Bill Gates: the Traditional PC Is Changing 552
Billly Gates writes "Bill Gates, in an interview with Charlie Rose last night, defended the move to Metro-ize Windows 8 and focus solely on the tablet experience (here's the video — tablet talk starts around 28 minutes in). When asked how traditional PC users will react, he explained that the world is moving into tablets, and a new PC needs to have both experiences integrated together. Also, he defended the move to build the Surface while charging his competitors a bundle for Windows 8. He says users have access to both experiences, whether it is a signature Microsoft one, or from an OEM. Is the a sign the desktop is dead or dying?"
Gates stopped short of saying the traditional PC is dead, but dodged direct questions about its future. This is a big change to the stance he has advocated in years past.
Le sigh. (Score:5, Funny)
Mobile computing is the future -- just ignore the battery life.
Re:Le sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
The latest Intel chip will help considerably with x86 battery life.
It is strange he talks about things being "integrated" when they've announced SEPARATE x86 and ARM tablets. And neither is binary compatible with their gaming platform (PPC).
Except for Intel probably costing more, why should they need ARM at all? If Intel is now viable for mobile, it would have made more sense to switch the phone to Intel.
Their eco-system is incredibly fragmented.
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Re:Le sigh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, that's it.
The traditional PC is changing to exactly match how Microsoft envisions it. Don't forget to always carry a stylus with you, because you need it if you are at all serious about creating content.
Re:Le sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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No. You just didn't get the memo.
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Except that they don't. If you write Metro apps in C++ you don't use .NET. If you write them in JScript you don't use .NET. They were careful at the //build conference last year to explain that the WinRT API is native C++ but there is a transparent marshalling layer to the .NET runtime. The host for JScript/HTML apps is presumably also native code that marshals the objects.
But yes they must run on all the platforms, of which C++ is the only that will need to be built for every platform.
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The gaming thing is very deliberately a separate device designed to be a simplified streamlined experience. I'm sort of surprised they aren't doing a 'Windows Xbox' that's actually a fixed spec 86 PC that will then be guaranteed to play particular games.
The ARM thing doesn't seem to make any sense other than to try and coax Intel into believing there is some serious competition from a different direction than AMD, and hoping they'll innovate (or at least use their fabs to overpower ARM).
Re:Le sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, I played a lot of PC versions of Xbox 1 titles on a Celeron OC'd to 464 MHz, a Geforce 2 MX, though I did have 256 MB RAM. Ran games great on XP.
Please stop with the FUD and utterly made up garbage.
Battery life (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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> there just isn't a "killer app" that can stress the insane amount of power the average user has
Sure there is. There's Plex, AirPlay, and Handbrake.
These are the things you use when you have to accomodate the pisspoor performance of an ARM tablet. I am using one of these tools right now to transfer some TV recordings to a mobile device.
People don't realize just how pathetic ARM is, or they try to shout you down when you bring it up. ARM is like going back to the 90s and that's before people thought "it
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Le sigh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Mobile computing is the future
You say that like it's a bad thing.
It's not. You just gotta look at it right.
First, the rise of tablets and the decline of the traditional PC will if not kill Microsoft, at least knock it down to a shadow of its former self. They exist solely because of their monopoly in Windows, and Windows is rapidly becoming irrelevant.
Second, it's a Star Trek future! Your mobile device will fit in a shirt pocket. It will be able to feed you information through a glasses or even contact-lens HUD. When you need to enter a lot of information or use a large display, it will talk wirelessly to a keyboard and monitor... all from your shirt pocket! Voice commands will also improve beyond where Siri is now.
The very near future beings shirt-pocket computing more powerful than Star Trek tricorders and communicators. It frees us all from being bound to one spot in order to compute and game and browse.
The future is bright. Don't sound so glum bro! It's a true integration of computing and life, in a way we've never seen before. The next 10 years during this transition will be exciting indeed.
Keyboard or gamepad on shirt-pocket computers (Score:5, Insightful)
The very near future beings shirt-pocket computing more powerful than Star Trek tricorders and communicators. It frees us all from being bound to one spot in order to compute and game and browse.
One thing I don't see very often on shirt-pocket computers is a keyboard for entering large amounts of text or a gamepad for controlling a video game character. A completely flat touch screen is no substitute, as Intellivision II owners learned in 1983 [wikipedia.org].
Re:Keyboard or gamepad on shirt-pocket computers (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing I don't see very often on shirt-pocket computers is a keyboard for entering large amounts of text or a gamepad for controlling a video game character.
One thing you often see on shirt-pocket computers is bluetooth.
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One thing I don't see very often on shirt-pocket computers is a keyboard for entering large amounts of text or a gamepad for controlling a video game character.
One thing you often see on shirt-pocket computers is bluetooth.
Sweet, battery vendors will be making a killing.
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If you are dictating to your pocket fondle slab anywhere near me in my office I will personally shove it so far up your left nostril that your arm wont be long enough to reach it.
It may interest you unemployed thirteen year olds spending your parents money on all this portable technology to know that you are lusting after entertainment devices. These entertainment devices are designed for one purpose only. That purpose is to ensure that you have the means on your person at all times to pay for content that
Re:Le sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all part of the game to KILL PC's. Everyone wants part of the action of devices locked to a captive audience. Metro, Markets... no thanks. I'll retain control of my own devices. If anyone ever creates a tablet device that I don't have to hack to make it mine, then I'll buy into the hype. I just wish more people understood what they are losing with these types of devices.
No it is a dystopian 1984 future (Score:3)
Re:Le sigh. (Score:5, Interesting)
The first generation GSM phones also lasted barely a day (and being a phone, for them battery life was even more critical than for tablets/laptops).
Later generations lasted for weeks - and subsequently battery life disappeared from advertising. Now current-generation smartphones take a serious step back on those battery lives, it's still generally good enough to not be an issue.
Tablets and laptops now have the battery life issue, but there are plenty of devices already on the market that advertise to last 8-12 hour on battery power alone. Even if in practice it's 6-8 hours, it means we're getting close to full day battery life (12-16 hours is enough for most purposes).
The display is the biggest obstacle; we need a fast-refreshing reflective colour screen, doing away with the backlight saves heaps of power.
Re:Le sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see Apple shoving a grand unified UI down the throats of its tablet, laptop, and desktop users. And I don't see Apple users complaining or getting confused by tablet gestures vs keyboard/mouse operations.
How about we just standardize on the iPod? Put one wheel on the front of everything and be done with it.
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see Apple shoving a grand unified UI down the throats of its tablet, laptop, and desktop users.
Really? Every time they update OSX it becomes more like iOS.
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Can't see that.
They port individual features across the OSes, true. But I've owned iPhones ever since the original iPhone 2007, that's almost 5 years now. My desktop OS X experience hasn't changed all that much. A few features, yes. A few changes to common apps such as address book and iCal, not all of them I applaud. Launchpad is new, but I never use it (Alfred does a better job on an iMac) and it's not forced on you in the least.
In fact, the main common feature seems to be that the Mac has an App Store to
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Every time they update OSX it becomes more like iOS.
They are pulling over individual features that (mostly) make sense on laptops with small-ish screens and large, multitouch trackpads, plus some cosmetic/layout changes that are not really tablet specific. Most of these features can either be ignored or turned off in Preferences.
What they're not doing - unlike Microsoft and some Linux distros - is forcing everybody to use the iOS "desktop" with the traditional desktop a second-class citizen. Yes, they've added "launchpad" and "Full Screen" mode (which would be better described as "tablet mode") but you can just ignore them if you have a huge monitor. On an 11" Air, they make sense.
Plus, Macs are uniquely set up for using gesture-based interfaces - all their laptops have, for some time, featured the biggest, nicest trackpads in the busines (the first time I've not felt the need to carry a mouse around) and, for the desktop, there is the Magic Trackpad (which, provided you turn on the three-fingers-to-drag option, I find excellent for everything short of gaming and graphics work).
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I don't see Apple shoving a grand unified UI down the throats of its tablet, laptop, and desktop users.
Some Apple Mac applications are being switched to the iOS version (like the Airport utility) and previously iOS only applications are being added to Mac OS (like iMessage in Mountain Lion). The direction is there, but not yet a unified UI.
And I don't see Apple users complaining or getting confused by tablet gestures vs keyboard/mouse operations.
With the magic pad and mouse, Mac users already are familiar with gestures on a desktop OS.
Re:Apple? (Score:5, Interesting)
With the magic pad and mouse, Mac users already are familiar with gestures on a desktop OS.
Yes, we are. And it's taking something that works pretty well on a tablet, and trying to port it over to a larger device. Some times it works, others, not so much. My Magic mouse has features that are kind of cool, but some, like the swipe between pages can be very frustrating, and have to be turned off .
But it's a weird sort of logic that some people think that what works and looks good on a 4 inch screen is going to be the same as what looks good on a large monitor. For years, computer people have fixated on a monocultural universe. And I dare say it is mostly the Windows people - no insult intended there, but as the largest user base, it's not surprising they think that way. But here we have Gates saying in essence, "Fuck you and how you think it should run! We say it is going to be like this and you will use it!
I love my pad, and I love my desktop and laptops too. But I sure as anything do not want the Pad and the other devices to have the same look and feel.
And I feel strongly enough about it that Windows 8 will not be on any of my computers. The Preview edition was enough to tell me that.
Re:Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
My parents have a Magic Mouse, and it's kind of nice. Most of the features are turned off, so it's hard to say how great it is.
But when I got a new iMac at work last year I asked for a Magic Trackpad, and I think it's amazing. I don't think it would work well for running Photoshop, but for non-image work it's great. Over the last few years I've gotten so used to using the gestures on my MacBook Pro to go forward/back in Safari, trigger Expose, and show the desktop. I use the forward/back gesture constantly.
Being able to do that on my desktop has been such an improvement. When I'm surfing I don't need to reposition the mouse to click on the back button, I can just swipe. When I want to change programs I can just swipe and then click on the window I want. It really is nice.
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Emails, Facebook posts, sharing photos & videos... they're creating kinds of content.
No.
Windows Mojave (Score:3)
Most [iPad] users aren't creating dissertations of 30 page Excel spreadsheets, but they are creating something.
The problem comes when someone owns an iPad and no PC, realizes he wants to do something creative that would be far more difficult on an iPad if not impossible, but has no money for a PC. Ideally, he should have bought a PC in the first place. For example, I often run into needing to do some scripting to analyze various data so that I can incorporate the analysis into a document. An iPad in a keyboard case wouldn't work for that because of Apple's policies. So I carry a 10" laptop instead.
Windows 8 is a hell of a gamble. It wouldn't surprise me if it ended up like OS X 10.0: shows promise, is ultimately too flawed to use. But when Windows 8 OSR 2 (or whatever) comes out with a few tweaks, it might work quite well.
Likewise, Windows
Re:Apple? (Score:4, Funny)
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The PC is not dying. (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people browse the web on iPads now. This is approximately the only piece of evidence I've seen that the PC is "dying".
We all still have a PC in our office to do real work. People write code, write papers, design things, run simulations, SSH into servers, work with complicated spreadsheets and databases, run custom software applications, etc. When there's any sign at all that most of that work is moving onto tablets, then it'll be reasonable to start saying the PC is dying.
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The basic problem is that the screwheads in sales and marketing are looking at Apple's sales figures for iPads and comparing them to their own PC sales. But they're not realizing that tablets are a new market, or they think that they can tap that market by making the PC more like a tablet.
The basic issue is this:
1. Everybody who wants a computer and can afford a computer already has a computer. Additionally, computers have been Good Enough(TM) for about the past 5 years, so you're only going to sell a new
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and yet with all this cloud shit what are we doing? logging into mainframes to write papers, we just dont call them that anymore
and just like 27 years ago, we can have the state of the art plopped in our laps and its STILL not fast enough when you need to do something heavy. For example we collect data from a test machine out in the manufacturing line, this thing spits out metric tons of data. I got a brand new top of the line i7 system to gather this data and put it on our internal network, and what am I d
Re:The PC is not dying. (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, there are more mainframes in use today than at any earlier point in history... and IBM keeps making sales for new ones (and not just to replace old ones either).
As a percentage of total installed computing power the mainframe has dropped substantially from the '60s, but they are not "dying" and the whole "cloud" thing is mostly a buzzword ridden version of mainframe computing that just isn't as reliable as a real mainframe.. nothing is new under the sun.
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any datacenter selling a cloud
Hey, Look! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like that time in the 1990s when Bill Gates discovered the Internet several years later than everyone else...
But it's Bill Gates, so some people listen and think he's said something profound!
What about developers? Real gamers? (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to that, if PC gamers wanted a braindead machine they'd get a handheld or a console. The sort of games I enjoy need a mouse, keyboard and very large screen. Tablets have their place but they're no substitute for a real computer.
Superior technology don't always win (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is what you call a figure of speech. It encapsulates in a few words what will probably take a paragraph or more of explanation. Perhaps it's better phrased as "the PC is dying" or more prosaically: "The phenomenal growth in the market for personal computers is levelling off and is expected to go down. It's even possible that the total number of PCs will go down in the near future."
So is the PC dying? What we have are a few indisputable trends. There are now more cellphones in the planet than there are PCs. The percentage of cellphones that can somehow connect to the Net are increasing. Smartphones today are more powerful than the typical desktop from the Windows 95 era, arguably the turning point when the PC migrated from the office to colonize the home market.
The only thing missing for the smartphone to replace the PC is the consistent ability to connect to input-output devices that are taken for granted in the PC world. Support for keyboards and external pointing devices is iffy at best. Support for printers and large monitors is even more dismal. But these issues are being addressed (some of the pricier smartphones now have HDMI output).
Developers and hardcore gamers don't count in the post-PC world. Developers weren't a large breed to begin with. For them the PC will become a niche product, just like mainframes. Hardcore gamers will always have their consoles.
Yes, the tablet is no substitute for a real PC. But superior technology don't always win out. Microsoft should know this better than any other gigantic tech company.
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This all comes down to what you define a PC as. If you're talking about the form factor of the hardware that humans don't need to interact with then, sure, maybe it will become the size of a grain of sand one day. However, I think it's a pretty safe bet that if you're talking about a PC as consisting of certain human interface devices (a real keyboard, a real mouse, a good sized monitor), they're *never ever* going to be replaced by a tablet because they're fundamentally more human-ergonomic for many comp
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I have a 40 ton truck, it can do everything a car can do.. Plus more.
Why don't you drive to work in a 40 ton truck, or go grocery shopping in one?
The answer is that a 40 ton truck, just like a PC is massive overkill for the vast majority of typical end user use cases. Sure there are some cases which require the larger more complex device, but for everyday use the smaller device is a better fit.
PC's will be dead when (Score:2)
they pry the last one from my cold, dead fingers.
Or nuke me in my bunker. Same diff.
CAD: I still need a good desktop computer (Score:5, Interesting)
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Win8 is problematic however you slice it.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The premise that Metro is a forgone conclusion for the way a tablet/phone experience succeeds is a poor one. The market has not shown that to be true. I figure Win8 is their move to try to force the issue and gain some traction by effectively throwing the desktop market under the bus, since they don't have to worry about losing those to competitors by and large (Vista proved that in relatively modern history).
I've always hated hot corners, and Windows 8 demands they be used a lot. Both in the annoying 'mouse happened to go to a corner of a screen, do something without user 'clicking' anything' and the somewhat more forgiveable hidden UI element to click on and do things. The hotcorners aren't as bad as the 'activities' hot corner of Gnome 3, but I find it a questionable choice, *particularly* in the context of touch interfaces where hot corners don't even have their 'auto-find' aspect that people like so much.
The jarring difference between 'Metro UI' and Desktop applications is unfortunate. It's especially bad where you have two 'Internet Explorers" that behave very differently. OSX full-screen really did this right, the full-screen app management pretty much let's the apps be the same in windowed and fullscreen mode, and just tweak the navigation/task switching.
The search feature is 'hidden' (a common theme in the Metro interface) as there is no visual indication of it's availability. For a keyboard user, I consider this minor, but wonder how it plays in a tablet UI, where typically a text field is a cue for virtual keyboard. More annoying is that the search by default hides all but 'Apps' results, meaning you have to note the non-Apps categories count when searching. Worse yet, that summary will auto-hide, leading you with no UI indication of actual results that you actually want.
All that said, conceptually there is one thing I think is nice about Metro and Gnome 3, the general concept that when you do 'Start' or 'Activities', that the entire screen real estate is dedicated to the action. I kind of prefer Gnome 3's view over the Metro start (the former giving better consideration for task switching rather than just launching).
Re:Win8 is problematic however you slice it.... (Score:5, Funny)
Not having a touch device, can't comment on how the interface changes, however:
of course it defaults to apps, since the Start Screen is all about listing and launching apps.
What I referred to was how I, in Win 7, will type a string in the 'search' and it will highlight "applications", "Files", and "control panel settings" (and probably other things) and present all results it finds, space allowing. In Win8, I wanted to do an update, I typed 'update' to search for windows update. It said no results. I stumbled over that, since "Windows Update" has always shown up there (in fact before Win 8 it showed up as an 'Application'). It took me a minute to realize I needed to click the "Settings Category" to get more results. When I pondered that a bit too long, the side bar even giving me the hint that 'Settings had 9 results' auto-hid, leaving the entirety of my screen real estate dedicated to the task of telling me it found nothing, and hiding the dozen or so hits it got out of site.
Changing? Not willingly. (Score:5, Insightful)
I get it now. He says the PC is changing. Because he (well, Microsoft) is going to MAKE it change. Change to a locked down environment that can only run Microsoft approved OSes. And do things the Microsoft way. And you are going to like it because they will spend bazillions in marketing dollars making everyone think it is the best thing since sliced bread.
Count me out.
I am really glad there is linux. (Score:5, Interesting)
Through it all we persevered. A few of us were preaching separating "GUI from kernel" "event driven code from procedural code". And we pulled extra hours to practice what we preached. Fellow developers from MS world randomly included afxwin.h deep inside non graphical kernel library code to add a one line debug statement, broke the linux builds and threw tantrums when called to fix the offending code, "it is working in Windows, so it can't be my problem. You fix it in Linux". We suffered all these indignities and got our product to build and run in Linux all the time. We no longer have a 3 month delay in releasing linux version.
Now this. Good riddance. Let the windows and its market dominance and its subsidizing the computing platform go chasing the tablets or whatever. Before Wintel monopoly we had 90% revenue fro unix sales, it dropped to 10% at the height, now linux is back up to 40%. If they cram the win-8 interface down the throat or make our software to be sold through appstore or something, our windows version sales will have no place to go but down. Finally sanity will return. We will separate content from presentation. We will separate gui code from non-graphical code. We will separate event driven code from procedure libraries. Vindication at last.
Good luck finding affordable Linux HW (Score:3)
Secure Boot (Score:3)
in the mid-80s. Microsoft gained its dominance through economies of scale in the HW market. It will happen again if MS goes down that path.
In the mid-1980s, there was nothing in the PC market comparable to the Secure Boot with no custom mode and no disable that Microsoft is requiring on ARM tablets.
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Now this. Good riddance. Let the windows and its market dominance and its subsidizing the computing platform go chasing the tablets or whatever.
I suddenly realized that Microsoft actually has a useful purpose: they keep PC hardware cheap so I can install Linux on it. Maybe we need them just a little while longer.
Dear Apple : Please release for generic hardware? (Score:3)
Dear Apple :
Microsoft believes that the PC is dead.
Would you please go ahead and release your OS for generic hardware?
Or simply release a mid-tower box. Good enough for me.
Signed : A Lover of PCs
Fortunately Windows 7 has lots of life left. (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to re-read that (Score:3)
Backed into a corner (Score:5, Insightful)
We have to put out our own tablet, because our OEMs can't build a competitor to the Kindle Fire and sell it for 199.00 if 80.00 dollars out of that 199.00 is for our OS.
Microsoft can't release a 700.00 tablet. Anyone going to spend that much money would go for an Apple product. The logical entry point to sell a lot of them is on the low end, and guess what...the OEMs can't meet the low end price point and use Windows 8.
This may not be the year of Linux, but it could be the year it backed MS into a corner.
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This may not be the year of Linux, but it could be the year it backed MS into a corner.
How could this not be the year of Linux with a million Linux phones hitting the streets a day?
Don't get it (Score:4, Interesting)
Where the hell is everyone going that the personal computer has to suddenly become "mobile computing"? I move around more than most people and despite my best efforts, I still can't find anything so freaking important that requires a computer while I'm going from point A to point B. I mean, I really want to justify the price of these tablets, but besides playing a few not-so-good games and watching some movies, it's just shopping and reading. Are any of those things so crucial that the entire world of personal computing has to be transformed into "mobile computing"? The reading thing is nice, but how "mobile" can you be when your battery doesn't even last half a day?
I hear a lot about how "mobile computing is the future" but I still don't understand the "I'm always on the move" part and I need that computer while I'm moving" part. I mean, I understand it, but not enough that the entire world of personal computing has to change.
I think what Mr Gates really means is "computers are for shopping, instead of making". I have yet to meet someone who has produced anything meaningful on a smartphone or tablet.
And does it matter to Mr Gates and the Zombie Steve Jobs that there are still a lot of us who actually want to make things with our computers and would actually like a nice powerful machine with a big screen and full-size keyboard? Maybe a couple of cool interfaces and controllers? A desk full of control surfaces, a variety of interface devices, good sound reproduction and display technology?
Why is it that whenever one of the god-kings makes a pronouncement like this I seldom feel that the actual desires and needs of consumers are being taken into consideration? It's all about what they want for us - what they think we should have.
Remember how we were all going to have netbooks? How tablets are the new black? Well, couple years have gone by and they're still just shopping interfaces and metered toys.
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Have you ever done that on a tablet? When Gates is talking about "mobile computing" something tells me that he's not referring to anything with a physical keyboard, OR anything that can open a command prompt.
I believe you. I have actually done live music and video performances using my lapt
I DON'T WANT A TABLET (Score:4, Insightful)
I DON'T WANT A TABLET
I DON'T WANT A TABLET
I DON'T WANT ANYTHING LIKE A TABLET
I don't care if the marketoids think it's the future
I DON'T WANT A TABLET
Have I made myself clear?
He's right. (Score:3)
Gates isn't saying that we'll all be using tablets, but that for the vast majority of users, convergent devices are more convenient and suitable.
Workstations will become niche as per servers, but they will remain. The trend started half a decade ago when notebooks started outselling desktop PCs.
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Gates isn't saying that we'll all be using tablets, but that for the vast majority of users, convergent devices are more convenient and suitable.
Bill Gates' predictions have an illustrious history of nearly perfect negative correlation with actual trends since the mid nineties.
PCs Aren't Going Anywhere (Score:3)
*sigh* Another "IS THE PC DEAD?!?!?!" headline, another dollar. People who try to view tablets as "desktop replacements" are consistently missing the fact that tablets are not PCs, are not intended to be PCs, and aren't going to replace PCs.
For many people, they may even totally replace the need to have a typical computer at home. If anything, it is only for this group of people that the PC will be "dead".
But for anyone wishing to do serious work, so long as the PC remains exponentially more powerful, expandable and capable than tablets, it won't be going anywhere. Go try using Photoshop Express on the iPad, then use CS6 on the desktop. Use any of the multitude of word processors for tablets, then go use Word. Use a mobile browser, then use Firefox or Chrome. Play the popular games on a tablet, then play the popular games on a PC. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Tablets have created, and filled, an entirely new niche in computing, and done so very well, but they aren't PCs.
Here's what I would do if I ran Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
I see Microsoft today, and I see a company that has no idea what it's doing. Well, I don't claim to know what is best to do, but I'd at least aim for consistency.
I'd thought about making an Ask Slashdot based on this premise, but I probably will never actually do it. So here's what *I* would do if I ran Microsoft.
Windows. Still a good product, at least on the desktop, but the brand keeps getting diluted, and attempts to "re-imagine" it or "re-invent" it simply will not work. On the desktop side, you really don't NEED to change much. Just keep focusing on making the existing experience incrementally better. Try to get boot times down to under a second, make it more stable, little improvements like that.
Windows Server? Can it. Windows Server is so far behind *technically* that it's not even funny. The only reason it's used is because a) it's far easier than Linux, and b) Microsoft. (B) won't last forever, so you know what? Give up. Give up a bit of control. Make the next Windows Server a Linux distro.
BUT
Don't do it like every other Linux distro.
The theme should be "it all works together seamlessly". Port Active Directory, port Exchange, port Microsoft SQL, port ASP.NET and everything (make sure it runs as Apache or nginx modules, though. IIS itself is a "maybe"). Wrap it all up in a GUI that makes things easy to figure out - your goal should be that you don't even need a manual. But don't ignore the command line and config files. Make the best damn Linux distro you can, and *sell* it.
Yes, sell. Obviously, anything open-source should stay open-source. Maybe even open-source the stuff that lets others integrate with you - AD stuff, .NET, and so on. But the big stuff? Keep it proprietary, and sell it. And not ridiculously overpriced, either.
In fact, hedge your bets on the desktop side as well. Port the Windows desktop environment over to Linux, because trust me, KDE and GNOME are fucking things up right now, and the Windows desktop experience is actually *better*. You don't even have to make it natively X11, just include an X11 library so all the old apps still work (like how OS X does it). And release for free tools that make Linux integrate well with Windows, stuff to EASILY integrate with AD and such. Yes, open-source stuff can do most of this already, but those are both a pain, and not supported by Microsoft.
Windows Phone? Drop it. You aren't going to win unless you have the apps. And WP7 does not have the apps. It does have some good ideas, though, some very good things. So you know what you should do? Take Android, and mod the shit out of it. Put Office on it. Make it integrate with Active Directory and Exchange and all that shit, so businesses will love it. Make it work with the Xbox and whatever else you've got. And license it out to whoever wants it. Make it "Android, but with ___, ____ and ___". Still compatible with the millions of Android apps, but it has several that, at best, you'd have to buy on the marketplace; at worst, simply not available.
The Xbox is one of the few things Microsoft's not just doing well, but is recognized as doing well. This is your new Big Brand. Make a new Xbox, price target $400-$500. It should be a powerful core-gamer machine. Let Nintendo have the low-end market with the Wii U. And make it more than a game console - you're doing well already, having Netflix and all that on there. Keep that up. Make it work with your WinDroid phone systems, both as a Wii U-like display for the console, and as a remote for Netflix and such. This way, you aren't just fighting Sony - you're also fighting Apple TV and whatever that Google thing is called. Keep backwards compatibility, maybe add a Blu-Ray drive (even if the movies aren't selling so well, it is good for games). But don't do anything crazy. Just... incremental improvements. Make one device that does the task of many others, well enough that it isn't a compromise, and cheaply enough that it's an option if you only actually want one part of it. Yes, that's
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The 360 wasn't intended, itself, to make a profit. It was intended to gain Microsoft a real position in the market. That's why it was frequently sold at a loss (especially at the beginning). Now, between their own legitimate success and Sony's missteps (and Nintendo's not even competing in the same market anymore), they're in prime position to deliver a knockout punch.
Even if the console itself is not profitable, think about everything else. Every Xbox Live subscription. All the first-party games are big mo
please, Bill (Score:5, Insightful)
...stop trying to be a visionary - you aren't. Your record on future predictions equals that of the world cup animal oracles.
Sure the PC will change - it always does. But the world isn't "moving to" tablets, it is adopting tablets. Most tablet owners also own a PC and for that reason alone don't want the two to be identical. One tool for the one job, another tool for a different job. Some people are happy with just one of the two, that's fine, too. Yes, some people now use a tablet instead of a PC because what they used to use the PC for is better done by a tablet, there just weren't any.
MS more than anyone should know this. Their second cash cow is MS Office, after all - something that nobody really wants on a tablet for any serious work. Sure, the iPad office apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) are bestsellers - because people want to read and update their documents on the road. But it is not only my own opinion that serious office work doesn't get done on a tablet. And if you need business numbers, look at the sales figures for notebooks and netbooks. Not exactly dead in the waters, are they? So even in the mobile computing market, there's still an interest in real computers in addition to tablets.
MS is missing the boat - again - because they are so out of touch with what the users want. That's the true secret of the Apple success - the give people something they want, sometimes something they didn't even know they wanted. Sure, it's a "our way or the highway" offering, but MS still thinks they dominate computing so much that they can get people to follow them anywhere - and that hasn't been true for a decade.
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Your record on future predictions equals that of the world cup animal oracles.
If Bill Gates was as good as that squid it would be a massive improvement.
Small screen, kludgy input, poor battery capacity (Score:3)
Sure, it's good that you can take it everywhere. But the problems are:
* Small screen is hard to see.
* Input is difficult for large amounts of text, and there isn't the precision for doing things like graphics & photo editing.
* Poor battery life.
The solution would be to mount good quality peripherals to some kind of frame or harness that you leave at home or the office (maybe have one at each) and you plug your tiny portable into it. It'd be almost like a proper computer!
If you think of the portable as like a ship sailing from port to port, then the harness could be called a "mooring terminal" or something like that.
Nah, it'll never catch on.
Re:Is the a sign the desktop is dead or dying? (Score:5, Funny)
No, it's a sign that /. needs editors.
Slashdot's editors are actually AIs that battle each other deep inside the Gibson. The stories are chosen by the one that survives 17 rounds of gruelling competition. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the crunch of cheetos and the pounding techno music as hot girls in glowing costumes introduce the contenders. Malda didn't retire, he just returned to userspace.
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Hah that's about right. The traditional PC isn't going to be going anywhere, at least not until quantum computing becomes the norm, or wetware exists. Until then there will always be a need for some type of box that's connected with low latency, and always available power, with plenty of processing and graphics power.
And with the rumored consoles coming out, and them being as bad in terms of graphics as the previous generation, I can't see why people would keep buying them.
Re:Why is this man allowed to keep so much money? (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, running a massive charity that helps eradicate disease around the world and improve education? What a selfish jerk.
Re:Why is this man allowed to keep so much money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, running a massive charity that helps eradicate disease around the world and improve education? What a selfish jerk.
Yeah, running A strongarm for big pharma that pretends to eradicate disease without being able to get into every country where it is an issue because of regressive IP policies and attempt to shape education in a way that results in more sales for Microsoft, using money that he effectively stole from the entire computing industry by illegally abusing a monopoly position in such a way that it held the computing industry back at least half a decade, and probably a whole one? I call that a selfish jerk, but I guess that's just because I own a dictionary.
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The computer industry: more important than not dying of deadly diseases. Who knew?
Re:Why is this man allowed to keep so much money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is this man allowed to keep so much money? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Money is symbolic only, simply moving it from one place to another does not accomplish anything real. But if you find someone with a lot of money to be particularly disagreeable, you can refuse to accept their money. Money's only real value to the individual is their ability to spend it, and if no one will accept it, it becomes worthless.
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I guess "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" are just empty words to you?
Are you aware that the original words were "life, liberty, and the pursuit of profit"?
Methinks the Founding Fathers felt a need to be less crass about what we stood for. Though maybe we should reinstate the original words, for the post-1980 era when greed is considered the highest civic virtue.
Re:Why is this man allowed to keep so much money? (Score:5, Interesting)
socialism just ensures that we all live in squalor. Just look at the ex-soviet state lifestyle
Choosing the USSR as an example of socialisim is like choosing Somalia as an example of capitalisim. The scandanavian countries are more socialist than most and they are definitely not "living in squalor". Thing is when you tie yourself to one ideology you automatically throw out all the good ideas from other ideologies which is why US citizens currently pay top dollar for a second rate health system.
The US system is ideologically afraid that someone will get "something for nothing", so afraid that they spend most of that extra money on an army of accountants that do nothing but try and work out who pays for what and how. In other words it's costing the average US citizen more to exclude each other from health care than it would to bite the bullet and implement a sane system (almost 10X more for a single-breadwinner family of four when compared to Australia's 'solialist' system).
you don't have a right to another's property without his permission
Of course not, but there are different definitions of what is and isn't private property. For example it's virtually impossible to amass billions in private property in a Scandanavian country due to the tax regime, meaning it's impossible for the bulk of the nations weallth to be concentrated into a few hands as it is in the US. This doesn't mean you can't be rich in a Scandanavian country, it just means you can't be filthy rich. And lets face it, most people become filthy rich via luck or hereditry, they DO NOT work any harder than the guy who cleans their corporate bathroom.
I'm no bill gates fan
I'm a big fan of his philanthropic activities, the guy has put his money where his mouth is and (along with Warren Buffet) has encoraged many other billionaires to make similar pledges. Did he (or any other multi-billionaire) do anything to "deserve" that level of property and power in the first place? - Definitely not.
Socialism's biggest mistake (Score:3)
The invention of the term "dictatorship of the proletariat" is perhaps the biggest mistake committed by socialists of whatever stripe. Radical socialists of the Communist variety have taken what was intended to be a political figure of speech (perhaps equivalent to "war on poverty" if not "war on terror") to mean a literal dictatorship (or at most an oligarchy) that tolerates no dissent. Maybe the 20th cent
Re:Winning! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but ....
Asking Bill Gates about Microsoft's platform direction is like asking Mikhail Gorbachev about the future of Russia.
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Asking Bill Gates about Microsoft's platform direction is like asking Mikhail Gorbachev about the future of Russia.
In the sense that you'd get a much more informed answer from him than most people?
Re:Winning! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Winning! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what happens when you spend too much time defending your market and not enough time 'innovating'.
Apple didn't just put out more and better hardware, they created a unified approach to handing all their customers a market in a box. The iPhone and iPad apps market, the music on your device(s) market, the internet as a TV show market, the eBooks market...
BG was a visionary, but you can only get just so much productivity out of your Office employees before the hardware improvements are lost on those who are moved primarily by the ROI arguments. And the web is a great platform to deliver services, but again, how long does it it take before the western world is saturated with sales opportunities and M$ had to start targeting the 3rd or diminishing marginal returns.
Apple is riding the tide of people who believe that the most portable device that gives them everything, everywhere all the time with slick engineering reliability built in is worth a premium. It's a good thing Steve Jobs came back and rescued us from the inevitable degradation that the Mac clone wars would have ultimately delivered, as evidenced by Microsoft taking back their hardware in an effort to combat the crap that's marketed in the PC world.
Thanks Steve!
(I really enjoy my Swiss Army knife of markets in a box!)
@AC 1:18 - Re:Winning! (Score:5, Insightful)
BG was a visionary
Yes., he saw what others were doing, and copied it.
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Funny you should mention it, but if i buy a particular model of Mac i know exactly what components it has...
I tried to buy a laptop from HP or Lenovo recently, and they told me they couldn't tell me what wireless chipset it would have (from a choice of 3) in advance, and that i would just have to buy it and see.
Now those 3 chipsets (atheros, broadcom, intel) are NOT equal, atheros and intel publish specs and open drivers, broadcom does not... The atheros will do monitor and master mode, not sure the others
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You are an idiot!
1) Ok so who made MacBook Air competitors before Apple came out? Oh yeah ZERO!
2) So who made notebooks with great than 2K resolution on the screen before Apple came out? Oh yeah ZERO!
3) So who made SSD's popular before Apple came out? Oh yeah ZERO!
Do you see the pattern here you turd! Does Apple charge more? Heck yeah! But do they deliver on better quality and better hardware? YEAH! Did you notice in Tim Cook's keynote address where he slammed the competition on Ultrabooks saying, "its not
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This is not a defensive move in reaction to the iPhone at all. Microsoft's move to tablet computing began back in the Windows 3.1 days with Windows for Pen Computing [wikipedia.org] as extensions to the OS. It became a version of Windows in its own right with Windows XP Tablet PC Edition [wikipedia.org]. This was merged into the main OS with Vista and is still part of Windows 7.
Their efforts to change the user interface to suit the tablet continued with the introduction of the Ribbon [wikipedia.org] in Office 2007.
With Metro, they have come full circle w
Re:Winning! (Score:5, Insightful)
I never said or meant it was "a knee-jerk reaction to one Apple product." Clearly Microsoft has also been paying close attention to OS X, the iPod, the iTunes Store, as well as iPhone/iPad/iOS, and they have had their own innovatives. But perhaps I should have said Microsoft hasn't had a workable or successful strategic vision for a while now. Sure, they have new ideas, they just don't seem to work out. Microsoft makes money, but from long-existing products. Even their relatively recent success of the Xbox may not have yet turned a profit, given the billions they sank into getting it going.
(I don't consider the fact that their old pen and tablet products have been subsumed into the current version of Windows means they were successful or even very noteworthy. In history they are footnotes, not milestones and game-changers.
I'm not sure how going from "make phone look like tiny desktop" to "make desktop look like big phone" counts as a "consistent long term strategy," though. Is this "coming full circle" or "going in circles"?
Use the right tool for the job please (Score:3)
> Their efforts to change the user interface to suit the tablet
> continued with the introduction of the Ribbon in Office 2007.
Everybody agrees that the universal desktop UI absolutely sucks on tablets/smartphones. What annoys me is all the idiots who want to ram a tablet/samrtphone UI down my throat that absolutely sucks on a desktop. It's not just MS either. The idiots writing GNOME and KDE are doing the same on linux. I'm sticking with ICEWM.
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With Metro, they have come full circle with their efforts to make their phone interface the same as their desktop interface.
Microsoft is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying desperately to find a way to stay relevant.
Re:Winning! (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when has MS been on the offensive?
Over the past several decades they have always been highly defensive. Every offensive move (aggressive pricing of Office to outcompete WordPerfect; developing a web browser to kill off Netscape; hostile take-over of other competing companies) have always been to defend the status quo which includes Windows on the desktop. MS never innovated much, instead they have bought up many small companies with innovative products, sometimes including the product in their own offering, usually killing it off (by making it suck).
MS makes money by selling Windows and Office to the desktop computers. Anything that threatens this status quo they will defend against.
Now the mobile computing has quite suddenly matured and become popular, and that's what keeps MS scrambling. They don't have an easy answer to that. It's too big to buy (and Apple and Google are not for sale, anyway), and most devices are using hardware that Windows doesn't work well on (ARM processors, touch screens, small screens, no keyboard/mouse).
Add to that the notorious slowness of MS and the company has a big problem. The first iPhone, that set off the revolution, was released five years ago. The first Android release by Google followed two years later. Another three years later and MS still doesn't have a viable competitor, and is by many considered a few years behind Android and iOS.
MS is on the defensive, still, while to survive they must be on the offensive. The Surface proves that they are trying to do just that now. An interesting concept, I wonder if it will be released as product before competitors take over the ideas and release their own. When the first iPad was announced by Apple it was mere weeks before the Chinese manufacturers started to churn out 7" iPads - running Android but looking exactly like the real thing. Just smaller, and cheaper.
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Option #4: Amiga OS, BeOS, etc.
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> We just need to make sure cars have a safety interlock so you can't drive with your smart glasses on.
Why? The cars will be driving themselves by then so we will need something to do while travelling.
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Other than Xperia Play? (Score:5, Insightful)