Acer: Microsoft Surface 'Negative For The Whole PC Industry' 360
Shortly after Microsoft announced its upcoming Surface tablet, there was speculation that it might sour the company's relationships with OEM partners. Statements from an Acer spokesperson indicate that's definitely the case. The spokesperson told Bloomberg, "On one hand Microsoft is our partner, but on the other, Microsoft’s move makes them compete not only with us but all PC makers. We think that Microsoft’s launch of its own-brand products is negative for the whole PC industry." The company is reportedly considering whether or not they want to keep relying on Microsoft's software products.
I didn't know Acer still made computers (Score:3, Insightful)
Most hardware vendors are Microsoft's bitch, and they have NO ONE to blame but themselves. They've been loving this relationship with them. I don't think PC manufactures can do anything.
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I wonder how many people at ACER have apple products. The fact is, these companies cant make good devices so the software companies have to start doing it. I don't blame MS one bit.
They have been doing the same thing since 1980's (Score:5, Interesting)
No matter it's Acer or ASUS or Dell or HP, their "PC" and "Laptop" business hadn't had any significant upheaval since the 1980's.
The original IBM PC, and IBM's decision to (sort of) "open-source" the hardware design was the one thing that gave birth to all these companies (except for HP).
And ever since that happened, in the 1980's, these companies had been doing the-same-old-thing and for once, I'm glad that Microsoft decides to manufacture and market their own "Surface" - for no other reason than to shake up the entire "PC business".
We, the users, deserve much better devices.
For almost 40 years we are stuck with the same-old-thing (tablets and smartphones only enter the field not that long ago) and I hope that this shakeup will bring us more diversed devices, to make our lives more productive, more enjoying
Uh... what? (Score:3)
Asus makes pretty good stuff, but go to their website to download drivers. They don't really stay up to date on that do they? Sure, they show a product love for a few weeks after you buy it, but it's just too much work to have a script file which says "All laptops using NVidia chips should get the new NVidia driver when we
Re:They have been doing the same thing since 1980' (Score:4, Insightful)
How to get quality software to Linux. There is tons of it now, but not for the consumer.
Not for the enterprise consumer, but for anything anyone needs a computer at home for, Linux has more than enough software for anyone's needs.
GiMP is not Photoshop
True, but photoshop isn't for the home market, the damned program costs as much or more than the computer it's running on. Most non-professionals using photoshop are using a pirate version. There's no need to spend $700 to edit the photos you shot with your cell phone.
There is no real possibility of editing video.
Google says you're wrong. [google.com]
Open/Libre Office is not, for the average consumer, an alternative to MS Office.
What does the average user need an office suite for? Writing grandma, cropping photos, balancing the checkbook. Oo is perfectly capabe of doing anything the average non-enterprise user needs. Why would a home user spend a couple hundred dollars on a program they would seldom use?
The overall experience is not particularly high quality (I use Linux every day, it isn't).
Then you're running the wrong distro; I see that here often. One fellow was saying last week that he couldn't play MP3s on his Linux machine, well DUH, he was running Red Hat. You don't use a server OS for a desktop client, you use the right tool for the job. There is no "Linux", there are a LOT of Linuxes. I'm running kubuntu, and it's not as pretty as Windows 7 (I have that on a notebook) but otherwise it's superior in every way to Windows.
If Linux lacks quality, why do you use it every day? I call bullshit, friend. If Linux wasn't better than Windows, nobody would use Linux because the computer already has an OS when they buy it.
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Crappy products and performance of Acer and the like has had even more negative effect on the whole Windows (and PC) ecosystem.
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Pot Calling The Kettle A Racist Word (Score:3, Insightful)
If anyone is bad for the PC industry its Acer. Short of those $70 netbooks you find on Craigslist, Acer is the bottom of the barrel.
Re:Pot Calling The Kettle A Racist Word (Score:4, Interesting)
I have owned a couple of Acer laptops over the years and they were great bang for buck. They were cheap and broke down, but by then I wanted an upgrade anyway. Buying a higher end machine would have still been out of date, I would still want to update, and the resale value would not pay back the difference I initially paid...
Re:Pot Calling The Kettle A Racist Word (Score:5, Informative)
I have owned a couple of Acer laptops over the years and they were great bang for buck. They were cheap and broke down, but by then I wanted an upgrade anyway. Buying a higher end machine would have still been out of date, I would still want to update, and the resale value would not pay back the difference I initially paid...
I've got an Acer laptop and will never buy from Acer again.
It kills batteries - after only a year their capacity is significantly degraded. But Acer considers batteries "consumables" so the fact that the charger in the laptop kills them isn't covered by the warranty.
They flatly refused to refund my Windows licence fee (first thing I did when I got the machine was wipe Windows since I have no use for it). Not that long after they did this a French court ruled that they weren't allowed to decline to refund the Windows licence so I guess I should've tried again.
The machine has a DSDT bug, which I reported to them, then I wrote a DSDT patch and sent that to them too in the hope that they might release a new BIOS for the machine to correct it. They won't even acknowledge my emails any more: http://www.nexusuk.org/~steve/acer.xhtml [nexusuk.org]
I find the hardware largely ok, but their complete refusal to provide any kind of after-sales support, even for design defects, would stop me buying from them again.
Re:Pot Calling The Kettle A Racist Word (Score:4, Interesting)
My first prebuilt system was an Acer running Win95b from Walmart. Yes it didn't have the LEET hardware that was being offered in Computer Shopper but it sure as hell worked for what it was bought for. Over the years, I've owned several pieces of Acer kit and have been pretty satisfied with the quality so more then likely I'd buy again.
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2013 (Score:4, Funny)
Is the year of the linux desktop!
Re:2013 (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not so sure. According to MS, it will be the year of the notebook with a stand to keep the screen from falling flat on the table.
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Re:2013 (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact in this market MS should be happy if everyone starts using non-MS OS. Look at the facts. Samsung is paying MS at least a half million dollars a year for the right to use Android. OTOH, MS has to pay Nokia $250 million to use MS phone OS. Which is better for MS?
Back in 200 when Apple showed that *nix could be used as the basis for a Desktop OS, I thought some of the major MS partners might go this route and develop a consortium to create a desktop OS for PC users, using emulation such as we see with WINE. Of course they were happy sucking the teats of MS and making the easy money. It would have been too much work for them to develop and innovative product.
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Has Google given up on Chrome OS yet? Just curious - it's been quiet for a while in that dept. Maybe x86 Android some day?
(Yes I know they both use the Linux kernel, but they aren't a Linux Desktop in the usual sense)
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Back in 200 when Apple showed that *nix could be used as the basis for a Desktop OS, I thought some of the major MS partners might go this route and develop a consortium to create a desktop OS for PC users, using emulation such as we see with WINE. Of course they were happy sucking the teats of MS and making the easy money. It would have been too much work for them to develop and innovative product.
Aren't you forgetting the small fact that any OEM that tried that would quickly be Microsoft's least favorite OEM? Now on the other hand, if there's going to be war they have little to lose by returning a few punches.
Re:2013 (Score:4, Insightful)
They are run by lawyers that picked up bad habits from gangsters and don't care who knows it.
Re:2013 (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually thats true. In the post-pc computing era 2013 is the year when Android will have sold more copies then Windows 7. With the post-pc era I'm talking about pc, smartphones and pads merged into one market for computers.
Currently the linux distrubution Android is outselling Windows 7 with about 50%. By the end of 2013 Android will have delivered
more units then Windows 7. In the longer run - with the current sales continuing - we are looking into future a situation where about 3 of 5 of the post pc era computors will be running a linux kernel and most of the others splitting with running Windows and iOS.
Well, unless the linux kernel distributions penetration and market share of sales goes up even more of course.
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A little reality check:
Most folks who are getting those smartphones are updating their phones every 2-3 years when their contract runs out with their carrier.
Most folks continue to use the same PC for 5+ years before upgrading.
So the larger Android output is very much tenuated by the devices far higher churn rate.
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Currently the linux distrubution Android is outselling Windows 7 with about 50%.
No it's not. Microsoft sells more than 300 million licenses a year to Windows 7. Even at the 700,000 a day Android activations (assuming each are a unique sale) that is still less than all the license sales in a year.
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So? (Score:2)
Of course they don't want to rely on microsoft, that was a stupid position to get themselves into in the first place. NEVER rely on a single source for anything of any importance!
MS isn't going to hurt the industry as a whole, only the OEMs since it wont reduce sales, just shift them. There's not a lot the OEMs can do about it, they need MS and MS don't need them.
MS can treat the OEMs however they like and they will still keep lapping up whatever scraps they are fed because they have no choice now.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they don't want to rely on microsoft, that was a stupid position to get themselves into in the first place.
Acer already makes a line of Android tablets. If those were selling brilliantly, we wouldn't see Acer voicing any concerns. But they're not selling, and Acer isn't keen they were left out of the initial group (Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung) to build Windows RT tablets, selected by Microsoft. It's no wonder Acer was left off the list, given the crappy hardware they produce.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Acer already makes a line of Android tablets.
There are more products available for Acer to manufacture than Android tablets and Windows PCs. They're heavy in the personal computing sector but in addition to owning the largest franchise retail chain in Taipei, they also make storage devices, displays, smartphones, projectors, televisions, and peripherals none of which are dependent on Microsoft's goodwill. In 2011 they only pulled in 200 million on 16 billion in revenue so PC sales are almost certainly not making them a ton of money anyway. They're in a tough spot but it isn't all doom and gloom even if they do stop making PCs.
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MS isn't going to hurt the industry as a whole, only the OEMs since it wont reduce sales, just shift them. There's not a lot the OEMs can do about it, they need MS and MS don't need them.
MS can treat the OEMs however they like and they will still keep lapping up whatever scraps they are fed because they have no choice now.
I think you underestimate the importance the IBM-PC clones [wikipedia.org] has had on MS Window dominance (and on the ascent of the Open Source as well).
MS reaction (why am I not surprised?) is "me too", trying to walk Apple's way, but without the perception of "cool, trendy, fashionable" Apple has - so MS has something to lose by reducing the impact surface on its market, especially if it walks in the "hardware exclusivity" area (look [guardian.co.uk] how well XBox does - with "unexpected losses" April this year).
On the other side, the
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How about this scenario....
- Tablets are seen as a content consumption device that doesn't really work for Work or creating said content.
- People still want a "real" laptop/desktop and don't want to pay for a touch screen
- Windows 8 flops like a dead fish (yeah, I know it is a mixed metaphor, but it is kind of visual...)
- Developers, Developers, Developers start writing and porting software to Apple and then Linux, as they are the most desired platforms for a Desktop (Read not a tablet)
- Since Linux is easi
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- And then gnome developers f**k it up more than it is now and everyone moves back to Windows 9
What's wrong in starting with LXDE at the "People still want a real desktop" step?
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If it didn't work during the Vista fail why would it work now?
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but without the perception of "cool, trendy, fashionable" Apple has
That ship sailed long ago, the most common smartphone is the iphone, the most common tablet is the ipad...apple are the new microsoft, the defacto choice but with a bit more lockdown. Not saying they're bad or anything but they aren't "cool, trendy or fashionable" anymore, they are the average.
Even worse situation for MS in a "me too" approach.
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Nope. The most common smartphone is an Android. Apple still has the lead in tablets but that probably won't last long either.
This is the "we have more marketshare than Dell, therefore we dominate the entire market" fallacy.
Whether or not they want to keep relying on MS? (Score:2)
As if their gonad piercings aren't chained directly to MS? Please. Give me a break. What are they going to do, install Linux? License OSX from Apple? That'll last as long as the first grandma trying to open a forwarded power point file.
Re:Whether or not they want to keep relying on MS? (Score:5, Interesting)
If only IBM had a solution (Score:3)
Time to bring back OS/2!
Mass revolt against MS? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, we have:
- Dell (project Sputnik. Partners with Canonical to sell Linux PCs)
- Valve (Steam for Linux)
- Blizzard (only blasted Windows 8, not announced their contingency plan yet)
- Mozilla (Windows 8 revives the IE browser lockin)
and now Acer
how can you not take the "think twice" line as a threat of defection
Re:Mass revolt against MS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dell has already sold several different consumer grade systems pre-loaded with Ubuntu, but never with much publicity (/. notwithstanding) and therefore not in significant numbers. These efforts have also not lasted too long. This time may be different, but first let's see if they actually release it, at this point it's still vaporware.
Valve is a big deal for Linux, but they haven't said they would stop supporting Windows, so to MS it's not an immediate danger. Sure, some people may no longer need to boot into Windows as often, and a few may remove it entirely from their systems, but I highly doubt it will lead to a big decrease in Windows licenses sold.
As you said, Blizzard has not publicized any plans for a possible strategy shift as Valve has.
Mozilla is an obvious anti-MS, Firefox was started in part to restore open standards on the web, IOW, to loosen IE's iron grip on the web.
Don't get me wrong, as a longtime Linux-only user, nothing would please me more than my favorite OS getting some much needed attention from important software and hardware companies, especially at the expense of MS and/or Apple. I just don't think it will happen any time soon. Look at LibreOffice, it's free and roughly equivalent to MS Office for the average non-professional user, but it has yet to gain any kind of significant traction. And as long as MS has a hold on Office, Windows will be around.
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One thing to keep in mind is that the included crapplets lower the price of the hardware itself by subsidizing it. That keeps them competitive with other OEM's.
Even if the crapplets were removed, I'd probably still reformat new computers before I do anything else anyways. When I buy laptops, the first time I boot the computer is to a thumb drive that has the windows 7 installer on it. May as well take advantage of the cheaper price.
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Add to that:
* Asus (Making x86 and ARM tablets running Android - they've been doing PCs for years)
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Recall the Linux on netbook failure for evidence.
Didn't Microsoft have to start giving Windows to netbook OEMs for free so they'd stop shipping Linux?
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They certainly offered special XP home licenses for netbooks after regular XP home licenses became unavailable. I don't think it's publicly known how much (if anything) the OEMs paid for said licenses though.
And OEM's alternatives are... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where are they going to go?
Option A) Yes, they could just pick a Linux distro and run with it. But now they're a software company, and they don't want that. Most of these things are publicly traded, and they don't have margin to do a year of no profits while they spin up of a new division without getting killed in the markets.
Or option B) they bitch a little and keep selling Windows.
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Option C) Keep selling windows, but partner with a Linux distributor as a back up plan. Canonical would be a good candidate for such a partnership.
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RedHat's main product, RHEL, is not a good choice for a consumer product. Great for servers though, where it can already be bought pre-loaded from a variety of different manufacturers.
Fedora could be a candidate, but is generally too flaky for mass deployment, and there are no support contracts available for it. RedHat would have to be convinced to get back into the consumer Linux market, something which they have explicitly avoided for a number of years now.
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Eh, I like Debian better myself, but the pointy-haired types like the feeling of security that comes with the support package. Also, some server hardware requires it.
It does the job well though, in my experience it has been solid and stable.
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If MS goes 100% propritary someday and cuts the OEMs out alltogether, they will have to jump at some point. Here is the problem.
Pioneers take all the arrows.
The second Mouse gets the cheese.
If they jump to soon, they take the brunt of the transition and will likely go out of business. If they jump to late, they will have to much debt from not leaving the party sooner. By that point switching won't matter.
I think everyone sees the hand wirting on the wall. They just want somone else to come up with a viable
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I'm sure that with just a little support from the manufacturer Canonical will be happy to make Ubuntu run well on their machines.
While OTOH right now I'm trying to make this TimeLineX behave.
There's some very good deals on Sandy Bridge TimeLineX out there at WalMart, TigerDirect and probably all the other usual suspects too. They're probably cleaning out inventory to launch Ivy Bridge. I was looking to replace a netbook but found that real 14" SB laptops are about the same price and generally cheaper than a
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I'm sure that with just a little support from the manufacturer Canonical will be happy to make Ubuntu run well on their machines.
I think that between Canonical, Google, Ubuntu, ChromeOS, Android and some pissed off former PC OEMs there's a market in there somewhere. Of course this could all be a ploy by Acer like what happened when MS bent over and started selling XP for 15 dollars a copy for netbooks when Linux got a little too close to the castle gates for comfort.
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Literally aybody else (Score:2)
Wa wa (Score:2)
Stop your crying and focus on your products.
I used to love Acer back in the 1990s as they had quality products. My CRT 19 inch screen lasted until a few years ago and the color quality and craftmenship was amazing. Today?
They are not the same company. I needed a 2nd source of income a few years ago and worked at an office store. Guess which machines had BSOD on display even! Acer. Guess which ones were always returned? Acer. Guess who has no tablet presence? ACER
Samsung and Asus kicked your ass whil
Acer seems a little sour (Score:4, Interesting)
Source: http://www.unwiredview.com/2012/07/24/asus-lenovo-toshiba-samsung-to-launch-windows-rt-tablets-this-year-others-await-microsofts-permission-in-january/ [unwiredview.com]
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Seems like sour grapes to me. Microsoft picked Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba, and Samsung to launch Windows RT tablets (they also picked HP, but HP declined, and decided to focus on x86 tablets instead). Acer is not on that list, so these words are no surprise. You don't hear any of those companies selected speaking out against the Surface.
Don't worry, you will hear from them if (once?) Surface starts outselling their tablets.
Hi, consumer here (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear Acer ( and everyone else ):
Please give me what I want at a price point I want it at, and I will buy your product. I have no loyalty to any specific vendor, indeed, why would anyone show brand loyalty?
If it works and it's cost effective, I'll buy it. Maybe you should try competing against MS on those grounds. Us consumers would appreciate that, i think.
Sincerely, me.
Re:Hi, consumer here (Score:4, Funny)
"I have no loyalty to any specific vendor, indeed, why would anyone show brand loyalty?"
In related news, Apple Inc. PR released the following statement: "BWAHAHAHAHAHA BWAAAAHAHAHAAA BWAHAHAHA"
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Sales of Mac clones in the past show that even fanbois have financial limits.
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I have no loyalty to any specific vendor, indeed, why would anyone show brand loyalty?
Brand loyalty arises when you interact with a company, and they give you a positive experience whether through sales, support, returns, customer service, etc. If I have a positive experience with a company, I will probably purchase from them again, 1) as a reward for their good support ant 2) because I want that good support again, and d
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Brand loyalty arises when you interact with a company, and they give you a positive experience whether through sales, support, returns, customer service, etc.
I think you're absolutely correct about that, and Microsoft's strategy here might be more about the support & customer service channels than just the shiny hardware. On slashdot, we may mock the "Genius Bar", but Apple absolutely owns the "Geek Squad" in terms of support experience for the average user. Of course, there's only a handful of Microsoft Stores right now, but that will probably change quickly.
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Dear Acer,
And I forgot, please do not give me any lock-in, walled gardens, crystal prisons, DRM, UEFI or any of that crap the other vendors try to shove up my rear end.
Thanks!
Me
Cue the apologists (Score:5, Insightful)
You will get a ton of MS apologists on this story telling us how the PC makers have "failed" Microsoft and how MS had no choice but to blaze the trail. This is bullshit. When Windows Vista and 7 were both released we were assured by MS and their hangers on that it was finally touch friendly and anyone that argued that it was just the same old crap was shouted down in comment forums all over the internet. When sane people pointed out the fact that even if you could manage to put up with desktop Windows on a touch screen you still had to put up with the heat and bulk of the x86 chipsets available they also were shouted down. The funny thing was that despite the echoing chorus that Windows was tablet ready, Windows tablet after tablet bombed. Ballmer in a case of extraordinary egg on face even headlined CES with another HP tablet dud. Where is it now?
Then something strange happened. Another company took an idea that MS had failed to execute on for a decade and ran away with the market completely. And now we hear that MS is coming out with its own gear because somehow the OEMs have failed. No. Microsoft failed the OEMs. How were they supposed to compete with the iPad with fucking Windows 7 on a sawed-off netbook? Get fucking real. Of course this wouldn't even be an issue if the internet echo chamber weren't once again running to MS' defense and pointing the finger everywhere but at where it belongs. MS has failed their partners. Fortunately for Acer et al, Surface in both its incarnations is fundamentally flawed. It doesn't know if it's an ultrabook or a tablet. Windows 8 is some kind of weird FrankenOS that doesn't know what it wants to be and WinRT is as sure a dud against the iPad as any number of $79 tablets hanging in blister packs in Walgreens.
So fear not, dear Acer but have fun posturing. MS has failed you before and they are failing themselves now.
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And now we hear that MS is coming out with its own gear because somehow the OEMs have failed. No. Microsoft failed the OEMs.
You're not hearing this from MS -- you're hearing this from random people on the internet. Where OEMs have failed MS is in the quality of the hardware they put out, and the crap they pre-install.
I suspect MS needed to make Surface PCs because they needed an iPad competitor and they alone had the bucks and design chops to pull it off. The OEMs are busy working on Android tablets. Left to the OEMs they would take an Android tablet design and re-purpose it for windows. That basically means no differentiation
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Re:Cue the apologists (Score:5, Insightful)
When Windows Vista and 7 were both released we were assured by MS and their hangers on that it was finally touch friendly and anyone that argued that it was just the same old crap was shouted down in comment forums all over the internet. When sane people pointed out the fact that even if you could manage to put up with desktop Windows on a touch screen you still had to put up with the heat and bulk of the x86 chipsets available they also were shouted down.
I think you're remembering wrong. Windows tablets have always been laughed at on this and many other tech forums. I should know since I argued for them back them, having used one daily through my college career, and I was the one constantly being shouted down. I still maintain for specialized use cases, pen and finger input was ideal and something you didn't have from any other manufacturer or OS vendor at the time. But that's where the problem was: MS and all OEMs saw Tablet PCs as niche systems meant for business, and they marketed and priced them that way. Since they lacked the audience, they lacked the apps. Apple saw tablets as consumption devices for the consumer, and they won that side of the bet, for pretty obvious reasons (size, price, usability).
So you'll forgive me if I don't seem to remember this history you're painting where forum nerds everywhere rushed to the defense of Tablet PCs. It was really quite the opposite.
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Remember the netbook ? The ones that ran Linux ? The ones that was a huge sucess with screen sizes of 7 and 9 inches ?
Then Microsoft came and got everyone to agree that a netbook has to have a 10 inch screen. And it killed netbook making them
small cheap notebooks. Now the pads is the netbook option once more and without a keyboard.
So everyone could have seen this coming - if they bothered to look and see what it was that got the consumer to fuss about the smaller 7 and 9 inch netbooks.
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But that's where the problem was: MS and all OEMs saw Tablet PCs as niche systems meant for business, and they marketed and priced them that way. Since they lacked the audience, they lacked the apps. Apple saw tablets as consumption devices for the consumer, and they won that side of the bet, for pretty obvious reasons (size, price, usability).
I think it might have been the other way around, to get the necessary touchscreen and horsepower it ended up in a business class price. Remember back in 2002 when Microsoft launched their first tablet desktops were still outselling laptops 3:1 and both were pricey while your phone was dumb as fuck. That your average consumer would buy a tablet as a second computer was unthinkable. Today it's a whole different ballgame when you can get the trifecta of a smartphone, tablet and laptop for under a grand. An and
Gotta Love Press Releases (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really a negative "for the whole PC industry" or just a negative for Acer and the other OEM partners?
And do what? Write their own OS and take on Microsoft head-to-head? Release only products with Linux on them? I love Linux, but let's be realistic. Acer obviously isn't happy about Microsoft's entry into the hardware side of tablets, but they have few other options, so they will whine about it and continue selling Microsoft products all the while.
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And replace it with what? (Score:2)
The best open source office suite is a decade behind MS, the best linux distro is still a headache for nerds let alone normal people, tons of peripherals like printers act pants on head retarded or flat out crash the print server, and never mind you cant even force people from XP to a newer version of windows let alone something that's going to break all their shit.
so seriously
"The company is reportedly considering whether or not they want to keep relying on Microsoft's software products."
What are you going
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The best open source office suite is a decade behind MS, the best linux distro is still a headache for nerds let alone normal people, tons of peripherals like printers act pants on head retarded or flat out crash the print server, and never mind you cant even force people from XP to a newer version of windows let alone something that's going to break all their shit.
As unthinkable as it once seemed, a consumer computing product has set a precedent for an alternative to what MS offers. I'm not saying the iPad would suffice as a full-time replacement for a laptop for most people but it doesn't do any of the things you mentioned yet many people use them a lot more than their Windows computers. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch for people to just simply not upgrade their laptops and start buying alternative OS devices.
What are you going to replace it with, that wont drive away normal, average, everyday customers?
Little crappy Linpus gave Microsoft the devil for
OEMs need not worry (Score:2)
MS is making their own Windows8 driven tablets, huh?
If I were an OEM, I'd just passively ignore that for a time. Win8 might be passably usable on a tablet, but does anyone think MS can take any significant marketshare from the iPad? Besides that, tablets as consumer devices are bound to fail, present hype notwithstanding.
But when my OEM Windows distribution contract comes up for renewal, I'd demand that I can put whatever OS i want on any of my hardware, since MS decided to compete with me directly by mak
They should be talking to Valve (Score:2)
If I was Acer, I'd be very quietly talking to Valve right now. Valve's recent Linux investments look like one of the first serious efforts to completely streamline the Linux hardware experience. If they can finally be the ones to kick the video/sound compatibility and performance problems, even to an Apple style 'this hardware approved' level it would make them an interesting partner for a hardware vendor. If Acer spends the next twelve months on a very heavy and quiet investment into something like OpenOff
Lesson to be learned... (Score:3)
When you don't own your stack, your 'partner' can quickly become your competitor. Google has a long way to go to get there, but maybe a decade from now partners in Android may find themselves in an awkward position too. It is always possible to take the platform and go home if Google goes against your interests, but the result is fragmentation.
Of course, the challenge would be for all the vendors to competently participate in an endeavor like Debian (i.e. a project that while coherent with neutral governance with a nearly zero chance of *ever* getting the ambition to compete commercially with current-day 'partners'), which seems unlikely.
Well of course it is, and it's Acer's fault (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft gave Acer the last three years to come up with a consumer tablet. And Acer didn't. Sure they made one or two, but those weren't anything ipad-competitive, and Acer didn't market them at all.
So after this many years of the iPad being basically the only marketed tablet, I can respect Microsoft's choice to step up. . .since no one else seems willing to do so.
And yes, in order to do so itself, microsoft needs to make the entire solution, and market the entire solution, and take all of the risk, and force the start screen, and everything else that may be required to compete with the iPad.
And if those tablets are relatively successful, Microsoft will turn it back to Acer-like partners. And if those tablets are very successful, Microsoft will rightfully keep things for itself. And if they fail entirely, then Acer will be right.
It's that simple.
So next time, Acer, try to actually innovate products yourself, instead of yelling at those who try. And stop complaining when someone steps forward to do something that you specifically avoided doing yourself.
Re:Well of course it is, and it's Acer's fault (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft gave Acer the last three years to come up with a consumer tablet. And Acer didn't.
How did Acer have three years to come up with a tablet for Microsoft with no OS from them to run on it? Windows 7 on a tablet in the face of the iPad is doomed. What good would throwing money down a hole, e.g., marketing something like that against the iPad have done?
So after this many years of the iPad being basically the only marketed tablet, I can respect Microsoft's choice to step up. . .since no one else seems willing to do so.
Microsoft are "stepping up" because they think they have something now that actually has a chance. How do you expect Acer would have gotten Windows 8 from 2 years ago? A time machine?
And if those tablets are relatively successful, Microsoft will turn it back to Acer-like partners.
Do you think Acer won't be making Windows 8 tablets from day one? They are locked out of WinRT tablets but that doesn't have anything to do with the x86 version. There is nothing for MS to "turn over" unless you are referring to the aforementioned WinRT stuff and if you think that's going to do anything against the iPad you need to ask HP who refused to even try to compete with ARM Windows because they know better.
So next time, Acer, try to actually innovate products yourself, instead of yelling at those who try. And stop complaining when someone steps forward to do something that you specifically avoided doing yourself.
Again, how the hell was Acer supposed to make a touch screen Windows and accompanying ecosystem? Steal the source code and work on it themselves? None of what you are saying makes a lick of sense.
And if you try to come back talking about their Android efforts I'm going to laugh at you as you led with "MS gave Acer three years" which doesn't have a good goddamned thing to do with Android.
MS wants to destroy the Intel/AMD desktop PC (Score:5, Interesting)
The following may come across as paranoid, but here goes. This is what I think Microsoft's plan is. I'm not guranteeing it'll succeed, but it's what they want.
* MS has not been able to beat linux in the server room. There's a lot of big bucks in corporate software.
* The problem is that PC's are open architecture, and MS can't stop corporations from running linux on a PC.
* They'd love to follow the Sony game console example and lock out other operating systems from Intel/AMD hardware, but they would run into anti-trust problems. The most they can do is ask OEM's to default to signed UEFI boot on motherboards, with a "legacy boot" option available in the machine setup.
* However, on the ARM platform "everybody does it", so MS has no anti-trust problems demanding that ARM Windows machines be signed UEFI boot only.
* So they bring out Windows 8, which will be deliberately horrible on desktops, but optimized for tablets.
* Tablet sales will take off, and "economies of scale" will kick in, pushing prices down. PC Desktop sales will crash and "economies of scale" will disappear. The price of an Intel/AMD "workstation" will shoot up to $4 K or thereabouts.
* Most people who need a desktop will find it cheaper to emulate a "desktop" by plugging in an external monitor/keyboard/mouse to an ARM tablet.
* Since the ARM Windows tablets will be locked down with signed UEFI boot only, they can't be re-purposed as linux machines.
* MS will probably also set up their machines so that apps can only be bought from an app store where they charge a fee for each app loaded. Good-bye OpenOffice for Windows, etc.
* Don't be surprised if MS follows Sony's example, and lobbies to get unlocked ARM PC's outlawed.
Somewhere, former US senator Fritz Hollings will be smiling.
don't like it (Score:2)
Than try selling linux systems. Seriously Apple has done this since day one. They are usually called beautifully designed, innovative etc etc. Not saying MS is likely to match Apple in design but as long as MS continues to make most of their money on selling software their is no worries of them having a product of their own. It just might be the next Zune.
Stop Whining. Start Competing. (Score:3)
If you want to beat Surface. Make a better tablet. Make it as thin or thinner, or make it cheaper, or target a different market (7in tablet for Windows 8)
Frankly, Surface is what WIndows 8 Tablet needs. It's a well designed thin and light desktop replacement tablet, and If it's under $1000 it'll fly off shelves.
As for Windows RT Surface. I'm pretty sure MS is making that cause not one OEM wants to touch RT with a 10 foot pole. A Crippled Windows 8 lookalike of Windows Phone 8 is just going to piss off consumers.
Re:It's a great move. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft NEEDS to make their own hardware.
That just shows how badly distorted the PC market is.
The OS is just one component of a computer. Microsoft should be just one parts vendor amongst many, then we'd see real competition and innovation.
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only way to get that is a walled garden.. do not want...
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> I don't know, there's something to be said for a standardized platform to ensure your software and hardware can all work together.
So that's why my Minis are doorstops when it comes to casual gaming and why Mac Pros that are still very powerful aren't supported by the current version of MacOS.
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I've been thinking it for a long time. Microsoft NEEDS to make their own hardware. They NEED the bubbled off environment that lets them make a good product. They NEED to stop trying to build for the lowest common denominator. Apple has been doing this for a long while now.
Maybe they NEED to do it... but I bet they won't succeed (Apples success is not an indicator for MS chances).
Second: don't tell me the shitload of "security updates" MS OS-es needed in the past was caused by the diversity of the hardware they were supporting (I don't know how many updates are needed nowadays, the last Windows OS I used was XP).
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Apple devices are so easy to use that anyone who has trouble with them must be utterly stupid - or at least, people think so. Therefore, people who have trouble with them wisely stay quiet and try harder.
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I've been thinking it for a long time. Microsoft NEEDS to make their own hardware. They NEED the bubbled off environment that lets them make a good product. They NEED to stop trying to build for the lowest common denominator.
So let me get this straight. First of all, the only way MS has a chance of dictating the Windows hardware market to any serious degree is if they cut the OEMs off. So assuming that's what you are talking about, you're saying that MS needs to just cut off all the hardware makers, come out with their own expensive high-quality designs and then just like that everybody's going to start paying those prices and MS rides off into the sunset with the cash. Pardon me.
BWAHAHAHAHahahahahah....hahahahahaha....
Oka
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Now, if MS were to create and enforce higher standards, you may see better overall quality start to emerge.
That's what they are doing now, setting strict hardware requirements for their new products so you don't end up with legitimate crappy low end devices like some of the cheap Android tablets and you only end up with decent performing ones (like the Google-branded Android tablets).
MS will still be at a disadvantage in terms of complexity as they will continue to support nearly infinite hardware configurations with their OS, with lost of legacy support built in as well.
With Windows 8 yes, but the break from that is Windows RT (though at this time i'm not sure i see that product appealing to many people).
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Google makes Android hardware, why isn't anyone complaining about that?
Because Google don't have an established history of wiping out their 'partners'?
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Google doesn't make any hardware. HTC manufactured the Nexus One. Samsung manufactered the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus. Asus manufactered the Nexus 7.
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Google makes Android hardware, why isn't anyone complaining about that?
Because Google has made their intentions clear in regards to Motorola and apparently their OEMs have faith that they will live up to their words. They've said Moto gets operated like a separate company and gets no special favors. They aren't worried about Moto getting early builds of Android as Google has agreed to give all the OEMs early builds in the upcoming months to a new release starting with the post Jellybean version. As far as the Nexus devices, Asus is making a lot more money off of the Nexus 7
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yeah, but then desktop pcs will go up in price.. way up.. out of the reach of most of us.
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Oh please, just stop with the FUD. You can buy a fairly powerful desktop for $500, the same price as a 'high end' tablet.
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...today. When those parts are available in volume. It wasn't very long ago that a "fairly powerful" desktop cost over a grand.
Sure, today's $500 PC is way more powerful than eight years' ago $1000 PC, but there's nothing to say that desktop components will continue to be cheap and available as they are today.
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In the current price driven OEM market, using the cheapest components and shipping paid junkware is competing.
Competing on price rather than quality is still competing. Anyway competing on quality hasn't seemed to have worked out that well for PC OEMs overall either.
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If only the surface had been released 20-25 years ago, everything would be much better today.
Er, if by much better you mean we'd all be running BeOS on affordable commodity hardware then, well, I guess...