Where is Windows heading?

An interesting comment from Microsoft at the end of an Australian Parliamentary enquiry into software/hardware pricing:

Microsoft: If our prices were unfair, people wouldn’t buy them

The last cab off the rank was Microsoft, fronted by Australian managing director Pip Marlow.

Marlow acknowledged that the company had not polled Australian customers about the fairness of its local pricing, but went on to argue that different markets require different prices and the sales figures speak for themselves:

We don’t set a global price for our products. We don’t believe that every market is the same. Emerging markets where the cost of living and the availability of technology is different has to be priced differently. At the end of the day, if we make a price too high in a particular market, customers will look elsewhere.​

The Committee then confronted Marlow with a pricing sample of 47 Microsoft products, of which nearly 66 per cent are more expensive in Australia than the US.

Again, Marlow cited Microsoft’s sales success in the country, claiming “if they don’t like it, they vote with their wallets”. Under repeated questioning, Marlow all but dismissed the main thrust of the inquiry, claiming: “You’re looking for one simple silver bullet. There isn’t one.”

The Committee then rattled off some Microsoft price comparisons between US and Australia. When lumped together, the evidence is pretty sobering:

Windows 7 Professional (US: $326, AU: $469)
Office 2010 (US: $356, AU: $499)
Word 2010 (US: $142, AU: $189)
Visio Pro (US: $570, AU: $900)
Visual Studio 2012 with MSDN membership (US: $12,000, AU: $21,000)​

As the questions drew to a close, Marlow claimed that the company would “consider” using different pricing strategies as the company moves deeper into the cloud.

IT Pricing Inquiry: A Recap Of Excuses | Lifehacker Australia

How much deeper into the cloud does Microsoft intend to go?

 

[bobkn]

M$ is not hearing it customers I also see that enterprise customers are switching to Linux.

Big business buys into big Linux | ZDNet

Warning: it's an SJVN article. There's nothing wrong with Linux advocacy in itself, but I wouldn't recommend him as a source for news about Windows.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Hmm, I just checked that. My Gimp loaded in less than 2 seconds. And I have not used it since a while. So it could not have been sitting in the cache.

I assume that is from an SSD?

It sometimes gets faster than expected and sometimes way slower.

I remember since Vista and on 7, Win8 too that it can say 'not responding' during the font loading or script-fu parts but actually the program runs fine.

I remember seeing those.
I haven't seen any since I moved to v2.8 (I'm now on v2.8.4).

I have noticed that it does slow down (the first time I start it) after adding some new fonts.
Subsequent starts seem to return to the ~5 second - ~10 second start times.

 

[labeeman]

M$ is not hearing it customers I also see that enterprise customers are switching to Linux.

Big business buys into big Linux | ZDNet

Warning: it's an SJVN article. There's nothing wrong with Linux advocacy in itself, but I wouldn't recommend him as a source for news about Windows.

Here is another one.

Linux use in enterprises jumps again | Open Source Software - InfoWorld

 

[Hopachi]

I assume that is from an SSD?

It sometimes gets faster than expected and sometimes way slower.

I remember since Vista and on 7, Win8 too that it can say 'not responding' during the font loading or script-fu parts but actually the program runs fine.

I remember seeing those.
I haven't seen any since I moved to v2.8 (I'm now on v2.8.4).

I have noticed that it does slow down (the first time I start it) after adding some new fonts.
Subsequent starts seem to return to the ~5 second - ~10 second start times.

True, subsequent starts are faster. I'm also on 2.8.4. I use Single Window Mode.

A good thing I appreciate is that we now have normalmap plug-in in x64 Windows and I was able to (build and) get the Aurora theme running on x64 GIMP. Here you see Aurora Midnight on Windows 8 and it blows away even Photoshop.

 

[vvcmarttech]

How much deeper into the cloud does Microsoft intend to go?

I think we all know the answer to that question.
No installable programs/software.

Hi there

Monthly subscription process (or yearly) but subscription nevertheless.

Time to get out those legacy OS'es again (via VM's) and the Linux Textbooks.

As for one of the most BOVINE remarks that I've ever in my reasonably long life that I've ever heard " If Our prices were unfair people wouldn't buy" .... How could somebody even THINK of saying that much less people actually believe it.

For example I (and I'm sure millions of hard pressed drivers) never think the price of a litre of gas is reasonable on 90% of this planet. - Not always Oil companies fault -- Greedy govt's impose usually exhorbitant taxes on it too). So even though the price is totally unreasonable I still have to buy it. If you live in rural areas you have to rely on your car -- even the most fanatical of Green party supporters don't suggest running buses to remote communities regularly or if at all.

Cheers
jimbo

The death of the Windows IT Tech as we know it. P.S. You can thank that tyrant Steve Jobs who Bill Gates all of a sudden wants to be just like.

 

[vvcmarttech]

How much deeper into the cloud does Microsoft intend to go?

I think we all know the answer to that question.
No installable programs/software.

Hi there

Monthly subscription process (or yearly) but subscription nevertheless.

Time to get out those legacy OS'es again (via VM's) and the Linux Textbooks.

As for one of the most BOVINE remarks that I've ever in my reasonably long life that I've ever heard " If Our prices were unfair people wouldn't buy" .... How could somebody even THINK of saying that much less people actually believe it.

For example I (and I'm sure millions of hard pressed drivers) never think the price of a litre of gas is reasonable on 90% of this planet. - Not always Oil companies fault -- Greedy govt's impose usually exhorbitant taxes on it too). So even though the price is totally unreasonable I still have to buy it. If you live in rural areas you have to rely on your car -- even the most fanatical of Green party supporters don't suggest running buses to remote communities regularly or if at all.

Cheers
jimbo

M$ is not hearing it customers I also see that enterprise customers are switching to Linux.

Big business buys into big Linux | ZDNet

Warning: it's an SJVN article. There's nothing wrong with Linux advocacy in itself, but I wouldn't recommend him as a source for news about Windows.

Here is another one.

Linux use in enterprises jumps again | Open Source Software - InfoWorld

Regardless, if anybody else works in IT, it's time to dust off those old Linux books again or start taking classes to save your job in the future.

 

[whs]

Hmm, I just checked that. My Gimp loaded in less than 2 seconds. And I have not used it since a while. So it could not have been sitting in the cache.

I assume that is from an SSD?

Yes, of course, what else could it be. LOL

PS: subsequent starts of any program are always faster because at least some of it is cached in RAM and fetched from there.

 

[lehnerus2000]

How would I ...

It sometimes gets faster than expected and sometimes way slower.

I remember since Vista and on 7, Win8 too that it can say 'not responding' during the font loading or script-fu parts but actually the program runs fine.

I remember seeing those.
I haven't seen any since I moved to v2.8 (I'm now on v2.8.4).

I have noticed that it does slow down (the first time I start it) after adding some new fonts.
Subsequent starts seem to return to the ~5 second - ~10 second start times.

True, subsequent starts are faster. I'm also on 2.8.4. I use Single Window Mode.

A good thing I appreciate is that we now have normalmap plug-in in x64 Windows and I was able to (build and) get the Aurora theme running on x64 GIMP. Here you see Aurora Midnight on Windows 8 and it blows away even Photoshop.

View attachment 19157

That's nice.

I've never tried installing a theme in GIMP.
I've seen it mentioned in the "Settings" window, but I've never stumbled upon any GIMP themes during my Internet travels.

How would I go about getting and installing that theme (or others)?

Yes, of course, what else could it be. LOL

PS: subsequent starts of any program are always faster because at least some of it is cached in RAM and fetched from there.

I am aware of program caching.
I meant even when it couldn't be in the cache.

I suspect GIMP must update some sort of DB of plugins, fonts, etc. whenever it notices a new one.

 

[whs]

Horace, you are a genius. How did you do that. I am a Gimp user, but not at that level.

 

[Hopachi]

Horace, you are a genius. How did you do that. I am a Gimp user, but not at that level.

Thank you. I just needed to do what we were still missing: the x64 Windows versions.

How would I go about getting and installing that theme (or others)?

I'm going to try to cover that up.
We all know that our linux OSes get that easily (gtk is part of the system look).

Then one particular someone got a theme installer for Windows 32bit (many thanks!) GIMPER.NET - The GIMP Community • View topic - Gimp Themes v1.0 for Windows

And that works on the 32bit version of GIMP. If you use that, all good, you're done.
Here all themes for win32: GTK+ for Windows Runtime Environment - Browse /GTK+ Themes Package/2009-09-07 at SourceForge.net

The home base of gtk themes: Eyecandy for your GNOME-Desktop - GNOME-Look.org

But the 64bit GIMP, that I use, doesn't use 32bit themes and has exclusively 64bit plugins only and alongside the preinstalled themes I had to build the Aurora one using mingw64 for Windows. I then had aurora.dll as 64bit and still needed to use the theme installer found on Gimper to get all files (theme specs, colors, settings) to use with my 64bit aurora.dll. Unfortunately I don't have the other great themes ported to 64 just Aurora, but this one was easy to build. Still Aurora theme has about 3 of 4 versions: light, silver, midnight... all nice.

Maybe I'll try to build the others but couldn't find the source code... and personally all I needed was Aurora (I like it and since I'm not too good at building... it worked directly and I was lucky because the code was for linux).

If you guys are interested, I'll provide the dll, but there's some stuff to setup first so I'll better get the whole GIMP I use, already themed, to SkyDrive.

Thanks for the interest.

 

[Mercurial]

years from now , everyone will look back into this post and realize how silly it was saying allthis bullshit about windows ,

using IE LOL

 

[whs]

years from now , everyone will look back into this post and realize how silly it was saying allthis bullshit about windows ,

using IE LOL

I think you might be wrong because this time, it is different.

There was criticism in te past when the OS changed. Like the pre SP1 Vista was criticized for buggy drivers and rightfully so. But most comments came from people that had never used Viste, and they got egg on their face as you can see here.

Even Windows 7 got some flack because of the new taskbar and the omission of the Quick Launch chevrons.

But for Windows 8 the uproar is different. It comes mostely from people that have actually used Windows 8, so they have a pretty good knowledge what it is. And Windows 8 is not being criticised for some minor missing features or too many bugs (although it is less stable than Windows 7).

Windows 8 is a complete change of direction away from the desktop with major UI elements that are completely unsuitable for a PC from an operational point of view and an ergonomics point of view. M$ left more than a billion PC users orphaned and there is no indication that they plan to take care of them. I think that will not have a happy ending for M$.

 

[labeeman]

Some blame on Window 8 for slow PC sales.

Dell blames 'uncertain adoption' of Windows 8 for some of its financial woes - Computerworld

 

[whs]

This chart tells it all. Worse than Vista which was not really bright. And that is Windows 8 on all devices. Vista was only PCs.



Source: Net Applications measures operating system usage by tracking unique visitors to some 40,000 websites it monitors for clients.

 

[Fredledingue]

Windows 8 is a complete change of direction away from the desktop with major UI elements that are completely unsuitable for a PC from an operational point of view and an ergonomics point of view. M$ left more than a billion PC users orphaned and there is no indication that they plan to take care of them. I think that will not have a happy ending for M$.

Moreover, just look on the Metro screenchot on the monitors in computer adds... It's immediately obvious that Microsoft is offering an entertainement platform rather than a working station.

---

Not only are they losing image credibility with the professional users but with almost everybody. M$ thinks that most of home users are using a computer manily for entertainement. They are wrong. Even if 99% of them have an account on facebook, most of the poeple do work on their computer. Personaly I don't know a single person, young or old who doesn't do some serious or semi-serious job on their computer on a regular basis.

---

If Microsoft keeps on thinking that we buy a PC just for social networks, photos and weather, they are going to get serious problems.

This chart tells it all.

Even worse than Vista... Here we are!

---

Indeed, given the fact that it includes all devices, the PC figure must be much worse. And the real use of Modern/Metro on PCs even more pathetic because that's the only possible reason why poeple don't want W8.

---

Seriousely if somebody willing to purchase a new computer is looking at a screen like this

or like this

Do you think he or she will want to buy? I woudn't.

---

It realy doesn't look serious.

---

"Do you want one of these computers?" "No, sorry, I want a computer with Windows on it. It's for shcool, you know."

 

[Coke Robot]

years from now , everyone will look back into this post and realize how silly it was saying allthis bullshit about windows ,

using IE LOL

I think you might be wrong because this time, it is different.

There was criticism in te past when the OS changed. Like the pre SP1 Vista was criticized for buggy drivers and rightfully so. But most comments came from people that had never used Viste, and they got egg on their face as you can see here.

Even Windows 7 got some flack because of the new taskbar and the omission of the Quick Launch chevrons.

But for Windows 8 the uproar is different. It comes mostely from people that have actually used Windows 8, so they have a pretty good knowledge what it is. And Windows 8 is not being criticised for some minor missing features or too many bugs (although it is less stable than Windows 7).

Windows 8 is a complete change of direction away from the desktop with major UI elements that are completely unsuitable for a PC from an operational point of view and an ergonomics point of view. M$ left more than a billion PC users orphaned and there is no indication that they plan to take care of them. I think that will not have a happy ending for M$.

Just because it's a desktop PC DOES NOT entail it to having a Desktop UI, it can pretty much be anything or whatever that works just as well.

If you ask me, I've been wondering why an operating system developed for desktop PCs was then put onto the laptop. The touchpad isn't the same as a mouse, it's not worked in the same fashion as a desktop, nor does it look like one. Why is there a place called Desktop on a laptop if the laptop is not on top of the desk?

Things like that kind of go to show the skeuomorphic age of Windows...

And also, a desktop PC (AIO) looks MUCH more appealing than Windows 7. It's modern, it works. The arguments against that are honestly just people that have used Windows 8 and don't care for changes to the UI at all. They're more concerned with feature set changes. Also, it seems that those people are more into having Windows look like Window 7 than anything. They don't, again, care for any UI changes.

 

[chrisa]

If you ask me, I've been wondering why an operating system developed for desktop PCs was then put onto the laptop.

Because a laptop is simply a portable PC? It was an evolution of the shrinking of the components down to a form factor you could travel with.

Using the runtime operating systems in the manner mobile devices use now wasn't even feasible until the mid part of the last decade. The hardware was simply too slow to be effective. And the feature of compiling on-the-fly in combination with automatic catching of any malicious code trying to initiate commands outside of its assigned parameters, was ultimately what made mobile devices like we now have work. Secure Runtime OS's HAD to be used to ensure viruses weren't just impractical, but impossible.

One thing I would suggest to them is that those requirements are a little too restrictive. They need to come up with a way for apps to 'friend' with other apps and basically merge two apps within the same garden. So that say a netflix app can probe facebook data stored on the local device to use in calculating its output, or vice versa. This then allows apps to intercommunicate and you relieve one of the major restrictions that inhibit some desktop or web apps from being done mobily. Its not a very good example, given that they can do their intercommunication via the web, but you should get my point.

 

[whs]

Originally Posted by Coke Robot

If you ask me, I've been wondering why an operating system developed for desktop PCs was then put onto the laptop.

Coke, this is not a good question. I think you are smart enough to find the answer yourself.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Probably there's only one sensible answer to this thread.
Pictures can usually explain better than words so here it is.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Wenda]

^^A Windows 'Blue' recycle bin??? ^^