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CowboyTeal writes:
"Windows 8 is still being disputed as either the product of a genius or a nerdy sadist but that doesn't mean Windows 9 isn't in the works. That said, how would you guys improve Windows if you could change anything about it? Has windows 8 improved or degraded your overall experience of the Windows platform? If you're not a Windows user, what features would you like to see in Windows for possible assimilation?"
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War hath no fury like a non-combatant.
-- Charles Edward Montague
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gishzida on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:21AM
1) The Metro what-is-it UI needs to go. Fire the idiots responsible.
2) Do not make the OS "touch dependent". A touch desktop is a silly idea.
3) Remove all of the built in Spyware that is being used to "Monetize Windows".
4) Dump internet Login to the desktop -- since we now know you are a paid pawn of the NSA we don't trust your ability to pwn a login to your authentication services without breaking a sweat. It won't restore the trust but at least you get to do actual work for your NSA fees.
5) Dump Internet Explorer. OS integration is a bad idea. As it is designed it is a malware vector.
6) Stop trying to copy everybody else and do something different: innovate.
7) Stop rewarding bad software design... your users only end up hating you.
8) If you seriously are planning on being a hardware company or a services company then spinoff or open source the Windows Desktop.... trying to be a hardware / software / services company isn't going to work for you. Why? Because you have too many "fronts" to be able to be agile enough to be successful.
9) Want to be successful? Focus on what you are good at. Tablets isn't it.
10) Stop trying to compete with hardware manufacturers. Face it-- There is no large margin in "commodity electronics". You aren't Apple and your fanbois are used to cheaper hardware. You don't have the Mojo to make make yourself into an "Apple-like" MagicMojo company.
11) You've pwned the enterprise market and the enterprise has become dependent on you. Don't for get them or the QNX deal is going to be the first of many lost opportunities.
I've supported Windows OSes for 18 years and used them for 32 years [right along side of Novell and Linux]... MS was savvy and mean in its day but they have burned so many bridges and told so many lies that one wonders if they'll be the next Novell which is to say: carved up and sold out.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:37AM
You claim that Microsoft is not innovative and yet Windows is the only commonly used operating system that is not a blatant Unix clone. Android, Linux, OSX, QNX, all Unix clones. Windows is suffciently non-Unix-like that it requires a compatibility layer like Cygwin just to compile Unix software. The fact is that everybody else is copying Unix while Microsoft is doing something different.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gishzida on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:19PM
Ask yourself honestly: Was Aero innovative? It's MS-OSX. Was Metro innovative? What is innovative about pissing off all of your desktop users? Was the fact that the original Windows IP stack was from BSD innovative? Was MS innovative that copied as much as they could from BSD to get Posix compliance? Was MS innovative when they fumbled on LAN networking and Novell got there first-- It took MS 20 years to kill Novell in the market place and Novell had the still had the better Server product. Was MS innovative that that Novell could get rated as a secure OS by the US Government because of superior directory services and file permissions [even better than *nix] and MS could only get NT certified if it was not plugged in to the network???
I've used MS OSes and apps for over 30 years and what MS has been most successful [innovative?] at was FUD and their ever favorite "Adopt, Extend, and Exterminate" method of innovation. MS has had the money to undercut or mislead.
The things MS has done does not "justify" be called innovative. They did not see the need for more than 640K of memory. The did not see what a innovative company could do in the compiler / utility / application space until Borland started kicking them around. Once they applied money and pressure to the market place Borland lost out.
From that point until the beginning of "the endless Internet summer" MS made sure no one got in their market space.
For example -- Once upon a time there was a Windows Basic Compiler who's first two versions were impressive enough to draw attention of Computer Associates. CA bought it but when MS realized the threat suddenly CA and MS signed an agreement to allow CA to be come a "solutions partner" and CA quietly killed CA-Realizer which was a better product [I used both Realizer and Visual Basic -- Realizer was a better RAD tool that VB].
The kind of "burn your bridges innovation" MS used isn't really innovation. Now nearly 20 years into the "public" Internet Era and MS is struggling because they did not innovate. The point is they could have killed all of their current competitors but they did not innovate their way out of their predicament... they thought that their 1-2 punch of OS and Apps was invincible... Until Google and Apple showed them different. So yes MS needs to put on its thinking cap and innovate... or they are history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:43PM
Isn't it sad that the original mission of the FSF was the grand and glorious vision of producing a Unix clone? And they didn't even completely succeed at that - a college kid from Finland had to do the hardest part for them.
(Score: 1) by elgrantrolo on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:37PM
I'll try to be less harsh than you were in your critique of MS/Windows 8. I may not succeed :)
Here's the way I see it: the number of people in your generation of PC users is dwindling and even now is dwarfed by the new generation. For the new generation, a "desktop" is not a useful UI metaphor in the same way that a floppy disk does not represent "saving" anything.
Mass market surveys tell us that as of 2013/14 people use their smartphones while having sex, while eating and while sitting in the loo. I don't know what could make it more obvious for the people of the "file manager" generation for them to understand that PC, as in "personal computer", MUST include more than the laptop and mini tower form factor.
In the same way that the power user minority did not stop the PC industry from moving from matte 4:3 screens to 16:9 glossy screens, they will not be the reason to reject the incremental cost of adding a touch screen to the majority of PCs.
When Microsoft rebuilt the Windows UI with Metro, they realigned their main product with where they think the market will be from now on. It's risky like any other change or innovation. It was criticised in the same way that the previous generations of Windows were: clunky, resource draining, change-for-the-sake-of-change. It was just more obvious now that PCs are for billions of users, rather than for people in computer labs. On the subject of Metro and MS not being good at tablets: For applications built in the olde ways of WIMP, there is still a desktop mode. Those applications will still have plenty of "advanced settings" to play with and will remain the domain of keyboard+mouse. At the same time, there will be more applications built for metro, with larger buttons for touchscreen users, with only a subset of the traditional UI clutter. Standard mouse and touchscreen gestures will become as familiar as pressing ALT-F4 or ALT-TAB. These things were never intuitive, what they did was become familiar.
Anyone expecting MS to drop Windows RT should also see that this is to miss out on the opportunity to have a big pool of unofficial testers for any ARM version of Windows. It would be a bad move.
Anyone thinking that MS should drop the consumer market should also notice that the consumer and the enterprise market influence each other. BYOD, the defunct Apple Computer inc. traditionally selling to niches except when it comes to schools are just 2 examples.
Buyers will always moan about things changing. MS and the other players in this market can't have analysis-paralysis every time that happens. The old PC is dead, just move on.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by gishzida on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:30PM
What is the advantage to a content creator to have something that is not useful [other than to push up the price] What is the value added to pay an extra $200 for something that is not needed? [no killer apps in MS app space... all of the innovative "creative performance" apps stuff is iPad / iOS based]. The Dual Xeon Quad Core workstation on my desk is not a tablet and I don't use it for tablet like things.
In addition to the desktops I have quite a few tablet / smart phones... all of them running Android. Why just android? Cost. Features. Design.... and innovation. I have not bought into the Apple mystique as I don't particularly like the garden they are keeping.
MS is playing a catch-up game and so far it keeps stumbling... Vista... then Win 8.0. I am not sold on the idea that MS can actually pull of a transformation to an "Apple clone". The point is why are they trying to do that? Do they really have their ducks in a row to actually beat Apple and Google? I remain unconvinced that becoming more like Apple helps.
MS might be better off if they focus the Xbox line and make Xbox and RT synonymous... and leave the windows desktop / server / app space a part of the "enterprise space". The problem with their becoming a "hardware company that competes with their OEMs is that it gives the OEM motivation to out innovate MS as Samsung is trying to do to Apple. The net result is that OEMs are breaking their necks to bring out "useful" CromeBooks or Android laptops which undercuts MS in the tablet space.
So back on point... MS needs to actually do something innovative. Buying Nokia does not make Microsoft into Samsung. Sure they can make money... but Nokia has been taking a beating from the Smart Phone vendors and long term is a losing proposition. Forcing a mobile OS UI onto the desktop is unwise and unwarranted... whereas it just might work with an XboxOS set top computer. Or an "XboxBook". Ultimately I don't much care what MS does... except I'd hate to see them continue to stumble... because before long they will take a fall and stay that way... and I will be sad if that happens.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:41PM
"I'll try to be less harsh than you were in your critique of MS/Windows 8. I may not succeed :)
Here's the way I see it: the number of people in your generation of PC users is dwindling and even now is dwarfed by the new generation. For the new generation, a "desktop" is not a useful UI metaphor in the same way that a floppy disk does not represent "saving" anything."
What's this "your generation" crap. Like old people don't have and use smart phones (aka little PCs). LPCs are great, handy, and lousy to work with in the *work* environment. People may use a LPC during sex, but I really doubt they are using it to perform their day to day business. The working world does not revolve around Android, Apple or whatever touch and play device. Perhaps in 10 years there could be a shift, but for now that desktop is still a mainstay for businesses, Enterprise to small size.
As such, Microsoft's introduction of 8 ()RT) was ill planned and it showed. People who work and use Desktops did not want to change and if they did, found the interface to plain suck. "Your generation" maybe liked it, but only because you don't do actual day to work on it (maybe you do, most don't) and it fit the touch and go or short attention span infecting young minds today.
MS better approach (removing greed which is pure fantasy) would have been to split the UI while keeping the kernel intact. Desktops run 7 and beyond by default, mobile runs RT by default. Just as they did with 95 and NT (though I will accept they were different engines under the hood). MS had the smarts to pull that off, instead, they got greedy and "chose poorly".
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by TheloniousToady on Sunday March 02 2014, @04:45PM
The "and" there really painted an ugly picture in my mind. Still, you're undoubtedly right that somebody's done that.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:32PM
"11) You've pwned the enterprise market and the enterprise has become dependent on you."
How will this turn out better than RIM/Blackberry? Or IBM mainframes circa 1970s. Or Lotus Notes.
Not saying its impossible, just better have a different plan if you want a different result.
Enterprise market has traditionally been where companies go to die. Oh they'll make dough for a decade, at most, then bye bye.
Would it necessarily be bad if no one ever used Windows outside a business environment ever again? The market is rapidly headed that way anyway so may as well encourage the trend.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by gishzida on Sunday March 02 2014, @01:55PM
You can dumb down a teller workstation to a what is the modern equivalent of a smart terminal [a touch workstation with an Atom CPU running a virtual desktop on a VM host]... but for the end user the OS still needs to be Windows to support all those specialty apps... because you cannot change an Enterprise over night. Enterprises also hate to have to retrain users. You won't see BYOD for a Bank Teller... or any other critical app [medical , military, law enforcement, etc.]. When and if you do you should be seriously question doing business with that company
(Score: 1) by Reziac on Monday March 03 2014, @05:06AM
"...the next Novell which is to say: carved up and sold out."
Which began when Novell stopped doing what they were good at and tried to jump on whatever bandwagon went by making the most noise. :(
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 03 2014, @04:25PM
I don't like any of these suggestions. Here's my suggestion:
Shut down the company and give the cash back to the shareholders.
That's what I want to see Microsoft do. Nothing less.