When I read this story I first thought that Microsux was finally willing to compete by getting off of its high horse. Then I read it was only for the lower priced machines. The lowest priced tablet with Windoz on the Dell site is $299.
This must be totally about Chromebooks and Chromeboxes. ASUS is selling a Chromebox this month for $179 with the same internal parts as the $199 Acer Chromebook. HP has some Chromebooks that don't cost much more. Toshiba in March will begin selling a 13.3" screen Chromebook with a much better screen than the Acer. It will sell for $279 using the same chip as the Acer. The reports and reviews of these machines using the latest Celeron Haswell 1.4 GHz chip are very favorable. Web pages load very fast and there is no lag. Maybe these chips could run Windoz 8.
Even with these lower prices it makes me wonder who really wants to buy anything with Windoz 8. Everywhere I read customer reviews of different computers there is always a huge percentage of people complaining that they either don't like Windoz 8 or they hate Windoz 8. The word must have gotten around by now to everybody who works with computers that 8 is just not fun to use. It probably will just get worse and worse until Windoz 9 comes around. Who knows what that will bring.
Chromebooks are making huge inroads into the mobile computing world because low end chips are fast enough to get work done.
They probably cost manufacturers even less money than Windoz. How much telephone support is really needed for Chrombooks? I bet it is very small compared to Windoz 8. This is probably a big factor in manufacturers deciding to make Chromebooks. Chromebooks have a feature called "power wash". It is essentially a way to quickly reset everything in the OS to its original configuration. That must save a lot of time for telephone tech support which means much less money spent. That means fewer tech support people are needed for Chrome OS. Windoz support takes forever sometimes.
That ASUS box costs 270 Euros which translates to $365.00. That is above the Windoz low price threshold for their discount. I would still like to own one because it would do everything I needed at home. It's much cheaper than a Mac Mini and uses very little power just like a laptop.
The Microsoft Store has the 32GB model of the Dell tablet listed for $229 USD.
The ASUS could likely seem some price variations depending on the model and specs. Not to mention the European price doesn't always translate into the US pricing.
Without dipping into hardware from 2012, there is nothing underneath Bay Trail-M for set top devices from Intel. Even then, Intel is refreshing the line-up and cutting manufacturing of some of the 2013 Bay Trail-M models.
The average iPad customer just wants a great user experience. Once you start slinging the Intel code names, you've already lost the competition for the consumer. They don't speak specs.
I don't think I've ever seen a single advert that makes reference to Bay Trail, at most it might include "intel inside".
any laptop at $250 is not going to run Windows 8 very well.
A laptop using the weakest Intel hardware from late 2013 ~ early 2014 should handle Windows 8 just fine.
Of course the potential problem for Microsoft is whether or not the consumer wants Windows 8, although this problem might be more persistent in the tablet/touch market, not as much the laptop market.
Actually, the Chromebook angle does make sense come to think of it. The Chromebook as a very cheap terminal device to access the corporate applications remotely is very tempting only Citrix still isn't providing a very good experience here and the long term vendor support from Google is questionable. Ie, will I be able to use my Chromebook thin clients 2-3 years down the road or not. Having Windows on the same hardware solves a whole host of issues like CAL licensing, configuration, lifecycle management yadayada. Windows and Microsoft are known entities.
So as a way to avoid Chromebooks eating into corporate IT client deployments. Yes. Not a bad move.
I doubt MS can afford to dumb down Office enough to be compatible across all platforms. Look how much Apple had to cripple iWork apps just for equality across iOS, OS X and the iCloud version. Not that risky for Apple to do something like that because they don't have so many business users, but if MS did that it would be suicide.
I think you misunderstand the bigger picture of what Apple is doing with iWorks.
Granted, that Apple has rewritten iWorks from the ground up with an architecture that scales better on iCloud, desktops and mobiles,.
If you followed what Apple did with the Final Cut Pro X rewrite, you would notice that iWorks features are quickly coming back and iWorks will be in an architectural position to beat office in the long run just like Final Cut Pro X rules in movie making. iWorks is not watered down in anyway, not in iCloud and not in iOS. Moreover, Apple is not trying to compete against MS Office with iWorks. iWorks is free and will be used to help sell Apple's ecosystem (iCloud, Mobile, Portable, Wearables and Desktops) and Apple will not be totally dependent on MS Office.
Microsoft needs to do the same with MS Office but it will be much more difficult for Microsoft for several reasons:
1. Office is huge and I believe it has what's called a "Fragile Base Class" issue that makes it difficult to fix for mobiles without a rewrite. It is similar to when Microsoft rewrote Windows '98 as Windows NT. It is a huge under taking that took years but had to be done.
2. The Mobile paradigm is radically different than the desktop and the Cloud because of limited available resources on mobile devices and everyone knows that Office is a resource hog. Office will need to be rewritten for Mobile devices. It will be much easier on iOS because Apple already has a very advanced text engine for mobile iOS and well defined UI and APIs.
3. Office is part of MS' enterprise money maker on the desktop. MS does not want to break the desktop and venture into Mobile just yet. Their Mobile efforts are not that successful yet. MS is entrenched on the desktop with the old software, they have sort of integrated office into the Cloud but have yet to take the full leap on Mobile. If they don't rewrite Office, I think it will be a mediocre experience on mobiles and inconsistent with the desktop and the cloud. MS is going to start with Office for iOS just like they started with Office for Mac OS on desktops and then go from there.
Time will tell if MS can pull this off and still maintain Office as an enterprise money maker on the desktop.
Note that Google only has office software in the Cloud and a different software that it sells on Mobiles. (No desktop software)
Equivalent for POS, crappy, poorly designed/written ... ?
No, not necessarily. It is a problem that is inherent in the programming language that they use to write it. In the case of Office: C++
Apple uses Objective C for OS X and iOS APIs. It is much less susceptible to the "Fragile Base Class" issue and it is much more flexible to re-architect software written in Objective C without breaking all other softwares that depend on the base libraries. I think the Objective C language gives Apple a huge advantage. Apple is now the only company that really uses it since it was adopted it at NeXT in 1988, Apple now changes it at will for the better without really having to answer to any consortium.
No, not necessarily. It is a problem that is inherent in the programming language that they use to write it. In the case of Office: C++
Apple uses Objective C for OS X and iOS APIs. It is much less susceptible to the "Fragile Base Class" issue and it is much more flexible to re-architect software written in Objective C without breaking all other softwares that depend on the base libraries. I think the Objective C language gives Apple a huge advantage. Apple is now the only company that really uses it since it was adopted it at NeXT in 1988, Apple now changes it at will for the better without really having to answer to any consortium.
You are probably right, I won't argue since , after an ADA self training (on a PC..) somewhere in 1990, I swore to myself I would never program anything in another langage ! (I have been faithful to this promise , at least in my professional life ...(but simply because I stopped programming in my professional life ...)).
@macnewsjunkie I agree, but it isn't Moores Law that is failing it is the perceived benefit on PCs that is failing. Moores Law just deals with the number of transistors you can chuck at the problem for a given cost point. Frequency is a different metric.
Smartphones have benefited greatly, but soon they will also gain less and less.
Gradually it will be smaller and smaller devices that gain the benefit.
Seems like a real visionary leader would be able to recognize that MS needs to create an entirely new OS from scratch that has no relationship to Windows. Create a team isolated from any and all Windows groups and give them the money and carte blanche to get the task done. Build an integrated phone/tablet OS while your at it since PCs are becoming secondary to those devices. As it stands now MS has the cash to do a Manhattan Project like this. In a few years that might not be true.
What works for one company isn't the best choice for another. In the mid 1990s, every pundit was telling Apple that the way to fix their declining sales and profits was to splinter the Mac OS and Mac hardware, or even sell off the Mac hardware business and "become like Microsoft" and license Mac OS to Mac clone makers, who would then drive hardware prices down through a competition (which we now realize was an unsustainable race to the bottom). The common, unimaginative remedy for Apple's business model was to adopt Microsoft's. And why not? Windows 95 was on top of the world back then. It took a Steve Jobs to recognize that this advice wasn't going to work, and that "Apple needed to remember how to be Apple."
That ASUS box costs 270 Euros which translates to $365.00. That is above the Windoz low price threshold for their discount. I would still like to own one because it would do everything I needed at home.
When I typed "I would still like to own one..." I meant that I would like to own the computer and run GNU/Linux. I would not ever run Windoz.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WS11
The Microsoft Store has the 32GB model of the Dell tablet listed for $229 USD.
The ASUS could likely seem some price variations depending on the model and specs. Not to mention the European price doesn't always translate into the US pricing.
If this is so then Microsux really doesn't care about profit at their stores. The $229 price is what Dell charges for the Android version on their site.
This would also give manufacturers another reason to dislike Microsux because they are undercutting them.
What is the real cost of buying brand recognition and market share? Google gave away Android hoping it would earn money from mobile device users clicking ads on Google's search engine. Some ads do cost a lot and could make up for the price of the work that went into Android. When mortgage rate ads cost $25 per click or more that could add up fast.
They sell Chrome OS and support it for probably the same reasons. It is easy to see how they recoup their investment over time. What I wonder is how long it takes. It must be worth it because Android came long before Chrome OS and Google decided to use the same strategy for an operating system for computers. They must have known ahead of time what they would get in return.
When Microsux discounts their OS, builds their own hardware, and sells other manufacturers hardware at a big discount, they are counting on people to buy their properties in the future. Is the Microsux ecosystem really so good that people will want to buy their next machine using Windoz?
Apple's iOS is getting better all of the time. There are hundreds of thousands of apps for it that do great things. Android, though plagued with malware, is also getting better with tens of thousands of apps that are great too. Chrome OS has fewer apps but the machines running it are capable office work devices. As internet speeds increase and apps improve, cloud computing will become a big industry. Why would most people and even businesses choose Microsux if they don't do specialized computing beyond paper pushing? It is only a matter of time before Adobe's programs are run in the cloud and available via a browser. Quicken and other huge specialized software firms will in time do the same thing. They will sell subscriptions and offer data storage on-line for easy sharing.
All Google needs to do is make a better office suite than Microsux and Windoz will be dead soon afterwards.
Now that Google is contracting with a company to make a virtual machine interface so that Microsux Office can run in Chrome OS it is only a matter of months before Windoz takes another big hit. If Google does some heavy advertising once this product is functional Microsux could experience a huge drop in sales. Then HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, and the rest will have one less reason to continue putting Windoz on their machines. They will want to sell Chromebooks.
Maybe some of you believe this is a race to the bottom. Such comments are made here often. It is just a shift in the way people use computers. This happens in all industries. As things evolve competition comes into play. Manufacturers can either innovate to get more sales at prices that make them happy or they can compete in the price arena.
Innovation brings prices up. Competition brings prices down. The balance is always shifting like a pendulum.
A laptop using the weakest Intel hardware from late 2013 ~ early 2014 should handle Windows 8 just fine.
Of course the potential problem for Microsoft is whether or not the consumer wants Windows 8, although this problem might be more persistent in the tablet/touch market, not as much the laptop market.
That may be true, however, I just took a look at Best Buy for NEW Windows 8 laptops. The cheapest device is $280. If the OEMs save $35 with this program, it would still put the price above $250 and that is the absolute cheapest Windows 8 laptop sold at Best Buy.
The more I look at this, the more I'm convinced that this program is being done mainly for tablets, where Microsoft believes it can ride the huge growth being seen in Android tablets.
Comments
When I read this story I first thought that Microsux was finally willing to compete by getting off of its high horse. Then I read it was only for the lower priced machines. The lowest priced tablet with Windoz on the Dell site is $299.
This must be totally about Chromebooks and Chromeboxes. ASUS is selling a Chromebox this month for $179 with the same internal parts as the $199 Acer Chromebook. HP has some Chromebooks that don't cost much more. Toshiba in March will begin selling a 13.3" screen Chromebook with a much better screen than the Acer. It will sell for $279 using the same chip as the Acer. The reports and reviews of these machines using the latest Celeron Haswell 1.4 GHz chip are very favorable. Web pages load very fast and there is no lag. Maybe these chips could run Windoz 8.
Even with these lower prices it makes me wonder who really wants to buy anything with Windoz 8. Everywhere I read customer reviews of different computers there is always a huge percentage of people complaining that they either don't like Windoz 8 or they hate Windoz 8. The word must have gotten around by now to everybody who works with computers that 8 is just not fun to use. It probably will just get worse and worse until Windoz 9 comes around. Who knows what that will bring.
Chromebooks are making huge inroads into the mobile computing world because low end chips are fast enough to get work done.
They probably cost manufacturers even less money than Windoz. How much telephone support is really needed for Chrombooks? I bet it is very small compared to Windoz 8. This is probably a big factor in manufacturers deciding to make Chromebooks. Chromebooks have a feature called "power wash". It is essentially a way to quickly reset everything in the OS to its original configuration. That must save a lot of time for telephone tech support which means much less money spent. That means fewer tech support people are needed for Chrome OS. Windoz support takes forever sometimes.
That ASUS box costs 270 Euros which translates to $365.00. That is above the Windoz low price threshold for their discount. I would still like to own one because it would do everything I needed at home. It's much cheaper than a Mac Mini and uses very little power just like a laptop.
The Microsoft Store has the 32GB model of the Dell tablet listed for $229 USD.
The ASUS could likely seem some price variations depending on the model and specs. Not to mention the European price doesn't always translate into the US pricing.
Without dipping into hardware from 2012, there is nothing underneath Bay Trail-M for set top devices from Intel. Even then, Intel is refreshing the line-up and cutting manufacturing of some of the 2013 Bay Trail-M models.
"Blah blah blah Bay Trail-T blah blah blah"
The average iPad customer just wants a great user experience. Once you start slinging the Intel code names, you've already lost the competition for the consumer. They don't speak specs.
I don't think I've ever seen a single advert that makes reference to Bay Trail, at most it might include "intel inside".
any laptop at $250 is not going to run Windows 8 very well.
A laptop using the weakest Intel hardware from late 2013 ~ early 2014 should handle Windows 8 just fine.
Of course the potential problem for Microsoft is whether or not the consumer wants Windows 8, although this problem might be more persistent in the tablet/touch market, not as much the laptop market.
Try and open up Notepad. That's everything that is wrong with Windows 8.
Actually, the Chromebook angle does make sense come to think of it. The Chromebook as a very cheap terminal device to access the corporate applications remotely is very tempting only Citrix still isn't providing a very good experience here and the long term vendor support from Google is questionable. Ie, will I be able to use my Chromebook thin clients 2-3 years down the road or not. Having Windows on the same hardware solves a whole host of issues like CAL licensing, configuration, lifecycle management yadayada. Windows and Microsoft are known entities.
So as a way to avoid Chromebooks eating into corporate IT client deployments. Yes. Not a bad move.
I doubt MS can afford to dumb down Office enough to be compatible across all platforms. Look how much Apple had to cripple iWork apps just for equality across iOS, OS X and the iCloud version. Not that risky for Apple to do something like that because they don't have so many business users, but if MS did that it would be suicide.
I think you misunderstand the bigger picture of what Apple is doing with iWorks.
Granted, that Apple has rewritten iWorks from the ground up with an architecture that scales better on iCloud, desktops and mobiles,.
If you followed what Apple did with the Final Cut Pro X rewrite, you would notice that iWorks features are quickly coming back and iWorks will be in an architectural position to beat office in the long run just like Final Cut Pro X rules in movie making. iWorks is not watered down in anyway, not in iCloud and not in iOS. Moreover, Apple is not trying to compete against MS Office with iWorks. iWorks is free and will be used to help sell Apple's ecosystem (iCloud, Mobile, Portable, Wearables and Desktops) and Apple will not be totally dependent on MS Office.
Microsoft needs to do the same with MS Office but it will be much more difficult for Microsoft for several reasons:
1. Office is huge and I believe it has what's called a "Fragile Base Class" issue that makes it difficult to fix for mobiles without a rewrite. It is similar to when Microsoft rewrote Windows '98 as Windows NT. It is a huge under taking that took years but had to be done.
2. The Mobile paradigm is radically different than the desktop and the Cloud because of limited available resources on mobile devices and everyone knows that Office is a resource hog. Office will need to be rewritten for Mobile devices. It will be much easier on iOS because Apple already has a very advanced text engine for mobile iOS and well defined UI and APIs.
3. Office is part of MS' enterprise money maker on the desktop. MS does not want to break the desktop and venture into Mobile just yet. Their Mobile efforts are not that successful yet. MS is entrenched on the desktop with the old software, they have sort of integrated office into the Cloud but have yet to take the full leap on Mobile. If they don't rewrite Office, I think it will be a mediocre experience on mobiles and inconsistent with the desktop and the cloud. MS is going to start with Office for iOS just like they started with Office for Mac OS on desktops and then go from there.
Time will tell if MS can pull this off and still maintain Office as an enterprise money maker on the desktop.
Note that Google only has office software in the Cloud and a different software that it sells on Mobiles. (No desktop software)
"Fragile Base Class" issue ....
Equivalent for POS, crappy, poorly designed/written ... ?
Equivalent for POS, crappy, poorly designed/written ... ?
No, not necessarily. It is a problem that is inherent in the programming language that they use to write it. In the case of Office: C++
Apple uses Objective C for OS X and iOS APIs. It is much less susceptible to the "Fragile Base Class" issue and it is much more flexible to re-architect software written in Objective C without breaking all other softwares that depend on the base libraries. I think the Objective C language gives Apple a huge advantage. Apple is now the only company that really uses it since it was adopted it at NeXT in 1988, Apple now changes it at will for the better without really having to answer to any consortium.
No, not necessarily. It is a problem that is inherent in the programming language that they use to write it. In the case of Office: C++
Apple uses Objective C for OS X and iOS APIs. It is much less susceptible to the "Fragile Base Class" issue and it is much more flexible to re-architect software written in Objective C without breaking all other softwares that depend on the base libraries. I think the Objective C language gives Apple a huge advantage. Apple is now the only company that really uses it since it was adopted it at NeXT in 1988, Apple now changes it at will for the better without really having to answer to any consortium.
You are probably right, I won't argue since , after an ADA self training (on a PC..) somewhere in 1990, I swore to myself I would never program anything in another langage ! (I have been faithful to this promise , at least in my professional life ...(but simply because I stopped programming in my professional life ...)).
Whether or not the consumer takes to Windows 8 in the tablet market is an entirely different story, leading Microsoft into an uphill battle.
Everybody I know has already bought an iPad I don't think that anybody wants Windows anymore.
Smartphones have benefited greatly, but soon they will also gain less and less.
Gradually it will be smaller and smaller devices that gain the benefit.
It's not the price, but it's the quality that windows need to fix.
I don't think I've ever seen a single advert that makes reference to Bay Trail, at most it might include "intel inside".
I'm referring to posts in this thread that brag about "Bay Trail-T".
I'm referring to posts in this thread that brag about "Bay Trail-T".
In your previous post you made reference to the "average iPad consumer", a group that wouldn't even know this website exists.
Try and open up Notepad. That's everything that is wrong with Windows 8.
*opens up Notepad*
I don't get it
Seems like a real visionary leader would be able to recognize that MS needs to create an entirely new OS from scratch that has no relationship to Windows. Create a team isolated from any and all Windows groups and give them the money and carte blanche to get the task done. Build an integrated phone/tablet OS while your at it since PCs are becoming secondary to those devices. As it stands now MS has the cash to do a Manhattan Project like this. In a few years that might not be true.
What works for one company isn't the best choice for another. In the mid 1990s, every pundit was telling Apple that the way to fix their declining sales and profits was to splinter the Mac OS and Mac hardware, or even sell off the Mac hardware business and "become like Microsoft" and license Mac OS to Mac clone makers, who would then drive hardware prices down through a competition (which we now realize was an unsustainable race to the bottom). The common, unimaginative remedy for Apple's business model was to adopt Microsoft's. And why not? Windows 95 was on top of the world back then. It took a Steve Jobs to recognize that this advice wasn't going to work, and that "Apple needed to remember how to be Apple."
In your previous post you made reference to the "average iPad consumer", a group that wouldn't even know this website exists.
The market is bigger than this website. That's something techies never understand: tech doesn't revolve around them.
Which is why I said: "I don't think I've ever seen a single advert that makes reference to Bay Trail"
That ASUS box costs 270 Euros which translates to $365.00. That is above the Windoz low price threshold for their discount. I would still like to own one because it would do everything I needed at home.
When I typed "I would still like to own one..." I meant that I would like to own the computer and run GNU/Linux. I would not ever run Windoz.
The Microsoft Store has the 32GB model of the Dell tablet listed for $229 USD.
The ASUS could likely seem some price variations depending on the model and specs. Not to mention the European price doesn't always translate into the US pricing.
If this is so then Microsux really doesn't care about profit at their stores. The $229 price is what Dell charges for the Android version on their site.
This would also give manufacturers another reason to dislike Microsux because they are undercutting them.
What is the real cost of buying brand recognition and market share? Google gave away Android hoping it would earn money from mobile device users clicking ads on Google's search engine. Some ads do cost a lot and could make up for the price of the work that went into Android. When mortgage rate ads cost $25 per click or more that could add up fast.
They sell Chrome OS and support it for probably the same reasons. It is easy to see how they recoup their investment over time. What I wonder is how long it takes. It must be worth it because Android came long before Chrome OS and Google decided to use the same strategy for an operating system for computers. They must have known ahead of time what they would get in return.
When Microsux discounts their OS, builds their own hardware, and sells other manufacturers hardware at a big discount, they are counting on people to buy their properties in the future. Is the Microsux ecosystem really so good that people will want to buy their next machine using Windoz?
Apple's iOS is getting better all of the time. There are hundreds of thousands of apps for it that do great things. Android, though plagued with malware, is also getting better with tens of thousands of apps that are great too. Chrome OS has fewer apps but the machines running it are capable office work devices. As internet speeds increase and apps improve, cloud computing will become a big industry. Why would most people and even businesses choose Microsux if they don't do specialized computing beyond paper pushing? It is only a matter of time before Adobe's programs are run in the cloud and available via a browser. Quicken and other huge specialized software firms will in time do the same thing. They will sell subscriptions and offer data storage on-line for easy sharing.
All Google needs to do is make a better office suite than Microsux and Windoz will be dead soon afterwards.
Now that Google is contracting with a company to make a virtual machine interface so that Microsux Office can run in Chrome OS it is only a matter of months before Windoz takes another big hit. If Google does some heavy advertising once this product is functional Microsux could experience a huge drop in sales. Then HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, ASUS, and the rest will have one less reason to continue putting Windoz on their machines. They will want to sell Chromebooks.
Maybe some of you believe this is a race to the bottom. Such comments are made here often. It is just a shift in the way people use computers. This happens in all industries. As things evolve competition comes into play. Manufacturers can either innovate to get more sales at prices that make them happy or they can compete in the price arena.
Innovation brings prices up. Competition brings prices down. The balance is always shifting like a pendulum.
A laptop using the weakest Intel hardware from late 2013 ~ early 2014 should handle Windows 8 just fine.
Of course the potential problem for Microsoft is whether or not the consumer wants Windows 8, although this problem might be more persistent in the tablet/touch market, not as much the laptop market.
That may be true, however, I just took a look at Best Buy for NEW Windows 8 laptops. The cheapest device is $280. If the OEMs save $35 with this program, it would still put the price above $250 and that is the absolute cheapest Windows 8 laptop sold at Best Buy.
The more I look at this, the more I'm convinced that this program is being done mainly for tablets, where Microsoft believes it can ride the huge growth being seen in Android tablets.