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  • dee.
    replied
    Originally posted by mrugiero View Post
    The interface change is not just the lack of a start menu. There's just a bloat of features that a traditional Windows (and desktop in general) user will probably find useless. The whole modern thing is quite unappealing for some, including myself. Aside from that, I find Windows 8 quite usable (it came with my notebook). There aren't too many major improvements over Windows 7, though, and that might be another reason people won't switch.
    About the interface, yes, I agree - there are many other stupid things about win8, including the schizophrenic nature of the OS, lack of consistency in the ui, bad discoverability, lack of intuitivity... but the main thing is, windows has always thrived on familiarity, and now microsoft is taking it away - that doesn't go well with the target audience. Plus there's the word-of-mouth factor, and when there's so much bad publicity about it... well, it's quite understandable it's a flop.

    Personally, I think the worst aspects of it are the really sketchy ones... like how it reports back to ms every software you install on the computer (I hear this can be turned off, but that doesn't excuse it), the DRM, adware in the default apps... and the fact that the entire OS is closed-source and microsoft reports every vulnerability to NSA first, before patching them... of course, these probably aren't concerns for the average consumer.

    I tried win8 briefly at a store computer and I didn't find it usable at all. It's so ugly and unintuitive, I got nauseous just trying it out.

    The only thing I have to add is that users relate it also to ease of use. That's why, while being awareness of the existence of Linux, few people on the desktop switches (even when Ubuntu is not really harder to use than Windows, most people still have the idea Linux is for geeks only). On the smartphones ground there's no such advantage for MS, since Android already proved easy to use.
    Well, most people don't even know Android is Linux-based - Android doesn't advertise it, and it really doesn't have anything in common with desktop Linux distros. Nevertheless, the popularity of Android brings more interest in Linux, it has shown Linux works great as a base for a mobile OS, inspiring the creation of several other Linux-based mobile platforms, so it's not all bad.

    Not sure why you specify Ubuntu there though, there are actually many distros that are just as easy to use. Ubuntu just has that kind of reputation of being "a noob-friendly distro".

    And I don't think it's really the ease of use that people relate to in windows. It's the familiarity - people perceive it easier to use because it's what they're used to (the so-called baby duck syndrome). But since windows 8 breaks that familiarity, the advantage is lost, and in comparison, moving to any "noob-friendly" Linux distro probably isn't any more difficult than moving to, say, from xp to 8.

    I thought Win32 was available, my bad. Yes, most desktop apps depends on Win32, and I hope they still do. I don't buy Modern at all for the desktop.
    Win32 is available only for microsoft's own apps on ARM windows - ie and office and such. All other apps have to use the winrt API. So that might be one more reason why there seems to be no interest in developing for winrt devices - although the biggest reason is probably that no one is buying those devices...

    I didn't mean they are few with niche, but that there is a relatively well defined target, instead of being general use. I'm aware you can browse the web (and even install Linux, actually turning it into something you can use as a PC) in most modern consoles, but if you buy one, chances are you want it for games, mostly. Anyway, I'm basing mostly in my biased environment, not in real numbers, so chances are high I'm wrong. Keep this in mind in my next answers, because I really wouldn't like to copy paste this comment as if it were a license on my answers.
    Oh ok. That makes sense.

    I didn't mean few people is concerned, but pissed. I think a lot of people, including myself, believe that from the very basics a state can't hide laws (the congress approved such thing, wtf?) from their people, since this wouldn't be a real representation: "how can I know I share someone's views in a subject if that person doesn't talk about it and I'm not even aware of the issue?", and also the whole spying on their citizens and non citizens thing (which is a layer up this) is too much, is kind of one of the arguments USA gave to be against communism: you are not free, and there is a police state that knows your every move (which isn't really true for the theory, but for the implementations we've seen). It's at least hypocrisy to then use the same methods "to protect us" (well, not actually "us", I'm from another country). But I interpret being pissed off as actually trying to do something against it. Not necessarily protesting, but for example migrating from Windows, or plainly quitting computers for the sake of privacy. This, I didn't see one around.
    Well, most average people still think there's no alternative to using windows, and that installing an alternate OS is a daunting task - which it pretty much is now, thanks to "secure" boot. And no, I don't think anyone is "quitting computers" altogether - and not everyone is going to do anything about it, but at least there's now active discussion about things, people are more aware of the issue, and people concerned about NSA spying are no longer labeled as tinfoil-hats. And I've personally seen at least several people who have basically said, that the NSA-gate opened their eyes to the poor state of privacy and prompted them to research ways to keep their important private communications safe.

    I think, even if the only effect of the NSA scandal is that more people are aware of the issue, if just the political atmosphere shifts so that privacy becomes a more mainstream issue - which is already happening, to an extent, then that can already have a positive influence on things in the future. We might have hope of avoiding a total surveillance society still. If enough people care about something and make enough noise, it can actually change the outcome of things.

    Leave a comment:


  • archibald
    replied
    Originally posted by dee. View Post
    I don't think it's just the new interface. Even after the update that brings back a start button, the sales of windows 8 devices haven't picked up.
    The update that brings back the start menu and booting to desktop hasn't been released yet (at least in Europe).

    Leave a comment:


  • dee.
    replied
    Originally posted by BO$$ View Post
    My self image keeps shifting I have no idea who I am any more....
    Well, I'm sure you'll "discover" yourself, you just need a bit of honest introspection, and possibly therapy.

    Leave a comment:


  • mrugiero
    replied
    Originally posted by dee. View Post
    I don't think it's just the new interface. Even after the update that brings back a start button, the sales of windows 8 devices haven't picked up.
    The interface change is not just the lack of a start menu. There's just a bloat of features that a traditional Windows (and desktop in general) user will probably find useless. The whole modern thing is quite unappealing for some, including myself. Aside from that, I find Windows 8 quite usable (it came with my notebook). There aren't too many major improvements over Windows 7, though, and that might be another reason people won't switch.
    This is also not the whole truth. The smartphone market is nowhere near saturation, since there's still plenty of room of growth in it - new smartphone platforms can still succeed with a clever business strategy. Additionally, the smartphone market is one of the most volatile - the market leader of today can be going out of business in a few years. Microsoft has spent billions of dollars trying to penetrate this market, but all their attempts have been futile - they should have been able to succeed, with a brand name such as Nokia (it was still one of the most respected mobile brands before ms got involved). Yet, they have just sailed from failure to failure. Why?

    The thing is, no one really likes microsoft - people just put up with it. Microsoft has succeeded on the desktop side by sheer inertia and bulk, they've been able to bully their way through, and coerce everyone into cooperating with them, forcing any competition out of the market. But when they tried the same strategy on the mobile side, surprise - it didn't work, because on that side, people didn't have to cooperate with them. If you want people to cooperate with you, you have two options - force them to do it, if you're able to do that, if not - you need some measure of humility and actually respecting your business partners. When you act like an asshole, soon no one trusts you.
    The same goes for reputation among the consumers - the "windows" brand is still mostly associated with BSOD, instability, silly kludges and corporate stupidity - it's "that OS we have to struggle with at work", or "that OS we have to run on our computer because there's no choice, even though no one likes it". People don't actually like the "windows" brand, and when you put it on a market where there's plenty of choice - it doesn't succeed. No one trusts microsoft. (Well, except for the ms fanboys...)
    The only thing I have to add is that users relate it also to ease of use. That's why, while being awareness of the existence of Linux, few people on the desktop switches (even when Ubuntu is not really harder to use than Windows, most people still have the idea Linux is for geeks only). On the smartphones ground there's no such advantage for MS, since Android already proved easy to use.
    I don't think that's exactly true. The Win32 API isn't available for apps on windows ARM versions, only WinRT. Most desktop software (to my knowledge) still uses Win32, which can't be used on phones/tablets.

    I also don't really buy this "convergence" idea anyway. Desktops, tablets and phones are entirely different devices that require different interfaces.
    I thought Win32 was available, my bad. Yes, most desktop apps depends on Win32, and I hope they still do. I don't buy Modern at all for the desktop.

    Consoles niche? Really? I think more people play on consoles than play on PCs. And there are more gamers (at least in 1st world countries) than you'd think. Plus it's a growing market.
    I didn't mean they are few with niche, but that there is a relatively well defined target, instead of being general use. I'm aware you can browse the web (and even install Linux, actually turning it into something you can use as a PC) in most modern consoles, but if you buy one, chances are you want it for games, mostly. Anyway, I'm basing mostly in my biased environment, not in real numbers, so chances are high I'm wrong. Keep this in mind in my next answers, because I really wouldn't like to copy paste this comment as if it were a license on my answers.
    I think a fair amount of people are pissed about it. Even people who normally don't care or follow privacy issues are speaking up, and more people are aware about these issues than ever. Sure, there are always a bunch of those "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" zombies, people who don't see any inherent danger in giving governments the power to essentially wiretap us all, but everywhere I've looked they seem to be in the minority. The thing is, the coverage on this thing is huge. There probably isn't a country in the world where the whole NSA-gate hasn't been in mainstream news. That's huge coverage for a privacy issue.
    I didn't mean few people is concerned, but pissed. I think a lot of people, including myself, believe that from the very basics a state can't hide laws (the congress approved such thing, wtf?) from their people, since this wouldn't be a real representation: "how can I know I share someone's views in a subject if that person doesn't talk about it and I'm not even aware of the issue?", and also the whole spying on their citizens and non citizens thing (which is a layer up this) is too much, is kind of one of the arguments USA gave to be against communism: you are not free, and there is a police state that knows your every move (which isn't really true for the theory, but for the implementations we've seen). It's at least hypocrisy to then use the same methods "to protect us" (well, not actually "us", I'm from another country). But I interpret being pissed off as actually trying to do something against it. Not necessarily protesting, but for example migrating from Windows, or plainly quitting computers for the sake of privacy. This, I didn't see one around.
    It is about the desktop, but the desktop market doesn't exist in a vacuum. Things are interconnected, what happens on other markets affects the desktop market, and vice versa. If the desktop market changes in a way that the customer base that keeps windows alive is no longer interested in desktops, then windows market share on desktops can indeed shrink considerably. But I agree, on the mobile they have no chance.
    Sounds correct.

    Leave a comment:


  • nightmarex
    replied
    Originally posted by Awesomeness View Post
    No, both teams cooperate.
    The chance of both projects merging is high.
    0-o wouldn't that be something!

    Leave a comment:


  • dee.
    replied
    Originally posted by mrugiero View Post
    I'd consider chromebooks as the same beast as tables for what is relevant here: they're only tailored to web browsing and web-based thingies. Windows 8 laptops aren't really wanted mostly because of this forced interface change. It's simply nonsense to change the start menu for this kind of full-screen thingy because of touch, when using a mouse and a keyboard. MS big mistake here was forcing an interface that would be kind of great on tablets and general single-app-at-a-time devices on the desktop (not really a mistake, but kind of a scam; see the blog I recommended for a thorough explanation of why I consider it that way).
    I don't think it's just the new interface. Even after the update that brings back a start button, the sales of windows 8 devices haven't picked up.

    I'm aware they aren't having great success. Their biggest mistake was not seeing the trend in time. Android ate up this market before them, and they've been owned the same way almost any OS had been on the desktop by them: become the de facto standard, and you can rule forever, except maybe if you are really incompetent.
    This is also not the whole truth. The smartphone market is nowhere near saturation, since there's still plenty of room of growth in it - new smartphone platforms can still succeed with a clever business strategy. Additionally, the smartphone market is one of the most volatile - the market leader of today can be going out of business in a few years. Microsoft has spent billions of dollars trying to penetrate this market, but all their attempts have been futile - they should have been able to succeed, with a brand name such as Nokia (it was still one of the most respected mobile brands before ms got involved). Yet, they have just sailed from failure to failure. Why?

    The thing is, no one really likes microsoft - people just put up with it. Microsoft has succeeded on the desktop side by sheer inertia and bulk, they've been able to bully their way through, and coerce everyone into cooperating with them, forcing any competition out of the market. But when they tried the same strategy on the mobile side, surprise - it didn't work, because on that side, people didn't have to cooperate with them. If you want people to cooperate with you, you have two options - force them to do it, if you're able to do that, if not - you need some measure of humility and actually respecting your business partners. When you act like an asshole, soon no one trusts you.

    The same goes for reputation among the consumers - the "windows" brand is still mostly associated with BSOD, instability, silly kludges and corporate stupidity - it's "that OS we have to struggle with at work", or "that OS we have to run on our computer because there's no choice, even though no one likes it". People don't actually like the "windows" brand, and when you put it on a market where there's plenty of choice - it doesn't succeed. No one trusts microsoft. (Well, except for the ms fanboys...)

    But their move of using the same (or almost, I didn't check in detail) API for their mobile OS as their desktop one is really smart, since this means most of their previous apps will be available (provided their developers want to build it, or that their are open source) for their phones and tablets.
    I don't think that's exactly true. The Win32 API isn't available for apps on windows ARM versions, only WinRT. Most desktop software (to my knowledge) still uses Win32, which can't be used on phones/tablets.

    I also don't really buy this "convergence" idea anyway. Desktops, tablets and phones are entirely different devices that require different interfaces.

    Even if it wasn't invasive, consoles are quite niche. However, about the NSA thing, I didn't see too many people pissed off about it.
    Consoles niche? Really? I think more people play on consoles than play on PCs. And there are more gamers (at least in 1st world countries) than you'd think. Plus it's a growing market.

    I think a fair amount of people are pissed about it. Even people who normally don't care or follow privacy issues are speaking up, and more people are aware about these issues than ever. Sure, there are always a bunch of those "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" zombies, people who don't see any inherent danger in giving governments the power to essentially wiretap us all, but everywhere I've looked they seem to be in the minority. The thing is, the coverage on this thing is huge. There probably isn't a country in the world where the whole NSA-gate hasn't been in mainstream news. That's huge coverage for a privacy issue.

    As a final clarification, I agree with this in general. Only, I thought the discussion was about desktop. I don't think their market share will shrink too much on desktop. I have few fate on them succeeding on mobile, though I recognize they did some smart moves towards that goal in the latest times, but they will suffer from the same they did to others during years, which is the abuse of the de facto standard position. They are "the new guys" on mobile, and they'll be bullied to hell there.
    It is about the desktop, but the desktop market doesn't exist in a vacuum. Things are interconnected, what happens on other markets affects the desktop market, and vice versa. If the desktop market changes in a way that the customer base that keeps windows alive is no longer interested in desktops, then windows market share on desktops can indeed shrink considerably. But I agree, on the mobile they have no chance.

    Leave a comment:


  • mrugiero
    replied
    Originally posted by dee. View Post
    The thing is, desktop computers (and to some extent, even laptops) are falling out of mainstream use. For most people, who don't really need to do anything besides some casual web browsing, maybe some text editing now and then, watching movies/tv/music, etc., a desktop computer is already unnecessary, which is why tablets are eating up their marketshare. Don't get me wrong, desktop computers are not going to go extinct either (like some tablet enthusiasts like to assert), since there will still always be use cases where they are the best solution, but probably they will never again have the ubiquitous household-appliance status they had in the late-90s-early-00s, as that niche is being filled by other, more "easily approachable" products, like tablets, smart tv's, etc.
    I totally agree with this. I don't like this, though.
    What this means that the consumer desktop market, where microsoft has traditionally had an impenetrable stronghold, will shrink to near oblivion. It will no longer be profitable for microsoft. So we should look at what desktop computers will be still used for: workstations, business applications, enterprise, development... and then there's gaming, and more broadly, the geek/techie market. None of these are areas where microsoft could reasonably assume to gain an advantage - their business model simply doesn't work that way, they need that huge installed base to be able to say "you need our OS, you might not like it but everyone else uses it so what can you do". Geeks and techies, have always been more inclined to try alternative OS's. Businesses (esp. small and medium sized ones) are increasingly starting to see the benefits of open source - even if you just consider the license costs, even if you compare it to a support contract with Red Hat, open source comes out ahead, and that kind of savings aren't easily ignored. Gaming is increasingly going towards Linux too, it's still smalltime but the trend is clearly visible.
    About development, there are some quite good tools (or at least that's what their users say) from the MS camp. For gaming it's still winning. Maybe not for much longer. Geek techie, I admit that even when there is a niche of geek Windows users, most like to mind-masturbate thinking of how good they use a unix like OS (I'm not including people with ideological beliefs on geeks, I think this is a different thing, and that's why I consider it mind masturbation on those camps: either you have a good reason (thus, not using because you are a geek) or you are jerking off). Business, I fully agree.
    If we consider laptops, there's chromebooks which are gaining popularity at microsoft's expense, and intel supposedly planning on releasing ultrabooks running tizen (with gnome shell?), and you can already even buy laptops with linux preinstalled (thinkpenguin)... add in the fact that windows 8 laptops are a huge flop, that no one seems to want...
    I'd consider chromebooks as the same beast as tables for what is relevant here: they're only tailored to web browsing and web-based thingies. Windows 8 laptops aren't really wanted mostly because of this forced interface change. It's simply nonsense to change the start menu for this kind of full-screen thingy because of touch, when using a mouse and a keyboard. MS big mistake here was forcing an interface that would be kind of great on tablets and general single-app-at-a-time devices on the desktop (not really a mistake, but kind of a scam; see the blog I recommended for a thorough explanation of why I consider it that way).
    So microsoft is trying very hard to penetrate the tablet/smartphone market, but the problem is, they aren't having any success there, because their business model and methods of business really can't survive in that environment. Microsoft has for decades been used to being able to bully their way through, to be able to dictate to their "partners" what to do, and now they're faced with a market where even their "partners" are getting pissed at them, where people just give them the finger instead of groveling to them, and the result shows - 4% market share on smartphones, practically no presence on tablets... they even "bought" Nokia just to break through the smartphone market, but that went tits up and instead microsoft just ended up dragging Nokia down with it.
    I'm aware they aren't having great success. Their biggest mistake was not seeing the trend in time. Android ate up this market before them, and they've been owned the same way almost any OS had been on the desktop by them: become the de facto standard, and you can rule forever, except maybe if you are really incompetent. But their move of using the same (or almost, I didn't check in detail) API for their mobile OS as their desktop one is really smart, since this means most of their previous apps will be available (provided their developers want to build it, or that their are open source) for their phones and tablets.
    So what's left for microsoft? Xbox? Seeing how invasive it is, how onerous the terms are, and how people are really pissed about the whole NSA thing and privacy issues are getting more publicity than, like, ever - I predict a flop for the Xbox. Especially with Valve's Steambox coming. Servers? On the web, microsoft has always been weak. On business servers, they have some leverage - but even that is shrinking, the only way they stay afloat is vendor lock-in, inside deals and government subsidies. That's not sustainable in the long run.
    Even if it wasn't invasive, consoles are quite niche. However, about the NSA thing, I didn't see too many people pissed off about it.
    Microsoft will probably keep on going with sheer inertia for a couple more years, give or take. But the writing's on the wall for them.
    As a final clarification, I agree with this in general. Only, I thought the discussion was about desktop. I don't think their market share will shrink too much on desktop. I have few fate on them succeeding on mobile, though I recognize they did some smart moves towards that goal in the latest times, but they will suffer from the same they did to others during years, which is the abuse of the de facto standard position. They are "the new guys" on mobile, and they'll be bullied to hell there.

    Leave a comment:


  • dee.
    replied
    Originally posted by mrugiero View Post
    I don't think you are completely right. Microsoft will suffer because of what Windows 8 and the whole Modern ecosystem does to developers (if wanting to see a deeper analysis, there's a good post in a ReactOS blog about the related changes), and for trying to give a tablet oriented interface to a platform which is far better suited with the classic desktop metaphor, that part is true. But even with that, a HUGE loss would be 30% of the desktop... they currently have ~80-90%, and that would mean that they'll keep more than half of the desktop users in the worst case scenario (which is not likely to happen). Also, what Canonical tries to do with the "convergence" idea will already be there for whoever with enough bad taste to buy Windows Phone 8. To run apps aiming Modern on mobile devices you need, at most, to rebuild it targeting ARM, in case you don't use an Atom based device. This advantage might be valued. Might not.
    The thing is, desktop computers (and to some extent, even laptops) are falling out of mainstream use. For most people, who don't really need to do anything besides some casual web browsing, maybe some text editing now and then, watching movies/tv/music, etc., a desktop computer is already unnecessary, which is why tablets are eating up their marketshare. Don't get me wrong, desktop computers are not going to go extinct either (like some tablet enthusiasts like to assert), since there will still always be use cases where they are the best solution, but probably they will never again have the ubiquitous household-appliance status they had in the late-90s-early-00s, as that niche is being filled by other, more "easily approachable" products, like tablets, smart tv's, etc.

    What this means that the consumer desktop market, where microsoft has traditionally had an impenetrable stronghold, will shrink to near oblivion. It will no longer be profitable for microsoft. So we should look at what desktop computers will be still used for: workstations, business applications, enterprise, development... and then there's gaming, and more broadly, the geek/techie market. None of these are areas where microsoft could reasonably assume to gain an advantage - their business model simply doesn't work that way, they need that huge installed base to be able to say "you need our OS, you might not like it but everyone else uses it so what can you do". Geeks and techies, have always been more inclined to try alternative OS's. Businesses (esp. small and medium sized ones) are increasingly starting to see the benefits of open source - even if you just consider the license costs, even if you compare it to a support contract with Red Hat, open source comes out ahead, and that kind of savings aren't easily ignored. Gaming is increasingly going towards Linux too, it's still smalltime but the trend is clearly visible.

    If we consider laptops, there's chromebooks which are gaining popularity at microsoft's expense, and intel supposedly planning on releasing ultrabooks running tizen (with gnome shell?), and you can already even buy laptops with linux preinstalled (thinkpenguin)... add in the fact that windows 8 laptops are a huge flop, that no one seems to want...

    So microsoft is trying very hard to penetrate the tablet/smartphone market, but the problem is, they aren't having any success there, because their business model and methods of business really can't survive in that environment. Microsoft has for decades been used to being able to bully their way through, to be able to dictate to their "partners" what to do, and now they're faced with a market where even their "partners" are getting pissed at them, where people just give them the finger instead of groveling to them, and the result shows - 4% market share on smartphones, practically no presence on tablets... they even "bought" Nokia just to break through the smartphone market, but that went tits up and instead microsoft just ended up dragging Nokia down with it.

    So what's left for microsoft? Xbox? Seeing how invasive it is, how onerous the terms are, and how people are really pissed about the whole NSA thing and privacy issues are getting more publicity than, like, ever - I predict a flop for the Xbox. Especially with Valve's Steambox coming. Servers? On the web, microsoft has always been weak. On business servers, they have some leverage - but even that is shrinking, the only way they stay afloat is vendor lock-in, inside deals and government subsidies. That's not sustainable in the long run.

    Microsoft will probably keep on going with sheer inertia for a couple more years, give or take. But the writing's on the wall for them.

    Bo$$ is mostly wrong when it comes to the graphics drivers assertion: if we compare blob to blob, Windows wins, yes, but not by a huge difference, but because of specific features mostly, and open versus open Linux wins because they don't even exist on Windows. Comparing Windows blob versus Linux open would not only be unfair, but also would be nonsense: if you use the open ones, is likely because either you use AMD and had a luck bad enough the blob didn't make it (there are cases in which it messes things up) or because you care about being open. Or, they dropped support for your hardware, and in that case you are already better than in Windows, using unsupported hardware.
    True.

    Leave a comment:


  • mrugiero
    replied
    Originally posted by pingufunkybeat View Post
    Why is this preferable to simply having one painting back-end, which is how Windows and Mac do it, and which is how Qt does it when running in GNOME?
    If most of the work is done in the backend and using a different toolkit adds negligible memory use AND the backend is shared between them, what I suggest is not better at all, it's pretty much the same thing (just that instead of wrapping around a whole toolkit, you wrap around the painting backend).
    But if any of those aren't satisfied, this limits only to having the same look and feel, which has nothing to do with the concern I'm pointing to, which is the wasted resources.

    Originally posted by GreatEmerald View Post
    Nope. KDE is fairly lightweight. Just that distributions usually compile it with everything including the kitchen sink enabled. There are a few projects aiming at building a lightweight variant of KDE.
    Might be fun to build the lightest KDE I can on Ubuntu. I definitely will not try it soon, but I think it might be a cool experiment eventually. I could even make a comparison of light KDE on Wayland and on X.org if I do that.

    Originally posted by droste View Post
    [OT]Politics ;-) Relative majority: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_%28voting%29[/OT]
    In my country that's called first minority.

    Originally posted by dee. View Post
    Wow, look at the little windows fanboy, all angry and butthurt... sorry, but you need to smell the roses and accept the inevitable, microsoft is dying and windows with it. Windows 8 is a catastrophic failure, no one wants windows 8 devices - not desktops, not laptops, not tablets, not phones. What does microsoft have? A deal with NSA and a majority of the x86-based desktop PC market - which is shrinking and becoming more and more a niche market, falling out of mainstream - and even that they only have because of inertia and decades of abuse, inside deals and criminal activity. Sooner or later the market will correct itself, even the desktop market is showing signs of wanting to get rid of windows alltogether.

    No, you need to face the facts - your beloved corporate empire is collapsing. Microsoft is dying, while Linux is growing and thriving, and all the angry rants you can post aren't going to change it.
    I don't think you are completely right. Microsoft will suffer because of what Windows 8 and the whole Modern ecosystem does to developers (if wanting to see a deeper analysis, there's a good post in a ReactOS blog about the related changes), and for trying to give a tablet oriented interface to a platform which is far better suited with the classic desktop metaphor, that part is true. But even with that, a HUGE loss would be 30% of the desktop... they currently have ~80-90%, and that would mean that they'll keep more than half of the desktop users in the worst case scenario (which is not likely to happen). Also, what Canonical tries to do with the "convergence" idea will already be there for whoever with enough bad taste to buy Windows Phone 8. To run apps aiming Modern on mobile devices you need, at most, to rebuild it targeting ARM, in case you don't use an Atom based device. This advantage might be valued. Might not.
    Bo$$ is mostly wrong when it comes to the graphics drivers assertion: if we compare blob to blob, Windows wins, yes, but not by a huge difference, but because of specific features mostly, and open versus open Linux wins because they don't even exist on Windows. Comparing Windows blob versus Linux open would not only be unfair, but also would be nonsense: if you use the open ones, is likely because either you use AMD and had a luck bad enough the blob didn't make it (there are cases in which it messes things up) or because you care about being open. Or, they dropped support for your hardware, and in that case you are already better than in Windows, using unsupported hardware.

    Leave a comment:


  • F i L
    replied
    Originally posted by BO$$ View Post
    Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Linux doesn't even register on the desktop and you claim that Windows is dying?
    Desktop? Ever heard of Android? Ever heard of the consumer electronics market being dominated by handheld and console devices.. which the majority of are powered by Linux and BSD? Microsoft has been slowly loosing it's grip on the consumer electronics market for the last decade, and it really needed it's next generation of Windows and Xbox to come out swinging in order to reclaim some of that... but look how poorly both of those have been received.

    Leave a comment:

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