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Cloud Education Microsoft Windows Hardware

Leaked Document Sheds Light On Microsoft's Chromebook Rival (windowscentral.com) 91

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Microsoft has announced plans to host an event next month where it is expected to unveil Windows 10 Cloud operating system. Microsoft will be positioning the new OS as a competitor to Chrome OS, according to several reports. Windows Central has obtained an internal document which sheds light on the kind of devices that will be running Windows 10 Cloud. The hardware requirement that Microsoft has set for third-party OEMs is as follows: 1. Quad-core (Celeron or better) processor.
2. 4GB of RAM.
3. 32GB of storage (64GB for 64-bit). 4. A battery larger than 40 WHr.
5. Fast eMMC or solid state drive (SSD) for storage technology.
6. Pen and touch (optional). The report adds that Microsoft wants these laptops to offer over 10-hour of battery life, and the "cold boot" should not take longer than 20 seconds.
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Leaked Document Sheds Light On Microsoft's Chromebook Rival More

Leaked Document Sheds Light On Microsoft's Chromebook Rival

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  • The Russians (Score:5, Funny)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Friday April 21, 2017 @11:57AM (#54277279)
    >> Leaked Document Sheds Light On Microsoft's Chromebook Rival

    The Russians did what now?

  • go Microsoft (Score:3)

    by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Friday April 21, 2017 @12:06PM (#54277365)

    Q: what do you call a stalker who waits six years before taking a step to follow target

    A: not much of a threat

    • Q: what do you call a stalker who waits six years before taking a step to follow target

      Implying that they never tried the model of a locked down OS with minimal capabilities before? Have you been living in a cave for the past 10 years?

      You're on a roll today. You've posted nothing but garbage.

    • How long did the console market exist before Microsoft brought the XBox to market? The 360 certainly gave the PS3 a run for its money.

      • MS market share declining, their chunk of the console pie is half the size of Sony's. Better than the usual Microsoft following of a trend late in the game I'll agree, though. the list of other laughable failures, too little too late, is huge

  • I'm betting they name the device the Microsoft Zunebook!

  • It will go unnoticed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bobjr94 ( 1120555 ) on Friday April 21, 2017 @12:16PM (#54277453) Homepage
    Under 20 second cold boot...My cheap Hisence chromebook will cold boot in about 6 seconds and resume in 2 seconds. The entire out of the box set-up process takes 10 seconds (google log-on & password + wifi selection) and your ready to go. Windows laptops seem to ask 20 questions at setup and need to reboot and install updates several times before first use. Also, Chromebooks don't show ads on the lockscreen or app menu, have tons of presinstalled apps you don't want and do not have a bunch of 60 day trialware programs.

    • Just not in a positive way - just for all the reasons you've mentioned and more.

    • I don't have any desire to get a Windows "Chrome" Book- we have a couple of Chromebooks at home for the kids, but I won't be getting them a Microsoft equivalent one unless it is demonstrably better.

      That said the "Under 20 second Cold Boot" isn't a goal- it's a worst case scenario. They very well might boot in 6 seconds just like a Chromebook does. Until it is released we can't know. They're saying the very worst device in this classification would have to be able to boot in 20 seconds, not the best, nor

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It may boot in 20s, but once you enter your login info you will have to wait another 30s just for the anti-virus software to load, then 5s for the Bing! toolbar, then 8s for Edge preload, then...

        • If it does all that then it can't call itself a Chromebook competitor, it's just a cheap lower-end Windows laptop, which we already have and most people pass over for Chromebooks already.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        If it is anything like the bullshit windows desktop boots, they can bugger off. Ohh, look I can see my desktop, what the hell, can't launch any applications not a one, some time latter staring at empty desktop, whilst all the delayed start services start up, ohh look, I can now actually use my desktop. M$ does so many shitty things when it comes to marketing.

        Big advantage of Chrome, all required school work apps are there ready to go free. Personally I would still go cheap Linux notebook of what ever flavo

    • Under 20 second cold boot

      As an owner of a Windows 10 tablet, the one thing I've never done to it is cold boot it, and I've certainly never waited 20 seconds from pressing a button to it coming on.

  • Price? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Frederic54 ( 3788 ) on Friday April 21, 2017 @12:21PM (#54277483) Journal

    It depends on the price, if it is ~$249 it will be nice especially if we can install a linux distro on it!

  • When I took Introduction to Computers in the early 1990's, the instructor informed us that 4GB with a 32-bit CPU was all the memory we would ever need. Back then 8- and 16-bit CPUs was quite common and RAM was in single-digit megabytes. His statement held true in my personal life until I upgraded my nine-year-old motherboard/processor/memory last year. For years I had 4GB RAM. Now I have 8GB RAM on my gaming rig and laptop, and 12GB on my file server. I think 4GB is the new 2GB.

    • I had 8GB in the PC I built 5 years ago wasn't really a problem, but I always planned to upgrade. I recently switched out the memory for faster 16GB RAM. I haven't really noticed an improvement over when I only had 8GB yet.

    • My PHONE has 4 GB of RAM..it uses 2 GB+ regularly.

      • My phone as 6GB Ram. It rarely uses more than 4, occasionally 5. But phones are funny, they prelaunch apps you use, until most of the RAM is used. Because it is less battery bringing app to the foreground, than launching it from storage. I suspect that if you had more RAM, your RAM usage would go up.

    • When I took Introduction to Computers in the early 1990's, the instructor informed us that 4GB with a 32-bit CPU was all the memory we would ever need.

      For our younger readers, back in the early 1990s home computer RAM was measured in Megabytes, and 4GB would have seemed ridiculously, almost impossibly huge.

  • Competition (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Friday April 21, 2017 @12:28PM (#54277543) Journal
    Keep in mind Microsoft would of NEVER done this had Google not had success with the Chromebook model.

  • Can I reformat the Hard Drive and install Linux? One of the reasons that I have steered away from Chromebooks, is the whole "Developer mode Wiping out the OS" thing. I will not accept a situation where I cannot install whatever I want, or have to wait 30 seconds to boot, or if I don't press Space Bar then Enter it will wipe my OS. I would only consider this if I knew I could:

    1. Disable UEFI Secure Boot, and load a Linux of my choice.
    2. Nothing would trigger it to delete my Linux install and start reinstalli

    • Your list of features is directly at odds with the goal of making a laptop that is immune to malware and brainless to administer. The whole system needs to be protected against any kind of modification by the end-user. So no, this will not meet your needs. And that's OK, because not every product needs to be for Slashdot readers to use directly. I imagine there are a lot of us whose lives have been made way easier by the broad adoption of Chromebooks, even if we don't use them ourselves.

      • The whole system needs to be protected against any kind of modification by the end-user.

        Does it? Wouldn't protecting against unintentional/inadvertent/accidental modification achieve the same thing, while still empowering those who know what they're doing?

        • The only way that would work is if there was a trivial, fool-proof way to tell if the firmware had been modified. A blinky light on the external case would probably do it... obviously the light would need to be controlled by a dedicated circuit that cannot be modified by the user. If I were administering a laptop cart full of these, I wouldn't want to have the job of periodically booting each into a bios screen - but checking for blinky lights isn't too onerous.

      • So no, this will not meet your needs. And that's OK, because not every product needs to be for Slashdot readers to use directly.

        But on the other hand there are users who DO need such product.
        If manufacturers only produce device that cater only to the most popular users, this is going to be problematic. Because nobody will produce any product that could also fill the needs of less common users.

        On the otherhand, manuacturer could produce device that could, if the user is motivated enough, be converted to the needs of more peculiar users (e.g.: how easy it is to switch on developer mode on Jolla, and older HP / Palm smartphones), you e

        • Are we talking theoretically, or are we talking practically? Because practically there are many choices out there for a cheap laptop that is capable of running arbitrary code.

          In theory, sure, there could be a product that fills a niche at the expense of other potential users - that's just not the case here.

          • Are we talking theoretically, or are we talking practically? Because practically there are many choices out there for a cheap laptop that is capable of running arbitrary code.

            Cheap : yes.
            But cheap isn't the only characteristic that attract people to chromebooks.
            The form factor is also another reason.

            And most of the "run arbitrary code, and easily install Linux on them" devices tend to be heavy clunky workstation-class laptops
            (again for obious market reasons : most linux users tend to be developers, its best to concentrate effort to create pro-laptops catering to them)

            Chrome books tend to be extremely light and thin.

            If you're on the market of a machine which doesn't break your ba

    • I've never heard of this happening with a Chromebook. There are two ways to run Linux on these boxes, either in a chroot (Crouton) or to wipe the machine and install Linux.

      For machines that just need a Linux app or two, I use Crouton. Crouton has a sweet Chrome plugin that pushes X Window frames to a browser tab. So, you can install a Linux desktop manager, and push the whole GUI desktop inside a tab. Or, you can install without a desktop manager at all, and just push the selected app inside a tab. This wor

  • In the previous /. posting, I noted my disbelief when I said that Microsoft would have to seriously change it's operating model and asked about them trying to compete against Google, which doesn't monetize the platform.

    Well, if there's a "pro" version of the Windows 10 Cloud OS, then I don't think Microsoft understands what they have to do to be successful in this space.

    • MS is hoping that some fools will decide to pay the $199, or whatever the price of the Pro upgrade is, without realizing that they still have an underpowered and now more expensive laptop.

  • In this space, you're not going to see any Kaby Lakes or massive amounts of memory or even impressive video/audio so listing the hardware doesn't mean much.

    What I'm most interested in is what will be the application infrastructure is (ie a useable version Office) as well as document distribution for classes (Google Classroom has developed into a pretty slick tool). Another question would be what Microsoft will do for a browser on the device as Edge doesn't work all that great and pages don't display the same as they do on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.

    So, what will make Microsoft's offering special/compelling against ChromeOS?

  • Schools won't want it (Score:4, Informative)

    by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Friday April 21, 2017 @01:11PM (#54277923)
    Chromebooks are successful because if one breaks you simply give the kid another. When they log in it'll quickly be their machine again. Windows is going to be to slow to repair/replace. Even the best they can do is come within 25% of Chrome's boot time. Nothing Windows is "fast". I don't expect any OEM's to use a high end quad core CPU, just Celeron J1900 and AMD 5350 types. I see no advantage to end users here. Microsoft is again grasping at straws.

    • I think you misunderstood the definition of "Windows 10 Cloud".
      i.e. it will be a minimal shell to start a browser, like Chromebooks.

      Secondly, I believe since Windows 10, it almost always hibernates the system rather than full cold boot, thus, it literally takes seconds to start up again, especially with an SSD. Perhaps even faster than chromebooks, especially if the system hibernates with no open apps.

    • Perhaps you've heard of this thing called a "Microsoft account" ? They can do the exact same shit as Google, but closed source.

  • RT, only shittier, and partially banked by selling your data.

  • 1. Quad-core (Celeron or better) processor.

    Of which generation? I guess it doesn't matter, because Celeron is ass regardless.

    2. 4GB of RAM.

    I was on 16 GB minimum 6 years ago! I understand that plebs don't need that much, but come the fuck on. If this is a "cloud" OS then it's going to involve shitty web apps gobbling up tons of RAM in a bloated browser. How could you not specify 8 GB as a minimum? It's hardly any more expensive in terms of BoM.

    3. 32GB of storage (64GB for 64-bit).

    Two fails here. First

    • This is what apollo lake is for: e403na - n4200 57Whr full sized laptop with poor, but full hd screen. Just bought it in China for $480 (Chinese VAT bites)

  • ...not more cloud shit...Can they not make a computer with the same specs as the one I got that's a decade old and not be cloud based, or are Window$ sales that bad? Micro$oft can't standardize a new architecture fast enough to force device sales, so they get you with a platform they have complete control over ($$$). $400 (just guessing) for 4 GB of RAM, 16-32GB is hard drive, and 1.2 Gz is not worth it in 2017. You're better off making a desktop, maybe a laptop (it'd be big), from a Raspberry Pi cluster.
  • They "leak" them on purpose to see what the public opinion is rather than just being honest about it so they can claim "it's not true" when things look bad and Apple and Google patent hunters don't get more ammunition against them. Heaven forbid they taste their own medicine.

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