Windows: Not Doomed Yet 737
Nerval's Lobster writes "Earlier this week, ZDNet columnist Steven Vaughan-Nichols wrote an article, 'Windows: It's over,' that sparked a lot of passionate online debate. His thesis was simple: Microsoft's dominance of the computing market is coming to an end, accelerated by the incipient failure of Windows 8. Make no mistake about it: there's no way to fudge the numbers in a way that suggests Windows 8 is proving a blockbuster. But maybe it's not doomsday for Windows or Microsoft. After all, the company still has a lot of really smart developers and engineers, a whole ton of cash, and the ability to let its projects play out over years. So here's the question, Slashdotters: Is Windows really doomed? And, if not, what can be done to turn things around? (No originality points awarded for a 'Fire Steve Ballmer' response.)"
Re:nope (Score:5, Informative)
Re:nope (Score:2, Informative)
the only reason they became accepted into the enterprise is because that is what consumers were familiar with, But now that model is going to rot from the ground up, at least three other major players have good inroads to eat Microsoft's lunch. Windows 8 marks the beginning of the fall of Microsoft.
I think it's a some what accurate statement to say that Microsoft got into the enterprise because of home users. But they don't just have a PC as a foot hold in small to medium enterprises like they do in consumer homes. They have Active Directory, Exchange, MS SQL, SharePoint etc. The organizations build their business processes around these technologies and while there are replacements for all of them it could be very difficult to get business to buy in.
Re:Lack of necessity (Score:4, Informative)
The only thing that could doom Microsoft (not Windows) is the lack of necessity for a new operating system.
Which is, well, what's going on now. Most folks would use XP until the universe's heat death if they could, and there's little reason for them not to. If they have Windows 7, that sentence ends with the phrase "no reason at all."
Unless Microsoft starts getting stupid with making artificial barriers for old OS versions, it's lose-lose, and they don't have that kind of ability anymore - at least not in any meaningful, purchase-influencing way.
Re:How relevant is the PC, still? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, we know, phones and tablets are consumption devices.
PC's are "work"/creation devices.
In the enterprise Apple or Linux or whoever is gonna have a HELLUVA time displacing Windows, Active Directory, Office, etc; and all the software that is written to run in that environment.
For example, how many bioanalytical chemistry/drug testing labs are running LIMS or Lab Informatics software on mac's or google chrome devices? What about companies that process credit card transactions? What about inventory control software for food processing? Apple? Linux?
Just because all these media consumption devices are "the new kid in town" and basking in their self-referential glow doesn't mean they are going to displace the framework that is in place that businesses run on.
Agreed, MS blew it in the consumer space, but good luck dislodging them from the Enterprise.
Re:nope (Score:5, Informative)
it's extremely jarring because it serves no other purpose than to tie you into metro apps downloaded through the marketplace. for no good reason you can't run the apps (without 3rd party sw) in windows. that's the real beef, that it's so unnecessarely the way it is. and that it jumps on top of your work(that's a big issue actually). and that you have to do reboot tricks to install some drivers for more exotic hw. it comes bundled with a pdf reader sure. but it's totally unusable if you're trying to use it to read a pdf as a reference for doing actual work. it's just so almost there but yet so far away - technically it's better than win7 but not in any way that would matter to any user(stuff just worked in 7, stuff just works in 8) and the political decisions the management took when deciding how it should behave to the user just stink to high heavens.
they'll just tone it down on next release, the boot times from win7 to win8 aren't that different tho.
so I don't really see MS being in more trouble than they were in the '90s with linux, beos, os/2 and others.
but suppose I'd be using anything else than windows.. could I run a binary hardware accelerated 3d program from 13 years ago on any current release of them ? I can on windows, it runs better than on any other windows yet too. If ms would take that away - go all windows rt - then sure, ms would be fucked, there would be zero reason to stick with it.
Server 2012 - anyone else frustrated by that too? (Score:5, Informative)
So, speaking of frustrating Microsoft OS's, anyone else tried Server 2012?
It seems to be quite a bit faster than 2008 and set up to run as a VM well. HOWEVER... it has taken a giant step backward in usability. No Start menu? Ok, I can adjust to that. However, getting to all the tools to administer a system is frustrating at best. What the f*ck were they thinking? Right now our average 2012 desktop consists of 20 - 30 shortcuts to administrative tools so we can get into things as basic as a control panel or an Event Viewer.
I understand Microsoft wanting to move everyone to using Powershell, I get how powerful the commandline is - I've been using Unix/Linux for 20 years. However, using bash and other commandline tools makes sense. It seems sane and has always been intuitive to pick up. A quick man page look up usually fills in any details that are out of the ordinary. Powershell and Microsoft's objects? Wow.. no idea who designed it but intuitive is not a word I would use to describe it. I suppose the command names themselves are ok, a lot of times you can guess them with a "Set" or "Get" prefix, but the way you pass the object references and the various command parameters are a complete pain the ass. Powershell is a nice feature, but completely ripping out nice graphical tools to do complex and infrequent tasks makes no sense.
Re:nope (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 3.1 came out and WordPerfect launched a new version for it. It was horrible! We used it at work and I was always frustrated with how I had to "reveal codes" to get any meaningful text formatting done.
When I bought my first computer, it was mainly for writing papers for university, so a good word processing application was key. At the store, I asked what other word processing programs were available and I played with Word 2.0 for a few minutes. It was beautiful! I went home with Word.
That may not explain why others went with Word over WordPerfect, but it explains why I did.
Re:nope (Score:3, Informative)
Well Linux "just works" for me. OTOH, Windows, other than as a pre-install, has persistently failed to work. It is a fatal error where the OS does not come with drivers for the network card, and expects you to download the drivers over the net! Assuming you can boot from a CD, you can install Linux (Or *BSD) in about 40 minutes, unattended. Good luck installing WIndows in 40 hours - with constant user intervention because of all the fixes and reboots.
I even had a Thinpad T43p that came with XP - then one day stopped running XP "because of a hardware problem" - All attempts at a reinstall from the Lenovo restore partition or a CD failed, but three years later is still running Ubuntu and in daily use!
Windows - "it just f*cks up"
Re:How relevant is the PC, still? (Score:4, Informative)
What about companies that process credit card transactions? What about inventory control software for food processing? Apple? Linux?
Actually those touch screen POS terminals you see in most bars and restaurants? Linux. Those touch screen bar top games? Also Linux. Now the computer in the back office that those communicate with for the managers and chefs? That's probably Windows XP. Some of the POS terminals are Windows embedded from years and years ago, but mostly the POS terminals are Linux. They do the credit card reading/authorizing and inventory if the system is set up for it.