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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions


JorgeA

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It looks like they've removed that piece. When I clicked on the link I got an error message from Neowin saying that, "The article you were loking for could not be found". And if you click on the menu for Windows 8 articles, there's no listing for it.

--JorgeA

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For a change, instead of a comment, I will post some data.

Please find attached a small Excel spreadsheet with the data that Charlotte kindly posted, rendered in a basic XY graph.

I used as reference the 28th of January.

The data shows how in the three days 29, 30 and 31st of January evidently a noticeable amount of people downgraded from 7 to XP :w00t:.

This is only to show how the accuracy of such "OS shares" data should be considered. :whistle:

Yup, the numbers can swing wildly in small data sets or over short time frames, and we are correct to take them with a grain of salt.

As with stock-market fluctuations, unemployment data, pre-election polls, and sports performance (win-loss percentages, batting averages), the most useful focus is not on day-to-day swings but on the trends that the data suggests, especially in relation to other comparable sets of data. For example, how Windows 8 is doing in its first several months vs. how Windows 7 and Vista did in their first several months.

--JorgeA

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Also this is comment is a beauty to behold:

http://www.neowin.net/news/net-applications-windows-8-up-slightly-in-april-to-384-percent#comment-2185119

I am not going to quote it here, you have to read it. The dolts are complaining that the Netapplications data is flawed and biased against Microsoft, then a commenter posts a link where Microsoft themselves praise Netapplications over Statcounter. What follows is a long-winded refute that only a fanboy could write. Lesson of the story: When it comes to defending Windows 8, even Microsoft can be wrong for once.

You know, this whole fannish Windows 8 phenomenon is very disturbing. When so many people show such an enormous capacity for self-delusion and for rationalizing demonstrably wrong opinions, it makes me despair for the human race. :no:

[possible self-deluded rationalization ahead] What prevents me from sinking into total hopelessness is the thought that the kinds of comments we see from the Neowin crowd may represent only a thin slice of the whole, and that most people are not in fact like that.

--JorgeA

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I sure did! :)

Compare that to Windows Phone: Locked down, no easy sideloading, forced store, forced 30% cut for developers, no way to modify the UI, still lacking the basic features its predecessor had (VPN, Outlook sync).

Well, that rules out Windows Phone for me. A VPN is the only way that I'd consider using a wireless Internet connection anywhere (maybe even at home). Not that I'm itching to get a smartphone anyway. As I told the store clerk the last time I was shopping for a mobile phone -- I want the dumbest phone you've got!

--JorgeA

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It gets really funny now, you should read this in full:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Windows-desktop-as-SaaS?page=2

An employee there is claiming that WPF is alive and well, and that the regular Small Business Server wasn't killed in fact..

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As with stock-market fluctuations, unemployment data, pre-election polls, and sports performance (win-loss percentages, batting averages), the most useful focus is not on day-to-day swings but on the trends that the data suggests, especially in relation to other comparable sets of data. For example, how Windows 8 is doing in its first several months vs. how Windows 7 and Vista did in their first several months.

Not only.

The issue here is also that if I make a "trend" using the data from 01/02/2013 or the data from 28/01/2013 I find a noticeable difference in the "trend".

If there can be such big differences as 1.5% fluctuations over three days, what happens if I use the data from (say) the 25/04/2013 instead of those from 01/05/2013? :ph34r:

AND there is another issue, let's get only the data from the 1st of February and compare them with the 1st of May.

The OSX's over the three month period February/April has fluctuated between 6.40% and 6.42% (please read as "stable/unchanged").

Windows XP loses 1.2% (from 39.51% to 38.31%)

Windows Vista :ph34r: loses 0.49%.

Windows 7 "gains" around 0.24% (substantially "stable").

Others lose 0.11% (again substantially "stable").

Windows 8 gains 1.56% (from 2.26% to 3.82%)

Percentage represent os Share, thus the 100% that you get something those percentages represent the total number of devices (let's call them conventionally "PC's") "in existence".

Now we don't have real numbers from the good MS guys, but we have a statement on january 9 that they sold "over 60 million licenses" (presumably up to December 2012)

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2024480/windows-8-license-sales-hit-60-million.html

Let's hypotize that those sales need on average 15 to 20 days to "get online" and thus be "registered" by netmarketshare.

So the 2.26% should correspond (roughly) to 60 millions of license sold, i..e. each 1% should correspond to 26,500,000 licenses.

That means that the 100% on 01/02/2013 corresponds to a total amount of "PC's" (as "loosely" defined above) of 2,650,000,000. :w00t:

Let's see which "data" (please do notice the double quotes around the word "data") we can gather from other sources:

http://www.c-i-a.com/pr02012012.htm

at the end of 2011 we had in the world around 1,600,000,000 and forecasts were to reach 2,550,000,000 in 2016.

Gartner (another source often cited for this kind of figures) tells us (rounded numbers for simplicity):

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1981717

1 Q 2012 = 89,000,000

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2079015

2 Q 2012 = 87,500,000

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2194017

3 Q 2012 = 87,500,000

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2301715

4 Q 2012 = 90,300,000

89,000,000+87,500,000+87,500,000+90,300,000=354,300,000 units shipped worldwide in 2012.

Now, 1,600,000,000+354,300,000= 1,954,300,000.

Consider that a number of the PC's supposedly shipped in 2012 are "replacement units", so the actual number of PC's in use will be less than the above, to round things up (and still largely "in favour" of the good MS guys) we can consider at the most 1,900,000,000 total PC's in use.

Then let's get also the "Gartner data" for 1st quarter 2013:

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2420816

1 Q 2013 = 79,200,000

In the best case the total number of PC's in use on 01/05/2013 can be around 1,975,000,000.

Windows 8 represents 3,82% of those, i.e. 3,82%*1,975,000,000 = 75,445,000

In the best case the total number of PC's in use on 01/02/2013 can be around 1,915,000,000.

Windows 8 represents 2,26% of those, i.e. 2,26%*1,915,000,000 = 43,279,000

There is a problem here. :whistle:

Would it be possible that the good MS guys slightly "pumped up" (by a mere 50%) the amount of licenses sold in 2012? :unsure:

Or maybe they counted in the Windows RT licenses (please read as "Surface RT", which should not be included in the "Gartner data") and sold some 20,000,000 of those .... :whistle:

It is more likely that people buy a license for Windows 8 from Microsoft and wait roughly 3 months before installing/going online (and thus "reach" netmarketshare).

Now let's use these newly found "total PC's" and let see how the others behaved:

OSX's

6.40%*1,915,000,000 = 122,560,000

6.42%*1,975,000,000 = 126,795,000

The good Apple guys then sold around 126,795,000-122,560,000=4,235,000 of their nice thingies (excluding the iPad)

This substantially matches Apples sales in Q1 2013 (excluding iOS devices):

http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/23/apples-record-first-quarter-of-2013-in-charts/

http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/23/apples-mac-problem/

4.1 millions are near enough to 4,235,000 to "validate" our calculations.

And now the nice part :yes: .

Windows 8

2.26%*1,915,000,000 = 43,279,000

3.82%*1,975,000,000 = 75,445,000

75,445,000-43,279,000= 32,166,000 more PC's were running Windows 8 on 01/05/2013 than on 01/02/2013

Windows 7:

44,48%*1,915,000,000 = 851,792,000

44,72%*1,975,000,000 = 883,220,000

883,220,000 - 851,792,000 = 31,428,000 more PC's were running Windows 7 on 01/05/2013 than on 01/02/2013

In the trimester examined the increase in the number of PC's using Windows 7 is almost equal to the increase of the number of PC's running Windows 8.

jaclaz

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Thanks for the analysis, jaclaz -- very nice!

Just one comment --

Would it be possible that the good MS guys slightly "pumped up" (by a mere 50%) the amount of licenses sold in 2012? :unsure:

Or maybe they counted in the Windows RT licenses (please read as "Surface RT", which should not be included in the "Gartner data") and sold some 20,000,000 of those .... :whistle:

It is more likely that people buy a license for Windows 8 from Microsoft and wait roughly 3 months before installing/going online (and thus "reach" netmarketshare).

The question hinges on what, exactly, they mean by "licenses sold." IIRC, Mary Jo Foley (and probably others) suggested that this could include licenses for PCs yet to be manufactured, or in the pipeline but not yet purchased by end users. If that's the case, then it would support the idea that MSFT "pumped up" the initial estimates to make them look better at the time. Book publishers can tell you all about print runs sold to stores but not to actual readers...

There are other uncertainties in the numbers put out by Netmarketshares and others. For example, it's doubtful that they can know directly how many PCs with each OS there are out there; therefore, they're deriving estimates from the data in HTTP headers. It's not unreasonable to theorize that a person with a shiny new toy Windows 8 PC might want to take it out for a test drive on the Web and check out how it performs, leading to some additional amount of Web surfing relative to their previous PC's established level. (As the novelty wore off, the new Win8 PC's use would presumably also settle down eventually to somewhere close to the previous PC's level of use.) This would show up in the stats for a while as a certain degree of excess hits for Windows 8 over the actual proportion of PCs with that OS installed.

--JorgeA

EDIT: clarification

Edited by JorgeA
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OT, maybe, but since it got brought up way back at post#2690, this Add-on/Extension for Firefox gets rid of that nasty Google Redirect quite nicely! I may quit using IE altogether! :thumbup

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-no-tracking-url/

"The Finder" sidetracked me into "finding" something! BTW, Google (AFAICT) needs to be "allowed" in NoScript to even function. This Extension just scratches out the "extraneous stuff" like the Opera Add-on does.

"Just the URL, Ma'am" <-Dragnet

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News from Scroogled. They have changed direction, it's all about apps now.

http://www.scroogled.com/

GOOGLE SHARES YOUR PERSONAL INFO WITH APP MAKERS

When you buy an Android app from the Google app store, they give the app maker your full name, email address and the neighborhood where you live. This occurs without clear warning every single time you buy an app.

Watch the video to see how you get Scroogled

If you can't trust Google's app store, how can you trust them for anything?

2318.scroogled_5F00_041713.jpg

IRONY:

http://bgr.com/2012/08/24/windows-8-privacy-microsoft-smartscreen/

Windows 8 sends Microsoft information about every program you install

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Microsoft Reportedly Prepping a Smaller, Cheaper Surface Tablet ( Maximum PC 2013-05-03 )

Future Surface may have 7.5" display, for less than $399 ( NeoWin 2013-05-03 )

This story is really making the rounds. They are apparently looking at the smaller sizes finally, but what took so long? One year ago they announced those Surface units and 6 months ago it was released ( the ReTard version, the Pro was about 3 months ago ). So they are well over one year late, perhaps two, in considering the obvious that so many commenters wrote here a long time ago. You cannot penetrate the mobile market by pretending to be Apple and try to sell way overpriced Netbooks. So we were right. Furthermore, because of the Redmond management Idiocracy, the super mis-timing has cost them any chance on the lower end of mobile. While Microsoft was busy snoozing and dreaming of counting apples, the lower end of the market was overtaken by countless devices that they will never be able to compete with unless Microsoft maybe gives them away for free. They are so screwed now.

Finally, just how will they put a keyboard cover on that thing? How do you lop 3 inches off that already barely useable cover. Knowing Microsoft they will leave it off and still set the price as if it is included.

Gigabyte teases customizable, high-res UEFI for Haswell motherboards ( TechSpot 2013-05-03 )

As for the layout of the UEFI, the outer edges have been designed to show real-time stats without having to navigate through multiple sub-menus. Users will be able to monitor CPU, memory and system stats on-the-fly in addition to temperatures, fan speeds and voltages.

If that wasn’t enough, the firmware looks to be completely customizable as well. The teaser image shows a set of user options which we assume can be selected and added to a custom user tab – in this example, the custom tab has been labeled as “Performance.”

And needless to say it is decidedly non-Metro :yes:

NIWZueu.jpg

Here is a 1920 pixel image ( as long as their link lasts ). Note from the text excerpt that the interface is user customizable. Can you imagine Microsoft or her fanboys designing this? Let's all pray that Gigabyte and Asus never collaborate with Microsoft.

EDIT: updated image URL

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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ObjectDock 2.1 adds Windows 8 support; removes XP and Vista support ( NeoWin 2013-05-03 )

qNuPlBZ.jpg

( image source )

For those that aren't familiar with it, this gives you an Apple Mac style dock as a toolbar ( and lots of customization choices ), not a chance that NeoWhiners would ever have the slightest bit of interest in it. Therefore we should check the comments and kick over the rocks to see what crawls out ...

"According to the operating system market share as shown on Wikipedia, Windows XP still is being used by 38% of the market and Windows Vista has about 5% - that's a pretty large share of users who are being eliminated from the latest version..."

Pretty good point. Chopping off two operating systems that each have larger marketshare than Windows 8 ( Vista by a hair and Windows XP dwarfing it :lol: ), does not make a whole lotta sense. I don't have time to run this story down to see if it is true. It sounds like click-bait for MetroTards and I doubt that Stardock invented something that works in Windows 6.1 but fails in Windows 6.0. It really doesn't make any logical sense there.

Anyway, the MetroTard click-bait caught the usual fish, you know what I mean, when you pull the hook out and notice holes from the dumb fish being caught over and over again ( :lol: ). Attacking Windows XP and legacy operating system users again ...

"Honestly, at this stage, all I can say is **** them. All they're doing is just preventing progress at this point. If they want to cling to yesteryear's tech let them, it's time to move on. Time to reward those who *have* upgraded with better tools taking advantage of new, richer APIs, without being bogged down with legacy support."

Yep, that's him, the infamous commenter ridiculed far and wide. He's sure got the astroturf propaganda down too ( only omitting the Fast and Fluid stuff). Besides being factually challenged ( umm how does someone using "legacy" software or OS affect you MetroTards? ) that continuous fallacy about legacy code bogging down the system cries out as a child demanding their own NEW legacy-free operating system called Microsoft Tiles. With every breath he proves all our long-running points about the Windows 8 and Metro debacle. They merely needed to design an iOS style toy operating system for the MetroTards and left the adults alone and we could all co-exist peacefully. :yes:

Here's a comment from a self-identified Softie who is very good at sticking to the sanctioned robo-script prepared by the Redmond clown brigade. Makes me think this is official policy now ....

"If those customers are happy with a 12 year old operating system (or 7 in the case of Vista), how many would not also be content with the older software they're running on it?

Also keep in mind how much of the XP installed base is actually kiosks/ATMs/Movie ticket dispensers, etc."

rotflmao.gif So in his mind, ATMs, Kiosks and Movie Ticket dispensers are web-connected and showing up in browser marketshare data collection? He cannot understand this but what he has actually done here is demonstrate that there is a likely undercount for real-world XP usage :yes: The first part of the comment ( "12 year old operating system" ) is dripping with that patented Microsoft contempt for their customers stemming from their utter bewilderment that users aren't the patsies they expect and are not jumping into their crappy new walled garden. And oddly enough, this "12-year old" meme seems only to be trotted out when it suits these propagandists.

So, just for these MicroZealots and MetroTards I present to them a crusty old photo of a 60-year old Corvette ...

Ur0GmUZ.jpg

( image source )

... which looks pretty spunky for a car "released" in 1953, the RTM version. :yes: ( I'm no expert but maybe that is SP59 or version 20 in MicroYears or something like that? ). Anyway, another automobile fallacy? I don't think so. Windows XP SP3 files are mostly dated to 2008-04-14 which just turned five years old. People still running Vista RTM or SP1 are using older files! Windows 7 was released just over a year later. I guess I shouldn't bother pointing out that the Metro Charms and most GUI elements are starting to resemble consumer electronics firmware ( Devolution ) from a decade ago and the colored Playskool Tiles come straight out of Sesame Street or AOL Kids or any number of things from 20 to 50 years ago. :lol:

EDIT: typo, clarity, updated image URLs

Edited by CharlotteTheHarlot
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Here's a comment from a self-identified Softie who is very good at sticking to the sanctioned robo-script prepared by the Redmond clown brigade. Makes me think this is official policy now ....

"If those customers are happy with a 12 year old operating system (or 7 in the case of Vista), how many would not also be content with the older software they're running on it?

Also keep in mind how much of the XP installed base is actually kiosks/ATMs/Movie ticket dispensers, etc."

rotflmao.gif So in his mind, ATMs, Kiosks and Movie Ticket dispensers are web-connected and showing up in browser marketshare data collection? He cannot understand this but what he has actually done here is demonstrate that there is a likely undercount for real-world XP usage :yes: The first part of the comment ( "12 year old operating system" ) is dripping with that patented Microsoft contempt for their customers stemming from their utter bewilderment that users aren't the patsies they expect and are not jumping into their crappy new walled garden. And oddly enough, this 12-year old meme seems only to be trotted out when it suits these propagandists.

Well, don't be too hard on the Microsofties. As I've mentioned before, I had to lecture a softie, who worked on their server offerings, regarding what features Microsoft removed from the server products he himself worked on, and when what product was released:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Windows-desktop-as-SaaS?page=2

Scroll down to the ending of the page, where the post with the youtube vids is. The "metro-effect" (idiocracy) is making the rounds in Redmond.

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You sure were! Really stickin' it to 'em. The conclusion is (IMHO) the best part:

What these examples show is that the modus operandi of NuMicrosoft means that anything can be on target to become killed-off or messed up in some way. No matter the previous lip-service. You apologists must be guzzling the Kool-Aid to not to see the worries people have with this "all-in" Microsoft. Especially with news like the one that started this thread. Was there any group of customers and/or developers Microsoft hasn't colossally p***ed-off in some way in the past two years?

If the desktop is still alive and healthy, Microsoft has the duty to state it so. They owe it after their envy-fueled run.

:thumbup

--JorgeA

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