back to article PC-makers hope for Windows 8 hero to sweep up sales

In the current tight economic climate, manufacturers of PCs and laptops are eagerly looking forward to the arrival of Windows 8 to rescue their sales. It's worked before: the launch of Windows 7 in 2009 got off to a galloping start, more than doubling equivalent sales of Vista two years earlier. A few corporates even advanced …

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Metro will kill Windows 8 in the workplace.

      Windows 8 was never going to be a rapid upgrade among the large orgs that have switched to Windows 7 recently, or are in process of doing so. Metro or no Metro. We all know that. Microsoft knows that. Bottom of heart expect Acer does too.

      Workplace. Not everybody works for large public or private corporates. I'd expect Windows 8 will go down well among many small businesses as well as consumers, especially when the interesting refresh of hardware options gathers momentum. All depending on price of course, I don't see many people of my acquaintance jumping to spend £1000+ on Ultrabooks whatever wishful thinking Acer may espouse.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Metro will kill Windows 8 in the workplace.

        I wouldn't get Ultrabooks from Acer at half that, they'll be made of cheese.

  2. Irongut

    Idiot

    Clearly this Neil Marshall chap is an idiot. Bad enough that he thinks Windows 8 will sell in the corporate market but he thinks the solution to security is homogeneity!?!?! Homogeneity is what got us to the state we're currently in with viruses, worms, trojans, etc on Windows.

  3. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    Quick, time for a new laptop

    Before some idiot decides that they'll only be available with W8.

    I'm a linux user, but I still have a couple of applications that require windows...

    1. AnoNymousGerbil

      Re: Quick, time for a new laptop

      I was thinking same thing and looking laptops just earlier. I wonder what will be microsoft downgrade policy on win8 because there's no way in hell limit my regular way of using computers and run metroUI after I tested preview... For tablet, I can see metro UI work for, but not for laptop/desktop.

    2. Benjamin 4

      Re: Quick, time for a new laptop

      Why not just buy a copy of windows 7 and stick it in the cupboard until you actually need a new laptop?

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: Quick, time for a new laptop

        Bad enough I have to buy Windows at all - no way am I buying *two* copies...

  4. AnoNymousGerbil
    Stop

    Metro UI will never work for job I have to do. Too many small apps required in screen for monitoring things. So there's no any kind of reason to go for Win8.

    RUmour from upstairs say they have decided they'll go for Win7 instead and wait out till win9 or win10 earliest to see if this 2 apps on huge screens metro nonsense will go away. There's reason why we have big monitors, and running only 2 apps 34/66% split aint it...

    1. Lusty
      FAIL

      RE: AnoNymousGerbil

      Try it before moaning for goodness sake. The desktop is almost identical to Windows 7 and you can run as many apps as you like side by side just like in Windows 7.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: RE: AnoNymousGerbil

        I wouldn't bother trying to comment on here, anything even hinting towards a positive comment gets down voted to hell and back, its a sad state of affairs when supposed pros cant have a good debate about something or that people are so blinkered by their own anti-MS hate that anything MS did, no matter how good (or bad) would always been seen as having some Ulterior motive for world domination and more specifically a direct and personal attack on that persons physical and mental wellbeing.

        Fact is this, if you tried it for a length of time and choose to like it or not, then so be it, grown up folk can talk about it and share their actual findings with others, also known as learning and sharing. if you don't use it and pretend that you have used it or just flat out ignore it, then I don't see what you could bring to a conversation anyway. Interestingly if it were anywhere else where ones not hidden behind internet anonymity, most folk would get on fine and be able to have a civilised debate, sadly that isn't the case here.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: RE: AnoNymousGerbil

          @Dazzza - I totally agree - I've noticed that several topics here have become very polorised indeed, it seems that people with some points of view have just given up commenting because it's not worth having a different opinion. There is a large amount of bullying of people not towing the line of the groupthink on particular subjects. It's very sad.

      2. Richard Jones 1

        Re: RE: AnoNymousGerbil

        Well I have tried Windows 8 preview, (though not the release candidate as the CPU that ran the preview is now marked as unsuitable, so black mark 1).

        First the good, the office suite ran really well, faster than with XP and clearly much faster than it would have been with Vista, boot up and (when you could find out how) shut down were very quick.

        The less good news was that in order to find the office applications I had to paste short cuts over the desk top.

        Now, my mobile is a Nokia 6230i and it does all that I use, so my need for and likely relationship to the metro play bricks is close to, but on the wrong side of zero. None of the so called applications worked and none of them did anything useful, getting up the full list of application on the front sign in was a night mare three screens of unreadable junk. I tried to delete unwanted bricks, (who cares about the weather in Seattle?) from the metro wall but the space just stayed there and the brick could not be recovered to do anything once more. I never did find a use for the brick things, why are they parked in the way?

        I found a number of ways of shutting down, the easiest was was the button on the front, this was often easier than clearing a metro junk screen than trying to hunt a pack round to clear the result of touching a brick.

        So yes I have tried it, no I have seen no point in getting windows (H)8. It is a very poor experience on a non touch screen device and, unless I can get a 18 inch extension to my arms will be unusable on a touch screen desk top.

        In short it was two systems in one, a half usable speed up for Windows 7 but with the good bits removed, the other totally irrelevant and of no purpose at all. My data is perfectly happy on my PC, I have no use for fetching it to and from some far distant server over a costly data volume limited link to a 'mobile device' for which I have no use.

        However, having had to sort out the financial affairs of a deceased relative they should replace all the silly metro cr*p with a 'Get some help from a civil servant' application and they might just be onto a winner.

        Richard

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Inevitable conclusion?

    People buy PCs. When they walk into a PC store, they can buy Windows, Windows, or Windows. Doesn't really make a difference if the version number is 7 or 8, they'll inevitably buy it. MS would sell millions even if the purchaser had to wear a T-short emblazoned with, "Kick me - I'm an idiot".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Inevitable conclusion?

      Yes, there is a lot of Windows, but there is also a lot of MacOS, tablets are strong with Android and you can still get Linuxy netbooks. It's way better than it was and it will be interesting to see how MS go in the tablet market when the Win8 tablets come out.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Windows 8 in the workplace

    No chance, that stupid Metro bullshit has ensured that will never happen.

    Windows 8 is turning into an even bigger trainwreck by the day, it's fascinating to see Microsoft fucking it up on such a huge scale. I thought they couldn't actually fuck up a product launch worse that they did with the Xbox360, but they seem to have achieved the unthinkable with Windows 8.

  7. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    On planet earth

    The multinational <insert name here> I work with is still busy rolling out XP - Windows 7 upgrades. So no quick upgrade there. At the same time a policy for Ipads has been rolled out and Iphones are due next. Once management migrates completely away from Windows based desktops you can expect them to allow the plebs to do so as well. That process may well be completed before the next upgrade cycle is due and put the whole idea of such a cycle into question.

    Consumers don't normally get to choose the operating system on the kit they buy. It was only the revolt of the corporate customers that got OEMs to get Microsoft to extend the life of XP and offer them a choice while VIsta was being pushed.

    The guy from Acer must be very glad that they also make Android devices.

    1. Wensleydale Cheese

      Re: On planet earth

      @Charlie Clark

      "At the same time a policy for Ipads has been rolled out and Iphones are due next. Once management migrates completely away from Windows based desktops you can expect them to allow the plebs to do so as well."

      Once management start using iPads and iPhones, Microsoft had better watch out for their Office marketplace too.

      Microsoft Will Launch Office For iPad In November

      Will November be soon enough? Possibly not for your management. What they do meanwhile could have a long lasting effect.

      Also, if Microsoft doesn't get Office on iPad right first time, they could lose an awful lot of business.

    2. Lusty

      Re: On planet earth

      "The multinational <insert name here> I work with is still busy rolling out XP - Windows 7 upgrades. So no quick upgrade there."

      Actually you may find that they are using SCCM to roll it out in which case Win8 may come very soon because it's a trivial upgrade once you've done the legwork on Win7

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: SCCM

        I don't know. Discussions with a friend of mine at a bank said they were in a similar situation with the next upgrade pencilled in for 2014 / 2015 at the earliest, if at all.

        I can see Windows 8 tablets finding their spot in the heterogeneous environment but not if they are hopelessly crippled as currently seems the plan. If people can't use their existing version of Office then why should they bother with Windows? MS will need very good arguments to get management to swap Ipads for Wintabs and paying for existing software isn't one of them!

  8. Andyf
    Linux

    "But sales people are optimists. "Yes, we're very excited about Windows 8 - there's a lot of anticipation," says Neil Marshall, MD of Acer UK"

    There's optimism, and then there's deluded. I'm sure Neil Marshall is a nice enough bloke, but if he thinks that home users, let alone corporates, are going to spring for Windows 8 just for the possibility of using touch screen, then I'll have some of what he's smoking.

    Mines the one with Win XP on it, because Win7 offers nothing to me that's worth paying for that I don't have with XP.

    1. Blitterbug
      Meh

      Mines the one with Win XP on it...

      I was just about to upvote you. Then you went and added that last paragraph...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'm a hardcore Nixer too

      But W7 is far better than XP.

      Sorry but I've got to downvote you too.

    3. Andyf
      FAIL

      "Mines the one with Win XP on it, because Win7 offers nothing to me that's worth paying for that I don't have with XP."

      Win 8, damn it, Win 8. I've clearly had some of what Neil Marshall has been smoking....

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    wrong philosophy

    why should I upgrade a computer only because the OS is new? the applications should push me to upgrade, not the OS, which is the software that should be almost invisible from the performance point of view!

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: wrong philosophy

      PUT ON A3 PAPER AND FRAME!

  10. DrXym

    I don't think it's a given

    I would not see any attraction to running Windows 8 unless I had a machine with a touch screen, preferably a tablet which would benefit from the new UI. The experience for mouse and keyboard devices is shockingly poor. It's so bad that I anticipate that Microsoft will turn out a Windows 9 as quickly as Windows 7 appeared after Vista to address the shortcomings.

    A tablet running x86 and with some kind of dock would be a neat little device and I'd put up with metro just for the sake of the portability. I steer the hell clear of Windows on ARM though which IMO is going to be a disaster of epic proportions when people angrily realise it doesn't work with any existing Windows software.

  11. Bob Vistakin
    FAIL

    "million dollar back-door bungs"

    "The Microsoft-backed launch of Nokia's Lumia range of Windows 7.5 phones at the end of last year is a recent reminder that marketing might and million dollar back-door bungs are not necessarily sufficient to get a new product into orbit."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "million dollar back-door bungs"

      you've hit the nail on the head here,

      MSs biggest failing over the last few years in really really bad PR, its marketing has been awful.

      It was almost there with Nokia, but no sooner had it came to our lives it vanished again.

      Compare that to the initial upbeat iphone release or any Apple product release in recent times for that matter and you can see a striking difference, MS just hasn't hit that spot yet, its got a reputation (in the UK anyway) for odd querky adds, not funky "remember me" adds.

      an before you all jump up and down and about being duff products, its worth pointing out that even crap products will sell very well if you get the PR side right.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Re: "million dollar back-door bungs"

      If your product is average, million dollar buns can work (Apple have used that for years to ensure blogs and magazine gush praise on their average products).

      If your products are truly shit, like Windows Phone, then no amount of bung money can save it. Sure you will still have plenty of paid people around gushing paid-for-praise on the products, but for every one of those, there will be 10 people that can't stop laughing at them.

      Nokrosoft even tried bunging cash as salespeople in stores to push Lumia, but they are too smart, they know any "sale" will come back and bite them.

      1. Robert E A Harvey

        Pushing Lumia

        Dead right. I've seen a few Lumia in shops, but the sales staff always seem to guide people back to an Android or iPhone on contract.

  12. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Sales people are drinking the MS Koolaid

    That have to buy in to the Windows 8 mantra. If they don't they would have to be honest and tell the suckers/punters the truth.

    Metro is as useful as one raindrop is for greening the Saraha outside the phone/tablet/small latop screen area. I wish MS would get its fingers out of its collective ears and listen to the people who are telling them this.

  13. The BigYin

    Save sales?

    Have they seen Windows 8?

    FFS.

    People will take one look, vomit over the shop floor and run out screaming.

    Arms waving in the air, optional.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Save sales?

      I'm guessing you've not seen it, by which I mean other than in pictures on the Internet...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Save sales?

        I've got it and sadly it lives up to the bad press, Metro is no good for the classic desktop. The less we say about the ribbon infestation the better.

      2. The BigYin

        Re: Save sales?

        In fact I have. I have attempted to make use of the various consumer, dev and beta previews.

        And I really do mean "attempted" because Metro is an absolute fluster-cuck of a desktop GUI (I could see it being good on a phone) and the dumbed down traditional desktop is, well, dumbed down.

        The average punter who just wants to surf, Facebook and write the odd letter - single tasking is fine. And this is what Metro just about lets you do (yes I know about the screen-split, don't start me).

        But for someone you actually wants to use the computer (be they a coder, sys admin, graphic designer, CAD user or whatever) will want multiple windows to do their day job.

        So having used Win8 my personal opinion of it is that it is a steaming turd.

        Personally my main concern at the moment is which DE do I use next to get some work done. Unity and Gnome Shell suffer from many of the limitations of Win8 (geared towards single-tasking, just nowhere hear as bad) and whilst Unity may have HUD, I think KDE has to be the weapon of choice for a graphic-rich DE.

        If I have to suffer Win8 in my day-to-day (likely), it will in a VM where I have to touch it as little as possible.

      3. Robert E A Harvey
        Thumb Down

        @AC 16:40

        >I'm guessing you've not seen it

        I've tried to use it, and it's horrid.

  14. Big_Ted
    WTF?

    Forget Windows 8

    I work for a company that has several thousand desktops, laptops and phones.

    We are still on XP and after the best part of 6 months we are finally ready to accept windows 7 will work on our 600 odd legacy apps/programs.

    Hell we only just th last fortnight went fron IE6 to IE8 due to compatability issues.

    After we finish rolling out Windows 7 we will be planning our next upgrade, the hardware. For that we are looking at thin clients connecting to servers so BYOD is made easier and security also much easier to control.

    Will also made updates and software access etc a lot easier.

    We will not be looking at Windows 8, more likely would be to switch the OS from windows to something else instead as the desktops won't have an OS and anything that can access the virtual desktop like say a linux distro will do fine.

    The only people who will be buying Windows 8 are those with no choice as thats what the OEM has put on the pc they get from Currys etc.

    As to the whole pc, talet and phone running the same OS how stupid do you think we are ? here's what would happen, virus gets on someones phone, they bring it into work, everyone equipement including their phones are infected, yeh I can see us allowing that to happen then. We had a big enougth problems with someone bringing in a virus that screwed up our excange servers with emailing all contacts over and over again a few years ago.

    No, Windows 8 has no place in the corporate world which is still rolling along on XP and sees a big enough change and training headache going to 7.....

    1. Joerg

      Re: Forget Windows 8

      Exactly.

      For your config there I would go full virtualized Win7 images on Mini-ITX machines, either Atom or Core i3 low power models. Better than bare thin clients.

      1. Wensleydale Cheese

        Re: Forget Windows 8

        On the other hand thin clients which log into Server 2008 R2 vie Terminal Services are proving popular in one of the offices I work in.

        1. deadlockvictim

          Thin Clients

          Popular with whom exactly? The poor bastards who have to use them or the very satisfied sysadmins whose life has become easier?

  15. Joerg
    FAIL

    MetroUI gives no chance to Windows8. It's toast already.

    Microsoft managers and marketing dept people along with developers behind MetroUI must be fired. Microsoft really deserves to go bankrupt on MetroUI.

    What they are doing it's just plain insane. These people are full of drugs. They don't care about quality, about their customers, about productivity.

    And they seriously believe that a childish flawed interface that MetroUI is all about can be forced on common users, power users, developers, businesses, professionals, network administrators too!

    MetroUI is the death of Microsoft.

    Maybe they will delete MetroUI with Windows8 Service Pack 1 if they will see that only a few idiots would buy such a farce of an OS.

    Businesses buying Windows8 must want to go bankrupt as well because with MetroUI productivity goes down to zero.

    1. Paul Shirley

      Re: MetroUI gives no chance to Windows8. It's toast already.

      It's a certainty Metro will be hacked out of Win8 very quickly unless Microsoft have made extraordinary efforts to prevent it, more than just disabling registry keys. We'll know reality has erupted in Redmond the day they stop trying to block those hacks.

      Sit back and enjoy the coming war between Microsoft and hackers. Thrill to how close to disaster Microsoft go before they quietly stop blocking 3rd party attempts to 'fix' Win8 and it's Metro madness.

      I'm confident Metro will eventually be excisable (or Win8 will vanish without trace). I want to see some in depth analysis of what new boobytraps are scattered through the core OS and it's desktop front end. Already alarmed at the whole cloud focus and the Live account crap, I really don't want my PC dependent on a connection to Microsoft. Activating XP every time I rebuild causes me enough problems already.

  16. dotdavid
    FAIL

    "In the current tight economic climate, manufacturers of PCs and laptops are eagerly looking forward to the arrival of Windows 8 to rescue their sales."

    Similarly, I'm eagerly looking forward to the arrival of a winning lottery ticket to rescue my finances.

    At least my dream is realistic.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Metro Is A Sack Of Shit

    Metro (ME ROT) is cumbersome, awkward and thoroughly unsuitable for current desktop use making GNOME 3 look like the best DT environment ever.

    Yes this may work when severely re-jigged in 5-10 years time when there are different DT hardware interfaces but is sure as hell isn't going to work now. Expect a flat MS share price for some years yet.

    1. Matthew 25

      Re: Metro Is A Sack Of Shit

      "making GNOME 3 look like the best DT environment ever." In your opinion. I much prefer lxde, xfce, kde4 or even Windows XP / 7

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Metro Is A Sack Of Shit

        @matthew25

        You have taken the Gnome 3 comment literally, you must be American as you don't understand the subtleties of irony.

        Let me translate, Gnome 3 was crap but MS managed to trump that with something even crappier..

  18. Spoonsinger
    Unhappy

    My take on the current situation and beyond:-

    Being a general old school sort of A/P doing random user support on my down time, (it's the economy don't you know) :-(

    Trying to do remote admin on people with current Windows 7 is actually quite bad. i.e.

    (after general obvious stuff),

    'press the start button, yep the round thing in the left bottom corner', now type 'cmd' return. Oh so it didn't come up with anything, umm, type local security policy. Oh so that hasn't come back with anything. Try 'local group policy'. umm nothing either. Read me down what you have on the screen. Oh, not there, goes on, (until randomly find the appropriate app - not actually listed in any o/s search for end user to find easily).

    Not entirely sure Win8 duel interface is going to make this procedure more elegant.

    (*) Yep, and before you point it out, a default windows install would pop up the things requested. An off the shelf consumer build, (i.e. Dell I'm looking at you), apparently might not.

    FAQ | House Rules Post your own message

    1. Lusty

      Re: My take on the current situation and beyond:-

      "Trying to do remote admin on people with current Windows 7 is actually quite bad. i.e.

      (after general obvious stuff),

      'press the start button, yep the round thing in the left bottom corner', now type 'cmd' return. Oh so it didn't come up with anything, umm, type local security policy. Oh so that hasn't come back with anything. Try 'local group policy'. umm nothing either. Read me down what you have on the screen. Oh, not there, goes on, (until randomly find the appropriate app - not actually listed in any o/s search for end user to find easily)."

      The fact that you know little to nothing about supporting Windows 7 is not the fault of Microsoft it is the fault of you. Professionals would be able to remember what to type and where to click. They would also know how to use remote support requests so they didn't need to tell the user anything at all...

      1. Paul Shirley

        know little to nothing about supporting Windows 7 is not the fault of Microsoft

        It is however Microsofts fault that so many tools got moved or even removed between XP and Win7, for no apparent reason. Change for changes sake. Or more likely change for charging more training fee's sake.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: know little to nothing about supporting Windows 7 is not the fault of Microsoft

          @Paul Shirley - It's MS' fault that things have changed between OSes released a decade apart? Well, yes, it is, but good. I don't want a stagnated OS which doesn't develop, just so that a few support guys don't have to bother learning anything. That argument leaves us with Win 3.1, which I assure you, if you run today, will seem piss-poor.

      2. Spoonsinger
        Facepalm

        Re: My take on the current situation and beyond:-

        Eeek, touched a nerve (sorry).

        "Professionals would be able to remember what to type and where to click"

        Quite, but explaining that over mobile phone connection can be somewhat fraught. But as they say you should try everything in life except Morris Dancing and Incest.

        "They would also know how to use remote support requests so they didn't need to tell the user anything at all..."

        Depends if the actual problem was actually related to the network, (i.e. wireless/dubious hotel setup/Windows 7 weird unknown network type problem for instance), otherwise Logmein is fab.

  19. john devoy

    I cant see anyone with windows 7 voluntarily upgrading to windows8; short of MS crippling dx12 so its win8 only.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re dx 12

      dx 12 (possibly 13) will be metro only

      regular desktop apps will be limited to dx 11 with dx support being phased out, this is one of the reasons Microsoft is dropping Aero Glass from the desktop, because it wants to drop the 3D / DX acceleration from there as soon as possible, new drivers for dx 12 cards will probably not be required to support the legacy desktop for certification leaving non-metro as a poor choice for gamers and game developers. This is how games will be driven to Metro, Windows Live and the Windows marketplace rather than competitors.

  20. Justicesays
    FAIL

    Its not the idea of a "Metro" UI that annoys me

    Its the fact that MS are deliberately stopping people from not using it.

    IF Metro was the right choice for a windows mobile device then people would use it, over trying to hit tiny menus and scroll bars.

    But forcing it on desktop users, then going so far as the specifically thwart attempts to allow people to use old UI elements is just crazy.

    Even worse when its on Server systems as well.

    Pretty much saw it coming when the "Ribbon" was forced down peoples throats.

    No "old style menus" option available, you MUST USE THE RIBBON , IT IS BETTER, IF YOU DON'T SEE THAT YOU ARE DEFECTIVE.

    And lo and behold, the person running Metro is the person behind the Ribbon as well.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pushing water uphill? It can be done, but..

    "they are going to be trying to market their way into persuading corporates and SMBs to migrate to [Windows 8] earlier.""

    That's not going to be as easy as pushing water uphill.

    The next train crash on Platform 8 is from Redmond.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    Something regarding Win8 is working!

    That's the goon paid to downvote anything that is mostly negative towards MS stuff. (one for each post so far).

    This is going to confuse him/her.

    Win8 Is currently seriously broken for desktop users.

    Win7 is quite usable finally.

    Citrix and RDP use is actually better from Linux.

    1. Lusty

      Re: Something regarding Win8 is working!

      "Win8 Is currently seriously broken for desktop users.

      Win7 is quite usable finally."

      Win8 is almost identical to Win7 on the desktop. You don't HAVE to use any Metro apps at all if you don't want to. The start menu is now full screen, yes, but what were you looking at while you were in the start menu that's so important?

      1. Paul Shirley

        what were you looking at while you were in the start menu that's so important?

        ...a tree of program names instead of a flat list? A tree that fits onscreen without scrolling despite having hundreds of assorted things in it...

  23. BlueGreen

    Everyone's crucifying metro, seemed to have missed something else

    Viz. the security discussion at the end.

    "The philosophy is called 'de-perimeterisation'. You harden every device, so every device has its own perimeter, only runs the services it needs to, and only communicates with things it needs to. So there is no single perimeter. The servers in your office only talk to services that they intrinsically trust. So they don't care what the platform is."

    So you can't do that in addition to an external firewall? "You harden every device..." It's the company's device then, and they couldn't do that before as well as have a firewall, no? I rather think they could.

    There's a reason animals are crunchy[*] on the outside and squishy inside, it's the best way, perhaps only way, of constructing an organism to survive in a hostile environment. It's an energy thing. Why does the author suppose that companies are any different.

    [*] by which I mean adequately defended, if not with actual armour then speed, a thick skin, a strong immune system, physical aggression coupled with teeth and claws etc.

  24. Mondo the Magnificent
    Devil

    Metro = MS's equivalent to "FaceBook Timeline"

    Microsoft and the vendors will advocate it...

    People will bitch

    Vendors will roll it out on new PCs

    A majority of people will continue bitching

    Microsoft will update it's features

    Most people will stop bitching as they've gotten used to it and 'accepted it'

    Sure, some of us will use our downgrade rights to Windows 7/Vista or even XP, but rest assured that a large majority of new PC owners over the next 5 years will be Metro users..

  25. bigfoot780

    LOL

    In the current tight economic climate, manufacturers of PCs and laptops are eagerly looking forward to the arrival of Windows 8 to rescue their sales. Ha ha ha!

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Something regarding Win8 is working!

    Lusty,

    Imagine I've a couple of RDP sessions going, email etc. and I want to fire something up quickly without loosing sight of the other stuff that's on going, no good geek stares at a progress bar so tasks are sandwiched in real time and visually.

    Metro is like the bighead fat kid at school, all I want to do is start a program or command in a small quick and non intrusive way, Metro wants to get in your face show you it's new toys and talk about his dads new Merc.

    Metro shut up, go away I've stuff to get done.

    The people who have designed Metro are in the market of designing interfaces.

    Remember the quote "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail" could it be that to fire up a another task you don't need a big interface, acres of screen and to be offered stock prices instead.

    If you are sort of person who watches progress bars you wont get it.

    1. Lusty

      Re: Something regarding Win8 is working!

      Powernumpty, my point was that when you press start you were not looking at those other things, you were looking at the start menu to find what you wanted. You can remove all of the extra stuff from the new start menu if you like and just have the program's you use in there. If there is any scrolling involved you probably have too much crap installed and need to have a tidy because I can fit 32 items on my start menu in windows 8 and not scroll, and that's at the default zoom level.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Something regarding Win8 is working!

        Metro on my desktop system shows about 80+ tiles without scrolling. For infrequent apps, I just start typing the name. Easier than Win7 start menu.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Something regarding Win8 is working!

      @Powernumpty - If you're such a power user, you could always, you know, try the command line?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Devil

        Re: Something regarding Win8 is working!

        Command prompt use..

        Yeah I'll use one of the modified terminal prompt links from my quick launch bar, won't loose sight of more than 15% screen - oh wait.

        Rather than trying to question why people don't like it what about some real good reasons for the change in a desktop environment? Those real program/CAD/Photoshop etc. users at MS (not just people who massage the front ends) how does this improve things?

        Don't give me that "spend time cleaning up the thing", if you don't put crap in my way I won't need to use my shovel.

        If I get off Win8 case for moment this is where I assume (hope) its going, we will have touch-pads as integral parts of a PC setup, while tethered they have the Metro interface and you use an "upright" or "upleft" gesture to send the program to the main screen left or right, once the main PC is shutdown (or some lower power mode for American minds) the touchpad can be

        un-docked and used as iPad wanabee.

        While tethered you can chose to have email alerts, skype call or some other simple task/ buttons that leaves the main screens for work.

        Who here using CAD thinks touching the CAD screen is a good idea? designed to micron accuracy but hidden under a layer of finger fat...

        Photoshop, DTP users oh last nights KFC fingers are really going to help you get that final "blemish free" proof checked.

        I'm off to buy shares in a screen cleaning company

        ---

        For the record powernumpty is ironic, sort of play on words like turbochargeidiot not some claim to abilities. Brit humour maybe.

        1. Lusty

          Re: Something regarding Win8 is working!

          I still don't understand why you think the start menu gets in the way, or why you won't be able to use CAD or photoshop just because they redesigned the start menu. Metro is not the same thing as the new start menu, metro is the new touch interface which some of the included apps can use. Internet explorer for instance has both a touch (metro) and non touch (windows 7) interface and you can use both at the same time if you like. I now run Windows 8 as my main OS and often have Visio, remote desktop manager, word, excel and several putty windows open at once, just like I did in Windows 7. The new start menu allows me to see significantly more search results than did the one in Windows 7. You did realise that the Windows 7 start menu was designed around search, didn't you? And you do realise that despite the lack of a search box you can just start typing in Windows 8 and your results appear full screen and organised? And that you can zoom out, or choose all apps to see the tree view?

  27. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Windows

    The Mayans were right... their Calendar stopped at Windows 8

    ...Microsoft will hit their revenue targets in the consumer market over the Christmas period, and follow that with an "onslaught" on the business market to encourage operating system migration during February and March.

    Just in time for the big EURO KABLOOIE, the US PREZ PROSTITUTION SHOW, possibly the WAR ON PERSIA's nonexisting nuclear program and not totally impossibly the WEIMAR DOLLAR. We are all set then.

    Yes indeed.

    I have to say this is painful to read. After 20 years of The Road Ahead and product national-socialism, Microsoft is still hoping that people will try to avoid "connectivity" and "security" issues by standardizing on Windows Eight (weight?) a product with as-yet unknown "features". Yes indeed.

  28. P. Lee
    FAIL

    Win8 Too little, too soon

    At least for the desktop. Win7 is still running in many places and for those, (lagging) places, a new UI is not a feature, its a bug.

    For those which have done the migration, doing another one probably isn't on the cards.

    Where Win8 will go ahead is on consumer OEM PCs (no options given) and probably in servers where moving the GUI out of the kernel is a plus. However, companies which like that are probably either *nix already and just moving windows platforms - no hurry or much profit there.

    The other place is the laptop-cum-tablet combination for home use. Requirements are simple and you save buying an extra (expensive) screen & battery. I suspect MS will put "co-marketing" funds into this to prevent the same hardware designs appearing with android.

    Mostly business use involves clicking a a few desktop icons, one for each app. Employees are generally discouraged from using OS features.

    The problem with the PC market is not the OS, its the lack of hardware innovation. Why does the best PC thing in recent years (thunderbolt/lightpeak) have to come from the most closed company? We want more connectvity and more availabilty. Faster CPUs and higher core counts only go so far. I've noticed recently that dual-gig ethernet seems to be disappearing from desktop boards. Bzzt, there goes AoE, decent iscsi at home etc.

    Personally I'm mad at intel. I've got a socket 775 mobo. Since then, we've had 1366, 1156, 1155 and 2011, but a top end 775 CPU (Quad-9650) is about the same as a good i5, upper-middle i7 and costs the same (if you can get it). So much change, so little benefit. You might think it was all for the benefit of the chipset makers to prevent pure CPU upgrades.

    Win8 won't save the pc market. The PC market just got boring. Look at all the identical PCs - that's the problem, no innovation. Has anyone seen a PC with an extra ultra-low-power core for when not much is going on? If anyone can find a high-power graphics card which can sleep while the PC is on, please let me know. I don't mean just put the screen to sleep, I mean turn off that loud fan on the GPU so I can sleep while downloads continue or while my wife streams video from it to her tablet.

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