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back to article Win 8 ready for slate ... but biz customers can wait

In a fortnight you’ll start to hear Microsoft's marketing machine crunching into overdrive as Windows 8 is driven onto the market. Not only will you hear from them, but also from the hardware manufacturers who are primed and ready to simultaneously release a slew of products that will support and embrace the new functionality …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I also hope we'll hear...

    ...the regulators spinning up to go after MS for their anti-competitive SecureBoot requirements. Not only have they banned installing other OSs on ARM platforms, but they have also ensconced themselves as global gate-keeper of all signing keys.

    A bit like putting the wolf in charge of the sheep. And giving the wolf an extra large jar of mint sauce at the same time.

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    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Facepalm

      Re: I also hope we'll hear...

      So, you'll no doubt moan about "usual insecure MicroSh*t" if M$ leave the boot unprotected, but if they do protect it then you damn them as well? Looks like someone is just determiend to h8 Win8 regardless. Maybe if you spent more time reading the news (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/12/linux_foundation_uefi_boot_windows_8/) and less h8ing you might realise you need something else to harp on about.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I also hope we'll hear...

        You are clearly very confused.

        SecureBoot is a reasonably good idea. I have no issue with SecureBoot and I'll leave it to others to get all hot-and-bothered about the specific details of the implementation.

        MS mandating that ARM *MUST* ship with an MS key and that SecureBoot can *NEVER* be disabled, making it MS-only should get the regulators rolling. This anti-competitive nature is evidenced by the hacks the Linux Foundation has had to conjure in order to try and get past MS's barriers (whether or not the hack even works on ARM remains to be seen).

        No doubt MS will sue the Linux Foundation in due course by breaching copyright/patent/DRM/whatever. Or maybe they'll just refuse to sign the key. MS are overall gatekeepers of the key, so they could lock anyone out on a whim. Another reason for the regulators to stamp hard on MS.

        Add to that that all the various drivers (e.g. graphics) only working if an MS key is present just adds weight to the need for the regulators to block the sales on Win8 until MS stops abusing its position. Again.

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        1. Arctic fox
          Reply Icon
          Thumb Down

          @AC 17.48 GMT "Re: I also hope we'll hear..."

          The arguments being deployed in your posting and others on this issue are tendentious to say the least. I note that at first (a little under a year ago) the claim was that MS was locking Linux out of x86/Windows 8 and had this been the case given that the x86 variant is the one that applies across the whole of pc space you might have had a point. However, it turned out that the usual suspects were talking the usual bollox and so you have had to shift your ground. The problem you have here with trotting out the same arguments with Win RT is of course that that os is confined solely to tablet space where the very last thing Redmond have is any kind of monopoly - in fact they barely register currently on the sales radar at all. There is a company that has a very dominant position in the tablet market who lock down their tablets and maintain a total monopoly on software access to their devices but their name is not Microsoft and I look forward to you and your compadres howling for the regulator to get involved there.

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          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @Arctic fox

            MS hold a monopoly on the x86 platform. It is perfectly possible for them to leverage that monopoly to control other sections of the market. The tablet market is not totally independent of the x86 market; most of the players are the same and to think that the tablet market is somehow separate to the rest of the IT market is naive in the extreme.

            Apple is not part of this discussion as they are not (yet) a convicted monopolist and the fact I have expressed no opinion on them cannot be used as an indication of some kind of tacit approval. That is woolly thinking and getting perilously close to a straw-man.

            The device belongs to the *USER* and not the OEM or some other company. The *USER* should be free to do as they see fit with *THEIR* property. I hold Apple, Sony and others in the same level of contempt for their anti-user lock-ins.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Give the BIZ SysAdmins time

    To develop a whole slew of new 'lock me down until i'm useless group policies' and then see how business likes it.

    I am sure that many execs will say, you can prize my iPad out of my dead cold hands before I use one of those <redacted>.

    The SysAdmins must be chomping at the bit to get their teeth into some devices and see just how far they can go to make them unusable.

    Am I bitter about totally locked down and knackered corporate PC's?

    You bet. Mine is a load of junk. I get few up with haveing to tell all sorts of software that 'No I can't let you try to do an update' because I know it will fail. Flash is about 10 updates old. On battery power it powers down if you havn't hit a key for 5 minutes. Naff all use when when travelling.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Give the BIZ SysAdmins time

      "Am I bitter about totally locked down and knackered corporate PC's?"

      If your corporate PC stops you doing your job then you need to raise that with the IT department to fix the policy as it's unlikely you would be the only one affected, if it is just that you want to use your corporate PC for 'fun' and non-business reasons that quit complaining it's a business tool not your own PC - corporate policies aren't just made up to annoy you.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Give the BIZ SysAdmins time

        If Powering down after 5 mins of inactivity is annouing then I really don't know what is.

        Powering up means entering 3 different passwords. I have to change two of them weekly AND be on a coporate site when I do so otherwise the laptop become nothing more than a doorstop.

        Is it little wonder that those of us who travel regularly (I'm writing this from somewhere in the Central Africa) take another laptop on which we can do real work whilst on the road.

        Kinda defeats the purpose of the lockdown but there it is.

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    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Give the BIZ SysAdmins time

      ".....I am sure that many execs will say, you can prize my iPad out of my dead cold hands...." Well, seeing as execs should only be allowed to look at pretty pics and graphs created by us real workers, an iPad is a suitable device for them. It's also good as I can filter for the Apple MAC address range and screen them from the real bits of the corporate network.

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  3. The BigYin
    Joke

    No need for 'lock me down until i'm useless'...

    ...Win8 starts out that way.

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  4. Chika
    FAIL

    Just as well...

    ...because killing our current rollout just because Redmond wants to ride the latest fad wouldn't go down well where I am.

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  5. NotInventedHere
    Thumb Up

    Bring it on!

    I for one can't wait -- being able to directly develop for Win8 tablets using C# will be heavenly and could well solve a lot of awkward mobile issues that my organisation is facing.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bring it on!

      "to directly develop for Win8 tablets using C# will be heavenly "

      I think you forgot either the joke or troll icon

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  6. WylieCoyoteUK
    Holmes

    More than likely a corporate pause

    Like those editions that MS would like you to forget:

    ME, Vista, 8

    Most large companies will skip 8 altogether.

    I think MS know that already.

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    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Re: More than likely a corporate pause

      ".....Most large companies will skip 8 altogether......" Of course, seeing as most do not have any use for a touchscreen interface for corporate PCs. Instead, they will use Windows 7, which is what M$ planned all along. As Win 8 is almost just Win 7 with the touchscreen UI and bits bolted on, and both run the same x86 code/apps, M$ wins both ways. The corporate desktop is already M$'s to lose, the only area M$ is really fighting in is tablet/phone, where Win RT for ARM can still offer compatibility with Win 8 apps. Secureboot on ARM means devices bought as Windows devices will stay Windows ones, whereas Android and other Linux devices will be vulnerable to Windows "upgrades".

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  7. HairyFool

    Win7 anyone

    The recent independant (although flawed) stats showing a user base increase in Win7 since the release previews rather points to decisions being made already. Microsoft in their cloud cuckoo land attribute it to the end of XP being confirmed but that has be well known for much longer and still has some way to go.

    As to is it because Win8 is actively disliked or just that it has nothing that IT managers want is a moot point. Whichever it is those that are going to 7 now are not buying 8 for a while yet.

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  8. Ted Sbardella
    Thumb Up

    off topic

    If you read this article with an American accent.. it sounds funny. Otherwise its very informative.

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