back to article Surface RT: A plan worthy of the South Park Underpants Gnomes

Business strategy at Sun Microsystems became a joke long before even the prospect of a mercy acquisition by Oracle was in the air. If I’d heard one Sun executive try to convince me that hardware-dominated Sun was going to become a successful software and services player, I’d heard them all say it. Tired of hearing the same …

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      1. danbi
        WTF?

        Re: If Surface ran a version of Windows 7

        No, it would not.

        Remember, before the Surface there were lots of tablets running Windows 7. Not very successful, except in the small niche they filled (mostly for fanboys).

        As for Office, nobody wants it. At least, nobody wants "full Office" (whatever that pipe dream means) in a portable mobile device, because using portable mobile device and what "full Office" is used for are incompatible. Including any version of Office with Surface RT and claiming this is a "deal" was another mistake Microsoft made.

        Surface RT should not have had a "desktop" at all.

    1. bazza Silver badge

      @Charlie Clark,

      "The hardware wasn't the problem, the artificial restriction on using existing apps was. Some kind of support for x86 binaries would have made the whole thing a very different value proposition..."

      I'm not sure that x86 binaries were ever going to run in an emulation layer on ARM. The diminutive CPU from Cambridge isn't really going to do a good job of running x86 code very quickly.

      I know Apple emulated 68000 on PowerPC, and emulated PowerPC on Intel. But in those cases the CPU change was to one with a lot more grunt, so the emulation (compared to the original native execution at least) had reasonable performance. The same can't be said of x86 emulated on ARM. Also everyone's being using ARMs in battery powered devices, and emulation ain't exactly kind to battery life.

      However, I don't think any of that really mattered, or matters today. Microsoft showed a full fat version of Windows running on ARM with a compiled-for-ARM version of Office printing quite happily to an Epson printer (see this PC Pro magazine article). The implication is that MS did the minimum of hardware abstraction, compiled up the whole Windows, Office and driver stack using an ARM compiler, switched it on an surprise surprise it worked. The same would have gone for existing apps - just recompile the source code, do some lightweight testing, ship it (at least MS would have been able to have made it that slick and quick).

      What confuses me is how on earth did MS go from that very promising start to the mess they're in now? If only they'd done a tablet that was primarily a full desktop PC (just add keyboard/mouse) with a tablet-interface-when-mobile mode it could easily have been very desirable.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        @bazza

        The implication is that MS did the minimum of hardware abstraction, compiled up the whole Windows, Office and driver stack using an ARM compiler, switched it on an surprise surprise it worked.

        Really? C'mon we're not that naive. If that really was the case then they wouldn't have disabled macros and all the existing application developers would have given it a go. As Gavin points out in the article the trade press was selectively seeded in the run up to the launch.

        You don't need a lot of grunt for an awful lot of applications including word processing. Software emulation on an ARM might be pushing it a bit but it would have been easy enough to license Transmeta's code to do it in hardware (and use less power in doing so). The reason they didn't do this was not to piss Intel off: it was Intel who really pulled the plug on Windows on ARM.

    2. danbi

      Re: Some kind of support for x86 binaries would have

      No, it would not.

      No x86 software is/was written that can be properly operated by touch. Whether the old code could be executed on the device is pretty much irrelevant.

      Microsoft should have created a new platform, without the "Windows" name and eventually kept APIs and technologies they developed over the years and their developers understand --- and start from the beginning. That could have took few years to reach some kind of parity with iOS/Android/Others and the new Microsoft platform would never dominate, but Microsoft would have had a pie in this new exiting mobile world... as opposed to today, when they got nothing, but negative feelings from users.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Charlie Clark

      Some kind of support for x86 binaries...

      The best way to do that would be to use an Intel processor. Since they decided not to do that, the second best way would be to translate the x86 opcodes into ARM equivalents. This would be very difficult, and the result would be slower than if the code were executing on an x86 chip. The third best result (and easiest to implement) would be to interpret the x86 opcodes at runtime. That would make x86 binaries run between one and two orders of magnitude slower than they would on Intel hardware.

      I am not aware of anyone successfully managing the second option. There is probably a market for it (I can think of one potential customer), so some enterprising reader might like to spend a few years working on it.

      1. Brangdon

        Re: x86 binaries...

        It would have helped if they'd not locked down the desktop. I work for a software house. If we could have got our apps running on RT by just by recompiling them for ARM, we'd have seriously considered it. If it meant tweaking the UI to make it more finger-friendly, that might have been worth the effort too. Porting to a whole new API is much more work, and correspondingly harder to justify.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Charlie Clark

        "the second best way would be to translate the x86 opcodes into ARM equivalents. This would be very difficult"

        What makes you say that? E.g. Something very similar was done many years ago (1990s) by DEC with their FX!32 package which took Win32/x86 binaries and translated them on the fly into Win32/Alpha binaries as the program runs (caching the translations for later), by translating x86 code sequences into code sequences for DEC's Alpha processor.

        This technology may not be for the faint hearted, but it's not new, and it can work.

        You may apparently also be unaware that Intel's Android phones have an ARM to Intel translator/emulator of some kind for apps which use native ARM code rather than pseudo-Java.

        "and the result would be slower than if the code were executing on an x86 chip."

        Don't you think it might depend on which x86 is being compared with which non-x86?

        Don't you think it might depend on what you were planning to do on the system? You might not want to use translation/emulation for a compute-intensive piece of code, but for something that spent 99% of its time idly waiting for events (like a lot of systems do a lot of the time) , you'd hardly notice.

        "The third best result (and easiest to implement) would be to interpret the x86 opcodes at runtime. That would make x86 binaries run between one and two orders of magnitude slower than they would on Intel hardware."

        "Easiest" would be instruction by instruction emulation, which would indeed not be quick.

        Relative performance would depend on which x86 is being compared with which non-x86.

        A faster but slightly more difficult approach might use something like the "dynamic translation" found in e.g. QEMU which is sort of a half way house between a simple emulator and a complex translator such as FX!32.

        It's far from impossible. Is it sensible from a support point of view? Different question altogether. Intel seem to think the ARM->Intel translation is supportable for phones.

  1. A J

    I think the real mistake was Microsoft believing that they could come in to the market as a new player, but with products launching at Apple prices.

    Google jammed its foot in the door by enabling low-priced alternatives to the luxurious iPad. Undercutting on price is an effective way to enter a market as a new player and compete with the established players.

    Microsoft's approach was one of sheer arrogance. We'll go in with premium products at a premium price with hardly any apps available. Yeah, that sounds like a plan!

    Gavin Clarke makes a fair point in calling out Microsoft management on this. Someone should have seen this coming from the start. It is basic stuff.

    1. Paul Shirley

      The real problem is an industry totally bought into the 'we need a 3rd ecosystem' thinking. The carriers may need it, the wannabees may need to believe it, we all agree it's good for generating innovation.

      The public don't care.

      Launch a half finished product, with no ecosystem and no obvious customer advantage *now*, the public don't care and don't buy it *now*.

      Tell them long and hard how magical the future will be for your product and they don't care, they'll buy what works now and wait to see if you deliver the pet unicorns and pixie dust later.

      But misrepresent what your product is and does, they damn well will care if they fall for the lie. If the lie just confuses them, they'll buy something else. Win RT isn't Windows as the public understand it but that's not the impression MS put out.

      Microsoft created a product based on the needs of everyone but the people expected to buy it. And so, like WP7 before it, the public realised they didn't need it.

      1. Belardi

        I think it comes down to this... very few people actually LOVE Microsoft products. After the death of Amiga... you either had to buy a $$$ Mac or a low-cost PC. For Software = PC.

        People love their Amigas, Macintoshes, Apple II, Commodore64s. The difference between an HP, Dell, Gateway, etc... is nothing. Just the amount of pre-installed shit and the name on the generic black box.

        I never loved Windows. Win7 is the best they have made... which I like very much, nothing more.

        LinuxMint is a joy to use compared to Win8.

        Microsoft has been about mass-compatibility, thats it. With the flexibility of the browser... we don't need them anymore.

    2. Robert E A Harvey
      FAIL

      Wilfully stupid

      >believing that they could come in to the market as a new player,

      > but with products launching at Apple prices.

      Doing that at all was, as you say, Arrogant.

      Doing it after watching HP go face-first with the WebOs products - making exactly the same mistake - is beyond Arrogant, it is Wilful Stupidity.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The lesson is, never try

    I had the opportunity to take advantage of the RT TechEd offer and have been playing with the device for the past month - I am very surprised how solid the device is and it also has 80% of the iPad apps I use regularly: Kindle, browser (no Chrome tho), Netflix, Angry Birds,etc.

    I agree that MS was lacking a strategy in connecting the dots between customer/market needs and the final product. Maybe their plan was all along just to skip the initial (long) phase of research and instead flood the market with discounted v1 products to use that as market research for v2? :)

    At least they tried - kudos for that! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhjGoaKf52s

    1. keithpeter Silver badge
      Childcatcher

      Re: The lesson is, never try

      Have you used the RDP client?

      "Where the Surface RT absolutely shined was a thin client, Remote Desktop machine. " From a review by someone who has used the device for a bit.

      Reason I'm asking: class set of tablets in a college where we have good wifi and solid rdp available for full desktop. Tablets useful for web surfing/light data logging. Battery life long. Cover has keyboard. See where I'm going?

      RT overall - no OEM buy in so I imagine probably doomed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The lesson is, never try

        Well, assuming you don't pay VAT, have a cheap service agreement and volume discounts you have a point - but to the ordinary end user £420 with keyboard and 2 year warranty on a computer which has "failure" written all over it is very steep indeed. My BlackBerry Playbook 64G cost all of £129, and that is roughly how much I would pay for a Surface. It would certainly need to be cheaper than a Nexus 7.

        It's like houses - you can pimp your house all you like but in general you won't ever get more for it than a maximum determined by the average price in that street*. The market has a price people will pay to acquire a product in a fire sale, and £420 is not it.

        *(OK not here in the sticks where ex-council semis occupy the same street as £1 million near-mansions, but you know what I mean).

      2. Robert E A Harvey
        Headmaster

        credibility

        I am not going to take advice from someone who can write " absolutely shined".

        1. Frumious Bandersnatch

          Re: credibility

          ... unless he tells you that he shined something, of course ... like maybe a jeweller or window cleaner?

      3. danbi

        Re: Where the Surface RT absolutely shined was a thin client

        Probably, that should rephrased as "where Surface RT ever made sense was a thin client". However, they are priced out of this market. A Chromebook is much better choice for that purpose and more ergonomically fit.

        Otherwise... a thin client with built-in Office? :)

  3. dmcq

    Should have viewed it as a toe dip

    I must admit I'm rather surprised that Microsoft made so many of them. It should have viewed the RT as a first step in checking what is really needed and to start building up the ecosystem, in fact that's what I thought they were doing with the price. You can't sell something like that easily if even email has problems. They seem to have thought thought they had a mainstream product already done. I'd be sorry if they abandon it because of this experience, I guess it would make their software able to run on things like IBM Power or MIPS as well not just ARM and who can say who will really be still standing after the server wars end with most of the Linux software made architecture neutral?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Should have viewed it as a toe dip

      A billion dollar toe-dip?

      Thanks, I needed a laugh this morning.

  4. Peter 39

    various problems

    To me, the main problem facing Surface RT was the lack of apps. Apple was lucky to avoid this fate and it was due to iPhone, which had been available for several years when iPad was released. Lots of apps had been created in that time.

    The vast majority of those apps would run on iPad, even though they weren't optimized for it, so iPad was a useful device right at the start. Imagine the debacle if iPad had been introduced first, with just a few apps.

    Fortunately you don't have to - Surface RT shows exactly what it would have been.

    1. h3

      Re: various problems

      Not sure.

      Companies seem to have this viewpoint that because something works for one company then it will work for them. (When looking at it in any sane way you can see that there is one company that can do that for a specific reason).

      I think ipad's would have sold even if the apps were totally incompatible because it is Apple.

      EA can do loads of stuff other companies cannot get away with because of the situation they have with the sports rights.

      Sky can do stuff in TV other people cannot because of its position.

      Microsoft has that sort of power in some markets but not in others but they don't seem to realise that.

  5. A Butler

    Lack of Apps on RT not a serious issue - Flash works in browser

    In the Surface RT the lack of apps not such an issue because flash sites work perfectly in the browser unlike the iPad. Remember is comes pre loaded with Office 2013 up to power point with Outlook on the way in windows 8.1.

    That covers a lot of the app requirement issues.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Lack of Apps on RT not a serious issue - Flash works in browser

      That covers a lot of the app requirement issues.

      It obviously doesn't which is why nobody's buying them and why Microsoft is writing them off. There are an awful lot more apps in the world than MS Office and Flash games.

      Every third party application developer thought "fuck you very much Microsoft - both I and am my customers have to do work in order to be able use this product."

    2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Lack of Apps on RT not a serious issue - Flash works in browser

      Apple has by general agreement done the IT world a big favor by NOT supporting flash on the iPad. **

      If you think that having flash on the Surface is a USP then perhaps you might like to study the vast numbers of buggy whip makers that are still in existence?

      ** This despite what many people may think of Apple as a whole.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Gimp

        Re: Lack of Apps on RT not a serious issue - Flash works in browser

        They're all in the 'specialty adult products' category.

  6. Steve Knox

    Microsoft failed to see their competition.

    Apple had no real competition with the iPad because it was successfully marketed as a new gadget rather than a replacement for a laptop or a competitor to an existing product. They continue to succeed because they compete with the market leader (their previous version product.)

    Android tablets do okay because they recognize their competition is the iPad (and each other) and so compete with those both on features and price.

    But Surface RT entered a different kind of market. Sure it had Android and iPad to compete against, but there was also a third competitor to beat: Microsoft's own PC ecosystem. I'm currently typing this on a Windows 8 laptop that cost $500 -- less than Surface RT did when it came out -- and I could have bought one that would still beat an RT tablet for $300 -- less than Surface RT costs now -- but I wanted a little more power. Microsoft's Surface tablets are simply not able to compete with Windows laptops on features or price.

    (Other Windows tablet manufacturers have seen this problem,and tried to make less expensive tablets or ones with special features, with middling success. But many of them make laptops and Android tablets as well, so they have no real drive to help Microsoft succeed in tablets in particular.)

    Microsoft couldn't compete with their own ecosystem, yet they priced their new, untested (by the market) product which has little in the way of feature differentiation, at the top of the market, effectively refusing to compete with rivals' tablets on features or price.

  7. silent_count

    I think I've spotted..

    The problem. They've have become so focussed on what Microsoft would like Microsoft's products to do for Microsoft, they've completely lost sight of some unimportant, annoying people. Those people. You know... um...

    XBox - We'll have it phone home once a day so WE can be assured they're not running unauthorised software and give US some handy usage data too. Oh and we'll kill the second-hand games market so people will all have to buy new games, which will make the platform more attractive to developers, who will write games for US rather than Sony.

    Win8 - We'll force them to get used to OUR tablet interface so when it comes time to buy a tablet...

    Surface RT - We've got this secure boot things so people can't use that evil Linux stuff or the accursed Android, and it won't run any existing Windows software so they'll have to spend money in OUR app store. Oh! We'll use ARM so it's cheap for US to make but we'll make the tablet expensive as all hell so WE get a decent wad of cash out of every sale.

    ... now what were those pesky people called? Them! The ones who clog up our helpdesk with calls.

    1. Tridac

      Re: I think I've spotted..

      I think it was mainly the price. As someone else pointed out, entering a market as a newby at prices of the high end was most likely not a good idea. From the reviews i've read, not a bad product at all. As for the secure boot (EFI ?) and Arm processor, nothng that other vendors aren't doing. Arm was chosen most likely because it is becoming more widespead in trad x86 areas, is very good on power and anyway, Intel don't have anything with that kind of power envelope at all. Arm is also the most widely used cpu range in history, in just about every mobile phone, including all the Apple products, all the slabs that run Android, good development tools etc, so what's the problerm ?. Compared with the Ipad, which is completely locked down and doesn't seem to connect to anything interesting, unless approved by Apple, the uSoft product could be a valid alternative and will have more connectivity right out of the box, secure boot or not.

      My lad won and Ipad in a work raffle, has barely used it and apart from web browsing, what use is it at all ?. More style over substance, underwhelming, overpriced product from Apple, was the gut reaction from everyone here...

    2. Captain DaFt

      Re: I think I've spotted..

      Consumers! That's what they're called, and it's their job to buy what we put out!

      Lazy bastards, they're wrecking us! Get HR on the phone, tell them to fire those lazy SOBs!

    3. Jes.e

      Re: I think I've spotted..

      Agree in so many ways.

      The main problem is that a long time ago I realized that Microsoft's err.. customers weren't who I always thought they were.

      Bill Gates originally said that he wanted a Microsoft OS on every desktop; and their stated goals with all their software updates was to boost their customers *productivity* - generally demonstrated with measurements showing why a given process is faster in the newer version.

      Productivity. That doesn't sound like a persons interest doesn't it? Apple wants to enhance your *experience* on the other hand.

      They show this by listing 200 new features in each OS release..

      Microsoft's err.. customers are businesses, not individuals.

      In fact this fully explains why their software is so badly designed and takes massive amounts of expert help in order to keep the boxs running.

      Large business, have the infrastructure to do this. My mother doesn't stand a chance.

      Lastly I would like to leave you with the notion that there are only two businesses that call their customers this something else.

      What was that word??

      1. beep54
        Joke

        Re: I think I've spotted..

        "What was that word??" John's, perhaps?

      2. Blank Reg

        Re: I think I've spotted..

        Actually I do care about productivity, it's the main reason I hate using my Mac as the os seems designed to ensure you work as slowly as possible.

      3. Goat Jam
        Windows

        Re: I think I've spotted..

        Microsoft's err.. customers are businesses, not individuals.

        For many years, Microsoft's customers were PC OEM's and not end users.

        Now MS are trying to follow apple and reverse that policy but they are finding that it is not as easy as they thought it would be.

        They created a perception amongst punters that Microsoft Windows = boring business stuff which is going to be a hard thing to reverse.

        1. danbi

          Re: I think I've spotted..

          "They created a perception amongst punters that Microsoft Windows = boring business stuff which is going to be a hard thing to reverse."

          Perhaps this explains the Microsoft Surface ads with those dancing people who click in, click in, click in...

          Dancers in an office?

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I think I've spotted..

        "In fact this fully explains why their software is so badly designed and takes massive amounts of expert help in order to keep the boxs running."

        Erm - you know the TCO with Microsoft stuff is lower than any other competitor for the vast majority of server side products? Hence why virtually every corporate uses them...

    4. Robert E A Harvey

      Re: I think I've spotted..

      >The ones who clog up our helpdesk with calls.

      Helpdesk? What helpdesk is that, then?

      1. danbi

        Re: I think I've spotted..

        "Helpdesk? What helpdesk is that, then?"

        Virtual. Calls terminate somewhere in India.

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Headmaster

    But... This is unfair to the gnomes!

    A more charitable interpretation of what the gnomes are about can be found at Cartman Shrugged: The Invisible Gnomes and the Invisible Hand in South Park. They are mysterious, vaguely menacing, and may not know what they are doing. With 20/20 hindsight their antics are laughable, but they could have been a contender...

    But what about the gnomes, who, after all, give the episode its title? Where do they fit in? I never could understand how the subplot in "Gnomes" relates to the main plot until I was lecturing on the episode at a summer institute, and my colleague Michael Valdez Moses made a breakthrough that allowed us to put together the episode as a whole. In the subplot, Tweek complains to anybody who will listen that every night at 3:30 a.m. gnomes sneak into his bedroom and steal his underpants. Nobody else can see this remarkable phenomenon happening, not even when the other boys stay up late with Tweek to observe it, not even when the emboldened gnomes start robbing underpants in broad daylight in the mayor’s office. We know two things about these strange beings: (1) they are gnomes; (2) they are normally invisible. Both facts point in the direction of capitalism. As in the phrase "gnomes of Zurich," which refers to bankers, gnomes are often associated with the world of finance. In the first opera of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the gnome Alberich serves as a symbol of the capitalist exploiter—and he forges the Tarnhelm, a cap of invisibility. The idea of invisibility calls to mind Adam Smith’s famous notion of the "invisible hand" that guides the free market....

    Even the gnomes do not understand what they themselves are doing. Perhaps South Park is suggesting that the real problem is that people in business themselves lack the economic knowledge that they would need to explain their activity to the public and justify their profits. When the boys ask the gnomes to tell them about corporations, all they can offer is this enigmatic diagram of the stages of their business:

    Phase 1: Collect Underpants

    Phase 2: ?

    Phase 3: Profit

    This chart encapsulates the economic illiteracy of the American public. They can see no connection between the activities entrepreneurs undertake and the profits they make. What those in business actually contribute to the economy is a big question mark to them. The fact that entrepreneurs are rewarded for taking risks, correctly anticipating consumer demand, and efficiently financing, organizing, and managing production is lost on most people. They would rather complain about the obscene profits of corporations and condemn their power in the marketplace.

    1. AlgernonFlowers4
      WTF?

      Re: But... This is unfair to the gnomes!

      Kemo sabay, the white man speak with forked tongue!

      Just how much do you want to borrow asked the loan arranger?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But... This is unfair to the gnomes!

      [Quotes are not written by DestroyAllMonsters]

      "The fact that entrepreneurs are rewarded for taking risks, correctly anticipating consumer demand, and efficiently financing, organizing, and managing production is lost on most people."

      Equally, the fact that modern Western kleptocratic corporatism frequently "succeeds" by privatising the profits and socialising the losses (US motor industry, UK rail industry, global casino banking, etc) appears to have been lost on the author of the quotation. Most economists appear to be unable to do sums or logic, but are happy to base their mantras and "wisdom" on little more than pure faith.

      "This chart encapsulates the economic illiteracy of the American public ... They would rather complain about the obscene profits of corporations and condemn their power in the marketplace."

      See above. Plus, the economic illiteracy of most classical economists allowed them to not predict the Western Financial Crash of 2008 (ongoing).

      (1) Collect money (from muppets, as some of Goldman Sachs allegedly called them)

      (2) Make products sufficiently obscure that it's easy to deceive regulators and investors most of the time. But beware, your fellow bankers may do the same to you one day.

      (3) Profit (or, occasionally, global crash(es) followed by massive ongoing taxpayer-funded bailout(s) and associated austerity)

      1. Alan W. Rateliff, II
        Paris Hilton

        Re: But... This is unfair to the gnomes!

        All of your points are exactly what happens when government gets involved in private industry. The government, which has the natural tendency to spend and an addiction to the same, becomes unduly invested in private industry success that it cannot tolerate failure. Private industry tolerates failure in and of itself, which is the system upon which economists rely: when the "big fish" dies, smaller fish consume the remains.

        Goldman Sachs, and others, were permitted to become brazen because the greedy ones knew that not only were their actions guaranteed, and in some cases mandated, by the government, or rather the tax payers, the resultant failures would be covered and they would receive government position appointments. With government interference and urging, bigger risks than usual are taken and the loses amplified.

        Bush the Lesser screwed up royally one two counts: first when he instituted TARP, and second when he illegally used TARP funds for the first recent automotive industry bail-outs. TARP was pushed as a necessity because the housing bubble and bust was largely caused by government-mandated activities dating back to the 70s and reinforced in the 90s. The recent auto bailouts are actually repeats in history which should never have occurred.

        The automotive industry was in absolutely trouble in decades past due to bad management and business practices. The first of the bail-outs did nothing to fix the problems, but rather reinforced that the greedy and the stupid could continue to run things without change because they had a rich uncle. The cycle repeated itself and though Obama stated just a year ago that we successfully refused to let Detroit go bankrupt, all the bail-outs have done is to prolong the inevitable and unescapable reality playing itself out today.

        Look at the impetus for the Federal Reserve. Government was bankrupting itself while industry leaders had been able to amass great wealth and wound up having to save government from itself. Any time government gets involved with private industry beyond a minor regulatory capacity (for instance, what may be necessary to keep the greedy in-line, punish gross negligence, etc.) private industry and the economy as a whole suffers.

        Stop the bail-outs, let private industry correct itself, and the economy recovers. If anything is really "too big to fail" then it will fix itself or resurrect in a new more capable and stable form. Short-circuit that process and we suffer much more deeply for much longer periods of time.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Windows RT

    I have a surface with a type cover and I use it all the time. I've had it since launch, and it's made me discard my ipad. It IS a great product. There's a load of people that haven't used one for any length of time who say it's rubbish. If you keep harping on about running legacy apps, you're missing the point. I like the fact that I can plug in most devices into the full size USB port and it recognises them with no need for drivers. Most computers are used for Email and Internet and some word processing / spreadsheets. Maybe even the odd game. The Surface does all that. People also need to get over Windows 8 - used it since the beginning, works great, and I like it. People don't like change, but change comes all the same, don't all be a load of King Cnuts.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows RT

      "I like the fact that I can plug in most devices into the full size USB port and it recognises them with no need for drivers"

      So, it's actually running Linux ?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Windows RT

        "So, it's actually running Linux ?"

        No - it's a secure OS.

        He means that it supports over 430 million USB devices out of the box....unlike Android or IOS.

        1. Kunari

          Re: Windows RT

          My ASUS Transformer tablet supports USB devices just fine.

        2. Goat Jam
          FAIL

          Re: Windows RT

          Linux supports far more devices "out of the box" than Windows does.

          The fact that every device is supplied with Windows drivers on a disk in the box is not the same thing.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Windows RT

            "every device is supplied with Windows drivers on a disk [conceptually] in the box" [1]

            Does that also apply if you're using the ARM version of Windows - does the device vendor (or MS) have to build and distribute an ARM-specific version of their driver?

            Or do ARM drivers only exist if the vendor or MS choose to make them exist? What motivates vendors or MS to do that?

            [1] Mostly true - historically there have occasionally been version/device combinations where MS and/or device vendors, perhaps understandably, haven't bothered to provide compatible drivers.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Windows RT

            "Linux supports far more devices "out of the box" than Windows does"

            Lol, no it doesn't. Windows has by far the most extensive driver support of any OS. And Linux drivers are often 3rd party written hacks with no support and numerous bugs / missing features.

            The Windows driver disk included with hardware is usually for older versions of Windows than the current shipping version.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Windows RT

          No - it's a secure OS."

          I thought it was supposed to be running Windows !

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Windows RT

            "I thought it was supposed to be running Windows !"

            Quite - which these days is an awful lot more secure than Linux. Welcome to the 21st century....

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