Microsoft refuses to nip 'Windows 9' unzip lip slip

MS is not exactly competing with an iOS device through a version of traditional Windows

They're competing for cash.

Contrary to the beiief of many marketroids, punters do not have infinitely deep pockets. Whilst the overlap between iPhone buyers and W9 buyers might not be as large as for certain other combinations of stuff, there will undoubtedly be some people who are the targets of both marketing campaigns.

Vic.

[ Who isn't the target of either campaign... ]

Which in turn copy Microsofts and Apples desktop metafore. So what exactly is your point. Everyone copies everyone else's ideas, its nothing new amd Open Source has been a major copier of anything and everything they possibly can get away with.

No point in copying anything from a Linux GUI. Microsoft only copy things that are successful.

Just look at how Microsoft has beefed up Powershell over the last few years to give the Linux sysadmin types a command line to play with.

@ SineWave242

>I think it's about time that Microsoft start copying all the Linux desktop environments like Xfce or maybe KDE 5 or Gnome 3. :) They are, after all, best at copying others' ideas and making people pay through their noses for that.

You know Cygwin ?

http://x.cygwin.com/screenshots/cygx-xtow-alphademo-20130805.png

or

http://x.cygwin.com/screenshots/cygx-rootless-openbox-20031224-0010.png

Ok, screenshots show crappy XP, but I am sure you could get that with 8 as well ...

Open ...

What part of free and open source don't you understand? Microsoft is completely welcome to take any or all of the Linux desktops and to use them commercially. They'd just have to comply with the GPL. Principally, they'd have to make the source of any modifications they make available on the same terms as the source they started from. And if they went beyond "mere aggregation" and integrated parts of (say) Gnome into the Windows kernel, like they presently integrate parts of the Windows GUI into the Windows Kernel, then they'd have to open-source the Windows Kernel as well. All of it.

It won't happen any time soon. It wasn't so long ago that Microsoft was trying to argue that the GPL was unconstitutional or suchlike (I vaguely recall them calling it "communist"). Give them another twenty years to come around (if they last that long... Oracle Windows or Google OpenWindows seem less unlikely at present! )

Re: WIndows 8, SP2?

there's a huge pent-up demand for a new version of Windows that will work in the business / desktop environment

Really.

Re: WIndows 8, SP2?

it's clear that Microsoft got the interface right for the next generation of users

All the next generation users I know are predominantly using Android devices, with a few using iOS. I know of none who are using Windows 8.x.

The wife, on the other hand - a current generation user - does have a Win8 laptop, with Classic Shell installed, but uses the touch features only to scroll up and down pages, and nothing more.

Re: WIndows 8, SP2?

"it's clear that Microsoft" took "the interface right for the" previous/current "generation of" Android&IOS users, dumbed it down some more then slapped it on devices it didn't belong on. Hardly the interface of the future, this is MS trying what it used to be expert at - stealing other peoples bandwaggons.

But because they slept right through the rise of tablets and smartphones then persistently ignored customers as they tried to catch up, this time they dressed up the product as something new but forgot to steal what makes it work!

Worst of all it's not hard to improved on IOS or Android. I spent this week struggling with an Android TV box and its absolutely inept UI using remote controls, there's plenty of scope to do better. MS chose not to even bother.

Re: WIndows 8, SP2?

The primary complaint about 8.1 is in a relatively small portion of the code base - how applications are launched and what should the OS do for people who prefer a more traditional experience (i.e. something akin to the start menu).

Once you go beyond that 8.1 is a mature and stable operating system. I expect if Microsoft were to produce some form of mini metro that users could choose to pop up instead of a full screen from the start button that most of the objections would taken care of. At the same time allow metro apps to live on the desktop and be proper peers of "classic" apps. At that point I think they'll have cracked it.

Re: WIndows 8, SP2?

An o/s you have to work at to make work ? No thanks, I thought it was supposed to be the other way round.

Re: WIndows 8, SP2?

"it's clear that Microsoft got the interface right for the next generation of users."

Yep, in the future if the need arises for people to use their fingers to fling things or mash the screen a certain number of times, we'll be all ready. There is no doubt that simple people can do simple tasks with a tablet OS, but there is a reason that no one invented the sausage-interface-wand before now. Trying to use a meat-stick to control precise movement is inefficient, well for anything other than throwing birds at pigs.

There is a simple solution to the 'Win8 GUI sucks' problem and it will solve itself. We only need to wait for the programmers at Microsoft to try to make the next version of Windows while using it. The huge hits to workflow and the unfriendliness of the current OS will have to be addressed at that point.

I blame Sinofsky.

Re: Meh.

Having spent a while using a touchscreen win8 device, my problem is this - there aren't enough programs available in Metro to make it a viable alternative. So you spend your whole time skipping back and forth between Metro and the desktop view, and instead of pressing the large finger-sized buttons in Metro you find yourself desperately trying to tap the tiny 'normal' sized buttons on windows in the desktop.

The charm bar works fine, if you're using a touchscreen but it is an absolute pain if you're using a mouse. The same goes for app switching. I think that it Microsoft had delayed the Win8 release for 12 months to allow manufacturers to build more touch-ready devices and had put the effort in to getting more programs ready for Win8 (Mozilla have given up developing the Metro Firefox, for example) we wouldn't all be haterz.

Re: Meh.

The answer is probably you will get a mini metro launcher with tiles and some options which appears when you hit the start button. I think most people would be perfectly satisfied with that.

Re: S.O.P.

a normal company ("company A"), if they say "something much better is coming out soon!" usually *decreases* sales as people hold out for that better model,

It's hard to decrease Windows 8 sales as they have already been pretty low as it is. People are holding out on W8 already, keeping to their old iron. However, there is a slight skew on numbers because people buying Windows7-loaded PCs are actually buying a "Windows 8 license with downgrade rights" so it adds up to the W8 count, even though W8 isn't even being used.

MS is even doing this with their sales numbers as of late with the Xbox division. They know the Xbox1 is flopping so now they report "X Xboxes sold" lumping 360's and XB1's into a single group. The empire is sinking, but MS has a lot of cash reserves and OS lock-in so the double-whammy won't kill them. They have all the time in the world to roll out a decent Windows version. However, the Xbox division might actually end up being a casualty if things keep going the way they're going.

Re: S.O.P.

It's a bit like a good cop bad cop routine. I often wonder if they've got two separate development teams, one crap one and one not quite so crap one. The crap one has produced Windows 98, ME, Vista and W8, the not quite so crap one W95, XP and W7. Now it's the turn of the not quite so crap one to produce W9. Let's hope there's an upgrade path from W7 making it possible to miss out the nightmare of W8 altogether, but I won't hold my breath...

Re: S.O.P.

The other part of the SOP is to keep the last good one (XP, then Windows 7) working and available to corporate customers until the new good one is well-accepted. Provided they don't kill Windows 7 before an acceptable Windows "9" is well-established, they'll survive. (Though they really should have kept XP on life support as well, once the complete corporate unhappiness with Windows 8 became apparent).