Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[Tripredacus]

I can browse and access the list of Apps on the apple App Store from my XP (and Opera) with no issues whatsoever, I cannot on MS Windows 8 store.

I did finally decide to look into it and it so far appears correct. Windows 8 uses some protocol to determine the URL for the actual store, and using a browser in another OS won't help unless it had that ability as well. MS does have a publicly available "store" which just seems to advertise the apps, and then tells you to get Windows 8 or Windows RT.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/apps#Cat=t1

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/windowsstore/thread/8b17c96c-2e60-4a9a-ab55-3269dd2a3616

[jaclaz]

I did finally decide to look into it and it so far appears correct.

Well, the perplexing thing is that you doubted my word for it.

I stand by my comparison to exposing merchandise in the shop window but require that passers have special glasses/viewers to see it:

Imagine how useful is a shop's window (forgive me the pun) that you can only see through if you already have a given make/brand set of special glasses.

jaclaz

[HalloweenDocument12]

Disabling app store browsing from foreign systems is a devastating marketing decision. You want people to see your wares. What Microsoft has done is the equivalent of an appliance store charging a cover to get in. If Microsoft wants to compete in the trendy land of consumer electronics, they have to get with the times and stand up a dedicated marketing unit who has top-level decision making authority. Basically, marketing needs to be involved at the design stage, as much as engineers hate that. Shooting from the hip, as Microsoft has always done, was fine when their primary customers were OEMs and IT-heavy businesses, who basically ignored the marketing efforts, but Microsoft just can't do that when they're trying to convince everybody that they're "cooler" than Apple and Google. Even Sony is cooler than Microsoft and they haven't been cool since the mid-90s. Microsoft was never cool. They were basically birthed as a decades old company appealing to old fogies.

EDIT: there are retail stores that do charge covers to get in but they tend to cater toward savvy shoppers who purchase in bulk. In other words, the IT-heavy equivalents of retail shopping. Looky-loos don't shop at these places, and Microsoft wants the looky-loos.

Edited April 1, 2013 by HalloweenDocument12

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Disabling app store browsing from foreign systems is a devastating marketing decision. You want people to see your wares. What Microsoft has done is the equivalent of an appliance store charging a cover to get in. If Microsoft wants to compete in the trendy land of consumer electronics, they have to get with the times and stand up a dedicated marketing unit who has top-level decision making authority. Basically, marketing needs to be involved at the design stage, as much as engineers hate that. Shooting from the hip, as Microsoft has always done, was fine when their primary customers were OEMs and IT-heavy businesses, who basically ignored the marketing efforts, but Microsoft just can't do that when they're trying to convince everybody that they're "cooler" than Apple and Google. Even Sony is cooler than Microsoft and they haven't been cool since the mid-90s. Microsoft was never cool. They were basically birthed as a decades old company appealing to old fogies.

EDIT: there are retail stores that do charge covers to get in but they tend to cater toward savvy shoppers who purchase in bulk. In other words, the IT-heavy equivalents of retail shopping. Looky-loos don't shop at these places, and Microsoft wants the looky-loos.

This is an interesting concept. Recent story ...

Australian store implements $5 cover charge to combat showrooming ( TechSpot 2013-03-28 )

They are doing it sensibly, with any purchase having the "cover charge" deducted. Still the people are complaining.

I don't have a problem with this concept, because the alternative of "showrooming" will probably lead to the demise of the traditional store. Frankly I'm surprised it has taken this long. When I walk around these stores, the huge Best Buys and Walmarts, and consider the massive real estate, huge amount of employees, stock inventory and management, and utility bills for heating and electricity, I find it hard to believe they can operate in black ink. You know they are getting taxed mercilessly, the employees all need at least minimum wage and health plans etc, and I doubt the utilities are cutting them a wholesale price for oil and electricity. Then I consider what our tiny by comparison house increasingly costs for taxes and utilities and fear for the future, for both home-owners and shop-owners.

Naturally all the kids scream and complain about this concept, wondering aloud why they can't shop around Best Buy trying stuff in real life using free electricity and then go home and put their feet up and click on Amazon to buy something. I kinda used to do the same thing many years ago ( I found it helpful when buying TV's to see 50 of them on at the same time turned to the same channel for a real good comparison ) but still I would usually buy one there in the end. The take-away to this story is that when I did it, we had 10x as many stores. All that is left now is Walmart and Best Buy really, Lechmere, Circuit City, Office Depot, Caldor are long gone ( from here ) and Sears and K-Mart are severely diminished in size and usefulness.

What the kids don't realize is that when the last big box shop closes they won't have anywhere to work to get the cash to be able to buy stuff on Amazon. Well, after daddy's money stops being available that is.

[HalloweenDocument12]

I don't understand how "showrooming" applies to food, but apparently it does. This cover charge will just chase people away and accelerate the decline. Even regular "non-showrooming" customers will be put off. I don't know what brick and mortar are to do, but I doubt this method will be fruitful.

Best Buy specifically offers notoriously poor customer service and salesmanship, a reputation that existed even before Internet shopping reached critical mass. There's unmet demand for electronics expertise that dates back to the late-70s or even earlier. For decades box stores have gone the route of staffing unknowledgeable but personable salespeople but they have been replaced by online reviews. Online reviews only go so far as to realize one's vision of entertainment or productive workflow, but most electronics salesmen are even more clueless in this regard than attempting to piece together information from review snippets and spec sheets.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

I don't know what brick and mortar are to do, but I doubt this method will be fruitful.

I don't know either. It could be that they, like the human race, is doomed no matter what. I suppose they will all simply close up, unless they can squeeze out a little headroom by cutting the few remaining corners ( not sure what is left, they already get stuff from China, etc ), maybe beg for tax breaks which will get us anyway since we taxpaying homeowners subsidize that. In the short term they will probably just pad the prices up as an alternative to an obvious cover charge, but this too will hasten their demise. A vicious circle to be sure.

The Brave New World will probably evolve into buying stuff online, stuff that you never even see in real life until it shows up at your doorstep. This scenario has its own obvious problems but it is probably inevitable now because I just don't see how the math will ever add up for someone to stock a big store if no-one buys anything. Who would possibly consider doing this going forward? I know I wouldn't. At the small business level, all of us who sell stuff out of a shop or have ever sold something at a yard sale or moving sale, we have always had the luxury of picking and choosing who handles what. Someone who is just browsing and loitering with no intention of buying is easily shown the door: "Hey, if you're not buying anything, please leave", but this doesn't really apply to the big box stores these days because of lawsuits and other conflicts they want to avoid.

Years ago, the powers that be bragged how the western world is evolving into service economies and that traditional labor and tradition itself is on the way out because we had become much more sophisticated. I knew it sounded too Orwellian but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Now when I look around I see lots of people one Wall Street crash away from a pink slip, with a chain reaction to follow. Probably right before that happens all the stores will merge and we'll have that huge Idiocracy style Costco.

( Source: 1, 2, 3, 4 )

[JorgeA]

Not about Microsoft, but the subject does have a bearing on MSFT's strategy and prospects for success:

5 reasons Electronic Arts is in big trouble

Indeed, Riccitiello's tenure is perhaps a textbook case of how not to run a company in what is an innovation-driven sector. Rather than create new experiences, EA has pointlessly chased trend after trend, with little to show for it. It's no wonder the company has been suffering death by a thousand cuts.

(emphasis added)

Sound familiar? I'm sure that a reading of the article will reveal other parallels to what Microsoft is doing, but I'll let others point them out...

--JorgeA

[HalloweenDocument12]

Give it a year or so and you'll see the same article written about Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision-Blizzard. The only reason it hasn't been written already is that WoW's $150 million monthly bankroll keeps the entire company afloat. It can't last forever so when it caves it'll probably be the biggest fallout since Atari. The rest of the industry knows this which could be why Vivendi couldn't unload its stake in the company. These companies are overly bloated and poorly managed from a creative standpoint. It actually is quite similar to Microsoft in that it's obvious the brain drain has already happened and there's no one left but management and amateur designers and programmers.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Not about Microsoft, but the subject does have a bearing on MSFT's strategy and prospects for success:

5 reasons Electronic Arts is in big trouble

EA is actually a good parallel to Microsoft IMHO. They have scarfed up lots of smaller companies and titles and managed to so alienate the actual users that they are almost interchangeable now. It is stunning the hatred that they have cultivated amongst gamers.

I had saved this bullet list of only their recent mistakes about the SimCity debacle, and this is as good a place as any to use it. Much of this is self-induced, and like Microsoft there are tons of lies involved, like the "SimCity doesn't work offline" nonsense. The direct comparison is with the coming Xbox fiasco ...

• I'm done. I want my money back. ( EA Forums 2013-03-06 )
  
• EA refuses to refund user for SimCity, threatens account ban ( GameChip 2013-03-07 )
  
• Column: EA Should Feel Ashamed About SimCity's DRM ( Maximum PC 2013-03-08 )
  
• Maxis address SimCity launch, offer free EA game to get “back in your good graces” ( PC Gamer 2013-03-09 )
  
• EA Patches SimCity and Throws Free Games at Disgruntled Customers ( Maximum PC 2013-03-10 )
  
• EA Not Banning Consumers Wanting Refunds for SimCity ( Tom's Hardware 2013-03-10 )
  
• SimCity connection troubles “almost behind us”; offline mode “not possible” ( PC Gamer 2013-03-11 )
  
• SimCity can be played offline indefinitely ( TechSpot 2013-03-14 )
  
• Play SimCity Offline? There's a Mod For That ( Tom's Hardware 2013-03-14 )
  
• Maxis Insider Says Taking SimCity Offline Not Too Difficult ( Tom's Hardware 2013-03-14 )
  
• Modder hacks SimCity for unlimited offline play ( UK Register 2013-03-14 )
  
• Maxis: SimCity could have had “a subset offline mode” but the idea was rejected ( PC Gamer 2013-03-15 )
  
• Maxis admits SimCity could have had an offline mode ( TechSpot 2013-03-18 )
  
• These are the Free Games EA is Giving Out for SimCity Fiasco ( Tom's Hardware 2013-03-18 )
  
• EA "Sincerely" Apologizes for SimCity Fiasco, Offers One of Eight Games for Free ( Maximum PC 2013-03-18 )
  
• EA Boss John Riccitiello Resigns Following SimCity Debacle ( Maximum PC 2013-03-19 )
  
• Origin vulnerability lets attackers hijack gaming machines ( TechSpot 2013-03-19 )
  
• Origin browser protocol exploit shown to execute malicious software with a single click ( PC Gamer 2013-03-19 )
  

[Formfiller]

Give it a year or so and you'll see the same article written about Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision-Blizzard. The only reason it hasn't been written already is that WoW's $150 million monthly bankroll keeps the entire company afloat. It can't last forever so when it caves it'll probably be the biggest fallout since Atari. The rest of the industry knows this which could be why Vivendi couldn't unload its stake in the company. These companies are overly bloated and poorly managed from a creative standpoint. It actually is quite similar to Microsoft in that it's obvious the brain drain has already happened and there's no one left but management and amateur designers and programmers.

I am astounded the huge amount of bad-will among their customers these companies are willing to produce for smallish additional profits. Let's take the region lock for StarCraft 2 for example. That caused lots of outcry back then. As far as I know, the lockin is gone with the recent patches - so why was it there to begin with? It sure wasn't a technical problem, the original StarCraft was able to handle American, European and Asian players in the same session without any problems 15 years ago. I guess they predicted that some would buy multiple copies to be able to play on different regions. A very small additional profit in exchange for lots of bad-will and potentially a greater loss of income in the future because of disgruntled customers? APPROVED!

Same thinking with the recent Sim City.

[Formfiller]

Metrotards are fuming in the comments:

http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-8-market-share-up-slightly-in-march-to-331-percent

[vinifera]

let them

their choice to use crippled OS

let them suffer hahahah

[Formfiller]

• I'm done. I want my money back. ( EA Forums 2013-03-06 )
  

Ugh, there are quite a lot of tards (Simtards, EATards?) who defend EA and all that they've done with this game. What happened to customer-is-king? It's quite disgusting how these fools want to willingly invert that. They are advocating their own obvious disadvantage constantly. Maybe there is a another layer with these people - could they be masochists? I am serious. They (metrotards, simtards) seem to enjoy giving money and be treated like crap in return. So instead of alimenting these companies and their bad decisions, and making the life of other customers more miserable indirectly, they should just go to an SM studio and be finally done with it.

I think I should start a kickstarter - fund free dominatrix coupons for metrotards. We all would be better off that way.

[Formfiller]

Typical tard-maso quote from EA forums:

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/45/9338300.page#27461904

They shouldn't have to refund your purchase because you're incompetent.

I applaud them for not refunding your money. Maybe it'll teach you to be less of a *, but probably not.

Eerily reflects the typical neowin metrotard ("I applaud Microsoft for not listening to whiners and keep sticking with metro!"). Not only are they masochists, they want to make their sexual deviance to be the primary way a customer has to deal with companies.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Formfiller

[Formfiller]

EA is actually a good parallel to Microsoft IMHO. They have scarfed up lots of smaller companies and titles and managed to so alienate the actual users that they are almost interchangeable now.

The conclusion of this Sim City review fits Windows 8 oh so well:

It pains me deeply as a long-time fan of the Sim City franchise to say that I truly hope that this game goes down in history as one of the biggest failures ever. Since it has already launched and we can't do anything to change the situation, at least SimCIty still has the chance to be remembered as a martyr. Take note EA, this massive failure is a reminder that what your customers truly want is what they ask for - not what the developer wants.

Another one:

I've tried for hours to play this game but have run into the same difficulties as everyone else has mentioned. Pathetic. And to top it all off, Forbes Magazine said Ea and Maxis are 'sticking to their guns' and 'defending' THEIR vision of this game. The bottom line is they aren't listening to what WE the consumer want who actually go out and BUY their product. It's a sad day when companies could care less what their buying public is asking for. So go ahead EA and Maxis. Stick to your guns and we'll stick to ours and pass on this ridiculous version of a once great game.

Sounds familiar.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Formfiller