...a clever strategy for building an eco system.

MS are playing a long game here, a several years long game. They can't compete with Android or iOS yet, and current apps frankly work better on Win 7, but they are betting on their dominant position to make TIFKAM the GUI people use at work, and the one they see in high street PC vendors over the next few years.

Personally I don't think it *deserves* to work, because they have put the GUI ahead of the applications (you know, the thingies most people actually use a computer for). But I fear it *may* work, due to their close, almost incestuous relationships with corporate/retail customers. Like IBM in the '70s, no-one will get fired for buying MS.

Re: Sony rated higher than Apple?

I'm guessing it's an "aspirational" rating then. No-one who has actually experienced Sony kit in the last few years could possibly rate it above toxic waste IMHO.

HP "usual scenario"

Is there any truth to the rumour that clown cars are the new executive transport there?? Certainly fits the recent management style!

Social bloatware

Good term! Tight Facebook/Twitter/whatever integration may be great if you want it, but is worse than a useless feature if you don't, or just don't want to share your FB contacts with your other social/business groups(*). 86% of the world's population don't have a FB account after all.

(*It may well be that WP8 allows easy separation of different contact groups, but it's perception as "a FB phone" will make people think otherwise.)

Re: Socialism!

So if I get too excited over so.cl I'll turn it into j. socialism??

Re: Surprise, surprise

Quite. The "new entertainment" (games, music - though that's a different market) funds the platform. For me the most useful software that doesn't come with the OS is probably Citrix receiver (which presumably makes it's cash in other ways).

Re: Really? Is that the best reference you can do?

Yes, but finding "shit to say about Apple" works on el Reg. Just look at all the commentards and voters falling over themselves to prove how superior they are just because of their choice of smartphone. This place claims to have a "vast IT Professional community". Heaven help the IT profession if the votes and comments here are in any way representative.

Re: ...the mighty sword of truth and trusty shield of British fair play...

...won't mean a damn if the US decide to extradite them (no evidence needed) then offer them a plea bargain (18 months in an open prison if you plead guilty, or 30 years in a supermax if you make us have a trial).

See, they were guilty all along!

Re: And to think they broke a nice, functional desktop interface for this.

But it's the nature of the beast. The MS business model requires users to constantly "upgrade" (am I the only one to still use keyboard shortcuts because I can dig them out of my memory before I can find what I want in the &!@#ing ribbon?) Incremental change (sometime called "improvement") just won't persuade us to buy the same things again these days, so we have to be *made* to want completely new things every few years.

The lesson for MS is that unless they change that business model, they must eventually be history. Perhaps not this time, but surely one time soon.

Re: vs. Desktop Linux and OSX

One way to tell is to track it here http://tinyurl.com/c2k2yv9 when November's figures are out. For October, the share for Win8 ("Windows NT 6.2") was 0.32%, Linux was 1.48% and OS X was 8.42%, so it's got a way to go.

Re: Aaaaagh!

Quite. Another lazy "pink it, shrink it" insult to half the planet. :-(

Re: HP = twats

HP to SEC. " We screwed up, and lost a bundle of cash from the US economy. However, we have these convenient British scapegoats - can you get the money back for us please? You can always extradite the former management and owners if that helps.

Re: Some of HP's accusations.

Alternatively, isn't it possible that HP, having realized they paid *way* over the odds for Autonomy (as was widely commented at the time) are now looking for a convenient scapegoat? A foreign scapegoat at that.

Either way, HP management don't come out of this well.

Re: BYOD Policy

Easiest way to get a P45 too.

Like it or not, BYOD is not going away, and IT departments need to realize that. I remember the same attitudes to PC's from mainframe-loving IT departments in the 80's & 90's - we should be embracing new technologies, and new ways of using technology, not just saying "no".

re: Decimation

Hang on - the article clearly says "replicas" plural, so perhaps they made enough so every tenth one was destroyed? Which of course would be more accurately "decimation" than destroying a tenth of a single...

OK, I'll get my coat.

Re: Four words

Halo Jones was and is indeed brilliant.

Can I add Warren Ellis - Transmetropolitan? Or indeed Ministry of Space, for the Dan Dare retro feel?

Like all art, there ARE good ones out there if you look hard enough.

Re: Win 8 / Metro GUI - is it a joke?

Ah, sort of like the plot of "The Producers"? If so, Ballmer's lucky - I can't see Win8 being anywhere near as liked as "Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden".

Trollfest 1: Real news 0

Welcome to El Reg.

" the review is clearly intended to be provocative to help page clicks..."

Well it worked then, the Fandroids are out in force, which means the other lot will be along in a minute.

Neither side waiting to read the article of course.

Re: Anyway

Must be half term.

"How drole. A4 sized manuals on A4 sized devices are too big."

It's the thickness of the manuals of course (he said, struggling to avoid the obvious comparison with AC!)

Re: Do you expect me to talk?

Oblig. XKCD link - http://xkcd.com/123/

@g e

"So, he's stating he's confused by a device he's never laid hands on."

You'd never find anyone on el reg commenting on a product they'd never used, now would you?

@Sir Wiggum

"Hybrid PC/Tablets" are fine, but I think the problem is that Win 8 needs to be hybrid too. At the moment it seems like a phone/tablet OS with a few grudging afterthoughts to keyboard/mouse use.

Re: for an affordable 'Bond' car

"Mainly because Saab's are horrible."

I've only owned on (a 9000 Carlsson) but that was a lovely car. Unlike your apostrophe ;-)

Next thing you'll be saying my monitor is not the computer!

No, the tape drives are (he said, showing his age).

Re: Magnetic power supply...

Perhaps MS are setting up Apple's lawyers to be the excuse for not selling any??

@RobE

I don't know which is sadder, this comment (the only objectively sustainable claim is the "inflated prices" one), or the fact that it has a net thumbs up vote. So much for reasoned argument.

NUMBER of people!

Didn't they teach you anything at troll school??

Gosh Windows fanbois are bitter.

That would make Android fanbois alcopops then?

Re: no sympathy here

In principle I agree, but it's ironic that my paid for email service (take a bow, Gradwell!) managed a similar if not longer outage last month, so "not free" if not necessarily any better.

Re: iPhone 5 adaptors goldrush begins

Quite right too!

Have an upvote & please accept my apologies!

Re: The new Office doesn't ship?

Touch screen devices are all about data consumption, not data creation, so why would you want to start a new document?

You didn't believe all that hype from MS anout Win8 being useful (useable?) in the enterprise now did you??

Thus by your own admition you are afraid of change.

You are Joseph Heller and I claim my £5

Re: its rubbish

But what would Samsung owners talk about if it wasn't for the iPhone??

(Can someone wake me up when the smartphone jihad is over!)