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The End of Windows

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Re: The End of Windows

#331

Post by majewsky »

ynniv wrote: post #182
mbesto wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author didn't characterize his position accurately. He meant "Windows Server", not "Windows Desktop". Similar to how IBM sold off it's laptop business to Lenovo, the strategy is basically saying that "We're a business services company, there's no growth left in the end-user ecosystem anymore, because all of that growth is in mobile, which we suck at, so let's just double down on what we are growing at: cloud serv…

If that's true, yes, Windows Server has been irrelevant for some time. It wouldn't explain the remapping of Office, though.

> Windows Server has been irrelevant for some time.

Most definitely not. There are a ton of Microsoft Certified Somethings that will refuse to administrate Linux servers unless their life depends on it.

Source: I work at SAP's internal cloud unit. We have to support Windows VMs (begrudgingly, if I may say), even for payloads that could run on Linux.

Re: The End of Windows

#332

Post by rndmize »

rogerbinns wrote: post #305
bhauer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

It is worth contrasting with the Steam survey which covers several million gamers (of varying degrees of dedication) -- http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey Of note, 8GB is most popular with 1920x1080 resolution.

Simplified Chinese being the most common language (by far at 52%) threw me for a loop, though it probably shouldn't in this day and age. (For context: English - 23%, Russian - 7.7%, Spanish - 2.8%).

Re: The End of Windows

#333

Post by 013a »

ohazi wrote: post #248

> Smartphones first addressed needs the PC couldn’t, then over time started taking over PC functionality directly I still don't understand how anybody gets any real work done on a smartphone. Has work suddenly gotten so simplistic that most people really don't need a keyboard? They're dragging and tapping and writing IM-like sentence fragments riddled with autocorrect typos? And this is acceptable? Seriously?

I think that's the mistake Ballmer made with Windows Phone. He and the other leadership saw the rise of the smartphone and thought "that's the future". The reality is more nuanced; the smartphone created a new market, but it definitely hasn't supplanted the existing "home computer" market, or even really hurt it in any way.

Microsoft should have recognized that, recognized they were late to the party, just let Google & Apple have it, and instead focus on integrating with their products and doubling down on the "home & professional computer" segment they already lead in. But they were late to that as well because of Ballmer's mistake, which gave Apple the in to position the iPad as an up-and-coming product in this segment.

Re: The End of Windows

#334

Post by bzbarsky »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #325
enitihas wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your experience may be an outlier. Being in an University for the past 4 years, I observed that 90% of the laptops used by the students were 1366*768, and majority were 4GB, followed by 8GB. I don't remember anyone having any problems running the latest chrome or Firefox. I think people even managed to run things like SolidWorks or Matlab perfectly fine on those machines.

None of the other things surprise me, but that screen resolution does a bit. It's been about 8 years since I last had a laptop without at least 1080p I think.

Do you buy your laptop for screen real estate or for "small and not too heavy"?

Because the latter is what most people buy for, as far as I can tell.

Re: The End of Windows

#335

Post by walterbell »

jacquesm wrote: post #301
walterbell wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think of http://opencompute.org ? They provide open blueprints for whitebox servers and network gear, for manufacturing by ODMs, with cloud provider purchases driving economy of scale.

I really hope they will succeed but I also wished that they would have at least one product aimed at the desktop. It's understandable that they focus on the datacenter when you look at who is behind the project but one of the things that I love about Linux is that I have a degree of continuity between my desktop environment where I develop software and the servers where it all gets deployed.

At least one desktop or laptop ODM would need to sign up for manufacturing the OCP desktop design. Purism is trying to open up laptop hardware. We need open specs for a NUC form factor.

Re: The End of Windows

#336

Post by kobrad »

bayindirh wrote: post #295
bhauer wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hardware report is surprising to me in many ways. * In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. * In 2018, the most popula…

> In 2018, the most popular resolution for users of Firefox is still 1366x768. And only 1920x1080 is making any headway against the dominance of 1366x768. As much as I am surrounded by the culture of multiple 4K+ displays, apparently this is not at all commonplace. 4K doesn't even get listed, presumably lumped into the "Other" category. Most of the tasks in the real world doesn't need multiple 4K displays, including…

It's not about needing 4k, it's about the prices. While it's normal in the usa to get a couple of these monitors for me the expense is impossible. And I really would use a 4k monitor. It's a big world, and most of it is not the usa

Re: The End of Windows

#337

Post by mixmastamyk »

bhauer wrote: post #288
dannyw wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to assume a large portion of users are software engineers or tech people. You may consider a 16GB ‘bare minimum’, but not everyone needs that - nor can even afford that (or a laptop more than, say, new or used for $750).

> (or a laptop more than, say, new or used for $750). To me, the hardware report shows technology is quite stagnant on display resolution and memory. 1366x768 is a resolution from 2002 or thereabouts. 4GB was common in desktop computers in 2005. ~15 years have passed and consumers in the $750 price range are still hamstrung with 1366x768 and 4GB of memory? I would expect better from a $750 phone , let alone a compute…

Many of these statistics may be from overseas? I know in Brazil for instance, computers are levied with crushing taxes that mean even new computers in stores are already obsolete. Add in high rent seeking from middle men and low salaries and most people just make do with something ancient.

Re: The End of Windows

#338

Post by mschuster91 »

cptskippy wrote: post #260
mschuster91 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You mean like Apple asking me to use iCloud every single time I unlock my Mac? Or every time I power on my test iOS devices? wtf? I don't use iCloud and don't get this nag. I only get a single question when I reimage my test computers or wipe a test device, that's it. > Windows 8.1 and 10 don't require UWP apps to be full screen. The start menu is enough for me to permanently turn me away. Or this stupid "tile" int…

> I don't use iCloud and don't get this nag. Are you signed into it though? I'm not and it nags me to sign in. > The start menu is enough for me to permanently turn me away. Which one? 8, 8.1 and 10 all have very different start menus. > Or this stupid "tile" interface. What's that crap even for? In Windows 10 it's not unlike Dashboard in MacOS.

> Are you signed into it though? I'm not and it nags me to sign in.

No, I don't use it in any form.

> Which one? 8, 8.1 and 10 all have very different start menus.

And they're all not the Win95-to-Win-7-era one. I need a working menu with nothing else, especially not tiles or ads.

> In Windows 10 it's not unlike Dashboard in MacOS.

Which Apple doesn't force one to use, thank God. Programs folder in the Dock, that's it (although, I admit, I'd prefer a list/menu...).

Re: The End of Windows

#339

Post by ryandrake »

asveikau wrote: post #33

I still can't wrap my head around everything that was wrongheaded about Windows 8, and I was working there for most of its dev cycle. One wonders what would have happened if they just sort of let Windows be Windows. I.e. if they had continued iterating on core stuff but left UI and general philosophy resembling Win7's trajectory and not tried to force people into WinRT/UWP/store. Even though Win10 attempted correctiv…

As a developer, the Windows target is baffling. I briefly considered porting a few apps I wrote over to Windows just to re-learn the platform again. Might be fun! Back in the day, the choice was easy: MFC/Win32

Now, I have no idea where to even start! C#? C++? .NET? Win32? MFC? WPF? XAML? WinForms? UWP? What a rat’s next! How did MS let the development ecosystem get so muddied? I know I can go online and research all of these, learn the trade offs, and hope I bet on the right horse, but then again I could also choose to simply leave this crazy platform alone and work on more features on the platforms that are more comfortable.

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