[MagicAndre1981]

jaclaz, on 23 July 2012 - 03:00 AM, said:

what really makes me upset is that while NOT listening to them, the declare they ARE listening .

yes, this is the real issue

[JorgeA]

Charlotte,

What a fantastic rundown!!

For those who haven't made their way through all of the links, here's one of the best comments in the MSDN blog:

Quote

The reason for the "blurry" font rendering is that Clearype is no more as I understand it, as it didn't work well when rotated, which is an issue with tablets.

And yes, I agree - I find the text rendering on 8 to be a significant step backwards from even XP. So yet another downgrade because MS has to chase the tablet ghost.

--JorgeA

P.S. Are those really the taskbar icons MS is proposing for Office programs? OMG. Wonder if I'd still be able to squish the Taskbar so that I could get word labels instead of hieroglyphics...

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 23 July 2012 - 06:46 PM

[Fredledingue]

Yes, this is unacceptable.
Their design is getting worse and worse day after day.
These new Office icons are designed to be as less recognizable as possible.

Moving to the Windows 8 Metro esthetic would give me headaches. Not for me thanks.
I want an interface which is relaxing to the eyes and ergonomic at the same time. Not someting that is opposite in both.

[MagicAndre1981]

Fredledingue, on 24 July 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

I want an interface which is relaxing to the eyes and ergonomic at the same time. Not someting that is opposite in both.

do you also have this issues with IE9, metro, Office 2013 and VS2012? This font rendering is a personal injury

[JorgeA]

MagicAndre1981, on 24 July 2012 - 03:23 PM, said:

Fredledingue, on 24 July 2012 - 01:38 PM, said:

I want an interface which is relaxing to the eyes and ergonomic at the same time. Not someting that is opposite in both.

do you also have this issues with IE9, metro, Office 2013 and VS2012? This font rendering is a personal injury

Now that Office 2007 has (I think) received its final updates package, and considering the way that Office 2013 is shaping up , I'm thinking of buying a copy of Office 2010 before the '13 version goes retail. It will give me several more years of full Office support in an interface that I can tolerate.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Valve’s Gabe Newell on the Future of Games, Wearable Computers, Windows 8 and More (allthingsd 2012-07-25)

Gabe Newell: “I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space.” (PCGamer 2012-07-25)

Valve co-founder: Windows 8 is a "catastrophe" (Fanboy Central 2012-07-25)

Valve Boss Gabe Newell Says ''Windows 8 is a Catastrophe'' (Tom's Hardware 2012-07-26)

Valve Hedging Bets on Linux to Avoid Windows 8 "Catastrophe" (Maximum PC 2012-07-26)

Gabe Newell expressing exactly what I was trying to say in a rant upthread ...

Quote

Perhaps most interesting of all were Newell’s comments on the PC as an open platform and harsh criticism of Windows 8.

“Valve wouldn’t exist today without the PC,” he insisted, “or Epic, or Zynga, or Google. They all wouldn’t have existed without the openness of the platform. There’s a strong temptation to close the platform, because they look at what they can accomplish when they limit the competitors’ access to the platform, and they say, ‘That’s really exciting.’

“We are looking at the platform and saying, ‘We’ve been a free rider, and we’ve been able to benefit from everything that went into PCs and the Internet, and we have to continue to figure out how there will be open platforms.”

Newell even went as far as to say that a change of operating systems may be necessary in the future to preserve the open platform, so get those boot CDs ready.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy,” he said. “I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people.”

Bingo. And as I was saying, Microsoft wouldn't exist except for the unlikely choice by IBM to embrace and literally force an open platform in the first place. It was one of the luckiest and stunningly benevolent things that any big business ever did for the public. And Microsoft was the luckiest group of all. They begged, borrowed and practically stole in a race against the clock to get DOS into IBM's hands in time for the PC launch. Their progression from then, to today also involved lots of luck and some more begging, borrowing and perhaps stealing as well. But here they are, today, in an unprecedented monopoly position regarding the x86 computer universe. It is today, at this stage where I believe the old saying 'with great power comes great responsibility' applies. Do you tread carefully and respect that giant user base who in large part did not choose specifically to become pawns in this game (their PC's were outfitted by OEMs that installed Windows largely because of behind the scenes deals) ... or ... do you make a cynical and selfish move, cashing in on them when they have practically no choice at all in selecting an Operating System, treating them like their personal herd of sheep or cattle?

This thing, Windows 8 is portrayed by fanboys as a nice incremental step towards 'unification' of devices and as 'progress' in general. I say bull. IMHO this is a thinly veiled attack on the very thing that made PC's and Microsoft itself a household name in the first place - the wild free-wheeling open architecture of the x86 computer world. Make no mistake, if they succeed with Metro and build a commercial walled garden and god forbid the thing starts generating real money, then you can guarantee that the desktop side will be targeted and eventually eliminated. They can't have scab independent authors out there selling software without getting their cut. They couldn't even tolerate something like Java stepping on their toes either. So let's hope for starters that there is someone out there developing a means to bypass the Microsoft Store completely, allowing independent Metro apps to be installed without ever passing through the Microsoft gatekeeping. That battle, should it occur should be a real hoot. But the best thing of all, and I am really hoping for this one, is that someone figures out a way to turn Metro into a windowed application that runs like Nemulator (link to an image, note that it is running in a Win7 Aero window just like Microsoft could have done, and here is the video once again).

Microsoft (and many other companies no doubt) would love to be the new AT&T and your computer to be the telephone you lease from them and getting a piece of every phone call. But they seem to have forgotten just how badly that monopoly ended. For the first time ever I am starting to think Microsoft should have been broken up, spinning off the OS side into a separate company.

EDIT: added a few more links.

Microsoft Windows 8 : What Monopoly? No-one's forcing you to buy it. (You have lots of choices bwahahaha! )

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 26 July 2012 - 03:00 PM

[Tripredacus]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 03:19 AM, said:

This thing, Windows 8 is portrayed by fanboys as a nice incremental step towards 'unification' of devices and as 'progress' in general.

I'm not sure where these fanboys are... The only ones I am seeing being "fanboyish" are official or affiliated sources. Surface reviews aside, since that actually seems like it is going to be a nice product.

[xpclient]

Well said CharlotteTheHarlot.

The fanboys are abundant at Fanboy Central aka Neowin.net.

[MagicAndre1981]

xpclient, on 26 July 2012 - 08:53 AM, said:

The fanboys are abundant at Fanboy Central aka Neowin.net.

or German site winfuture.de

This post has been edited by MagicAndre1981: 26 July 2012 - 09:40 AM

[JorgeA]

Charlotte,

Another FANTASTIC post, thank you!

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 03:19 AM, said:

Microsoft wouldn't exist except for the unlikely choice by IBM to embrace and literally force an open platform in the first place. It was one of the luckiest and stunningly benevolent things that any big business ever did for the public. And Microsoft was the luckiest group of all.

This was a crucial factor in the IBM PC's (and therefore Microsoft's) triumph over Apple back in 1980-83. Apple specializes in closed platforms, and although they were in the lead early on, they were quickly overtaken by the PC because customers wanted to be able to adapt their systems to their own needs, and not what Apple decided that they needed. Customization is king. As a result, Apple receded into the background and nearly disappeared. Even today, despite the new Apple chic, the Macintosh in its various flavors accounts for barely one-eighth of the OS market.

Apple's had better success recently with the iPad because no one takes a tablet seriously. How you run a toy and what goes inside it are not critical matters. But as tablet makers try to push their wares out into more serious markets, their popularity will run into the hard facts of tablets' physical and ergonomic limitations, as well as their nature as closed systems in terms of both hardware and software.

To repeat for the umpteenth time: A PC is not a tablet, and a tablet is not a PC.

--JorgeA

[CoffeeFiend]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 03:19 AM, said:

Microsoft wouldn't exist except for the unlikely choice by IBM to embrace and literally force an open platform in the first place.

Sure, MS wouldn't be what it is today... But the IBM PC/XT wasn't exactly what I'd call open. Yes, there were a lot of clones, but cloning such a simple design was very simple (it wasn't exactly a groundbreaking design) and they had to reverse engineer the BIOS to make their own. But yes, it was open in the sense that everyone could easily make their own ISA expansion cards and such (good times). I think price was one of the major reasons why it won (and that largely because of the use of a cheap 16 bit CPU, the 8088), along with cheap clones, enough software early on (including a familiar OS, VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and everything else), etc. It seems like they got everything right, and the upgrades were even better.

Tripredacus, on 26 July 2012 - 07:16 AM, said:

The only ones I am seeing being "fanboyish" are official or affiliated sources.

Them sources still contain a lot of complaints, and I do know for sure that they've heavily censoring the comments too. Not that it's going to make any difference. There were Zune fanboys back then, just like there are WP fanboys now, and both are very much dead regardless. A handful of fanboys never saved a product. I see "regular" people everyday who are still trying to learn Win7 basics years after it was released (still stuck on XP in their heads)... Just imagine how they'll adapt to Win8 on a desktop. It's just not gonna fly.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Tripredacus, on 26 July 2012 - 07:16 AM, said:

I'm not sure where these fanboys are... The only ones I am seeing being "fanboyish" are official or affiliated sources. Surface reviews aside, since that actually seems like it is going to be a nice product.

xpclient, on 26 July 2012 - 08:53 AM, said:

The fanboys are abundant at Fanboy Central aka Neowin.net.

MagicAndre1981, on 26 July 2012 - 09:40 AM, said:

or German site winfuture.de

Many other sites as well (PcMag, Cnet, etc). But the most pathetic and hilarious are at MSDN on the Official Destroying Windows Blog. These people have absolute disdain for Freedom of Choice and are on a Jihad to convince detractors that it somehow makes sense for Microsoft (or actually the subset that make up the Metro contingent) to select the theme for everbody's desktop and how they interact with it. These people of course would have a baby if they turned on their computer and some virus (or some playful malware) suddenly changed their theme and all the associated components. I swear, if Microsoft were to release Ubuntu or any other 'nix labeled as Windows 8 these drones would still cheer. This could be easily proved if somebody conducted a Mojave'nix Experiment ("shhh, we've substituted the DVD of these unsuspecting users ..." ).

CoffeeFiend, on 26 July 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

Sure, MS wouldn't be what it is today... But the IBM PC/XT wasn't exactly what I'd call open. Yes, there were a lot of clones, but cloning such a simple design was very simple (it wasn't exactly a groundbreaking design) and they had to reverse engineer the BIOS to make their own. But yes, it was open in the sense that everyone could easily make their own ISA expansion cards and such (good times)

You're absolutely correct. That's what I meant (3rd party hardware vendors of add-ins, not entire PC clones, not yet). I was also alluding to the software end where Microsoft literally specialized in marketing all the computer programming languages and really jump started the independent software industry, in fact they created it (and now want to control it). On the hardware end obviously the BIOS was still secret at first (and still being developed really, PC > XT > AT) but it didn't last long. Once AMI or Phoenix (can't remember) made it modular and available the market became 100% open. IBM certainly did intend, at first, for everyone to communicate with their BIOS through all the published routines but this was short-lived thankfully. At least IBM did provide thorough manuals and 'Technical Specifications' for everything they sold. I had access to cabinets full of them, everything from Printers and expansion cards to all their DOS releases and even the BIOS. As you say, "good times" . One big difference today IMHO is with our toxic, litigious atmosphere that has evolved to the point where an invention is now considered a monopoly for an arbitrary period of time. I cannot imagine how Compaq or whoever first clean roomed the BIOS could do something similar today.

One huge lesson that Microsoft somehow failed to learn serves as a really great analogy to today ... IBM reverted from allowing independence for their nimble PC division to it's old lumbering behemoth self and changed track with the move back to proprietary technology, most memorable in the MCA line of PS/2 computers (all pretty good though) which the rest of the industry had a fit over. I remember the battle lines being drawn just like today with many media outlets cheering them on ('the death of the clone?') while others cheered for the independents to prevail ("revenge of the clones?"). Deja Vu anyone?

I guess am thinking more from a purist point of view these days. I would prefer if Microsoft had either offered a separate Metro Edition or better yet, an MCE-like add-on that runs within the Operating System, windowed or full-screen if the person voluntarily chooses.. Even Stevie Wonder can see that Metro is a simple evolution of the Xbox Dashboard of which MCE appears to be another derivative. MCE was the right path because it did not impact anyone that chose to ignore it. The reason they will not do the former, a separate Metro Edition, is because it would most certainly crash and burn on its own, or at best simply fill a niche market like many other Windows derivatives. In short, by attaching it to the entire Windows base they are trying to make it 'Too Big To Fail', (a political term here in the States used to rationalize saving or bailing out something at all costs regardless of common sense). That decision, to radically change mainstream Windows itself is the one that must have caused a holy war in Redmond because rather than isolating the potential damage from a fail they chose to spread it to the whole Microsoft brand. At least I hope it was internally controversial, because if it wasn't and there are only children left in the ranks, well, we will probably soon find out if Microsoft itself is 'Too Big To Fail'.

EDIT: spelling typos!

Microsoft Windows 8 : Listen to our Fanboys! The desktop is still there! We didn't change a thing. ( okay, maybe just a few )

This post has been edited by CharlotteTheHarlot: 26 July 2012 - 10:09 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

marketing all the computer programming languages

Hmm, my memory might be failing me here, but the only things I've seen from them in that era was crappy old BASIC (not sure how far back MASM goes). That's where Borland came in with Turbo C/C++/Pascal/ASM/Vision/etc.

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

IBM certainly did intend, at first, for everyone to comuunicate with their BIOS through all the published routines but this was short-lived thankfully.

Ralf Brown's interrupt list was the best reference IMO. Along with a few good books... Good times for sure, toying with a DIY ISA card with 24 TTL I/Os (from a plain old 8255 PPI). </nostalgia>

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

the move back to propietary technology, most memorable in the MCA line of PS/2 computers

I sure remember that. Everything was so pricey... and so little existed for that architecture compared to plain old ISA slots. Thanks god EISA won.

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

I would prefer if Microsoft had either offered a separate Metro Edition or better yet, an MCE-like add-on that runs within the Operating System, windowed or full-screen if the person voluntarily chooses..

Totally. Or at least some way to disable it.

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

The reason they will not do the former, a separate Metro Edition, is because it would most certainly crash and burn on its own, or at best simply fill a niche market like many other Windows derivatives. In short, by attaching it to the entire Windows base they are trying to make it 'Too Big To Fail', (a political term here in the States used to rationalize saving or bailing out something at all costs regardless of common sense).

Precisely.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

CoffeeFiend, on 26 July 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

marketing all the computer programming languages

Hmm, my memory might be failing me here, but the only things I've seen from them in that era was crappy old BASIC (not sure how far back MASM goes). That's where Borland came in with Turbo C/C++/Pascal/ASM/Vision/etc.

Heck yeah. BASIC, COBOL, Fortran, Assembler, C, Pascal, all by the IBM AT era. Probably in that order but I'll be darned if I can find a source (I'll bet Jaclaz can). It's almost as if all Microsoft history prior to Windows is missing (and even the history of early versions of Windows seems spotty). I'm pretty sure Borland didn't come until after the AT (but my memory is probably even worse!). Some of those languages were compilers, some interpreters, some both, some were also rebranded by OEM's. I believe I have IBM's first labeled version of BASIC and Assembler somewhere (or they might just be Microsoft). I know for a fact that I did save a copy of Microsoft Adventure which is very very old. Anyway, IMHO, this is when x86 programming took off like a rocket. And this is when independent software really took root (but of course solidified during the Windows 32-bit era).

Off-Topic Nostalgia: One cool thing about the 1981-1984 era is how gigantic the industry became. The magazines (e.g., PC-Magazine) were a half-inch thick stuffed with ads. There were so many ads, literally falling out of the magazines, that most people complained we couldn't read the darn reviews and articles. One interesting thing that Microsoft did was sell wholesale to countless software vendors who re-sold to the public. Companies with names like Micro-this and Compu-that ran ads on every page of the magazines each competing with each other for software and hardware. If I had to guess, I would say that in a copy of PC-Magazine during the AT era you would find quotes for Microsoft C (or whatever) from at least a hundred different outlets. The same goes for every gadget and expansion card that was available for sale. Competition was the rule of the day. And there still an was actual choice in OS (I think this was around DOS 3.0) as Microsoft still hadn't nailed down the market. Once things unified for sure by Windows 3.x, the competition started to evaporate and the number of vendors decreased. For the younger folk out there that doubt about the wild and crazy competitive times, just track down a magazine from 1984 or earlier.

CoffeeFiend, on 26 July 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

IBM certainly did intend, at first, for everyone to comuunicate with their BIOS through all the published routines but this was short-lived thankfully.

Ralf Brown's interrupt list was the best reference IMO. Along with a few good books... Good times for sure, toying with a DIY ISA card with 24 TTL I/Os (from a plain old 8255 PPI). </nostalgia>

... and Peter Norton's guide!

CoffeeFiend, on 26 July 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

the move back to propietary technology, most memorable in the MCA line of PS/2 computers

I sure remember that. Everything was so pricey... and so little existed for that architecture compared to plain old ISA slots. Thanks god EISA won.

Amen to that (we dodged a bullet there for sure). MCA was cutting edge to be sure, but boy did they tick off the hardware vendors with heavy handed licensing and costs. By the time the blazing fast VL-Bus hardware came along it was game over for MCA and IBM. The consumer and the industry had had enough with bureaucracy, incremental improvements and proprietary nonsense.

[JorgeA]

CoffeeFiend, on 26 July 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 03:19 AM, said:

Microsoft wouldn't exist except for the unlikely choice by IBM to embrace and literally force an open platform in the first place.

Sure, MS wouldn't be what it is today... But the IBM PC/XT wasn't exactly what I'd call open. Yes, there were a lot of clones, but cloning such a simple design was very simple (it wasn't exactly a groundbreaking design) and they had to reverse engineer the BIOS to make their own. But yes, it was open in the sense that everyone could easily make their own ISA expansion cards and such (good times). I think price was one of the major reasons why it won (and that largely because of the use of a cheap 16 bit CPU, the 8088), along with cheap clones, enough software early on (including a familiar OS, VisiCalc, Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and everything else), etc. It seems like they got everything right, and the upgrades were even better.

I never knew the details, but I distinctly remember that back then the IBM PC's success was attributed to its being an "open architecture" system that users could open up and modify to their heart's content, whereas the Apple machines were described as "closed architecture" that discouraged (maybe even made it impossible? I don't know) opening up the case to tinker with the insides. This was viewed as a limitation of user choice that crippled Apple in its competition with the PC and clones.

As for software compatibiity, I don't know about the Apple II because I don't remember there being any clones of it (see above), but I can tell you that my business partner and I put out a magazine with him working on one of the original IBM models, while I had my "semi-compatible" Sanyo MBC-555 running WordStar and MS-DOS 1.25: we never had trouble reading files and disks back and forth.

And I do remember those thick computing magazines -- may even still have some in a box somewhere. I'd go out to the newsstand every Sunday to buy the NY Times, just to read the 47th Street Photo two-page spread top-to-bottom for prices dropping and new models coming out. It was an early type of computer p0rn.

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 26 July 2012 - 11:36 PM

[jaclaz]

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 10:08 PM, said:

CoffeeFiend, on 26 July 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

CharlotteTheHarlot, on 26 July 2012 - 04:37 PM, said:

marketing all the computer programming languages

Hmm, my memory might be failing me here, but the only things I've seen from them in that era was crappy old BASIC (not sure how far back MASM goes). That's where Borland came in with Turbo C/C++/Pascal/ASM/Vision/etc.

Heck yeah. BASIC, COBOL, Fortran, Assembler, C, Pascal, all by the IBM AT era. Probably in that order but I'll be darned if I can find a source (I'll bet Jaclaz can).

NOT EXACTLY what you asked for , but, had you asked for:

Quote

Where I can find a mind-boggingly complex poster with the history of programming languages?

jaclaz may have posted this link :
http://oreilly.com/p...oster_0504.html



jaclaz

[JorgeA]

From the Grown Man Discovers that Fire Is Hot news department:

Headline --

Quote

Microsoft understands that Surface tablet might upset OEM partners

Quote

In a recent uncovered government filing, we learn that Microsoft indeed understands that its Surface tablet plans might upset its OEM partners and that it may affect their commitment to the company's platforms. While this was common sense to most, it is first time we are hearing Microsoft admit it.

"Our Surface devices will compete with products made by our OEM partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform," Microsoft stated in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Voice of Genius and Insight has spoken!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

I just discovered an interesting exchange, from back in March, on the Windows IT Pro forum. A poster complained about the crippled Desktop and the "god-awful" Metro start screen, and wanted to complain to the powers-that-be at Microsoft. This is the first reply he got:

Quote

I would not bother to send any input to Microsoft. Microsoft already knows everything you are posting here. It is well known that the incorporation of Metro/WinRT reduces the desktop functionality. As I posted in the previous thread, Microsoft is quite willing to have more limited desktop capability in order to achieve the following

(a) condition users to the Metro/WinRT

(b ) Give to developers a huge installed base of Metro/WinRT. Microsoft needs developers to write for WinRT with gusto because it needs to have at least 200,000 applications to succeed. Because the installed base is too small, Microsoft needs to convert every desktop it can find into a tablet (the tablefication of PCs). Assuming that OEMs will ship about 150 million computers, Microsoft may be able to deliver to developers a much larger installed base than that of the iPad. Thus, they cannot allow users to incapacitate or banish Metro. Do not forget that Metro is just the UI. Under it, is WinRT. Microsoft wants to shift all developer to WinRT and banish, as soon as possible, Win32.

Thus, I would not bother. And you cannot stay with Win7 for ever, because it is now an orphaned OS. If most new programs are coded for WinRT, they are not going to run in Win7. Thus, if you do not go with Win8, you must transition to another OS sooner or later.

The final sentence in item (b ) caught my eye.

Any thoughts on that? Have there been direct indications or confirmation that that's what MS intends to do?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

JorgeA, on 29 July 2012 - 10:00 AM, said:

Any thoughts on that? Have there been direct indications or confirmation that that's what MS intends to do?

You might want to rephrase the question, as is it might imply that they actually know what they are doing .

So I wouldn't focus on what the intend to do, but rather on what they are actually doing (mindlessly) which yes, it is the depauperating of the Win32 codebase, IF "third party developers" are demented enough to follow this lead.

Any developer in his right mind won't even touch something called "Visual Studio 11 Ultimate", example:
http://winrt.codeplex.com/

Yes, even words have their weight, and "ultimate" is a marketing adjective that is suitable to a game, or maybe to a graphic card, not to a developing environment.....
Now, go QUICKLY, before they change iot again here:
http://msdn.microsof...2(v=vs.85).aspx
and then go where you are redirected:
http://msdn.microsof...s/br211386.aspx
then go to the "What's a Metro style app?":
http://msdn.microsof...s/hh974576.aspx
Now, go and find on all the huge MS knowledge base a basic illustrative article that also suggests you how you should sell your app.

Quote

You sell your app in the Windows Store

The Windows Store makes your apps available to millions of customers around the world. You write your app once, set the price in your local currency, and the Windows Store can make it available in the worldwide marketplace in 100+ languages.
The Windows Store makes it easy to distribute, update, and get paid for the apps that you develop.

Then try making 1+1.

As I see it, it is - as always - about world domination and stuff like that, they want to get some fee for marketing your product....

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

I jut had to add the following quote from ADRz, one of the most perceptive participants on that Windows forum:

Quote

By divorcing the OS from demanding applications and moulding it to work with portable, low-power hardware, one introduces a huge gap into the progress of computing. For example, for a long time, the OS advanced to accommodate powerful hardware and, in turn, applications became more intricate to exploit the capabilities of the hardware that the OS now revealed. This trend created powerful and cheap GPUs, multi-core, multi-threaded CPUs, fast buses, fast memory, etc, etc. This powerful hardware facilitated by the OS allowed companies to build very powerful applications such as complex video and photo editing software, etc, etc. Win8, designed to run in "barely there" hardware, forces a veritable stasis in hardware. If it is a vehicle only for the creation of portable, non-multitasking, full-screen apps (and these are the only applications that Microsoft would be offering through its Windows Marketplace), what would be the use for anybody to buy powerful hardware? None, really. Without mass availability of powerful hardware, how are complex applications supposed to get further developed?

In a future where most carry tablets, publishers such Adobe would have to adjust drastically both their business model and their pricing. For those buying their applications through Windows marketplace (and thaf would a huge number, running Photoshop would be impossible (never mind, being inaccessible). Thus, such software would move to the cloud where your local hardware is of no consequence whatsoever.

At the end, the move towards weak, portable OSes that Win8 signifies (the Win8 desktop is essentially unchanged from that of Vista) is a disaster for those looking for powerful OSes, running in powerful computers, having access to intelligent, complex, multiwindowing, multitaksing, multithreaded applications for a reasonable price. These computers and these OSes would still exist, but prices are going to move to the stratosphere as the mass market disappears.

If something like this does happen, computing will have come full circle. In the beginning, people had terminals that couldn't do anything by themselves, but were tethered to a central mainfame that handled operations and stored the data. Then the PERSONAL computer came along and revolutionized IT, giving the individual complete control over his work and his output. The vision (nightmare) of a simple OS, functioning merely to connect your dumb workstation to cloud servers, erases all of that and -- operationally speaking -- constitutes a reversion to the mainframe era.

Worst of all, while the process is well underway in the large-organization sphere, this new development that ADRz describes would extend the "dumb terminal" concept to the home. Fully cloud-based computing would change the experience from what's essentially a "private property" model, where once we pay for our land and implements we can use them indefinitely, to a "feudal" model where we must render regular tribute and get kicked off the (software) manor if we refuse.

--JorgeA