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Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#11

Post by mittermayr »

mittermayr wrote: post #9

to be honest, what fascinates me is that microsoft seems to have invested a lot of work the past few years to bring forward a pretty decent line up of integrated products. if you want windows and office like you had, that's fine. and much of the windows 8 UI disaster was actually made up by the press to have a great story, even that one video with the guy's dad. i was shocked when i saw that. then i installed windows…

and to summarize what I wanted to say:

microsoft should finally split up into two separate entities. a microsoft for business solutions. and a complete separate brand (yes, new name, new logo, new location) that caters to consumers.

bridging these is probably easier, than to apply business marketing to a consumer, and consumer marketing to large businesses. if they focused just on business, many of the hater blogs would not even remotely talk about it - and the industry relevant magazines would be as they are, acknowledge the good things, highlight the improvements.

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#12

Post by brudgers »

kabdib wrote: post #8
brudgers wrote: post #2

If Microsoft was a B2C company, the article would be spot on. They are not, however, Apple. They are primarily B2B. Windows didn't come to dominate the desktop because consumers loved it. It dominates because it provides a value proposition to businesses. Success with consumers is part of that value proposition, and one of the things which gives it an advantage over Linux. RT is a long term strategy. It's not a table…

Xbox is "B2C", in a very big way. The impression I got was that it was intended for consumers. Why else would you only sell it in a Microsoft store? (I did see one in a Best Buy. It was buried in with the other tablets, while there was a shining white table with iPads a few feet away, with actual people around it fondling the merchandise). It's true that MS did give most of their full-time employees free Surfaces. I…

Microsoft have always eaten their own dogfood. That's where Server and Office and Project came from...and obviously, Visual Studio.

Giving RT devices to employees continues this tradition. It's also evidence that this is an enterprise strategy, not B2C.

I used Windows 2.0. I was using WordPerfect when the first versions of Word were being developed. Surface is an MVP.

[edit]

A Note about Xbox. The way Microsoft handled the RRoD issue was pure B2B. They made it right for people out of warranty. Their choice of three years was the same as the period over which businesses depreciate assets. A B2C response would have been, "You should have purchased XboxCare."

[/edit]

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#13

Post by pyalot2 »

[deleted] wrote: post #6
pyalot2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WinRT/WinPhone are not B2B OSes. B2B lives off the ability of a business to deploy their inhouse software that they (or somebody they contracted like Accenture) deploys on their infrastructure. A lot of these applications did move to the Intraweb. However Microsoft restricts the choice of web browsers that WinRT/WinPhone users can get, so if IE RT/Phone lack the capability you need, you're out of luck. The WinRT/WinP…

[deleted]

That assumes that a compelling argument can be made that all the legacy stuff you have can be made to work with it. Which it can't.

- No application you've written to date will run on it

- No application you're now going to write will run on it without uploading it to the app-store and letting everybody else download it.

- Your active-directory NT-domain user management will not be able to deal with these machines.

- Your own exchange server will not be able to talk to these devices e-mail clients.

- Your host of macro-encrusted MS-Office documents will not work on that devices implementation of office.

In short, nothing you did up to that point works on them.

- It makes porting/supporting these devices extremely cumbersome and expensive

- It demonstrates clearly that Microsoft was willing to break their entire backwards compatibility.

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#14

Post by rayiner »

brudgers wrote: post #5
keithpeter wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" RT is a long term strategy. It's not a tablet OS. It's the phone too, just not yet, fully.It's not targeted at consumers. It's targeted at enterprise. " Comments on the original article point out that Windows RT lacks outlook and active directory integration. Is that the case?

They are shipping an MVP. The first iPhones didn't have an AppStore, or 3G.

A business platform that lacks the only features that differentiate Windows on the tablet from android and iOS isn't minimally viable.

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#15

Post by technoslut »

brudgers wrote: post #2

If Microsoft was a B2C company, the article would be spot on. They are not, however, Apple. They are primarily B2B. Windows didn't come to dominate the desktop because consumers loved it. It dominates because it provides a value proposition to businesses. Success with consumers is part of that value proposition, and one of the things which gives it an advantage over Linux. RT is a long term strategy. It's not a table…

>RT is a long term strategy. It's not a tablet OS. It's the phone too, just not yet, fully.It's not targeted at consumers. It's targeted at enterprise.

If that is the argument then MS will fail. This isn't 20 years ago where corporate could dictate what tech you used.

As it is, half of these arguments in this article are flawed. The Surface isn't as good as what was offered by OEMs or Apple. .

How does the Surface weigh more than an iPad 3 when the iPad 3 had a high-res display and was already considered to heavy? Why does the Surface have a kickstand that is useless on your lap when typing? This is what hardware design is about.

Other Win RT tablets cost more because of the lack of cash that MS has where they can pay for pre-production costs and, at the same time, they don't have to pay licensing fees for the OS

It should be irrelevant to MS if MS is competing with other OEMs. Their goal was to increase revenue.

I'm sure MS will get better at hardware and software but they should learn patience first instead of being so quick in attempting to jump both Apple and Google in product development.

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#16

Post by justsee »

brudgers wrote: post #5
keithpeter wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" RT is a long term strategy. It's not a tablet OS. It's the phone too, just not yet, fully.It's not targeted at consumers. It's targeted at enterprise. " Comments on the original article point out that Windows RT lacks outlook and active directory integration. Is that the case?

They are shipping an MVP. The first iPhones didn't have an AppStore, or 3G.

"What's more, it's a poor fit with traditional Windows network environments. Office 2013 RT doesn't include Outlook, and Windows RT's built-in Mail and Calendar apps are lousy substitutes. Neither can Windows RT join an Active Directory domain, so forget about Group Policy and other tools used by Windows IT managers."

The missing features listed above all sound like MVP features if Windows RT was targeted at a B2B audience.

Their Surface marketing also seems focused on a B2C audience, not a B2B one.

Giving employees free devices doesn't indicate anything either way.

Nothing in this thread convinces me Windows RT is a B2B-focused device.

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#17

Post by jiggy2011 »

brudgers wrote: post #2

If Microsoft was a B2C company, the article would be spot on. They are not, however, Apple. They are primarily B2B. Windows didn't come to dominate the desktop because consumers loved it. It dominates because it provides a value proposition to businesses. Success with consumers is part of that value proposition, and one of the things which gives it an advantage over Linux. RT is a long term strategy. It's not a table…

That's a rather ambitious strategy I feel. If it is seen as DOA I don't see enterprises clambering to develop software for it.

Enterprise users seem happy enough with their Win7 laptops and the odd iPad. Once they start feeling the need to move forwards , I get the feeling that WinRT will be but a memory.

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#18

Post by jiggy2011 »

mittermayr wrote: post #11
mittermayr wrote: post #9

to be honest, what fascinates me is that microsoft seems to have invested a lot of work the past few years to bring forward a pretty decent line up of integrated products. if you want windows and office like you had, that's fine. and much of the windows 8 UI disaster was actually made up by the press to have a great story, even that one video with the guy's dad. i was shocked when i saw that. then i installed windows…

and to summarize what I wanted to say: microsoft should finally split up into two separate entities. a microsoft for business solutions. and a complete separate brand (yes, new name, new logo, new location) that caters to consumers. bridging these is probably easier, than to apply business marketing to a consumer, and consumer marketing to large businesses. if they focused just on business, many of the hater blogs wo…

That would probably be the kiss of death to MS as we know it.

The big plus for using MS for business is that your users are probably reasonably familiar with it at home. And the reason they buy them at home is that they already use them at work.

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#19

Post by rednukleus »

jake_D wrote: post #7
brudgers wrote: post #2

If Microsoft was a B2C company, the article would be spot on. They are not, however, Apple. They are primarily B2B. Windows didn't come to dominate the desktop because consumers loved it. It dominates because it provides a value proposition to businesses. Success with consumers is part of that value proposition, and one of the things which gives it an advantage over Linux. RT is a long term strategy. It's not a table…

Businesses work on desktops and active directories. WinRT makes no sense on the desktop, and it offers no AD. So MS has nothing to offer here, B2B wise. They made a huge mistake, pretending that desktops and mobile devices are the same beast. And they're gonna pay for it, in sales and market value. At the end of 2013, they should be a even less relevant than today.

> At the end of 2013, they should be a even less relevant than today.

At the moment, Microsoft own slightly less than 100% of the enterprise desktop market. At the end of 2013 they will almost certainly own slightly less than 100% of the enterprise desktop market.

You live in a bubble.

Re: Microsoft's ARM blunder: Why Windows RT was DOA

#20

Post by timbre »

Has Microsoft ever produced a good version 1? Maybe XBox? I don't know much about games. But for the most part I think what MS is good at is slowly improving a turd until it's really quite nice. DOS, Windows, IE, Office, and Visual Studio were all much worse than their competition initially, but successful by their fourth versions or so.

But I don't know if MS has the heart anymore to go through a few rounds of failure to reach success.

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