Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

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anon1818080664,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/27/2013 | 2:41:07 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

I'm not surprised by this I have a netbook which I have used for 5 years it finally died after the keyboard was unresponsive. It was still cheaper for me to buy a netbook from Ebay the exact same model for 150 which is about 3 times as cheaper then what these tablets are priced at.

Also I have been looking around on popular sites and I've seen android tablets going for 80 to 100 dollars while the mid-end Samsung ones go for around 200-250. These things don't have a keyboard or room so its a waste for most people with limited storage being the main tradeoff.

Still if the RTs were priced competitively instead of competing with the Ipad Microsoft would of been successful selling them.

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Anonomouser,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/27/2013 | 5:00:29 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

Google has already started to make fun of the "One Microsoft" strategy, saying "We won't force users to run the same operating system on all devices". With microprocessors going into all sorts of products now, I don't need Windows 8 running in my toaster and needing to phone home to Skydrive before it can toast me a piece of bread.

It's true that the OS makes the product, as the decline in PC sales due to a bad Windows OS release is demonstrating. But this one-size-fits-all idea that the Windows 8 touch OS will work on everything from smartwatches to multi-screen workstations just ain't going to work.

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Michael Endler,
User Rank: Author
7/27/2013 | 5:31:32 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

Yeah, I see some of those concerns. I think it's potentially problematic, for instance, that the sub-10 inch tablets are still being sold partly on the strength of Office. I'm sure some people will be pumped to have Office on such a portable device, but a small tablet like the 8-inch Acer Iconia just isn't that well-suited for extended content creation. There's undeniable value in translating aspects of the Windows experience across devices. But the devices need standalone appeal too. By forcing Windows 8, which was designed for larger screens, onto these smaller tablets, I'm not sure if Microsoft and its OEM partners are delivering that appeal, or simply filling a perceived hole in the market. If we're going to have devices of all shapes and sizes, and screens of all shapes and sizes, then there's a good argument for form factor-optimized OSes, or at least a single OS that intelligently adapts to the kind of device on which it's being used. Currently, Windows 8 meets neither of these standards, at least not satisfactorily. Win 8.1 will do some things to improve this, though, so perhaps it will be enough, especially if device prices really do come down to competitive levels. We'll see.

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JBURT000,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/27/2013 | 5:56:29 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

Ah but Windows 8 is enough if you want to move everyone to Android!!!

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dblevins201,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/27/2013 | 5:58:47 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

Re-org needed to include Sweat-man's, aka Ballmer, leaving !!

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DorisGirlProgrammer,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/27/2013 | 6:50:41 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

Microsoft could make 5-10 small changes to Windows 8... and make it MUCH improved.

Get rid of 100% of the ads. What USER would want that built into an OS????

Auto-detect if the machine has a touch-screen or non-touch... or just let the USER decide which interface he likes/needs/wants.

Auto-detect if the user has a 3-4" phone... and 7-10" tablet... or a 22-24" screen. Adjust the interface based on that or let the USER decide.

Allow the USER to decide "start button" or "start screen".

Bring back the start *MENU*, not just the start *BUTTON*. (Or does MS even know the differences?)

Allow the USER to decide "desktop" or "tiles".

Allow the USER to size/position/close windows as he sees fit.

Wow. An OS that is what a *USER* wants. What a concept!

Even basic users (like me) can often 10-20 improvements MORE than MS can seem to come up with.

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JohnM587,
User Rank: Strategist
7/27/2013 | 7:27:22 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

Balmer's defiant arrogance will continue to dominate the direction of Microsoft regardless of what the Stock Holder's teleprompter has been programmed for him to say after the Windows 8 on everything failure aka debacle.

Worse yet is that for decades trillions of dollars and hours plus petabytes of data files have been lost by Consumers & Businesses due to Microsoft's inferior Virus trap Windows operating systems that were automatically taxed on every User's past hardware purchases. That horrific OS lock down nightmare created algorithmic User decay when the World discovered they had new choices due to Balmer sleeping at the wheel. The acrid proof is no one is buying Windows 8 anything whether it is Redmond's mobile devices, PC's or laptops.

Nothing Microsoft does next will bring back what they have permanently lost to Android and iOS Users because of what they were forced to endure from Microsoft for decades.

Microsoft has no control over our memories.

The Redmond accidental empire monopoly is now toast!

Short the stock and maybe you can get back all of the money you lost due to decades of never ending Microsoft Windows security holes and buggy code which caused your losses.

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BobA427,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/27/2013 | 8:04:43 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

Firing Ballmer is not enough, but will help. Microsoft needs to make up for it's mistakes:

The Problems
1. Making useful (non-crippled) development tools too expensive for young developers has driven an entire generation away from Microsoft tools, which are the best in the industry, and has pushed them towards web development on Linux. BizSpark is not the answer.
2, Because of (1) Microsoft has lost, and will never regain, the entire server market with Windows. Microsoft still fails to understand that the server market is never going to go with Windows.
3. Now the desktop market is going away too, but in the form of Android (Linux), IOS (Linux), and Mac OS (Linux), and LInux.

The Solution
1. Microsoft Linux Distribution
2. Free Microsoft development tools (Visual Studio & ,NET) for Microsoft Linux
3. SQL Server for Linux, same pricing model as MySQL.
4. Microsoft Office for Linux.
5, Portability for .NET applications to Linux.

The reason this will work is that the Linux development tools still suck, and X Windows is too hard to develop for relative to .NET. If Microsoft can lift Linux out of the stone age it will win back much of the server and portable market.

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BobA427,
User Rank: Apprentice
7/27/2013 | 8:09:16 PM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

This would help a lot. It is pretty irritating now on my laptop.

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rradina,
User Rank: Ninja
7/28/2013 | 12:32:05 AM

re: Microsoft's Dilemma: Windows 8.1 May Not Be Enough

I don't disagree with some of your causal statements. However, regarding your solutions, how does this make money for stock holders?
1=Free
2=Free
3=Free
4=$ (maybe?)
5=Free
Granted, 1 and 3 could be sold with support for a recurring revenue stream but customers wouldn't have to buy it since Microsoft would have to freely distribute Linux and hope that customers pay for support. It seems that you might be suggesting the same for #3 so I'm having trouble seeing how this would generate revenue unless Microsoft turns into a pure cloud provider and makes money off being a computing utility. That's possible but there's quite a bit of competition in that space and prices seem to be rapidly dropping. Hopefully it won't be like the long distance market which essentially put remaining vestige of Ma Bell (what was left of AT&T) out of business.
Regarding 5, I think Microsoft already lost that race to Java a long, long time ago. Java tooling seems decent. I haven't used Visual Studio since the 2008 release but at that time, it didn't have anything on Eclipse or IntelliJ.

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