The curious case of the Surface 2

[angusdegraosta]

Yeah i get what you're saying, Microsoft just needs to really focus and never EVER make another dancing commercial again

Or that awful "feels like I am just too close to love you" Explorer commercial over and over. They play the same crap till you want to throw rocks at things. Microsoft could learn a thing or two from Geico.

 

[Mike Gibson]

That's a nice, honest opinion. What's your take on this piece: Turning to the past to power Windows’ future: An in-depth look at WinRT | Ars Technica The writer pretty unequivocally puts WinRT as the new future of MS dev. Although he covers MS for ArsTechnica, he generally doesn't cut them any slack either.

My take: MSFT is cutting its own throat ... publicly. It's inexplicable. If they don't abandon the WinRT API and framework effort, within five years they will retreat into the "enterprise-only" market, meaning they are dead meat (like RIMM/BlackBerry).

Note: I put my money where my mouth is and have recently sold half the MSFT shares I've had since 1989. I also have a WP8 app in the market, so I've actually created a full XAML/Direct3D/C++ program with the WinRT API.

 

[juanitoriv]

Exactly. The apps in the Windows store are not only far fewer, but far more inferior to that of Windows Phone. Sure they have over 100K apps but many of them are very poor quality. And Microsoft, in the interest of getting numbers has allowed really pathetic apps in the store. Example: a new game called Cave Master. Install it and play this drivel. It should have never passed MS QA/QC.

The MS store is the only weakness in having my Surface Pro, imo.

I can understand your argument for the Surface RT/2, but the Pro runs actual programs, not just apps..

 

[juanitoriv]

Ahh no.
It is interesting how people have this idea that android automatically means success based on free NSA-ware. The only dev making big money with android is Samsung. HTC? Fail. LG? fail. Motorola? Fail. The others? Not so much.

The funny thing is that Google who owns Android, also owns Motorola..

 

[Christian Kallevig]

While making Windows RT into little more than an Android skin may sound nice on paper, I don't really think it makes any sense for Microsoft to do that. Windows is more than a UI, it is a platform for pushing Microsoft's services. Getting you using Office, SkyDrive, Bing, Xbox, etc. is key for Microsoft and there is no place where they can be integrated more seamlessly than in Windows. Now of course this could also be accomplished in Android, but it probably wouldn't perform as well as something developed from the ground up by Microsoft for the specific hardware it is installed o as is the case with Windows RT. It also would create a weird divide between x86 Windows and Win RT as they would essntially be entirely different OSs at that point.

In addition to that, using the Google Play store means a couple of things. Firstly, Microsoft can't profit off of it in the same way that they can from their own store. Secondly, it means that they have no quality control and malware is a possibility. And thirdly, it would mean that Metro would effectively serve no purpose as the vast majority of apps would never bother conforming to it's design language or use it's APIs. In effect, Surface would just become another Android tablet.

Now of course Microsoft could have it's own app Store like Amazon does, but then that puts us back in the same boat and they'd be better off going they same route they are going now at that point.

Besides, x86 Windows is not dead- not on desktops and not on tablets. We've got several Bay Trail tablets coming this year that will perfeorm fairly well, have great battery life and still run all your old apps. So if Windows RT has no future then it is not the end of the world.

But I think over time the situation is going to improve considerably. It may never outpace Android, but it doesn't need to to be successful.

 

[jlzimmerman]

If they don't abandon the WinRT API and framework effort, within five years they will retreat into the "enterprise-only" market....

Why do you draw this conclusion?

 

[Christian Kallevig]

I don't think it's a foregone conclusion, but I can see where he's coming from. Windows RT has been an absolute flop so far, Windows in general has a perception problem and the ecosystem is just not there right now, and the situation is not improving quickly. On top of all of that, consumers are consfused by Windows RT- they don't understand what it is or why it's different.

Microsoft has a lot of work to do if they want Windows RT to become profitable. They will likely have to sink more money into it than they can make back in the next five years just to get some momentum in the market.

 

[dkediger]

Its gonna be important to make a distinction between "Windows RT" - the Surface RT OS - and "WinRT" which is a programming/presentation system at the nexus angel of Microsoft's current developer tools.

 

[ctitanic]

The press is using Macs since long time ago so what else can you expect from them. To me the Surface 2 fixed the few weaknesses that the RT had. What I predict that is going to happens probably before Christmas? Better games will appear to prove the possibilities of the new generation. ;-)
Sent from my Windows 8 device using Board Express Pro

 

[denzilla]

I hate to be pesimistic, but I look at RT and see WP7 all over again. They're already suggesting that WP and RT are going to merge and have a single app store at some point. It what should've been in the first place.

Microsoft engineers will be interviewed down the road, once everything is complete and the interviewer will ask them why current Surface tablets didn't get upgraded to the new combined OS, one of them will smuggly reply " What we have now was our vision all along. We knew we couldn't have everything in the beginning, but we had to get something to market asap".