just one function a user needed was not supported in the beginner shell, s/he would have to abandon it (at least temporarily).
Assuming that most users would gain experience and want to leave the beginner shell eventually, the learning they had done would not necessarily transfer well to the standard shell.
The beginner shell was not at all like the programs users would run (word processors, spreadsheets, etc.). As a result, users had to learn two ways of interacting with the computer, which was confusing. "
"For these reasons and others, we abandoned the idea. Importantly, because we used a prototyping tool and tested immediately in the usability lab, we still had plenty of time to investigate other directions. "
---
Those same conclusions should of been drawn with the new Metro/Modern/whatever UI. MS was too impatient, they should of taken the time to do it right, don't give two different UIs that you have to switch between. Especially if they are not compatible with each other (e.g. doing certain things can only be accomplished in one or the other, and I have read things like IE is separate in each, not having any knowledge of the other as well).
For that reason alone Windows 8 should of never had been allowed out of the gate. Forcing the same metro UI on windows server 2012 (which they do if I recall right - one of my friends who is a MS employee was complaining about it recently) is even more absurd.
Also it appears that the low end Win8 laptops are getting terrible reviews and high return rates (too slow, bad quality, etc). I imagine the cost of the touch technology just compromises the rest of the system too much for a low end box.
Re: here comes the onslaught
Down vote for repeated "should of", I'm afraid.
Re: here comes the onslaught
Logically does that mean a down vote for you for repeating it too?
Re: here comes the onslaught
nope, he only mentioned it once ;)
Re: here comes the onslaught
Hoist the Grammar Nazi flag, for Great Justice!
Bombastic wagnerian music to a song rich in germanic gutturals begins to play in the background
Re: here comes the onslaught
Ahhh, Control Panel defaults to thicky mode and offers "Switch to Classic Mode" for the less thick.
Re: here comes the onslaught
"Should of" used to be wrong. But now it is used so often that it has become the correct form. Fluid language you see. The modal verb plus "have" plus past participle has had its day.
But I might have been called old fashioned, once.
Re: Hoist the Grammar Nazi flag, for Great Justice!
Funny gag, Mr Monsters, but actually that appalling grammar actually hurt my eyeballs, even as I agreed with the sentiments expressed by the poster. Not understanding the difference between 'of' and 'have' is pretty bleedin' fundamental in English, and it's actually not all that Hitlerian to expect the technically literate to also be - er - literate... or something.
Re: here comes the onslaught
" "Should of" used to be wrong. But now it is used so often that it has become the correct form. "
No it hasn't!! It makes no bloody sense at all! For example, compare the following statements:
- I should have gone to the shop.
- I should of gone to the shop.
This only *sounds* ok because of the homophone with the correct abbreviation 'should've'.
Now compare that with how blatantly stupid this sounds:
- I have gone to the shop.
- I of gone to the shop.
And THAT is why "should of" is, has always been, and will always be WRONG.
The killer feature for Windows RT is any app you like via Remote Desktop with Remote FX.
Dunno why everyone seems to ignore this. (It works like native).
Not sure why people slagging off the surface ignore this.
I can run any Windows program I like from my Android tablet via one of a number of available remote desktop apps. This option is by no means restricted to Windows RT.
are they "ignoring" it, or are they just processing the idea and not seeing the value in a $600 hardware remote to another PC ?
if you think "$600 remote control for your PC" is the best "killer app" for Microsoft's entire reason to release a new OS, you both have issues.
Linux nerd downvoters
Didn't know that, but I've never seen it pitched as a VDI solution. And sod the trigger-happy downvoters, they've clearly never used RemoteFX and just like Ms bashing.
With the Microsoft remote control, the desktop running Windows 8 behaves as if it's running locally on the tablet (swipe from right edge for charms, swipe from left to change apps, sound plays via local speakers). Which app do you use in the Android marketplace to do it? I haven't seen the same functionality with my Android tablets, but I may need to try a different app.
Re: Linux nerd downvoters
You clearly have not used HP thin clients + altiris as well as many other Linux based VDI solutions out there. In fact, on the "terminal" side Linux running a Citrix client is probably a majority, not minority of VDI.
Every tablet out there has some sort of remote desktop client. Yeah, it's not the full-bore microsoft/citrix Remote Desktop, and again there might be a niche there, but if you're a home user, the last thing you need to do is spend big bucks on your tablet to remote across the house to your PC. If you need to do it (and I admit I do it fairly often with my ipad), just run a VNC server.
Why?
Duh!
Not everyone is connected to the Internet every minute of the day everwhere they go.(or wants to be for that matter)
Sometimes that can't afford the data plans that would allow it even if they wanted it or they had the connectivity to allow it.
solve this and then RDP to some server/cloud somewhere might have a chance for those who don't have a life.
You could try getting out of your Mom's basement from time to time and experience the real world out there.
Rant over, I'm off to get a plane to Novosibirsk. Please tell me how I can get data access to my servers from there at anything less than $5 per megabyte?
Not with RemoteFX rendering the 3D, HD video streams etc of the remote machine you can't. For a VDI solution where users need Direct3D whizzyness (and in the real non-linux world they do) it is hard to beat
Not it isn't
Chap at work has a Sony tablet, he logged in from home to control his Win 7 PC with it.
He bought the Sony after trying a lot including Apple products
Stuff swiping
I have seen the Android Net Support, he was able to do anything he liked including running our own software
Re: Linux nerd downvoters
I have used HP RGS, and it sucks loads.....Just try getting RGS to support a decent USB camera / Microphone for instance...
None of them support Remote FX. No Android client has licensed it.
Remote FX
Remote FX may be cool and better than anything you can do to remotely operate a PC with an iPad or Android, but is it worth $600? Why not get a $600 laptop and operate a local PC?
The market for people who want to operate their PC remotely frequently enough to spend $600 on it is not going to be all that large. The market for such people who need to have it work exactly as if it was local using Remote FX, rather than a generic remote desktop type client as on iOS/Android is even smaller.
Re: Which app do you use in the Android marketplace to do it?
I was playing Borderlands 2 today on my Nexus 7, running on my PC but streaming to the tablet over WiFi with SplashTop (Google Play free or paid). It's not perfect (have to muck with the aspect ratio some) but by god is it fun! Incidentally my XBox 360 controller was plugged into the usb port of the tablet, btw, not into the PC.
I'm not sure if you were trying to be sarcastic or not, so I'm hoping you were simply unaware of solutions such as this.
@RonWheeler
"For a VDI solution where users need Direct3D whizzyness (and in the real non-linux world they do) it is hard to beat"
Direct3D for work? Where do you work, id Software? If anything, *disabling* whizzyness is probably an intended course of action in enterprise PCs/clients as to avoid employees doing LAN parties on company hardware.
> The killer feature for Windows RT is any app you like via Remote Desktop with Remote FX.
The 'killer feature' on my vacuum cleaner is that it has a plug to connect it to the electricity.
Shill fail.
A solution in search of a problem...
What solution that needs Direct3D?
There really isn't one. At that point, you are far better off using local hardware. Use something just slightly less lame and eliminate the need for some noisy monster in another room that's being forced itself to do things in the least effective way possible.
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