Posts by MarkL 15 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jun 2011
Facts aren't the strong point when it comes to Windows 8 and the Register it seems.
Ballmer did not say sales of Surface were 'modest' - that's now been demonstrated to be a misquote by the French magazine that originally reported it. Ballmer actually said the approach to ramping up distribution was modest, but that reception to the product was 'fantastic'- but here, today, now, it suits the Register to continue to push the idea that sales are modest. It fits the 'fail' agenda they're trying to push.
This really isn't news. Windows, just like EVERY (see what I did with capitals there) other operating system out there, does not get completely re-written from the ground up with each release, so it makes sense that many vulnerabilities that are discovered in Windows affect a whole range of different releases.
Microsoft should be applauded for their approach to regular, predictable patch management.
As for Windows 8 & RT, it's largely already been acknowledged (even in The Register, if only grudgingly so) that Windows 8 makes further strides forward in terms of OS security.
This is yet another example of The Register just bashing Windows 8 for the sake of it. Extra marks taken off for trying to specifically tie this to the Surface. This is hardly objective, and is really demonstrating a heavy bias in your reporting that is going to start turning people off.
Microsoft can, and do still get some attention. Remember the launch keynote when they showed off the touch-cover and some guy yelled out in almost orgasmic satisfaction in the audience? A pretty Apple-like reaction.
Now sure, cynics might say those guys were planted, and that Microsoft don't have cool - but hits like the Xbox have certainly managed to gain a good following. The Surface /did/ get a fair bit of attention and support from a normally quiet group, and they've been patiently waiting to buy the Surface since June - they want it, and they want to be the /first/ to get it too. If that means joining a line - they'll do it.
Shock news! Yet-to-launch product has low market share!!
This is precisely why Microsoft has pushed Metro out to both desktop and tablet user alike with Windows 8. Within the next 12 months, Windows PC shipments will ensure that the Metro environment is available to significantly more users than of the iPad.
Microsoft's challenge is not to ensure Windows 8 shipments happen - they will - it's to ensure that the Metro environment becomes relevant beyond the tablet market. If not, the perceived market for Metro will end up smaller than the actual install base for Windows 8.
Either way, building market share is not going to be about shipments of either tablets, or PCs, it's all about Metro relevance to end users.
This sort of article pointing out the possible 'rift' between Microsoft and it's OEM partners is a little late to the party isn't it? Tech news and blog sites went over this again and again after the surface was announced. What purpose does it serve to cover it again ... unless of course, there is an agenda to push.
The reasons why Microsoft are doing this are obvious. Time and again Microsoft released products that had a huge amount of potential, only for OEM partners to release hardware that was lukewarm at best, and failed to deliver the promise that was absolutely possible.
This, therefore is no different from graphics chip vendors selling their own reference graphics cards, or Intel selling motherboards of it's own, whilst also simultaneously selling chipsets to third parties. It's not going to be the big 'problem' being suggested - all it will do is help ensure that there's at least one tablet out there that really shines, and if OEMs rise to the challenge, there will be plenty of alternative choices that shine too. Let's wait and see.
I didn't mention the 'Games for Windows' store, I 'm talking about the new Windows Marketplace built into the Metro environment of WIndows 8. Yes, I know it's hardly going to be delivering a half-life 3 anytime soon, but then, it doesn't need to. If 'PC' gaming is moving toward the more 'casual' gaming experience of mobile devices, then that's exactly what will be delivered throug the app store in Windows 8, serious gaming moves ever more solidly toward the console, and that leaves Newell where... ? Well, presumably it leaves him without the sort of freedom to which he is used to - but he'll need to just get used to it.
I assume though that he's hoping the 'year of the linux desktop' can still come ... if it didn't happen during the Vista years, it's not going to happen now.
Right, so, it couldn't be anything to do with the guy being upset that Microsoft will have their own distribution channel for getting games to users?
Seriously ,the article doesn't mention the Windows App store /once/! Newell could just as easily be feeling slighted by the possibility that Steam might get some serious competition from the Windows App store.
Yeah, because that analogy totally demonstrates how much you get it.
A building society as big as nationwide might offer the sames sort of 'banking' services as a regular bank, but it is not a public traded company, doesn't have sharegholders, and is legally required to raise a minimum of 50% (hint: it's actually much higher) of it's capital from deposits (as opposed to banks that go out, play the stockmarket, lose, and then look to taxpayers to bail them out).
Have to say, I totally agree that there is a retail issue going on here.
The vast majority of smartphone buyers are just ordinary consumers, ie - not technical people. Their source of information for the best phone to buy will come from a variety of sources: what they read about, what they see on TV adverts, what they talk about with others, and their experience going to the store, and trying a few phones out, and asking for advice - it's here, in this last and final step that actual buying decisions are made, and if sales staff don't even bother to suggest trying a Windows Phone, well, it isn't really going to help Nokia turn things around.
Nokia (and Microsoft) do need to take some of the blame though. When it comes to stuff like television advertising, short of sponsoring the whole of Channel 5 for a while there, I don't feel that I'm regularly seeing ads for Windows Phone. By contrast, I do see ads for the iPhone quite regularly, as well as HTC and Samsung's Android devices. Nokia & Microsoft need to sort this out and fast.
I hope you'll be reviewing other options, because as far as I know, AlertMe are the only vendor that requires you to pay a subscription fee to use their kit.
The company is also painfully slow at bringing new products to market - it took an incredibly long time for them to bring the actual energy /display/ to market - and when it did, it looked nothing like the original design which they claimed they'd been 'testing' - /that/ unit seems to have been just sold to British Gas (one of their sugar daddies), who seem to get a lot more of their time and attention than their regular consumer customers.
Plenty of other kit out there - why not do a group test of some of the others like OWL, Wattson etc - CurrentCost are a good one too, they just released a meter reader that works by reading the LED pulses of many modern meters, offering much higher accuracy.
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