Microsoft: 'No Plan B' as Surface struggles against iPad - Page 2

Oh come on MS only know two things, Apple's early OS aka Windows and Steve Job's Office aka MS Office. They should just be grateful they milked these two things for so long and got away with it. MS should just roll over and die.

 

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush....

 

Now, a push in the bush...

How fantastic is it that we are even able to have these types of conversations? It's times (and articles) like these that make reminiscing about the keynote made 6 years ago all the better. So fortunate to have been able to see that. Love it.

It's Tablet PC all over again, only with more Metro and a capacitive touch screen.

Their commercials are based on a bunch of weirdly dressed freaks engaged in the monotonous clicking sound of the keyboard and surface. Very little about what it can actually do to compliment your life. And to limit its distribution to only online and MS stores was a complete fail. Another steamy 'beauty' from Ballmer. When is this guy going to get the boot??

Its the end of the day............ Windows 8 still has yet to catch on, it may come pre installed on every PC, but what good is that of people stop buying PCs?

Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

everyone in the tech media is still missing what should be obvious:

 

1. MS has gone "all in" with Windows 8 - including the OS, Windows Phone 8, Surface RT and Surface Pro. that's right - there is no Plan B for any of it! (ok, there's always the Windows 7 OS to fall back on).

 

2. it's turning out to be an utter catastrophe.

 

3. Ballmer his minions - including this guy - will go down with the ship, blustering to the last gurgle.

 

 

How true.  Microsoft's reign over the corporate IT departments afford them this luxury.  For how long, it remains to be seen, but with their marketshare and Office dynasty, they can afford this approach for some time.  This version is just to get something out there, to show they are a player in the tablet market too.

Crappy product but very clever commercials. 

The fundamental problem with Microsoft engineers, unlike Apple engineers, is that they don't design a product that they would personally want to use at home, or carry around with them. They create confusing interfaces with lots of Windows baggage and hope that SOMEONE ELSE will buy it.

"...900,000 Surface tablets were sold in the fourth quarter"

 

Can you imagine the gushing press conference when they reach the magic 1 million!  ;~)

Spot on!

You mean something that's bloated, slow, and crashy, with a horrible Ribbon interface and no intuitive design? Advising Apple to follow Microsoft's formula for success was popular in 1995. But not today.

 

Really? What's clever about them?

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I absolutely hate those commercials. They simply reek of "our product isn't very good, so we'll distract you with lots of motion and noise".

Then there's a whole bunch of insanely rich people.

Plan B is to offer MS Office on the iPad.

The one thing Microsoft IS good at, is copying. When they release bad products they then look at their competitor's version and copy the best features, and call them "amazing new features" (like a magnetic cover). Windows surface will likely fail, but that won't stop MS from copying Apple more closely to release v2.

It's like 5 years too late for this now. Metro is nothing special... no different than WebOS, Danger/Kin, Android which are java-on-linux-type mobile OSs. HP already ditched WebOS, MS ditched CE, Danger (which they ruined by Microsoftizing), and Windows Phone 7. Hardware makers are putting out Android clones left, right and center.

 

All MS really have is a fancy UI tile. Where are the great mobile APIs to inspire developers to make great apps, like Apple has been providing for 5 years already.

 

Not to mention, iOS IS OS X under the surface! (see what I did there). iOS has robust, solid apps, not web or java applets as apps.

 

Not to mention, OS X / iOS is pretty much platform and processor agnostic. Starting with Next, Apple's OS has been on various processors (PowerPC, Intel, ARM). Apple has 15 years of experience with this. Windows is STILL on x86 ONLY.

 

Not to mention, Apple has been developing with ARM for about 25 years. They make their own custom designs and silicon to integrate the hardware and OS and boost the OS performance and battery life. What similar hardware experience does MS have? Nada.

 

So, MS is what, 10 years behind! Instead, they like to spin that they are ahead because they have some how "beaten Apple to the punch"! As though Apple is desperately trying to merge iOS and OS X but doesn't know how, and MS got there first with that concept! As though Metro and Windows are one glorious, cohesive unit giving us "Windows Everywhere". All the while, the truth is that iOS is a parallel development of OS X itself, stripped back to give the best touch experience possible! iOS isn't a UI layer bolted on with widgets and craplets masquerading as apps, it is the Apple OS with a new, touch layer of its own. I don't know why that doesn't get more attention.

 

You just have to wonder what MS employees do all day. Apparently the answer is infighting, defending their team territories and filling in evaluations where they rank each other. This is the legacy of Bill Gates. You could always see it whenever he and Steve Jobs were side by side: A small-minded man with a self-centredness and ruthlessness for world domination; and a self-assured visionary with imagination, insight, taste, and a tirelessness to make great things that make a real difference -- to keep at it until it couldn't be improved upon.

Edited by krabbelen - 2/15/13 at 5:50am

2 things:

 

First, Windows 8, in every benchmark I have seen, and in my own experiance, on my 2 laptops, desktop and a handfull of VMs I use, Windows 8 is faster than windows 7 in a meaningful way, same goes for Server 2012 over Server 2008R2. That Asus you were playing with was probably loaded with OEM Crudware...want to test Windows 8? test a copy fre of OEM crapware and also free of any Symantec or Maccafee products.

 

As to your second point, Windows is a platform, iPad is a consumer electronics device. There is a huge differance, one is a complete product, the other is a platform on which to build other products such as PCs or tablet experiances, Windows needs all of those interface tools because of all of teh interface scenarios it needs to support. Windows can be customized by the licensee to do anything from run a $400 tablet up to running a complex real time manufacturing control system.

 

Windows is more complex than iOS, I will grant you that, but it is far more versitile and powerfull for it. and for the record, one could argue that an etch a sketch is more complex than an iPad.

Not to nitpick, but Windows since NT was ported to non-Intel platforms. As I pointed out in another post, in the early days, NT was ported to Alpha, MIPS, and even PowerPC. And until recently, intel/HP's Itanium. This goes back to the early 90s. Microsoft obviously stopped giving a crap when Windows NT on Intel decimated other workstation platforms (SGI, DEC, HP, Sun). But Windows has been mostly portable.

Secondly, I think no reviewer has said there's anything "cohesive" about Metro on Windows 8. Quite the opposite. The kindest (apologist) reviews have said it feels "transitional," as if to say Metro is the "future," the traditional desktop is the past, but Windows 8 is sitting on the fence between the two. One is multi-touch, multi-gesture. The other is "right click" and displays a pointer and tiny toolbar buttons. It's pretty obvious to anyone using it that Microsoft thought it best to make these two different visions try to coexist, side by side. And I've criticized them for that, because that's exactly what I thought of Tablet PC, their tablet solution going back to the mid-90s. (Yes, I used to do systems integration on those things.) Tablet PC is user experience (UX) compromise. Surface is UX compromise in prettier packaging. Regardless of what processor is inside.

So, if Microsoft really means for Windows 8's dual UX to eventually "transition" to pure Metro, then they're basically agreeing with Apple's stance: these two different UX's aren't meant to converge into one. Otherwise Microsoft would have done it already.

You're kidding, right?  So iOS and the iPad isn't a real or complete product?  What you mean to say is that Win 8 and MS Surface Pro is a laptop, not unlike any other Windows laptops.  It can run all the same outdated legacy programs that enterprise solutions are behind the times on - that's fantastic.  But it's not a tablet.  It's own tablet interface is anything but professional and even the idea of touch in Win 8 mostly revolves around picture manipulation or swiping to bring up other menus.  I'd say that Win 8 is less of a complete system than even iOS, which functions exactly as it should and doesn't pretend to be a legacy desktop OS.

 

Well said!

Fair enough about the "portability" of WIndows. It just seems that some of these efforts are experiments and have gone by the wayside without any real benefit to end users. I am sure OS X is on various platforms in the labs, too.

 

Perhaps "Cohesive" was not the best word -- trying to get across the marketing that this is the wave of the future -- every computing context is literally at your fingertips. Whether that is interpreted, intentionally or non-intentionally as being "transitional", I don't know. 

 

How much more "cohesive" can you be, though, if you do everything on one device because both environments are right in there together, sometimes within the same app? I say "it" is "cohesive", conceptually, because it is stuck together and delivered together in one package. MS is not sufficiently separating the two paradigms. You can't now have Windows without Metro, apparently.

 

What is pretty clear, is that MS have taken a bet that the "best of all worlds", is to have the two in one, so that you can have both desktop and touch in one device. "Without compromise". When, as you say, the reality is a lot of compromise. Unfortunately, as you say, the experience is anything but cohesive.

 

The truth is probably more along these lines: MS was so invested in Legacy windows that it sought to "extend" and thereby somehow "add value" to Windows instead of starting from scratch and considering how it could really add value to the modern computing experience. And it just waited too long. What it is spinning as a feature, is really the failure to act decisively years ago. Instead, it has cobbled touch onto Windows, discontinued its older mobile efforts and is delivering them together as some kind of complementary (if not exactly cohesive) product. And it is probably backfiring on them and accelerating the alienation of their customers and their irrelevance in the marketplace.

 

Whether MS intends this situation as a "transition" of Windows to pure Metro or to anything else is anyone's guess. I think they will always wait and see which way the wind is blowing. But right now, they are delivered together as essentially one product that is supposed to do everything on cue, but in reality depends on what part of what app you are interacting with, and how far the app has been reworked.

 

My conclusion is the dead opposite of yours: Of course, they (mouse and touch) don't converge, meaningfully -- or Apple would have done it already. On the contrary, Apple intentionally separated them and dedicated them, both from the same solid core, precisely because they are best focused on apart. The problem is that, contrary to your assertion that MS agrees with Apple that they aren't meant to converge, MS has very clearly tried to "merge" them, or let's say smeared them together. Apparently, some traditional desktop apps must now be used under Metro only.

 

Also, not only are Windows and Metro/Windows RT/Windows Style UI/Whatever-it's-called-this-month offered on some of the same products under the same Windows banner, but the separation is not clear (witness the confusion over what apps would or would not work on the Suface for Windows 'RT' which was pushed with a keyboard as being practically essential. And touch Metro Apps seem to have touch only skin deep before the UI becomes impractical as finger targets begin to look like they were intended for mouse cursors. And on the desktop you get jarringly shifted back and forth from one input paradigm or UI to the other.

 

Overall, touch seems a gimmick coming from MS, and MS seems schizophrenic. Because, on the one hand, MS has apparently taken the position that touch computing is a passing fad; that Apple is all about the fad; and that our vision of tablets for the past 25 years was right all along (we were just ahead of time and people will now flock to our tablets because once the latent interest in tablets was somehow awakened by Apple, people will suddenly realize all they ever wanted was to do real work on their tablet, and that necessarily involves traditional Windows by definition). On the other hand, Windows is terrified that customers are sticking to old versions of Windows and not caring to upgrade, so MS has gotten desperate and is throwing the baby out with the bath water and alienating customers even further. They have no clue why Apple's approach is superior, they have no clue about the PostPC shift, and they seem to think that "innovation" consists of doing something -- anything -- crazy or different, like shoe-horning elements of touch computing into every computing experience, no matter how incongruous and innapropriate.

Edited by krabbelen - 2/15/13 at 9:16am

the sad thing is, the surface is likely the best product microsoft has ever made purchased.

Not sure why they haven't released it. 70% of any price is better than 100% of nothing.

OK, but I'm not convinced that they aren't planning a UX transition. Of course, they aren't selling that: the advertisements always show ONLY Metro UI. They can't really sell a "transitional" story. But I think transition is their underlying strategy. They've more or less told their developers that: Metro is the future, and so is its programming library, WinRT.

Another reason I think they're planning a transition is because Microsoft has a long history of transitioning application developers and users across major platform changes:
From DOS to 16-bit Windows (Windows 1-3)
From 16-bit to 32-bit Windows (Windows 95)
From 32-bit Windows to NT Kernel (Windows 2000)
From 32-bit to 64-bit (Windows 7)

Vista introduced a new driver model for video drivers, which was a big change for the platform.

Throughout their history, they've kept the PC user and application base on the Microsoft platform.

So for Microsoft they can keep evolving Windows to stay relevant, even if--and they believe this is going to happen--people want tablets instead of PCs. That is the next transition that they think is going to happen.

This idea was outlined in Steve Ballmer's All Things D appearance, the one where he said "PCs will keep evolving in form factor"-- he was definitely responding to the success of the iPad.

Surface is supposed to be a benchmark for Microsoft to show their hardware partners the kind of Tablet PCs Microsoft wants them to build in order to compete with Apple.

And it's a compromise. If anything, its tepid reception proves what Microsoft's OEM partners have been telling Microsoft all along: compromise isn't what people want in a Windows PC.

Windows 8 and RT are bets on how to keep Windows relevant in a "tablet world." They can't cut off the old laptop / desktop world entirely, any more than they could cut off DOS compatibility when Windows 95 shipped. On the other hand, if they had released a pure Metro, pure touch screen Surface, I believe it might compete favorably against other non-iOS tablets, and if so, eventually cannibalize "traditional" Windows laptops sales at the same time. Microsoft won't got there, which is why I said they'd rather Apple cannibalize Windows PC sales.

Too bad MS, this Windows thingie would have been popular before tablets.

Sure you'll sell some, to those who must have Windows.  Like It shops afraid of leaving Windows. 

 

I'm afraid I wouldn't even want one as a gift for my computer museum.
 

Noooo...!  Ballmers the best thing that ever happened to Apple and Google. Only Ballmer could bring to market a device that incorporates the worst aspects of a tablet coupled with the worst aspects of a laptop. It was pure GENIUS! 

 

It's easy to spot the rare Surface user in a coffee shop. He's the one looking for a 110v outlet...

"Here at Microsoft we wanted to make a device that had no compromises. And we did it! Introducing the new MS Surface which has all the shortcomings of both a tablet and notebook. Now you don't have to decide which shortcomings are the least desirable because you get them all in one overpriced piece of crap."

If transition (to add touch to the UI) is Microsoft's plan, then it requires touch to be added to all Windows based software BEFORE the public buys touch aware hardware. That means the software must allow the programs to be useful on mouse-based hardware. This compromises the unique advantages of a touch interface. This creates a worse than "chicken or egg" situation where the best solution for the user (corporate, institutional or consumer) is chose an iPad to use in addition to a simple mouse/keyboard computer.

I know that the good people at Apple and Google LOVE them and hope Uncle Fester keeps them rolling.

A hand in the bush is better than two birds.

Before tablets???
Windows Tablet PCs based on stylus input have been around since the Windows 3.11 days.

 

AFAIC, their iWork products are already 95% of the way there.

95%, really, 95% the functionality of MS Office. It's maybe 10% and that's being generous.

If you're talking highly complex spreadsheets, it's true that Office is the better program suite, but for the vast majority needing basic word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, iWork is functionally easier to use and less of a system hog than Office. The fact that you can use iWork seamlessly with Office using colleagues, making it system agnostic, for me makes it the better option.

Sure I'll by that but that wasn't the statement in which SpamWich made. Office has many incredible features and supports Visual Basic to add any functionality missing or automate tasks that is needed in a professional work environment. I work in the trading office of a large European bank, we have 1,000's of emails coming in that are parsed by Outlook and then fed into Excel for calculations all done without ever touching the original source. It's cool to like a companies products but the amount of embellishing that goes on in this board is a little childish.

 

The MS Surface might not be the perfect tablet in the current crop of Windows 8 machines but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea. Windows 8 is actually a really decent OS for companies who want a tablet for portability and need to run full featured programs. Not to mention the OS is able to connect to the many storage servers that a firm may have as well as navigate/control/edit that data with a File-manager, something the iPad will most likely never be able to do properly. Support for technologies like Java, Python and Cobra are also a must for a lot of us who use custom programs more then externally bought ones, I.E. every large company in the world. Yes you can write a app but when your data is coming from a secure Oracle server things become a little difficult not to mention you will have to write two different programs, one for the tablet and one for the desktop. If you bring up Citrix then why bother with an iPad when Honeywell makes dumb terminal tablets on the cheap that were made for Citrix. Lets also not forget secure LDAP login and multiuser support, you might work for a company that hands out tablets to everyone but most share and the need for support working environments for each user is a must. Most firms also won't let you touch their network unless you go threw some kind of user authentication like LDAP and if they don't then then their stupid.

 

The iPad is a consumer product and wonderful one at that but a Windows 8 tablet I believe is a much better fit for the corporate world, especially a IT centric one like us. 

 

Our firm currently has outfitted our staff with the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet II, a very impressive, long lasting tablet that fits are needs perfectly. The skuttlebutt around the office about the Lenovo Tablets with Windows 8 have been pretty positive. It's fast, long lasting, all of our software seems to run without problems, our trading software looks great on it, Metro is a easy platform to write for, handles networking like a champ, can access any and all network printers and document scanners without them having to be AirPrint or CloudPrint enabled, can use a normal USB storage stick (a must) and are very reasonable in price. Were buying them for 650 CHF for the 64 GB model, Lenovo made us a deal, Apple doesn't deal so the iPads would have cost 850CHF for  64GB model. A good Windows 8 tablet like the Lenovo is an impressive work tool, so before some of you start in again as to how bad Windows 8 is, may I suggest you actually pick one up and play with it for a week before passing judgement. The Microsoft Store has a very liberal return policy.

 

Yes, RT is a stupid idea, yes the Surface Pro with only 4 hours of battery is ridiculous and MS will pay the price for this mistake. However the other players like;

 

Asus VivoTab 810c

Asus VivoTab Smart

HP ElitePad 900 

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet II

 

...have built really impressive machines and I guarantee you will not be dissapointed with any of the aforementioned. 

You mean to tell me those breakdance commercials are for a TABLET??? I thought it was showing off dance moves...