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Thread: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

  1. #41
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Nightwalker83 View Post
    Is it worth going back to the Windows 7 style, etc?
    I'm not sure that that's exactly what they're doing. Remember that Threshold is supposed to be one Windows for all devices, including phones, so they're certainly not backing away from the Modern interface. It's excellent for touch-screen devices so it will be all that's available on phones, replacing Windows Phone, and on low-end tablets, replacing Windows RT. High-end tablets and hybrid devices will presumably be configured something like Windows 8.x today, with the desktop available as well as a full-screen Modern option. Desktop computers will tone down the Modern experience, with a Start Menu instead of a Start Page and Modern apps opening in desktop windows instead of full-screen. Desktop machines will remain in the desktop all the time and incorporate Modern apps with controls being more friendly to mouse and keyboard than fingers, e.g. no Charms. Obviously the details are still to be worked out but that's what I gather from what I've read so far.

  2. #42
    Angel of Code Niya's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Nightwalker83 View Post
    Hi,

    I found this on Facebook posted by PCGamer and wondered what everyone thought about this?




    Nightwalker
    Knew MS wouldn't let me down!! I like what I see so far. I'm officially skipping Win8 and waiting for that!
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  3. #43
    PowerPoster Nightwalker83's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
    Knew MS wouldn't let me down!! I like what I see so far. I'm officially skipping Win8 and waiting for that!
    I feel the same way! I am glad they sort-of came to their senses.
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  4. #44
    Angel of Code Niya's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Yea, Windows 8 is a real pain to use. It takes me ages to find something I'd normally in a couple seconds using previous incarnations because of that stupid Metro interface and no start menu. Funny story, I remember last year when I first got the chance to use it, it took me a whole five minutes just to figure out how to shut it down. I really don't like Windows 8. I mean I really hate it.

    Don't get me wrong. Metro is perfectly suited to touch screen devices and such but I'm using a traditional desktop so why the hell should I have to learn a whole new interface that wasn't meant for the desktop. Metro as a touch friendly UI was a good idea, it was a terrible idea not to give us a way to disable it so us desktop users can use Windows they way we've grown accustomed to for years.
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    C++ programmers will dismiss you as a cretinous simpleton for your inability to keep track of pointers chained 6 levels deep and Java programmers will pillory you for buying into the evils of Microsoft. Meanwhile C# programmers will get paid just a little bit more than you for writing exactly the same code and VB6 programmers will continue to whitter on about "footprints". - FunkyDexter

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  5. #45
    Super Moderator FunkyDexter's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    I'm going to admit it... I no longer miss the Start Menu. Don't tell JM.
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  6. #46
    Fanatic Member DrUnicode's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    You can buy a StartMenu from Stardock for 5 bucks and it looks just like Win7.
    http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
    I have Win 8.1 on my Toshiba notebook and if it wasn't for the theme colors I would think that I am still running Win 7. So now it's the other way around. I have to fiddle to get to the Metro interface.

  7. #47
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
    Yea, Windows 8 is a real pain to use. It takes me ages to find something I'd normally in a couple seconds using previous incarnations because of that stupid Metro interface and no start menu. Funny story, I remember last year when I first got the chance to use it, it took me a whole five minutes just to figure out how to shut it down. I really don't like Windows 8. I mean I really hate it.
    My biggest gripe with Windows 8 was that it was unnecessarily tedious to shut it down with a mouse. Mind you, it still only took 5 gestures and probably teo seconds at most, so it's not like it was on par with one of Hercules labours. It certainly wasn't obvious either, but once you know how it's really not that big a deal, plus you can configure it to shut down simply by pressing the power button. Apart from that, there's really no good reason that it should take you ages to find things. Modern apps are flatter than desktop apps but it's not like they are some alien technology from a ship discovered in a science fiction movie. They're still just apps.
    Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
    Don't get me wrong. Metro is perfectly suited to touch screen devices and such but I'm using a traditional desktop so why the hell should I have to learn a whole new interface that wasn't meant for the desktop. Metro as a touch friendly UI was a good idea, it was a terrible idea not to give us a way to disable it so us desktop users can use Windows they way we've grown accustomed to for years.
    I'd like to think that IT professionals would look a bit deeper than just the Windows UI to understand why Microsoft went the way they did. It's really quite obvious. Personal computing is going mobile, no two ways about it. The desktop won't disappear tomorrow as dilettante would have us believe but things they are a-changing. In order to stay relevant, Microsoft needed to gain a foothold in a mobile environment already dominated by Apple and Google. How should they do that? By leveraging their dominance on the desktop.

    They figured that they could use their desktop operating system to drive interest, usage and demand for their tablet and phone operating systems. They built the UI into Windows to use apps so that people would build apps for Windows 8 desktop users and then those same apps would be available to users of their tablets and everything would be hunky-dory. It didn;t quite work out as planned, but it may still do so in time.

    This plan wasn't actually intended to help desktop users. It was actually using desktop users as a means to gain mobile users. As a desktop user, you might feel a bit betrayed by that but, realistically, what else was Microsoft supposed to do? Some people have suggested that they should have just created a mobile OS for mobile devices and left desktop Windows alone. Well, they did create a mobile OS. You may have heard of it: Windows RT. It's struggling to stay alive even with Windows 8 to help drive app development. What do you think would have happened if it had tried to go it alone?

    If Microsoft hadn't put mobile features in Windows 8 then they wouldn't have been able to create a presence in the mobile market and they would have slowly become all but irrelevant in personal computing as more and more users moved from desktop to mobile. They perhaps could have made the transition more gradually, which is what they're now trying to do with Threshold, but it's really has to happen. Windows 8 may have been a relative failure but it's got the ball rolling in that direction and if Threshold is a success then all will soon be forgotten. Desktop users will be happy again while Microsoft will have gotten a foot in the door in the mobile market and can continue to work on building on that. That will help to keep us as Microsoft developers relevant too.

  8. #48
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by FunkyDexter View Post
    I'm going to admit it... I no longer miss the Start Menu. Don't tell JM.
    Too late!

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by DrUnicode View Post
    You can buy a StartMenu from Stardock for 5 bucks and it looks just like Win7.
    http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/
    I have Win 8.1 on my Toshiba notebook and if it wasn't for the theme colors I would think that I am still running Win 7. So now it's the other way around. I have to fiddle to get to the Metro interface.
    I think you shouldnt have to pay more money (even though its only $5 or whatever) just to get the expected user experience that you had on the previous version. The detracting thing is it is also not official microsoft, so its not uniform across the board. I can put that on my home pc, but what about work where I want that feature? Most businesses dont just let you install any software.

    Also, I have an HDHomeRun on my network which uses a CableCard to let me watch TV over the network on any networked device. For some reason (cost) Microsoft opted not to include Windows Media Center for Win8 by default; You have to pay another $100 dollars. I am not paying extra to have less capability by default on Win8, that doesnt make sense to me.

  10. #50
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    Some people have suggested that they should have just created a mobile OS for mobile devices and left desktop Windows alone.
    Then they could have compromised. Give us an option to disable all the Metro interface in favor of the traditional desktop. I remember when I first switched to XP, by default they didn't put My Computer and the Recycle Bin on the desktop as they had done with the previous Windows but they put an option to enable the classic taskbar I think it was called which would place those things back on the Desktop. Every time I re-installed XP I always set it to classic. Then you had the categorized view in the control panel. I preferred the old one where where every thing was not categorized and Windows had the option to use the classic list which I always set when I re-installed Win7. They could have use a similar approach win Windows 8. That's all it would have taken to please me.
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    C++ programmers will dismiss you as a cretinous simpleton for your inability to keep track of pointers chained 6 levels deep and Java programmers will pillory you for buying into the evils of Microsoft. Meanwhile C# programmers will get paid just a little bit more than you for writing exactly the same code and VB6 programmers will continue to whitter on about "footprints". - FunkyDexter

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jayinthe813 View Post
    I think you shouldnt have to pay more money (even though its only $5 or whatever) just to get the expected user experience that you had on the previous version. The detracting thing is it is also not official microsoft, so its not uniform across the board. I can put that on my home pc, but what about work where I want that feature? Most businesses dont just let you install any software.
    I totally agree with this. Taking it a step further, I'm not sure I could ever get excited for a new Windows release unless it was given away for free. Once you get comfortable with the Apple or Linux way of doing things, it's hard to convince yourself that paying for an OS upgrade is ever a wise idea.

    Windows has slipped to the third-largest revenue generator for Microsoft, after their Office and Server and Tools divisions. They're already experimenting with offering Windows free to OEMs for devices with screens under 9" (one news article on it), so we know they're thinking about the "free OS upgrade" way of doing things.

    Clearly Apple saw this as a cost-effective decision: give people OS upgrades for free, and save yourself the costs (and headaches) of supporting old OS versions. Similarly, this gives people - particularly developers - a good reason to invest in your ecosystem, without ever again worrying about another debacle like Win ME / Vista / Win 8.

    It's probably wishful thinking to hope for this, but I can't help but think that OEMs, businesses, and end-users are increasingly uninterested in paying for new Windows versions, especially when the primary reason for upgrading is "to bring back things I liked in an older version of Windows."
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    PowerPoster Nightwalker83's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanner_H View Post
    I totally agree with this. Taking it a step further, I'm not sure I could ever get excited for a new Windows release unless it was given away for free. Once you get comfortable with the Apple or Linux way of doing things, it's hard to convince yourself that paying for an OS upgrade is ever a wise idea.
    From what I remember it is was about $25 to purchase an upgrade for Apple's Operating System compare that to hundreds for dollars to upgrade Windows. Although, to be fair you do get multiple version of the OS on the DVDs depending on which OS you bought.
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Nightwalker83 View Post
    From what I remember it is was about $25 to purchase an upgrade for Apple's Operating System compare that to hundreds for dollars to upgrade Windows. Although, to be fair you do get multiple version of the OS on the DVDs depending on which OS you bought.
    Actually, OSX updates are completely free as of last year:

    http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/22/app...ailable-today/

    Microsoft is effectively the only vendor in the world who still charges for OS updates.
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
    Then they could have compromised. Give us an option to disable all the Metro interface in favor of the traditional desktop.
    And then everyone would have done so and there would still be no driver to create Modern apps.

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanner_H View Post
    Actually, OSX updates are completely free as of last year:
    Ah ok! It has been a couple of years since I last checked.
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanner_H View Post
    Clearly Apple saw this as a cost-effective decision: give people OS upgrades for free, and save yourself the costs (and headaches) of supporting old OS versions.
    That ignores the fact that Apple is a hardware company who created Mac OS simply to sell Macs. Microsoft is a software company so giving their software away for free would hardly have been smart. They weren't building the hardware so they wouldn't reap any of the rewards. Things are changing a bit now but Microsoft is still not in the business of making money from hardware. They're making Surface tablets and they bought Nokia's phone business as a way to push people to Microsoft services.

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    And then everyone would have done so and there would still be no driver to create Modern apps.
    If everyone would have done so then there will be no need to create a driver for Modern apps.
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    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by dee-u View Post
    If everyone would have done so then there will be no need to create a driver for Modern apps.
    Of course there would. Did you not read post #47? Windows RT runs ONLY Modern apps. Windows RT has had little enough success as it is but without people creating Modern apps for Windows 8 users, it wouldn't have even got that far. No Modern apps means no Windows tablets, which means that Microsoft becomes more and more irrelevant as personal computing moves more and more to mobile devices. Does anyone really believe that it would have been a good business decision for Microsoft to keep its current desktop users happy and in so doing sentence itself to oblivion in the personal computing market? I'm not about to say that they couldn't perhaps have done things a bit better but, fundamentally, it was a change that they had to make. It may even be the case that to do it gradually wouldn't have worked and it really was necessary to do it the way they did, i.e. piss a lot of people off to begin with but at least create a viable ecosystem for Modern apps, then win back those that were pissed off. I guess we'll never know for sure but to say that the Modern UI would have been OK as long as it could be turned off is really rather silly. I know a number of people who weren't keen on the Modern UI to begin with have grown accustomed to it and now find it to be no big deal or even like it. If all those people had turned it off from the start then how would it have got a foothold and then why would anyone build apps for it?

  19. #59
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    To be clear, I have no issue with someone not liking Windows 8 or the Modern UI. We all have our personal taste and it is quite different to what we're used to. I do find that some of the arguments beyond that don't really hold water though. I also think, supported by anecdotal evidence, that a lot of people have been predisposed to dislike Windows 8 by having read negative write-ups. Had those authors provided guidance to avoid the problems of unfamiliarity they encountered rather than simply panning Windows 8 as bad, I believe that far more people would have approached it with an open mind and it would have been far more successful. Perhaps still not as successful as Microsoft wanted but it would have been better received by the masses than it was. When you read about how "jarring" it is to switch from the desktop to a Modern app rather than the fact that there are lots of Modern apps that do useful things and you can get free, of course people will be on the lookout for the negative when they use it. I've never heard anyone complain that using a web site is "jarring" after using a desktop app and yet the majority of contemporary web sites are more like a Modern app than a desktop app.

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    That ignores the fact that Apple is a hardware company who created Mac OS simply to sell Macs. Microsoft is a software company so giving their software away for free would hardly have been smart. They weren't building the hardware so they wouldn't reap any of the rewards. Things are changing a bit now but Microsoft is still not in the business of making money from hardware. They're making Surface tablets and they bought Nokia's phone business as a way to push people to Microsoft services.
    But it's not just Apple - it's literally every one of Microsoft's competitors in every arena they compete in.

    OS: OSX, Chrome OS, Android - free updates for life
    Office: Google Docs, iWorks, Libre/OpenOffice - free updates for life
    Dev Tools: Eclipse, Android Studio, IntelliJ, XCode - free updates for life

    Microsoft is getting squeezed in all of these arenas by free or SAAS solutions, and the old model of paying for monolithic software updates is less and less feasible. They already know this in mobile, which is why they're offering Windows Phone free to some OEMs. Same goes for tablets, with the "Windows free on devices with < 9" screens" rule. We know they slashed Windows 8.1. prices by as much as 70% (http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/21/54...-percent-rumor), so idk - I think the idea of moving Windows to a "free updates for life" model is pretty much inevitable. Whether they will do that for Windows 9, who knows, but a lot of rumors point to it.
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    Does anyone really believe that it would have been a good business decision for Microsoft to keep its current desktop users happy and in so doing sentence itself to oblivion in the personal computing market? I'm not about to say that they couldn't perhaps have done things a bit better but, fundamentally, it was a change that they had to make. It may even be the case that to do it gradually wouldn't have worked and it really was necessary to do it the way they did, i.e. piss a lot of people off to begin with but at least create a viable ecosystem for Modern apps, then win back those that were pissed off.
    The core of the problem is that they sabotaged their highly successful desktop OS UI paradigm in favor of a mobile UI paradigm. The underlying technology changes may have been necessary, but the UI ones most definitely were not.

    None of Microsoft's competitors have tried to merge their mobile and desktop interfaces overnight. Apple has been gradually working toward it for years, in small incremental steps, and even Google realized from the start that Chrome OS needed a different UI paradigm than Android. Only Microsoft was crazy enough to force desktop users into a touch-centric paradigm in a single OS cycle, and for what? People are just fine with using one interaction mechanism on their phone, and a different one on their PC. They don't need to be identical interfaces because they are not identical devices.

    Making Windows 8 a touch-centric UI when almost no one wants touch-screen laptops or desktops was simply a bad gamble.

    I agree that Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place with mobile, but mobile and PC are not an either/or proposition. There would have been no harm in gradually unifying their (quite good) Windows Phone UI with the classic Windows UI over time. No one expected - or wanted - them to try and do it in a single OS revision, let alone do it as poorly as they did with Windows 8.
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  22. #62
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanner_H View Post
    But it's not just Apple - it's literally every one of Microsoft's competitors in every arena they compete in.

    OS: OSX, Chrome OS, Android - free updates for life
    Office: Google Docs, iWorks, Libre/OpenOffice - free updates for life
    Dev Tools: Eclipse, Android Studio, IntelliJ, XCode - free updates for life

    Microsoft is getting squeezed in all of these arenas by free or SAAS solutions, and the old model of paying for monolithic software updates is less and less feasible. They already know this in mobile, which is why they're offering Windows Phone free to some OEMs. Same goes for tablets, with the "Windows free on devices with < 9" screens" rule. We know they slashed Windows 8.1. prices by as much as 70% (http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/21/54...-percent-rumor), so idk - I think the idea of moving Windows to a "free updates for life" model is pretty much inevitable. Whether they will do that for Windows 9, who knows, but a lot of rumors point to it.
    The problem is that, historically, Microsoft is a software company. They have made their money by selling software. Software has been a means to an end for those other companies while, for Microsoft, it's an end in itself. For Apple, they created software so that people had something to do with it when they bought a Mac, which is what they made their money on. For Google, they created software to drive people to use their sites and services to look at their adverts, which is what they made their money on. IDEs are a way to get people to use a particular programming language, etc. It may be true that Microsoft can't keep charging for software the way they have been because there are too many free alternatives, but that means that they need to find other sources of revenue. A software company that gives away their software won't last long.

  23. #63
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tanner_H View Post
    The core of the problem is that they sabotaged their highly successful desktop OS UI paradigm in favor of a mobile UI paradigm. The underlying technology changes may have been necessary, but the UI ones most definitely were not.

    None of Microsoft's competitors have tried to merge their mobile and desktop interfaces overnight. Apple has been gradually working toward it for years, in small incremental steps, and even Google realized from the start that Chrome OS needed a different UI paradigm than Android. Only Microsoft was crazy enough to force desktop users into a touch-centric paradigm in a single OS cycle, and for what? People are just fine with using one interaction mechanism on their phone, and a different one on their PC. They don't need to be identical interfaces because they are not identical devices.

    Making Windows 8 a touch-centric UI when almost no one wants touch-screen laptops or desktops was simply a bad gamble.

    I agree that Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place with mobile, but mobile and PC are not an either/or proposition. There would have been no harm in gradually unifying their (quite good) Windows Phone UI with the classic Windows UI over time. No one expected - or wanted - them to try and do it in a single OS revision, let alone do it as poorly as they did with Windows 8.
    The harm would be that Microsoft would have been even further behind in a market already dominated by Apple and Google. They're struggling to genuinely break into the market in a meaningful way even with having leveraged desktop Windows. What would the situation be like if they hadn't?

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Well, they might have simply conceded defeat in the mobile market. After all their relevance has shrunk away day by day since they abandoned their popular Windows Mobile platform and substituted the poorly received WinPhone as a substitute.

    This would not have prevented them from solidifying their position in desktop, server, and cloud platforms while simply embracing mobile platforms from other vendors... which seems to be a big part of their strategy today anyway.

    Then everyone would have been spared a lot of unnecessary pain, and realities such as:

    The Microsoft Store: A wretched hive of scams and fake apps

  25. #65
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    ... Personal computing is going mobile, no two ways about it. ...
    This is the crux of the matter. But lets consider MS big[gest] segment - businesses. Mobility needs to be captured in the business market. It's getting closer, but a critical mass needs reaching.

    Unfortunately, businesses often see mobile devices as personal devices; indeed at work, they are considering banning tablets and phones from certain locations (particularly when a distraction can be several hundred thousand dollars of damage).
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  26. #66
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Well, they might have simply conceded defeat in the mobile market. After all their relevance has shrunk away day by day since they abandoned their popular Windows Mobile platform and substituted the poorly received WinPhone as a substitute.
    You say that as though Windows Mobile wasn't already losing market share by the moment. Apple had introduced the iPhone and convinced nearly everyone that that's what they needed and users were leaving Windows Mobile in droves. Windows Mobile was still a good option for many people and applications but unfortunately many of those people didn't realise it. I guess Microsoft figured that, if they were to compete with Apple and, later, Google on an equal footing then they needed a comparable product. It would have been good if they could have kept up development of Windows Mobile too because it is still a good platform and ideal in certain scenarios. I guess that they figured they needed their full resources behind Windows Phone in order to give it a reasonable chance. Given the choice between giving up a rapidly shrinking market that noone else was servicing anyway and getting a foothold in rapidly burgeoning consumer device market, they made the pragmatic choice. It's taken them until the current release of WP 8.1 to actually catch up to iOS and Android so it's reasonable to assume that they wouldn't have managed it yet if they were still devoting resources to Windows Mobile as well.

    I'm not so sure that Windows Phone has been as poorly received as some might like us to believe, particularly now with the release of WP 8.1. Many have said that it was ostensibly a good platform but lacked many features that iOS and Android had. That's not surprising, given that iOS and Android both lacked many features that they now have at a similar stage of their development. I've read a number of articles recently by iOS and Android users who've given WP 8.1 a fair go and have been pleasantly surprised. The problem now is that, even if they're not fanboys, so many people are entrenched in the Apple or Google ecosystem that it's hard to dislodge them.

    For most, a product that is on par is not enough because they would have to start from scratch with purchasing apps and the like. WP has to provide something over and above iOS and Android in order to convert most existing users and that's really difficult because iOS and Android are both good products and quite mature. Cortana may be the killer app that can do that for a reasonable number of users because it is already better than Siri and Google now in many ways and has the potential to be even better. That alone may not be enough though, and Apple and Google may well ape those Cortana features anyway.

    That's one area where big Windows comes in. A consistent experience across devices could be a big plus for many and many people have Windows PCs. Of course, many also have iPads or Google tablets so that's still not going to be as easy as it might once have been. Clearly they didn't get the balance right with Windows 8 but, given Windows' ubiquity, there's still time to right those wrongs. Wooing the Enterprise market, which they have a relatively good chance of doing with WP 8.1, is also important. If they can convince companies to give their employees WP devices then more people will be exposed to it and thus more will be likely to get a WP device for themselves.
    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Then everyone would have been spared a lot of unnecessary pain, and realities such as:

    The Microsoft Store: A wretched hive of scams and fake apps
    I'm not sure that the Apple App Store and, in particular, Google Play haven't had similar issues so it's a bit disingenuous to imply that that's a Microsoft-specific issue. Personally, I've had no issues with dodgy apps on my phone that I'm aware of. Usually, you can spot them fairly easily if you keep your eyes open. I also read just yesterday that Microsoft has openly committed to do more to prevent such apps in future. I wouldn't be surprised to find that they were reluctant to be too stringent because it would have meant that the number of apps in the Store would have grown more slowly.

    On that note, one thing I do find somewhat amusing is when people say that WP has "no apps" or they imply that the 300,000+ apps available is a small number. Sure, it's significantly less than what's available for iOS or Android but they have built up over time. You can bet that noone was saying that either of them had "no apps" when they were at the same level and both companies would have been crowing about the many thousands of apps available. For a great many people, you can find everything you need in the Store. I haven't researched specifically but I'm not aware of any app available on iOS or Android that I wish I could get on WP but can't. That certainly won't be the case for everyone but I do think that the app gap is overblown in many cases and close to, if not completely, irrelevant for many.

  27. #67

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Wishful thinking. Microsoft is effectively not a player in mobile at all.

    IDC Q2/2014 Smartphone Shipments

  28. #68
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    Wishful thinking. Microsoft is effectively not a player in mobile at all.

    IDC Q2/2014 Smartphone Shipments
    I think the next 6-12 months will give us a very good indication of whether that is likely to change significantly or not. Microsoft finally has an OS that can pretty much match iOS and Android on features in WP 8.1, plus there are a lot more OEMs about to release new handsets, including high-end stuff like the HTC One (M8). Along with Threshold being released, Microsoft will have to at least start to make significant inroads or I think that it can be assumed that they never will. I'm still optimistic but I don't expect things to change quickly, although steadily is a must.

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    You say that as though Windows Mobile wasn't already losing market share by the moment. Apple had introduced the iPhone and convinced nearly everyone that that's what they needed and users were leaving Windows Mobile in droves. Windows Mobile was still a good option for many people and applications but unfortunately many of those people didn't realise it. I guess Microsoft figured that, if they were to compete with Apple and, later, Google on an equal footing then they needed a comparable product. It would have been good if they could have kept up development of Windows Mobile too because it is still a good platform and ideal in certain scenarios. I guess that they figured they needed their full resources behind Windows Phone in order to give it a reasonable chance. Given the choice between giving up a rapidly shrinking market that noone else was servicing anyway and getting a foothold in rapidly burgeoning consumer device market, they made the pragmatic choice. It's taken them until the current release of WP 8.1 to actually catch up to iOS and Android so it's reasonable to assume that they wouldn't have managed it yet if they were still devoting resources to Windows Mobile as well.

    I'm not so sure that Windows Phone has been as poorly received as some might like us to believe, particularly now with the release of WP 8.1. Many have said that it was ostensibly a good platform but lacked many features that iOS and Android had. That's not surprising, given that iOS and Android both lacked many features that they now have at a similar stage of their development. I've read a number of articles recently by iOS and Android users who've given WP 8.1 a fair go and have been pleasantly surprised. The problem now is that, even if they're not fanboys, so many people are entrenched in the Apple or Google ecosystem that it's hard to dislodge them.

    For most, a product that is on par is not enough because they would have to start from scratch with purchasing apps and the like. WP has to provide something over and above iOS and Android in order to convert most existing users and that's really difficult because iOS and Android are both good products and quite mature. Cortana may be the killer app that can do that for a reasonable number of users because it is already better than Siri and Google now in many ways and has the potential to be even better. That alone may not be enough though, and Apple and Google may well ape those Cortana features anyway.

    That's one area where big Windows comes in. A consistent experience across devices could be a big plus for many and many people have Windows PCs. Of course, many also have iPads or Google tablets so that's still not going to be as easy as it might once have been. Clearly they didn't get the balance right with Windows 8 but, given Windows' ubiquity, there's still time to right those wrongs. Wooing the Enterprise market, which they have a relatively good chance of doing with WP 8.1, is also important. If they can convince companies to give their employees WP devices then more people will be exposed to it and thus more will be likely to get a WP device for themselves.

    I'm not sure that the Apple App Store and, in particular, Google Play haven't had similar issues so it's a bit disingenuous to imply that that's a Microsoft-specific issue. Personally, I've had no issues with dodgy apps on my phone that I'm aware of. Usually, you can spot them fairly easily if you keep your eyes open. I also read just yesterday that Microsoft has openly committed to do more to prevent such apps in future. I wouldn't be surprised to find that they were reluctant to be too stringent because it would have meant that the number of apps in the Store would have grown more slowly.


    On that note, one thing I do find somewhat amusing is when people say that WP has "no apps" or they imply that the 300,000+ apps available is a small number. Sure, it's significantly less than what's available for iOS or Android but they have built up over time. You can bet that noone was saying that either of them had "no apps" when they were at the same level and both companies would have been crowing about the many thousands of apps available. For a great many people, you can find everything you need in the Store. I haven't researched specifically but I'm not aware of any app available on iOS or Android that I wish I could get on WP but can't. That certainly won't be the case for everyone but I do think that the app gap is overblown in many cases and close to, if not completely, irrelevant for many.
    I think that WP gained market share since 2013. I remember Windows Mobile, and it wasn't without its flaws, my TMO Dash used to freeze or need to be restarted. Got too many text messages? Deleting them freezes the phone. I think Apple offered something that was "smarter" at the time from the user POV.

    I agree, Android was lacking early on. I remember when you had to download an app to save attachments in text messages. But at least you could download an app. That really is the problem, I get that a lot of the apps on all the stores are going to be useless flashlights, but my experience with Windows Phone was that there were NO apps for what I regularly do on my Android. Therefore, correct, its not that it has no apps, they're just not comparable. Voice recognition on phones IMO is a complete gimmick on any platform. Its one of those things thats cool to show off to your friends, but that's it.

    One thing I really liked about WP, is that it was a fluid experience. Moving through the menus, I never had any hiccups like I sometimes get on Android.

  30. #70

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Only time will tell.

  31. #71
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    The problem is that, historically, Microsoft is a software company. They have made their money by selling software. Software has been a means to an end for those other companies while, for Microsoft, it's an end in itself. For Apple, they created software so that people had something to do with it when they bought a Mac, which is what they made their money on. For Google, they created software to drive people to use their sites and services to look at their adverts, which is what they made their money on. IDEs are a way to get people to use a particular programming language, etc.
    You're dancing around the point. No one disagrees that Microsoft, Apple, and Google have different business models. Obviously!

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    It may be true that Microsoft can't keep charging for software the way they have been because there are too many free alternatives, but that means that they need to find other sources of revenue. A software company that gives away their software won't last long.
    This is the the part the warrants conversation, because you're exactly right. You can't charge for something that all your competitors are giving away for free, unless your product is demonstrably better.

    For consumers and OEMs, the main selling point of Windows 9 seems to be "it's less annoying than Windows 8." Given the problems that Microsoft had moving people off Windows XP, is that selling point alone going to be enough to move people off Windows 7?
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  32. #72
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    The harm would be that Microsoft would have been even further behind in a market already dominated by Apple and Google. They're struggling to genuinely break into the market in a meaningful way even with having leveraged desktop Windows. What would the situation be like if they hadn't?
    This doesn't answer the question of what they gained by overhauling the interface in Windows 8.

    They already had a good mobile OS in Windows Phone. Why did they need to mess with the desktop UI paradigm at all with Windows 8?
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  33. #73
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jayinthe813 View Post
    I think that WP gained market share since 2013. I remember Windows Mobile, and it wasn't without its flaws, my TMO Dash used to freeze or need to be restarted. Got too many text messages? Deleting them freezes the phone. I think Apple offered something that was "smarter" at the time from the user POV.

    I agree, Android was lacking early on. I remember when you had to download an app to save attachments in text messages. But at least you could download an app. That really is the problem, I get that a lot of the apps on all the stores are going to be useless flashlights, but my experience with Windows Phone was that there were NO apps for what I regularly do on my Android. Therefore, correct, its not that it has no apps, they're just not comparable. Voice recognition on phones IMO is a complete gimmick on any platform. Its one of those things thats cool to show off to your friends, but that's it.

    One thing I really liked about WP, is that it was a fluid experience. Moving through the menus, I never had any hiccups like I sometimes get on Android.
    All good points. If there's anything to be learned from Apple and Google's success in this arena, it's that you need something to differentiate yourself from the competition.

    Apple initially differentiated by having a tightly integrated software/hardware handset built around a touch interface. Over time, they have maintained differentiation in a number of key ways - best-in-class mobile processor, expansive App Store, great developer tools, better mobile security, etc.

    Google differentiated early on by courting OEMs instead of consumers. They offered a good mobile OS for free, while allowing hardware manufacturers to provide their own hardware differentiation.

    Since Android's initial purchase, Google has maintained differentiation through both hardware (larger phone sizes, micro SD support, etc), and software (excellent integration with Google's web services, best maps service, etc). But their primary differentiation is their extremely low cost relative to Apple. Apple kills Android at the high-end, but Google has completely wiped out all competition at the low-end.

    So if you're Microsoft, how do you differentiate in the current mobile market, where Apple has tied up the high-end and Google has tied up everything else? What can Microsoft do that its competitors don't? Things like Cortana, no matter how clever they may be, aren't enough to differentiate. I don't see any other Windows Phone features that are markedly better than Android or iOS. Microsoft also can't differentiate on hardware specs, since OEMs are using the same hardware to build Android phones.

    Microsoft's strategy seems to be, "use the popularity of our desktop OS to drive mobile OS adoption". But they blew their chances of that when they released Windows 8, which was universally loathed. Now, consumers seem to recognize that Windows Phone looks like Windows 8, and it makes Windows Phone that much harder of a sale.

    I don't know what Microsoft does to succeed in mobile. Equally clever companies - Nokia, Palm, Blackberry - have all failed to answer that question too.
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  34. #74
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Saw this news yesterday; perhaps interesting in light of this thread:

    http://www.dailytech.com/Huawei+Wind...ticle36446.htm

    Huawei is making a hard charge to become a dominant player in the global smartphone market. According to IDC’s figures, Huawei shipped 20.3 million smartphones globally during Q2 2014, which put it in third place behind Apple (with 35.1 million units shipped) and Samsung (with 74.3 million units shipped).

    Most remarkable, however, is that Huawei’s Q2 shipments grew a stunning 95.1 percent year-over-year.

    When it comes to keeping up this fast pace of growth, it looks as though Huawei will continue to focus primarily on Google’s Android operating system according to Richard Yu, who heads up the company’s consumer business group. In an interview, Yu made it clear that Windows Phone has been a dead-end for Huawei, and that its previous efforts to embrace the platform didn’t pan out to well.

    “We have tried using the Windows Phone OS. But it has been difficult to persuade consumers to buy a Windows phone,” said Yu in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We were losing money for two years on those phones.”

    According to IDC, Windows Phone’s global smartphone OS market share during Q2 stood at just 2.5 percent, which was actually down from 3.4 percent during the same quarter in 2013.
    dilettante already linked the IDC numbers above, but these are strong words coming from one of Windows Phone's strongest OEM partners...
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  35. #75

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    The more I read the more I keep hearing that classic line from Jurassic Park in my head:

    Hold onto your butts.
    Which of course referred to lit cigarettes, right?


    Putting the Win in Windows 9 shows just how confused even people with close "ins" with Microsoft are right now. At least they are no longer in denial:

    Windows 8 has been an unprecedented disaster for Microsoft, one that can't be judged by simple measures like units sold. Some have called it Windows Vista 2.0, which is insulting. . . to Windows Vista.
    Sadly the Windows 9 future could be even worse than the Windows 8 present:

    The Windows team—which is now comprised largely of former Windows Phone team members, whom I'll resist calling Windows Phonies—has taken some small steps to clean up Windows 8 through releases such as Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 Update (1). But as noted, fixing Windows 8 isn't as simple as making Windows work pretty well with mouse and keyboard again.
    So they ditched the crazies, and brought in the completely .Net-drunk zombie-like people who destroyed Microsoft's hopes in the mobile space? The same ones who cost Microsoft huge amounts of time and money during the Longhorn debacle that led to loss of trust and market share on the desktop post-XP?


    Things aren't looking good. Despite pushing RT/Metro to the back burner we could see a lot of new things to dislike in Windows 9.

    Microsoft needs to start firing the right people, now, before they lose more time and money - ultimately abdicating desktop computing altogether.
    Last edited by dilettante; Aug 26th, 2014 at 03:17 PM.

  36. #76
    Super Moderator jmcilhinney's Avatar
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    So they ditched the crazies, and brought in the completely .Net-drunk zombie-like people who destroyed Microsoft's hopes in the mobile space?
    An objective and level-headed assessment if ever there was one. Unfortunately, rhetoric like this makes it harder to take actually sensible statements seriously.

  37. #77

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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Good point. The former Windows team leaders shouldn't be called "crazies" since they were probably pressured to knuckle under to the zombies, who are now in charge.

  38. #78
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by jmcilhinney View Post
    An objective and level-headed assessment if ever there was one. Unfortunately, rhetoric like this makes it harder to take actually sensible statements seriously.
    Dillettante wants MS to fail. According to him, he has already moved on to Android based development while only using VB6 to maintain past apps. He no longer has any investment in Windows beyond his old VB6 clients. If MS fails with Windows or any push into the mobile market, developers like him would benefit from having one less platform to target. If MS had actually managed to capture a respectable, God forbid, he may have to use .Net which we know he hates passionately. With MS's current failure to make significant penetration into the mobile market, mobile developers can safely ignore targeting MS mobile devices like Windows Phone since there really isn't much profit to be made when compared to Android or iOS devices.
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  39. #79
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Niya View Post
    Dillettante wants MS to fail. According to him
    Maybe he can see something happening that the rest of us can not!
    when you quote a post could you please do it via the "Reply With Quote" button or if it multiple post click the "''+" button then "Reply With Quote" button.
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  40. #80
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    Re: Will Microsoft carry you over the Threshold?

    Quote Originally Posted by Nightwalker83 View Post
    Maybe he can see something happening that the rest of us can not!
    Or perhaps hear some voices that the rest of us cannot.

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