July 20, 2012

Link

Microsoft says Windows 8 will go on sale Oct. 26.

The upgrade to its operating system is designed to work better with touch screens and on tablet computers.

Microsoft announced the date in a blog post and at its annual sales meeting Wednesday. The software company had said earlier that Windows 8 would go on sale in October.

Microsoft is releasing the software as a downloadable upgrade that day for PC owners, and letting PC makers start selling computers with Windows 8 the same day.

As an upgrade for users of Windows XP, Vista or 7, Windows will cost $40. That's much less than Microsoft Corp. has charged for previous operating system upgrades. People who bought a Windows 7 computer on June 2 or later can upgrade for $15.

And if or when Windows 8 failed, more people will start considering Linux!

TonyVanDam said:

TonyVanDam said:

And if or when Windows 8 failed, more people will start considering Linux!

I just don't think Linux can take a big enough chunk into MS's user base.

I highly doubt Apple will either.

What perplexes me is the strategy that MS is taking on. This is yet ANOTHER market that they are racing towards, when they still have not adequately gotten a foothold on the cellphone market. The ability to run two different versions of Windows 8 (the mobile tablet version, and the tablet-but-really-a-PC version) is odd because with the more expensive full-blown OS tablet version, they are inviting the same problems that exist for PCs (viruses, dll hell, registry issues, etc.) on to tablets, which probably are going to be mainly products used in business.

The main issue is that this is Surface is starting to feel like Zune all over again. The iPod killer achieved product differentiation from the iPod in ways that users didn't consider noteworthy or essential. They can't afford to do this with Surface tablets---Windows 8 on PCs, sure...they're safe tehre. But for Surface tablets, no--they must offer a value added service. iPads are almost 70% of the market, with google being almost 30%. I don't think Surface is going to cyphon away Apple users, but I'm not sure it'll offer any value added against google either.

What perplexes me is their touting of the silly protector with the keyboard--cool, sure, but is that supposed to be product differentiation? Nope... They need to reveal a new Surface version of MS Office and backoffice and nail that fucker to home base. I would LOVE to see a tablet versio of Office. I'd prefer it on an iPad , but any tablet running office is going to be cool.

Overall though, MS can not afford to fuck up Surface. They won't fuck up Windows 8--it'll get adopted, though I'm not crazy about the ugly interface, but they could very easily fuck up their tablet line.

I'm also a bit apprehensive about them offering Windows 8 as a downloaded upgrade---that's easy to do on an Apple because of the limited hardware configurations, but PC manufacturer offering vastly dwarf that.

I'll definately be keeping a close eye on how their tablets do though. If their stock drops any lower, I'm buying some, because I'm pretty certain Steve Ballmer can't take too many more fuckups before being ousted, which will eventually cause stocks to go up.

I, for one, welcome our new alien Windows 8 Overlords. I've been using the Release Preview since it became available, and it's been a champ. It kind of reminds me of when win98SE improved on win98.

I'll still use Linux, though. But it's clear that Apple and Microsoft are vanguarding the unser interface. They both beat the hell out of the Unity interface, imo. KDE, GNOME, et al seem to try to follow in Apple/MS's wake.