Submitted by “I’ve been writing about Windows for almost 20 years, and I feel like I’ve kind of seen it all. But for the past several days, I’ve been struggling under the weight of the most brutal email onslaught I’ve ever endured over these two decades. And if my email is any indication, and I believe it is, the majority of people out there have absolutely no idea what Windows RT is. This is a problem.” When even Paul Thurrot is worried, you can be sure it is, actually, a problem. We’re going to see and hear about a lot of frustrated customer who can’t load up their 1997 copy of Awesome Garden Designer 2.0 Deluxe.
Rude wakening for the people: Welcome to the world where every single consumer device is a PC. Even the devices which you don’t call or usually think could be PCs, and in most cases, definitely are PCs.
For a long time I’ve really hated that people who say “PC” only mean 100% IBM-PC compatible personal computers running Microsoft Windows. If the computer is running GNU/Linux, or OS X, it’s not a PC any more for those people. Or if it has slightly different hardware it’s not a PC any more despite having the same OS. (facepalm)
PCs are huge category of devices which includes work and gaming devices like the Playstation 3 (even the NES is a PC), tablets inc. the iPad, various desktops and workstations like the Amiga and the Macintosh branded PCs (doesn’t matter what architecture m68k, ppc, or x86) running latest iteration of the (Mac) OS X, Smartphones (which are PCs with a phone feature) (arm, intel, what difference does it make?), and not least the generic hardware of any sort running for example any sort of GNU/Linux which is intended for end users but hidden so that end user doesn’t know he is using GNU/Linux, etc.
The sole reason there won’t be a “Post-PC Era” soon is that there cannot be “Post-PC Era” in the first place with the current level of consumer technology available. The “Post-PC Era” might happen after the “Personal Nano Computer” revolution happens in next 50 years or something.
And the joke in “PC v.s. Mac” ads is that both machines are one and same hardware. Only difference is operating system, which all can and do suffer similar problems at times no matter what environment you’re using.
Edited 2012-10-21 16:44 UTC
Well, “PC” was what IBMs original IBM PC was called. It was the first device to use the term. So, home computers with non-IBM PC compatible architecture are not really PCs. They are home computers.
IBM-PC wasn’t the first device to use the acronym “PC”. There were many others before that including the IBM themselves. I believe the first actual device marketed as PC was HP’s 9100A. HP marketed it as a personal computer actively, and used the acronym “PC” for it.
However the first actual PC was probably according to some guys this device called “SIMON”… http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml
You’re wrong
http://splorp.tumblr.com/post/27789062439/new-sinclair-zx81-persona…
Edited 2012-10-22 00:53 UTC
The term “Personal Computer” was commonly used for home or microcomputers.
In fact my Amstrad CPC 464, Locomotive BASIC + Zilog Z80 CPU, physically had “Personal Computer” branded on it in metallic lettering.
I checked my C=64 (kinda dead, probably its failing PSU killed it a long time ago; but it doesn’t take much space in the closet), and it also has “personal computer” on its case.
But the best term was probably Volkscomputer ;> ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vic-20-cassette-game-Luftkam… & the box of VC-20 – yes, without “i”)
PS. Nicely visible on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:C64-IMG_5318.jpg (though it seems only the “post-PC” C64C has it, not the original form)
Edited 2012-10-28 04:00 UTC
With this logic, gender, religion, race, politics and god knows what else are irrelevant.
We do need to discern and not over-generalize.
For the purpose of the pre- and post-PC discussion, PC is a category of versatile devices that aren’t really mobile. The kind that does it all but is ill-suited to majority of tasks that aren’t typing and precision intensive.
Edited 2012-10-21 17:06 UTC
Actually it’s exactly the opposite. PCs are versatile devices which are mobile. At least when we compare personal computers against the other major computer classifications such as the super computers, mainframes, mini computers, etc.
Another way to classify personal computers is to use term “micro computers” but that does’t really describe the whole variety of them, and gives wrong image of the size also. So majority of the computer scientists I know have given up on the term “micro computers” and use “personal computers” instead.
Do we want to say that this group of devices which includes some smaller mini computers, micro computer and calculators are personal computers or something else? This is not making things like gender, religion, race, politics irrelevant. To continue your analogy to humans… I’m merely saying that you’re all racists for only seeing that certain kinds of devices are worth the title “PC”. When in fact there are so much more of them.
We also could think this the other way, and look not from the consumer side of the things but also from the side of the manufacturer. The computer on your desktop and on your tablet both can have the exactly same CPU, exactly same RAM, exactly same GPU. The Only major difference is the form-factor. Both of your devices the desktop and the tablet could be running the exactly same operating system also. And they run the same applications. Why on earth wouldn’t you call both of them both same kind of PCs then?
Is form factor enough to warrant a change of the computer class? I think not. It does require something more than that. You’d have to change the whole concept of the personal computer interaction to something else to warrant for that.
For example you’d probably not see a screen. Instead you’d “sense” the information or you’d “imagine” it inside your head. That way the personal computer would be more than just a personal computer, it would be you, with enhanced capabilities of a personal computer.
But if you’re just watching a screen, of a device you can have on your finger tips, processing your personal data externally, and separately from you, it’s a computer that belongs to you, and that makes it personal device.
I want that all of you people challenge your view of what a PC really is. Please think about this subject few moments.
In that sense, iPads and similar tablets should be called nanocomputers, and smartphones should be called picocomputers. They are different sized devices with different purposes.
The largest of supercomputers and the smallest of android smartphones run Linux. Does that make them all PCs?
Anyways, what difference does the term PC make? The point is that small light tablets and smartphones are taking the former roles of conventional desktops and laptops for things like casual web browsing and gaming, while conventional personal computers are now used more often for specific tasks requiring typing, more precision, and more screen real estate.
A lot of difference in minds of the people and how they see technology around them, and how it would affect their lives when they understand how wonderful age we are living right now. However you’re probably right that if everybody started using “PC” for the category I’m trying to explain here, and started using “The Microsoft platform” to refer IBM-PC clones with Intel chips running Windows and “The Microsoft ARM platform” to refer the Windows RT, it would just be a change of the word, and world would move on as usual.
However even that would help make it easier to explain the general categories of the computers for people, and how not all the computers are the same. And that’s why I’d like to point out that this isn’t a new behaviour where new devices take roles of other older devices.
And why we are letting people of the past, who had no understanding on how we could use our generation’s devices, define the actual terms and words for these new devices which don’t fit to them at all?
And why should I pay for removal of artificial restrictions to hardware I want to tinker with? Why should I be labelled as a cracker when I open device I paid for wide open to make it do something more useful? Explaining how much more we are using personal computers might help with these issues.
The State of the Personal Computer market as of today is a result of lack of competition in PC architectures. 30 years ago market had several different PCs competing all each other. Those other systems died because they weren’t able to compete. Things were different. People now might not even consider other PCs PCs just because the only PC which survived that era was the IBM-PC and clones which were really crappy devices with all kinds of limitations and so much time has passed when it’s been de facto [desktop] PC on the market.
We are living a kind of digital dark age already because we are using the crappy hardware solutions which don’t drive general good for everybody, we are in essentially locked into Intel’s hardware architecture and Microsoft’s Windows software platform. If IBM-PC had to really compete against a legacy free PC, it wouldn’t be able to do it. And that’s essentially what we are seeing here in forms of iPad and other new wave of PCs.
I just wish that the platforms would be more open for innovation and competitiveness. The iPad is a very closed in nature. And Windows is going to be even more closed. I’d much more see hardware which is open for changes, and open for other software platforms. Explaining the very nature of the personal computers would help more people realise this too.
Like I wrote earlier, Famicom or NES, as it’s also known, is a complete PC. You can plug in a keyboard, do BASIC programming, use disk drive to save and load programs, connect to BBS boards and do punch of other stuff with it. It’s a PC like Commodore 64 is a PC. Oh hell, it even sports similar CPU as in C=64 because the origin is the MOS Technologies. Still it’s _only_ considered to be _just_ a gaming device.
The point isn’t the primary advertised function either. iPad and smartphones are programmable devices. You can create applications for them. You can do more with them than just a single task of reading a book or making a phone call. Personal Computer can handle these two very personal data flows and manage them for you. iPad and a generic smartphone aren’t different devices, they are very close to each other.
You should consider iPads relationship with iPhone. What else iPhone is than a iPad but with a phone feature? Yes, it comes with a different form factor, but at the same time it’s using same CPU, same RAM and the same GPU and further more same software stack inc. the OS itself. (yes, I simplified this comparison a little bit to make it easier to understand)
Consumers are used to buying things aimed for single purpose. But this isn’t the case in near future where a single device will perform even more tasks of various devices. Will there even be a devices primarily aimed for specific tasks unless they’re mission critical?
The Reasons I wouldn’t call tablet devices such as iPad nano computers are the same I explained earlier. The different sized devices with different purpose doesn’t give a privilege to be a whole different computer. There’s no split between PC/Linux/Mac. PC is a category for various consumer devices, Linux is a kernel, and Mac or Macintosh is specific brand of certain kind of PCs.
And to make it clear, while I think that the form factor is just one point to consider, I don’t find it as the only one we should consider as the base of the definition for the PC. We should primarily be considering the actual usage. I personally consider the usage to be the primary defining factor. If purpose of the computer device is to manage your personal data flow, how it isn’t a personal computer?
Nope. We aren’t just talking about OSes here. The main difference between supercomputer running GNU/Linux and smartphone running GNU/Linux is that the supercomputer doesn’t manage your personal data flow. There’s also the hardware, cost, maintenance, personel, and work loads, to be considered among many other factors.
The super computer cannot be your personal device. You also cannot own a supercomputer. Supercomputer rarely is consumer affordable and it’s also not a versatile. Super computer also requires educated technicians to use them. You just cannot sit down and start browsing web. Super Computers also tend to be batch processed or time-shared systems.
In my opinion the Personal Computer doesn’t imply size, and Personal Computers as a category are something that includes really wide variety of devices.
…
I tried to keep this short and simple but it’s too much. Maybe I should write a book about the topic? At least an essay… ( ^^);
Edited 2012-10-21 23:30 UTC
PC survived because it was ultimately better than other options (which doesn’t mean that it was better than something hypothetically possible – http://www.osnews.com/thread?522221 ), least crappy, and offering the best bang-per-buck.
“Dark ages” is largely a myth BTW, invented by later ages; modern historians don’t use the term.
Intel doesn’t really have control over PC architecture (they contribute a lot to it, but mostly hand over those contributions for everybody to use; it’s perfectly possible to build an Intel-free PC), and that whole Wintel thing brings powerful hardware suitable for very nice *nix workstations…
WRT “personal supercomputers” – BOINC projects are not far off.
Except laptops of course, which are mobile PC’s
No, PCs are desktop or laptop computers that run Windows on Intel-compatible hardware, and are descendent from the original IBM PC. Other systems have a similar aspect, but they are not PCs.
This is not a technical issue, it is a matter of language. The term “PC” has been used for 20+ years to describe Windows on Intel, and is the generally accepted definition of the word. This is why it is necessary to provide extra context when using “PC” to describe other objects, but not when describing Windows desktops.
This is why the phrase “personal computing devices” is becoming common when referring to tablets and smartphones. Note that they also have their own names for the class of object.
tl;dr version: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~llackore/Pictures/hermes.jpg
“No, PCs are desktop or laptop computers that run Windows on Intel-compatible hardware, and are descendent from the original IBM PC. Other systems have a similar aspect, but they are not PCs.”
and ‘hacking’ is doing bad things on computers and ‘trolling’ is being mean on computers…
Just because most people believe a thing to be true does not make it so.
Some of us are old enough to remember the review of the IBM pc in PC World magazine (UK) – years after the magazine’s first issue.
Not true. If you had never used any other PC than IBM-PC, what would you call a device that is a PC but not an IBM-PC? I know I’d call it a PC, but how about you?
Things haven’t always been like that. And that’s when things were fine, and clear to understand. The acronym “PC” also suffers partially from effect similar to “Rollerblade effect”. Late 80s there was a company that manufactured in-line roller-skates branded “Rollerblades”. Their product was so immensely popular that some people even today call all kinds of roller-skates “roller-blades”.
30 years ago things were different. Language was different also. For 20 years we have suffered under rule of single platform to the point that only few of us can remember any more the time when there where several consumer targeted computers on the market.
All of them where personal computers. Some where aimed for professionals and some cheaper machines were marketed as a “home computers”. However for example in Commodore 64 was marketed and openly adversited as a “Personal Computer” and it was know as a cheap education PC. However almost none of these PCs where compatible with each other. But they were different, and that kind of hardware and software competition gave us the best of the best innovation.
I’ll try to be quick about this explanation (so it might have flaws)… World’s largest computer company IBM considered personal computer markets as a hobby. And they didn’t have a very solid plan about that. They merely wanted to compete against rising threat of Apple and Commodore to their business. They had to quickly build something as an answer to that, and took stock shelve parts for almost everything, and then bought OS else where because they where in a hurry.
And so, IBM released a very expensive “Model 5150” (None of the IBM computers had any brand names like Macintosh, Amiga, or MSX. Just this set of numbers.) approx. 30 years ago. A machine with little to none personality. A Cold corporate computer by very definition.
However the hardware was left open accidentally, and software was licensed from a third party that had permission to sell their software also to other parties. That made it go to the history books.
What made IBM-PC popular was the availability of software. At first it only had IBM’s offerings. But when other manufactures started to produce cheaper but better versions of the original model 5150 and it’s follow ups even more software writers got in. And that essentially made other platforms die. That however didn’t prevent Amiga from being better PC from every aspect. It was actually so much ahead of it’s time that people couldn’t even describe it. It’s very sad thing that Commodore didn’t take the Sun’s offering on starting to manufacture cheap UNIX desktops based on Amiga hardware. The world could be very different from what it is now.
Anyway… Compaq was the first company to legally clone the system and sell theirs as “IBM-Compatible”. And no matter what clone system you wanted it was almost always “IBM-compatible”. Until “IBM” was dropped in favour for “PC-compatible”. That change of wording happened in late 90s. And last game I ever remember having had in my hands to call itself to be made for “IBM-PC or 100% Compatibles” was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 released 1999.
What I’m explaining here is that there are maybe four or five kinds of computers in the world. And everything can be classified under these large major categories. Each of them split into several sub-classes.. Among many others. And these can be split into other subclasses of their own. And so forth.
Acronym “PC” means one major top category. But it’s also a nick name for one specific kind of a PC. I’m arguing here that it would be better if people would be aware of this instead of blindly believing that that everything that has Intel chips and Microsoft software is a PC.
With Windows RT, Microsoft is allowing us to break free from Intel’s dominance. I god hope that either two things will happen with Windows RT being released. At least it’s sure that people might learn that Windows + Intel isn’t the only way that exists. This lesson is maybe a harsh one, and I hope people learn before Microsoft gives up on this point. I’m sure they have their own motives for doing this.
But either people are driven to GNU/Linux (unlikely due software compatibility), or ARM will take over the Intel forcing true competition to occur on a frozen market. ARM is already fiercely competing. They are the pagan burning Intel’s holy church. And that’s a very good thing. =)
However my own prediction is that Windows RT will fail on market due it not being capable of running legacy applications. Microsoft has made a huge mistake in allowing the legacy desktop to be included. It would have been better to release the Windows RT without the legacy desktop feature.
These days, regular users get confused between the term “Loading” and “installing”, don’t understand the difference between a “bug” and a “virus” and say plenty more things that sound crazy to me.
“I loaded Word on to my PC” => “I installed Word on to my PC”
“My computer is full of bugs” => “There is a virus and spyware on my computer”
Sometimes it’s better just to ignore this stuff. No matter how often people are corrected, someone will still get it wrong.
But there are many more advanced users, even if they are proportionally a smaller part of the whole.
“Regular users” are people who in the past wouldn’t use computers at all – so what we have, how contemporary computers can more or less accommodate those users, is an improvement.
Plus it’s not like we didn’t have, back then, plenty of “computer magicians” who only tried to appear knowledgeable, with their rituals performed on those mysterious new machines; that’s perhaps even worse (BTW, maybe related with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technoshamanism ?)
I can remember them quite well, those weren’t good times at all. You’re looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses.
Some places “suffer” under the rule of PC for little over 10 years – because Amiga lived on much longer for example. When it finally died, when PCs arrived en masse, oh what a relief it was – finally no longer stuck with underpowered, overpriced hw.
The 80s micros were mostly just many different kinds of rubbish ( http://www.osnews.com/permalink?539783 )
Edited 2012-10-29 00:19 UTC
There is definitely confusion between a personal computer and the PC standard. Yes, every device/phone/computer is technically a PC.
I thought the Mac vs PC wars were over anyway, since they use the same CPU and can both run Windows?
There is a problem with your line of thinking, and it is thus: Windows ain’t Linux or iOS. With Linux all it takes is ONE guy to recompile the software since the source is available and then tada! It works on MIPS, or SPARC, or ARM. With iOS Apple has conditioned users to only buy Apple products or those blessed by Apple through their appstore and to expect their old stuff not to run, nothing wrong with that, if you like fashion you have a brand tailor made for you and it does hold excellent resale when you jump on their upgrade treadmill.
But what you have here is a case where a user will walk in and find out “SOME Windows will run your stuff, SOME Windows won’t, and you don’t know and the poor clueless kid at the counter don’t know which is which either…good luck turkey!” and what moron wants a Windows that costs as much as an iPad, in many cases MORE than an iPad, that doesn’t actually run Windows software?
Anybody here see the Newegg commercial? Where the guy asks the sales kid what the difference is between 2 laptops and he just stares at the little cards before saying “I have no idea?” well welcome to reality, where I can’t count the times I’ve had to step in when some sales kid has been telling someone bold faced lies because the kid simply didn’t know any better and didn’t want to look foolish in front of a customer.
What is sad is MSFT is now bragging “Win 8, simple enough for a 3 year old”…uhhh…I don’t WANT an OS so dumbed down your toddler can use it, because at THAT level of stupid its a toy OS, okay? Its the new Vista, you know it, I know it, and next quarter MSFT will know it.
It wasn’t quite that straightforward when AMD64 showed up, and that was still x86.
So what you’re saying – it’s a prelude to Win9 being the new VistaSE “let’s use the PR trick of ‘lucky7′”, the most adored and most rapidly adopted version of Windows?
This could’ve been the much-needed shot in the arm the hobbyist PC market needs.
Too bad it’s locked down and dead before it even started.
I think this will seriously confuse people. People think they’re buying a computer. To them, a computer is this box that should just run awesome garden designer 2.0 Deluxe. But it won’t.
I’ve bought an SGI octane2 off of someone that didn’t want it once someone told him it wouldn’t run windows …
If anything could validify apple’s original assault case on samsung, then it should be this. People will buy a product, expecting it to be something … but it will be something else entirely.
Anyway, we’ll see … interesting times.
windows was never confusing like this. you could not miss the transition to 95 and xp. this time it is utterly baffling. NO internet hyperbole either. I get it, but nobody else will.
you have to assume that all the normal computer companies think the same way most of us do. thus why microsoft had to make surface rt on its own. and when it bombs, possibly surprising even the eldest retail goons with the horrifying return rates, there will be only one outcome: microsoft will soldier on. bring on surface 2 rt.
Nonsense, Windows has always been a confusing brand. E.g. At some point Microsoft was offering concurrently Windows vs Windows for Workgroups vs Windows NT workstation vs Windows NT server vs Windows CE.
Microsoft has always sucked at branding, but then again they never had to excel at it since they had a de facto monopoly in the PC. The clear exception to my claim being the Xbox.
windows branding has not always been this confusing. you might have a point with the enterprise examples if I was talking about enterprise windows, and you might have a point with windows ce if anyone cared about windows ce
The fact that you have to re-qualify your statement, about which “version” of windows you were supposedly referring to, sort of probes my point.
Windows has always been a blessing and a curse as a brand.
Edited 2012-10-23 07:02 UTC
Uhhh…Windows was for home users, WFW was for business, and nobody used WinCE, it really wasn’t confusing. Now Vista, where you had everything from basic to smoky bacon all aimed at the customer? THAT was confusing.
At least someone other than Ballmer (rumor has it he was too busy squirting with his Zune to care) took over for Win 7 so all you had was basic for the cheap junkers like Atom netbooks (in fact the only ones I ever saw use basic was $199 Atom netbooks) Home Premium (what most got) and Pro for the office users.
But sadly a feces brown Zune just wasn’t the mega hit Ballmer thought so now that he doesn’t have anything to squirt here we are…sigh. Does he REALLY think people are gonna pay higher than Apple prices for an ersatz Apple experience on a device with the Windows name that won’t actually run Windows programs and will have MUCH less apps than iPad or Android?
I just hope the OEMs aren’t foolish enough to make those turkeys, they’ve had a pretty bad year already and getting stuck with several million WinPads that they can’t move while everyone’s stocking are filled with Kindles and iPads could cause some of them to go under. How much did HP lose on the touchpad again?
smoky bacon vista. lol
When the PocketPC still roamed the earth with Windows CE it was not unusual to come across people who claimed it was “Windows” and ran Internet Explorer, Word, Excel.
Now we have one Microsoft tablet that runs a real version of Windows that isn’t a real version of Windows and a Microsoft tablet that runs their other mobile OS.
I think keeping their two tablets apart will pose a difficult task for some, but even worse is having Windows RT and figuring out what you can and can’t run on it.
Now it would be cool even they made some desktop PCs running on ARM (and allow us to install Linux).
We’re going to see and hear about a lot of frustrated customer who can’t load up their 1997 copy of Awesome Garden Designer 2.0 Deluxe.
I had the same problem trying to load up Photoshop on my ipod touch!
I personally think Microsoft dropped the ball when they made Office a desktop App for RT. It should really have been Metro (apps for windows 8 ofc), metro only and the desktop itself should have been disabled for RT devices.
It makes sense on so many levels, mostly for ease of use flow, falling back to the desktop on a touch device is a real pain to use, its the reason why windows never took off on them.
Hopefully either Pro tablets drop in price and are released or people cotton on to using Metro apps we move forward (eek) into a metro workspace… *sigh*
This is not your fault, bit I think this quote highlights the problems Microsoft face. A desktop app for RT? Why is that different from Metro? How is the same? What about the desktop? Microsoft have confused themselves, let alone us.
RT just means its an ARM powered device. Microsoft decided to lock down the desktop of ARM compiled apps for what ever reason, be it SDK/API or something else.
Where as Metro apps work across the platforms without users having to worry if they’re x86 or ARM versions to be installed so I can see why they’ve limited the desktop apps in that sense.
The only thing I can think of is that the Metro UI for all the crital system components is not ready for a true replacement, meaning users would need to fall back to the desktop to fix it still. If this is (and it seems like it), I’d have prefered the desktop when in safe mode or running as Admin with Office as metro app.
Frankly this, this right here, is why MSFT has never had a chance at the mobile space. Remember how they were into smartphones years before Apple ever even thought of an iPhone? what did they do? they tried to tie it into the Windows branding, complete with teeny tiny desktop and start button and of course it bombed.
I’ll never forget the article i read a few years ago with the founder of Neversoft and why he walked away from his baby WinAmp while it was still popular: “They just wouldn’t listen, they kept trying to force everything to come back to “the product” (AOL dialup) when we could see the market for the product was dying and nobody wanted it,by the end they were forcing us to bundle the entire software suit with every copy of WinAmp!”
And that is MSFT in 2012 in a nutshell, instead of accepting the fact that like IBM with the mainframe while Windows will pretty much own the desktop forever the world simply isn’t gonna revolve around desktops like it did in the 90s and thus letting their other divisions to get out from under the Windows legacy and truly innovate they instead keep trying to tie everything back to “the product” that made their fortune back in the day while refusing to see those glory days are past.
Winamp is most likely still quite popular. One reasonably reliable source of stats http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ shows iTunes at ~30% and Winamp at ~20%, a comparable reach (curiously, it shows WMP at 33… not sure what that means, maybe Steam can determine if WMP is actually used)
What you see locally might be influenced by large, in my experience, geographical differences in software usage. Kinda like what is clearly visible with browsers http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Countries_by_most_used_web_b… or office suites http://www.webmasterpro.de/portal/news/2010/02/05/international-ope… or mobile phones (some clearly visible differences after checking few of http://www.opera.com/smw/ reports) or IM networks (ICQ for example is still going strong …in CIS; plus it looks like we’ll have WhatsApp in the western world, LINE in eastern; and at my place, a dominant position is held by IM network you haven’t even heard about).
Same with iPods and iPhones – apart from relatively few ~western places, they generally barely exist in the rest of the world. That alone should greatly influence the adoption of iTunes and its alternatives.
For what personal anecdotes are worth – here, in central Europe, I rarely see people using iTunes. Winamp is definitely a more frequent sight. And on Last.fm (“now playing” of other people usually displays their player) those two plus Spotify seem to get roughly equal share, IIRC; even foobar2k shows up quite frequently.
I think you mean Nullsoft BTW.
And I suppose international downloads omitted AOL package…
Hm, Xbox and Skype (totally multi-platform) divisions show that to be not quite the case?
Edited 2012-10-25 04:05 UTC
I’d love to see Metro app’s dominate, but not while the only way to distribute them is via Marketplace.
That would kill off OSS on the Windows platform.
And they will. But Microsoft had to release RT ASAP, they had to release it before Android get a stronghold in the tablet market, otherwise, they would have to face the same uphill battle in the tablet market as in the phone market. But they had to do it with an offering that suit their main cash cow, ie, business people, meaning they had to provide Office. And they could not wait for Office to be a full RT application.
But they want to get ride of the desktop mode and of win32, especially since regulator are going to come and knock at their door and tell them that they have to open the API to everyone.
Microsoft was facing three choices:
1) Release Win RT in 2012, OfficeRT when it is ready late 2013, early 2014 (at best), and lose a compelling selling point for their business customers
2) Release Win RT when Office RT is ready, and face a strong uphill battle with Android
3) Release Win RT in 2012, along with an hybrid Office, and in two years time, release the full RT Office and wipe out the desktop API. And keep the anti-trust regulator at bay for two years.
In light of that, I would argue that 3) was their best option.
Windows RT is a fools errand at the moment and anyone buying it either is or will think themselves a fool after.
“Metro” and the few apps available are half-baked and not fit for purpose. Yes, perhaps maybe, in a couple of years it’ll all come together and make sense. For now, at the price, you’d be a fool not to buy an iPad, can’t stand the OS myself, or some sort of Android tablet.
The Pro is something else and though, for me anyway, it’ll be very expensive (still think “Metro” not ready) I can see the point.
There’s going to be an awful lot of disappointed and annoyed users/customers of Win RT.
It’s funny that you mentioned the iPad, since when it was announced, geeks around the world turned their noses up at it saying, “Oh, this isn’t OSX! It’s just a toy… big iPod Touch… it’ll never sell.” And then it sold like 9 billion units. Hell, people went and lined up around the block to buy the first iPhone, and that thing couldn’t even run apps.
My point? Since geeks are writing Windows RT off and labeling it a failure before it’s even released, that means it’ll probably sell well
Well, there’s a decent chance it’ll flop, but I’m not counting it out until I find out what Joe Averages think about it.
Would be funny though if there were a massive amount of returns on the pre-orders, because people actually thought they were buying a tablet with Windows 8 on it.
There’s one significant difference: RT tablets are marketed as Windows. Joe Sixpack cannot grasp the concept of runtimes, different CPU families or bit compatibility, and he really shouldn’t.
iOS devices were never marketed as OSX or Mac devices.
Actually betting on a MS failure in mobile computing, is almost always a safe bet.
What they really need to do, is completely divorce the mobile from Windows, rebrand it and launch it as something completely new.
Geeks have their reasons for disliking it, but the average people will think “wait, windows? that’s what I have on my PC, I get viruses all the time, needs a lot of work to maintain” etc etc etc.
I dunno… they’ve screwed it up so many times before, they might actually get lucky this time
lol
While I agree with everything you said here is what makes me go “WTH MSFT?” with Win 8 and this whole RT mess: Why didn’t MSFT leverage their desktop legacy to give people an actual REASON to buy their new product?
I mean think about it, what does Windows have that Android and iPad don’t? Over 20 years of software everyone knows and wants. We already have Intel running medifield on phones and tablets, AMD has Hondo about to come out, instead of trying to force Windows onto ARM, which not only makes ZERO sense but thanks to ballmer being delusional is actually priced HIGHER than a retina iPad with worse specs, why not simply leave ARM for the WinPhone like Apple does with iOS and push new low power Windows 8 tablets?
At least THAT would have made sense, you could have sub $500 tablets that pop into a keyboard/laptop doc like an Asus Transformer yet be able to keep all your Windows software! Talk about a no brainer, but instead they choose to push ARM while demanding crazy prices while having no real apps to speak of compared to Android and iOS!
I swear if I didn’t know better I’d think ballmer was shorting the stock to make a killing, because this is almost a “designed for failure” move on their part and even your average teen could have come up with a better business plan than this.
This is the first time in history where Windows name does not imply the expected behavior. So far consumers could ignore the suffix appended to Windows name. Would it be 95, 2000, XP, Vista or 7 – they were all Windows in the sense users expected. RT however is not Windows anymore from the consumers perspective and this will indeed be a huge mess.
That’s not entirely true. I know a lot of people that bought Windows 2000 as the logical upgrade to Windows 98 and found that half their apps would not run. They didn’t realize that Me was the proper upgrade path for 9x users.
Well, that wasn’t their fault, was it? It’s Microsoft’s fault, for naming it Windows 2000 instead of Windows NT 5.0.
In the present situation, it’s not difficult to call it the “Surface OS.” Didn’t people use to make fun of Microsoft’s long product names? Here’s one place where it could actually help. The x86 version would be “Windows 8, with support for Surface applications.”
—
Windows 2000 was originally supposed to be the OS that unified the legacy and NT lines. In other words, it was supposed to be XP. The unification took longer than planned, so Microsoft released it, but kept the name.
By doing this, they ended up without a name for the successor to Windows 98, and had to call it Millennium. And then because of the spiffy name for ME, they had to name the unification OS XP. Then Vista, and we finally end up right back where we were before Windows 95, with Windows 7. Just when some sanity seems to have returned, Windows RT. Just wait until Windows 9 — will it be RT 2.0 or RT 9.0?
Edited 2012-10-21 21:51 UTC
No, it’s not.
Windows 3.1 and Windows NT 3.1 were out at the same time, and ran on different CPU architectures and apps for one were not guaranteed to work on the other. And not all apps were available for all CPU archs.
Windows 95 and Windows 2000 were out at the same time, and ran on different CPU architectures. And apps for one were not guaranteed to work on the other.
Windows CE was also available around the same time as NT and 9x, and was a completely separate OS, with a separate kernel, userland, runtimes, etc. And ran on different CPU archs. And the apps were not portable between the OSes.
There’s really no difference between those situations in the past, and the situation with now with Windows RT and Windows 8.
Wow you could NOT be more wrong! While its true that 3.1 and NT 3.1 were out at the same time one was NOT sold to the consumer, only through the business division, and it was made clear that NT wasn’t made for anything but business so there wasn’t any confusion there. And Win95 came out in…1995, while Win2K came out…wait for it…in Feb 2000! And again you didn’t see Win2K in the retail channel, it was kept strictly for business users although a lot of us managed to buy it to escape the horror that was WinME.
The only one you got right was WinCE, which MSFT went out of their way to make look like a teeny tiny XP but as a retailer since the days of Win3.x I can tell you those others? never was an impact on the consumer because it simply wasn’t sold or marketed to them. until XP MSFT was smart enough to keep their business and consumer lines separate, with the consumers getting the flashy stuff while the business users were getting stability, support for AD and group policies, etc.
So it really was a different time then friend, and MSFT did do boneheaded stupidity like they did with Win 8…well again except for WinCE, but MSFT has never had a mobile strategy to speak of in its entire history.
I’m going to cast some doubt on a couple of statements in Thurrott’s article:
“Windows RT will not run any desktop applications beyond the applications that are bundled with the operating system.”
I don’t know if this is true (obviously non-bundled Metro apps are possible), but if bundled apps can access desktop mode and non-bundled apps can’t, then this is a very peculiar lock-out decision from Microsoft. It effectively prevents any non-MS Intel Windows desktop software from being recompiled to work in RT’s desktop mode. It does explain why Chrome and Firefox are rushing to produce a Metro version of their browsers I guess!
You could understand it if the Surface RT was the *only* hardware with Windows 8 that MS were going to make, but they’re following it up with the Pro version that’s Intel-based and won’t be anywhere near as locked down as the RT. I suspect the lack of third-party apps and the launch of the Pro version of the Surface is going to kill Surface RT stone dead. And it looks like MS even got the price points horribly wrong with Surface (strange, considering that Windows 8 itself is actually sensibly priced).
“Windows RT is not a computer operating system.”
Funny, I could have sworn it was. It might be a horribly locked down OS with hardly any apps (Playbook anyuone…ouch!), but it’s surely a computer OS?
“it’s not a car, it’s a transport system for humans”
“it’s not a TV, it’s a remote viewing terminal for broadcasted entertainment”
“it’s not a bed, it’s sleep facilitator”
…
it’s not a moon, it’s a spacestation
Crazy. Not a computer operating system?? The minuscule external difference between the surface RT and surface pro apparently is the dividing line. Does that make sense to anyone at all? They look identical on purpose. They function very similarly, but one is *obviously* a computer and the other is *obviously* a mobile computing device??
Paul can blame MS for its crappy messaging, but he’s pretty guilty as well.
We need to be aware of the myth, the fairy tale, that is believed by so many ordinary people who don’t follow computing all that closely. And it goes something like this…
“In the beginning there was the IBM PC and there was the Macintosh. They had a great battle and the PC won and became the industry standard. That’s why you can get PC software at Wal-Mart, not Mac stuff. Yeah, there are a few weirdos who still use Macs for some reason, like they can’t get it through their heads that the PC is the winner and the Mac is the loser. Probably the same people who vote Libertarian, haha! They probably still have Betamax VCRs too, haha!”
This was the myth that the whole Microsoft empire was built upon, and it was distressingly close to the truth for a while. Now everything has changed, but Microsoft haven’t quite figured it out. They’ve convinced themselves that they owe their success to everybody loving the Microsoft Windows brand, and loving the look-and-feel of Windows, and trusting Windows, etc.
And of course, it’s not true. Nobody (except Paul Thurrott of course!) ever really liked Windows that much, based on its own merits. They just liked being able to get software for their computer at Wal-Mart. And now that Wal-Mart is no longer the world’s source for Awesome Garden Designer 2.0 Deluxe For Windows, public “loyalty” to Windows is evaporating like spilled soda on a summer day.
This is why Microsoft made the mistake of producing an OS that carries the Windows name, looks and feels like Windows, but doesn’t actually run Windows programs — the one thing about Windows that people actually cared about. This will not end well.
Actually they made an OS that carries the Windows name and that is about it. RT doesn’t have a Windows look and feel at all. So its unfamiliar and incompatible.
Well it does have that one Windows “look and feel” application (suite) many people only really care about, MS Office. The rest of typical stuff (browsing & mail, media player, IM) can be easily picked up even by present, early efforts at Metro apps.
From the article: “Yes, Windows RT is compatible with most, but not all, of the Metro-style apps that also run on Windows 8″.
I think I’ll join the horde of confused voices: Why Windows RT would not be compatible with a Windows8-style application?
Probably because there are so many Windows programmers that cannot escape from their p/invoke addiction.
If they’d only stick to script coding or pure .NET apps it would all work fine.
But no. Too many programmers think they need just one or two things from Win32, like special list-box options or handles to other program’s windows or painting in the non-client window frame.
I think your post highlights how confusing this whole thing is, .NET is not supported on RT, I believe.
That was only true of the very first preview release. It should work fine now. Not WinForms of course, but C# and XAML.
I said this months ago and got blasted for saying it.
I knew what would happen is that the RT tablets and devices will be cheaper cause they run ARM and then when people buy them they think they will just be able to install their old Windows Apps and they wont be able to and they will be PISSED to high heaven.
Juyst to note another mysterious flop from the Microsoft side.
They created library or layer or abstraction called WinRT that was supposed to replace Win32. And then they names a version of their latest OS as Windows RT.
So WinRT is inside both Windows 8 and Windows RT
BTW WinRT is actually nothing spectacular and deep inside there is still age old Win32 and COM and other old stuff just beefed up a bit and put together is some funny way. A must read for any windows develper or anybody who is curious why Windows 8 turned out to be the way it is.
http://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt-everyth…
I think I might just have to vomit. Bad memories of my previous life as a windows developer. The sadness of the longhorn failure. IUnknown…. Its really crazy how MS built its empire on IUnknown and win95. The registry…. I Was a true believer fo a good period of time, or maybe just suffered from Stockholm syndrome. My mind just thinks so much more like Unix.
With RT and the Windows 8 UI Microsoft is taking a huge risk of angering their user base. They’ve gotten away with that before (eg Vista) but with the increased competition these days I’m not sure they will again. People have gotten used to Linux Android and iOS on their phones and tablets and may bolt from MS if MS blows this one. Could be momentous change for desktop/laptop computing
Don’t forget chromebooks. I’ve seen a lot of ads for them, and at $250 us, I’m tempted. I think they could steel a number of users. If you want a cheap web device with a keyboard… it makes a lot more sense than a nexus 7 or mini ipad or kindle.
Though Chromebooks are priced comparably to ordinary netbooks …on which you can install Chrome, and more.