Windows 8: Do I Really Need a Single OS? 344
gManZboy writes "If you skip Windows 8, you lose the appealing opportunity to synchronize all of your devices on a single platform — or so goes the argument. If you're skeptical, you're not alone. OS monogamy may be in Apple's interest, and Microsoft's, but ask why it's in your interest. Can Microsoft convince the skeptics? 'If the hardware and software are the same at home and at work, one can't be "better" than the other. It would help if Microsoft convinced users like me that their platform is so good, we'd be fools to go anywhere else,' writes Kevin Casey."
Re:Developers love USDP (Score:0, Insightful)
Not in my interest (Score:5, Insightful)
I would much rather have a variety of operating systems or platforms which use common protocols and formats so that I can switch between them. Technology evolves, operating systems change. Locking one's self into one platform at the exclusion of others is not a good idea. At least not for the consumer, it just makes it harder to switch when the existing platform falls to provide the quality demanded.
I have a problem with.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Developers love USDP (Score:4, Insightful)
You are arguing with a well known "ad troll"... which makes me curious, shouldn't the government be going after this shill for monopolizing the first post on Microsoft related articles? ;)
Re:Developers love USDP (Score:1, Insightful)
Eclipse is garbage.
Re:Developers love USDP (Score:5, Insightful)
Single OS, maybe. But single user interface? (Score:5, Insightful)
What the fuck are you going on about? (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're spouting on about is what management thinks is ideal. Any real, experienced developed knows that "write-once, run-anywhere" or even "write-once, run-everywhere" is nothing but a massive load of bullshit. Any user of such software knows the same.
How many fucking times do we have to go through this? For crying out loud, it's the same each time we do it! It doesn't matter if it was BASIC in the 1970s, or C in the 1980s, or C++ in the 1990s, or Java in the 2000s, or JavaScript today.
The end result is that the software is really fucking shitty to write, and it's really damn shitty for the users who have to use it. The developers still get stuck dealing with cross-platform issues, even when it's just the same OS running on different devices. The users get a really half-assed experience, because the developers had to cut corners all over the place just to make the software run on all kinds of different OSes or devices.
Yeah, management loves it, but that's only because they aren't actually creating the shitheap, nor are they the ones who get stuck using it day-in and day-out. They see some great cost savings in the short term, but then things get really fucked up in the long term since the existing users and customers will flee as quickly as they can. You can't run a software business when all the customers left because your software became a raging pile of donkey turds thanks to embracing WORA hype.
If I wanted a single OS, I'd go with Apple. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I wanted to, that is. I don't , and will stick with the mix thats's proven to be effective for me
Apple's interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to point out here the assumption of the question is wrong. Apple is proposing the exact opposite of ubiquitous computing. They instead have two products iOS and OSX which evolve semi-seperately so that data can pass between similar applications but that the applications are quite different.
Microsoft conversely is proposing a shift to ubiquitous computing that applications and devices can alter themselves based on the way they are used, the form factor of the human. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0 [youtube.com] ).
What the author is proposing is different from either one of these, the current situation where there are loose standards for moving application data and different applications.
current: loose standards
apple: seamless data portability
microsoft: seamless application portability
Apple's views and Microsoft's views shouldn't be confused.
Re:Developers love USDP (Score:5, Insightful)
Just how many sock puppets do you have, Pie?
>new account
>similar to other Pie based accounts like PieDode and PieLala - used and then abandoned.
>used to shill Microsoft
>first post in thread
>buzzword bingo
PieMasters (2751119) is all alone in the world.
Indeed.
--
BMO
Didn't work before (Score:5, Insightful)
And it still doesn't. Microsoft has for decades tried to sell us on the idea of one bloated, legacy-crap-filled OS on all devices, it was just a matter of the hardware catching up with their requirements. When they were finally convinced that a KVM interface didn't work on touch devices (giving us wonderful mind-numbing features like a "Start" button and walking menus on a 3 inch phone screen) the solution was obvious -- run a touch interface everywhere, using ideas, rebranded, that have already been successful on other platforms (example, "tiles" instead of "widgets") and convince the computing public that they will love a touch-based interface with huge sliding tiles on a 1920X1200 screen, unless they're some kind of communist.
And a few people will buy into it enthusiastically, as always, and some people will put up with it because it's a requirement for whatever they need to do, and because of Microsoft's lock on PC manufacturers, some people will put up with it because they bought the computer like that and they don't know what to do about it, and that might be enough to maintain their 60-odd percent market. And the rest of us will use something else.
I do have to use windows for some things I do. But I'm just now migrating to 7 from XP, and I have no intention of buying another copy of Windows until I see what 9 looks like. And maybe not even then, if a few companies get off their collective butts and port their products to some other platform.
This is the best argument for Windows 8? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is such self-serving BS. Microsoft needs a single, unified OS, not you. Microsoft did what they needed to do, for themselves, and this argument was invented after the fact to make it look like it's good for the consumer. What I need is an operating system that doesn't have to reboot every month on Patch Tuesday.
Re:Developers love USDP (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Developers love USDP (Score:1, Insightful)
The 'joke' is that Java isn't an acronym. So you've basically proved the poster's point.
Re:What the fuck are you going on about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft itself has created an operating system and application platform which allows the same applications to run on a $200 throw away netbook and a $2000 workstation or a $20,000 multiprocessor array drive server. Nothing like that existed a few decades ago.
Yeeeeaaaah, the same applications will theoretically run on a $200 throw away netbook if you have enough patience, and you're not a geek that fumes that the box is swapping energetically before you even start your first app. And a $2000 workstation, sure, if you don't mind using a phone interface on a 24 inch screen. And a $20,000 multiprocessor array server, sure, if you don't care too much about scalability or having to reboot a $20,000 machine with 5,200 users periodically. In theory the same bits will work on all of these devices. Work *well*, in a useable fashion, is a different thing.
> Nothing like that existed a few decades ago.
Possibly. And Justin Bieber didn't exist a few decades ago either. That doesn't mean there's no better way to do it.
Re:What the fuck are you going on about? (Score:5, Insightful)
decades ago Unix, standard open API and portable C provided a superior solution to your imagined "sames applications" running on wide range of devices
No it didn't. Unix were expensive workstations generally 5 figures. They also didn't port to the large stuff. UNIX a few decades ago was a niche. Since then obviously it has expanded out to cover the entire range. But UNIXes are a family of operating systems not an operating system.
What I'd say today is that applications do not move seamlessly from UNIX to UNIX though most UNIX applications are ported via. the distribution / source methods. There is no data integration at all between UNIXes so the end user ends up having to provide all the integration for themselves. UNIXes features depend on the user / developer model which while quite empowering have failed to catch on. Certainly UNIX offers an alternative approach but my point was the distinction between Apple's approach and Microsoft's.
As for Windows embedded, Windows embedded and Windows both run Metro apps and Visual Studio is allowing for the cross application ports. They aren't there yet, but it is their direction. And this entire post was about Microsoft's direction with Windows 8 not their current state with Windows 7.
Finally as far as malware... Windows evolved from a single user OS, in a world of isolated computers. Moving an entire platform quickly is complex. I don't agree with all their choices, but in terms of ubiquitousness, it is hard to argue their choices didn't work out.
This overlooks a whole slew of things (Score:5, Insightful)
The logic being presented here is very flawed. The root of the argument is this quote:
"There's a productivity gap when [users] come into the workplace and have to switch operating systems to work with 'in house' software versus 'mobile' software. Windows 8 bridges that gap. Same device at home as at work. Same software. Same cloud back end. Same identity system," wrote reader "moarsauce123."
This post is wrong on so many levels.
- Odds of most large corporations upgrading to Windows 8 any time in the next 2-3 years is slim to none. Windows 8 is a huge paradigm shift and there is simply zero reason for them to endure that kind of re-training cost.
- Odds of most large corporations allowing you to cloud-sync your work machine with your home machine is also slim to none. I can't even plug in my own USB thumb drive at work, you think they are going to allow me to cloud-sync my OS? Crazy town.
- Your company does not want you using the same 'identity system" at work as at home. You think my company wants me logging into Windows with my hotmail address?
Re:This is the best argument for Windows 8? (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't know how to make software that doesn't assume that the user is some type of inept, mindless, or unimportant jackass.