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Feb. 6th, 2012
What Windows 8 is all about
Feb. 6th, 2012 05:15 pmIt took me a while to work out what Microsoft were up to with Windows 8. I think I've got there, but to work it out I had to go back to the heady days of the browser wars...
Flash back to the heady days of the late 90s, when multiple web browsers vied to dominate the web - Netscape desperate to turn the browser into the user's portal to the world, the only piece of software they really cared about, Microsoft desperate to keep people tied to Windows and happy to keep throwing money at Internet Explorer until it controlled the market and people didn't build pages "for the web" they built them to work on Internet Explorer, leaving them tied to Windows*.
Microsoft was eventually investigated for unlawfully leveraging its operating system monopoly into trying to control the browser market, and while it was distracted a new set of browsers came along - Netscape Navigator turned into Firefox, Google launched Chrome, and we're now getting to the point where many people _can_ get by with web apps for most of the things they want to do**.
Which brings us back to today, and the latest threat to Microsoft's dominance - smartphones and tablets. Microsoft have actually had tablets for ages, but they were basically laptops whose screens folded over, (a) making them large and bulky and (b) running Windows, which wasn't much fun with a stylus, let alone using your finger to jab at things. They've had phones for ages, but they've been awful for years, outclassed by Symbian phones running s60 and Blackberry devices, and then made wholly obsolete with the coming of the iPhone and Android. When they launched Windows Mobile 6.5 in 2009 I think the general reaction was a massive shrug of disbelief that Microsoft were still bothering.
Which, as mobile devices now outsell desktops/laptops leaves Microsoft with a massive threat. If people can do most of what they want through a tablet*** then why would they buy one of those boxes that gives Microsoft a cut?
Windows Phone 7 was generally well received by the press - the interface is supposed to be very nice, and they've generally had good reviews. The problem is that nobody cares, and nobody**** is buying it. Personally, I think the reason for this is simple. Buying a new phone is _scary_. Nobody wants to spend a small fortune on a phone (or tie themselves in for a two year contract) and then discover that it's rubbish. And so they copy the tastemakers. And for mobile phones there are two groups of those: The fashion people, who will tell them to buy an iPhone, or the geeks, who will tell them to buy an Android (or possibly an iPhone). If you ask either of these groups if you should buy a Microsoft product then the answer will be "Hahahahahaha. No."
This is partially because there's no unique selling point for a Windows Phone. The iPhone has that "It was made by Steve Jobs and oozes sexiness,with millions of apps" thing going for it. Android has that "You can install any piece of software you like on it, or even write your own without paying cash to anyone, with nearly as many apps" thing going for it*****. Windows Phone is largely as locked down as the iPhone, doesn't have nearly as many apps available, and (most importantly) nobody you know has one, so how would you know if it was any good?
This leaves MS in a situation where it knows that the future is mobile, it wants to be part of that, it has a good system it can sell, and it can't persuade anyone to try it. And even if it could, chances are they've already bought a bunch of apps for their existing iPhone/Android, so they don't want to switch.
Windows 8 is their solution to this problem. They've put a whole bunch of work into all of the familliar stuff - networking's had an overhaul, the process manager seems nicer, Windows Explorer is a little spiffier - by the looks of things it's nearly as much an improvement in usability over Windows 7 and Windows 7 was over Vista. But that's not the interesting bit. The interesting bit is that Windows has a whole new interface that's completely incompatible with all of your existing applications. "Metro" is clearly designed for a Tablet interface, and also looks to be the basis for Windows Phone 8. It's got lots of the stuff that's now familliar to iPhone/Android users - an app store, complete with the ability to redownload all of your applications, data synchronisation, etc. They recently showcased the ability to "reset" your OS back to the default install and then put all of the Metro apps back on top of it.
The old stuff is still all there - munged into Metro like a ballad track on an industrial album. You switch between your applications and "Desktop" is there, as if the whole of Windows 7 was just one screen amongst the many options. And weirdest of all, the Desktop will only be there on _some_ Windows tablets. There will be ones that run on a different type of low-power chip****** that don't support all of the "legacy" applications like Microsoft Word or Photoshop or World of Warcraft*******. This has baffled and angered an awful lot of Windows users, because they don't want all of "this tablet crap" on their nice Windows box. They want to hit the desktop, load their familliar applications, and get on with doing their job.
So, why is Microsoft doing this? Why anger their current power-users? Because they want to stop you being afraid of Metro. They want it to become a familliar part of your everyday computing life. They want you to buy a Metro app or three on your desktop. They want you to walk in to your phone shop, see a Windows Phone and say "I like the look of that one, it looks just like my computer at home. Will it run the apps I've already paid for there? It will! Goodness me, that's fantastic, sign me up at once!"
Yes, once again Microsoft is leveraging its monopoly on the desktop to push something at you. Once again it's a case where they're telling you that they're offering you more functionality as part of the OS, when what they're really doing is bundling something extra in with it in order to get you used to it then extend that into a different market..
Which is, of course, exactly what Apple do with the iPad ("All of my iPhone games, on a bigger screen? Yes please!") and Google do with Android ("It synchronises all of my Google calendar, Google contacts and GMail seamlessly? Yes please!"). But you should be aware that that's what it is.
*There is still have oodles of corporate software that runs on Internet Explorer. You might think IE6 is dead, but it sadly still lives on in the heart of large enterprises.
**Although, frankly, not as well as they could with a dedicated application.
***Personally, I can't, but I'm led to believe that many people can. If all you want is email/web/Facebook/Angry Birds then a tablet will do you nicely.
****Seriously - Windows Phone 7 has a marketshare of somewhere between 1% and 1.4%
*****Plus you can buy the lower end ones for £120-odd last I checked.
******ARM chips, which power most existing Android/iOS devices, are lower power and less powerful than Intel chips. This is one of the reasons why the battery on a tablet lasts for numerous hours while most laptops die in 2-3 hours.
*******This is still unconfirmed - there are differing reports about what the ARM Windows tablets will support - I suspect they're working on making it easy for people to port to ARM tablets, but it won't just be a case of moving Intel-compiled programs over.
Flash back to the heady days of the late 90s, when multiple web browsers vied to dominate the web - Netscape desperate to turn the browser into the user's portal to the world, the only piece of software they really cared about, Microsoft desperate to keep people tied to Windows and happy to keep throwing money at Internet Explorer until it controlled the market and people didn't build pages "for the web" they built them to work on Internet Explorer, leaving them tied to Windows*.
Microsoft was eventually investigated for unlawfully leveraging its operating system monopoly into trying to control the browser market, and while it was distracted a new set of browsers came along - Netscape Navigator turned into Firefox, Google launched Chrome, and we're now getting to the point where many people _can_ get by with web apps for most of the things they want to do**.
Which brings us back to today, and the latest threat to Microsoft's dominance - smartphones and tablets. Microsoft have actually had tablets for ages, but they were basically laptops whose screens folded over, (a) making them large and bulky and (b) running Windows, which wasn't much fun with a stylus, let alone using your finger to jab at things. They've had phones for ages, but they've been awful for years, outclassed by Symbian phones running s60 and Blackberry devices, and then made wholly obsolete with the coming of the iPhone and Android. When they launched Windows Mobile 6.5 in 2009 I think the general reaction was a massive shrug of disbelief that Microsoft were still bothering.
Which, as mobile devices now outsell desktops/laptops leaves Microsoft with a massive threat. If people can do most of what they want through a tablet*** then why would they buy one of those boxes that gives Microsoft a cut?
Windows Phone 7 was generally well received by the press - the interface is supposed to be very nice, and they've generally had good reviews. The problem is that nobody cares, and nobody**** is buying it. Personally, I think the reason for this is simple. Buying a new phone is _scary_. Nobody wants to spend a small fortune on a phone (or tie themselves in for a two year contract) and then discover that it's rubbish. And so they copy the tastemakers. And for mobile phones there are two groups of those: The fashion people, who will tell them to buy an iPhone, or the geeks, who will tell them to buy an Android (or possibly an iPhone). If you ask either of these groups if you should buy a Microsoft product then the answer will be "Hahahahahaha. No."
This is partially because there's no unique selling point for a Windows Phone. The iPhone has that "It was made by Steve Jobs and oozes sexiness,with millions of apps" thing going for it. Android has that "You can install any piece of software you like on it, or even write your own without paying cash to anyone, with nearly as many apps" thing going for it*****. Windows Phone is largely as locked down as the iPhone, doesn't have nearly as many apps available, and (most importantly) nobody you know has one, so how would you know if it was any good?
This leaves MS in a situation where it knows that the future is mobile, it wants to be part of that, it has a good system it can sell, and it can't persuade anyone to try it. And even if it could, chances are they've already bought a bunch of apps for their existing iPhone/Android, so they don't want to switch.
Windows 8 is their solution to this problem. They've put a whole bunch of work into all of the familliar stuff - networking's had an overhaul, the process manager seems nicer, Windows Explorer is a little spiffier - by the looks of things it's nearly as much an improvement in usability over Windows 7 and Windows 7 was over Vista. But that's not the interesting bit. The interesting bit is that Windows has a whole new interface that's completely incompatible with all of your existing applications. "Metro" is clearly designed for a Tablet interface, and also looks to be the basis for Windows Phone 8. It's got lots of the stuff that's now familliar to iPhone/Android users - an app store, complete with the ability to redownload all of your applications, data synchronisation, etc. They recently showcased the ability to "reset" your OS back to the default install and then put all of the Metro apps back on top of it.
The old stuff is still all there - munged into Metro like a ballad track on an industrial album. You switch between your applications and "Desktop" is there, as if the whole of Windows 7 was just one screen amongst the many options. And weirdest of all, the Desktop will only be there on _some_ Windows tablets. There will be ones that run on a different type of low-power chip****** that don't support all of the "legacy" applications like Microsoft Word or Photoshop or World of Warcraft*******. This has baffled and angered an awful lot of Windows users, because they don't want all of "this tablet crap" on their nice Windows box. They want to hit the desktop, load their familliar applications, and get on with doing their job.
So, why is Microsoft doing this? Why anger their current power-users? Because they want to stop you being afraid of Metro. They want it to become a familliar part of your everyday computing life. They want you to buy a Metro app or three on your desktop. They want you to walk in to your phone shop, see a Windows Phone and say "I like the look of that one, it looks just like my computer at home. Will it run the apps I've already paid for there? It will! Goodness me, that's fantastic, sign me up at once!"
Yes, once again Microsoft is leveraging its monopoly on the desktop to push something at you. Once again it's a case where they're telling you that they're offering you more functionality as part of the OS, when what they're really doing is bundling something extra in with it in order to get you used to it then extend that into a different market..
Which is, of course, exactly what Apple do with the iPad ("All of my iPhone games, on a bigger screen? Yes please!") and Google do with Android ("It synchronises all of my Google calendar, Google contacts and GMail seamlessly? Yes please!"). But you should be aware that that's what it is.
*There is still have oodles of corporate software that runs on Internet Explorer. You might think IE6 is dead, but it sadly still lives on in the heart of large enterprises.
**Although, frankly, not as well as they could with a dedicated application.
***Personally, I can't, but I'm led to believe that many people can. If all you want is email/web/Facebook/Angry Birds then a tablet will do you nicely.
****Seriously - Windows Phone 7 has a marketshare of somewhere between 1% and 1.4%
*****Plus you can buy the lower end ones for £120-odd last I checked.
******ARM chips, which power most existing Android/iOS devices, are lower power and less powerful than Intel chips. This is one of the reasons why the battery on a tablet lasts for numerous hours while most laptops die in 2-3 hours.
*******This is still unconfirmed - there are differing reports about what the ARM Windows tablets will support - I suspect they're working on making it easy for people to port to ARM tablets, but it won't just be a case of moving Intel-compiled programs over.
I got it from
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
theferrett. I can't quite work out what the originating source is from the image, as it's too wibbly for me to make out. Anyone translate for me?Edit: Thanks to
bugshaw for pointing me towards Carlo Pagulayan, who did this.