SAMSUNG: No One Is Buying Microsoft's Surface, Windows 8 Isn't Very Good Read more:

[Steve Williams]

Ouch.......

Jay Yarow Business Insider

More bad news for Microsoft and its new operating system, Windows 8.
The president of Samsung's memory chip division, Jun Dong-soo, had a lot of negative comments about Microsoft in a meeting with reporters. The Korea Times transcribed his quotes.
First, he said the obvious: "The global PC industry is steadily shrinking despite the launch of Windows 8."
Then he added this: "I think the Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform."
Vista is considered to be one of the biggest disasters for Microsoft. It's not good for a partner to compare the new Windows to Vista.
He then added even more: "MS’s rollout of its Windows Surface tablet is seeing lackluster demand ... Meanwhile, previous vigorous pitches by Intel and MS for thinner ultra-books simply failed and I believe that’s mostly because of the less-competitive Windows platform."
This wouldn't be so bad if it were just one guy talking. But, he's just the latest to pile on. Executives at Asus, Acer, and Fujitsu have all had bad things to say about the state of Windows.
A big part of the problem is that the PC market is contracting as users buy smartphones and tablets instead of new PCs. Smartphones and tablets don't replace PCs, but they act as good-enough substitutes, negating the need for an immediate PC purchase. If you have an iPad for couch computing, it's okay to have a five-year-old PC for limited heavy computing.
However, Windows is supposed to solve this problem by working on tablets. If it's not solving the problem, it's bad for Microsoft.
Coming from Samsung, these comments are particularly damaging. Samsung has made a lot of money on Android for the smartphone. If it's seeing great success with Google software and little success with Microsoft software, in the future it's going to put its tablet, and notebook development efforts towards Google not Microsoft.

 

[carolkoh]

*laugh* A friend that works at Microsoft where there used to be a ban on Apple products blogs almost daily about his new Surface and what it's not doing, won't do and can't do.

 

[Keith_W]

Well there is a lot of confusion in the market. If you look at a tablet, you have to ask yourself whether it is running Windows RT or Windows 8 for tablets. Both devices might look identical, but one is the full fat desktop version and the other is a cut down version optimized for ARM chips. Here is the kicker - Windows RT won't run Windows 8 apps. The only apps you can run on it are curated through Microsoft's app store, which looks a bit like a ghost town. Microsoft controls the end to end experience with Windows RT, much like Apple. Fortunately, the likelihood that you will buy a Windows RT tablet is low, since almost all of MS' hardware partners have decided to shun it.

The whole new interface thing also reminds me of when MS Office changed to the ribbon interface. I absolutely hated it, because I had gotten so used to the old interface and had great difficulty trying to get my Office apps to run the way I was used to. And this was nowhere close to how much the interface has changed between Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Changing an interface is not a small matter, because of the amount already invested in training. As an example - there are many keyboard designs which are superior to the QWERTY keyboard, e.g. Dvorak, Fitaly, etc. But imagine the uproar if (say) Apple were to release computers ONLY with Dvorak keyboards with proprietary pins so that no other keyboards may be used. Or, your company's IT department decides to replace all your keyboards with Fitaly. You can argue till you are blue in the face that QWERTY is a legacy from mechanical typewriters, it was designed to slow you down, etc. but you are not going to win.

In the same way, Windows 8 actually hinders productivity until you get over its learning curve. Oh, since you need to mount a learning curve the next time you upgrade your computer anyway ... why stick with Windows? Why not move to OSX or Linux?

 

[JackD201]

Do you guys think this opens up an opportunity for Google to enter the PC OS arena?

 

[Keith_W]

Do you guys think this opens up an opportunity for Google to enter the PC OS arena?

I don't think so. Chrome OS is a really immature product. If I wind up hating Windows 8, I might simply move to Linux.

 

[Steve Williams]

IMHO Chrome is the best OS. I even use it on my iPhone

 

[Keith_W]

IMHO Chrome is the best OS. I even use it on my iPhone

I think you are confusing the Chrome browser with Chrome OS.

By the way, all third party browsers on iOS are inferior to Safari. The reason - Safari uses the Nitro javascript engine, whilst all other browsers use UIWebView. Apple prevents other browsers from using Nitro. They also prevent third parties from using their own engines, which is why Firefox is not coming to iOS. Furthermore, they prevent any links clicked from opening in any third party browser.

The only reason to use a third party browser on iOS is not for speed - it is to take advantage of other features that Safari may not have. For example, Chrome syncs your bookmarks across each device you are signed into.

 

[Mosin]

So far, I like 8 better than 7, although 8 is a resource hog. So is 7, though. That's reason enough to keep XP on my desktop. 7 is on my wife's desktop and all our netbooks, however. I do a lot of work with clients' machines, and those who have 8 are easier to configure when it comes to networking, adding printers, scanners, etc. It also seems more stable for typical users, although my XP has been up for years with zero issues. This was only after I learned the ins and outs, and completely got rid of all other MS things like OE, WMP, Messenger, etc. I don't see any change in my desktop as long as XP will work with the hardware. Still, 8 is an advancement in many ways. The bloat is the killer from my point of view.

I like Firefox because I am totally familiar with it, which comes from using it before it was even named Firefox. Chrome is alien to me. Besides, I don't really trust Google with my information. I don't even use their search engine. Oh, well. There has to be one in every crowd, right?