Blog Archives
Samsung’s ATIV Q tablet runs both Windows 8 and Android Jelly Bean
Part of the advantage of having both operating systems in one device is that Windows users can quickly call up Android apps such as Angry Birds by seamlessly toggling back and forth between the two OSs by pushing a button without rebooting, as Samsung officials demonstrated in a London event that was also broadcast via YouTube. A major criticism of Windows 8 has been a relative shortage of apps in the Windows Store, compared to app stores for iOS and Android.
The dual OS concept didn’t make sense to Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner, even though she liked the ATIV Q design and its ability to convert from tablet to laptop with a foldout keyboard.
“Why would you want both OSs on one device if you wanted to do work and play?” she asked. “To me, this is more about doing technology for the sake of it. The design of the ATIV Q is amazing, but I think it would have done much better in just Windows 8.” She said that while Samsung hasn’t announced the price or other details, she predicted it probably will cost more than buying two tablets, each running a separate OS.
Power users will like having access to both Windows and Android apps, “but I think this concept will be very confusing to the average user,” added Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy. “One really positive thing this brings to Windows 8 is the ability to have access to all those Android apps even though are really blown up phone apps.”
Microsoft said to have finalized Windows Phone 8 OS
By Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft
Chalk up another one for those Windows Phone tipsters.
Back in July, I heard whispers that Microsoft would release to manufacturing (RTM) the Windows Phone 8 operating system in September. The plan, as of then, was that the first Windows Phone 8 devices would ship in November 2012.
On September 14, Microsoft’s phone team shipped the OS, codenamed “Apollo,” according to a couple of my contacts.WPCentral is reporting they are hearing the same. And WMPoweruser has posted pictures via LiveSino.net, of what appear to be Windows Phone team members signing an RTM wall.
I asked a Microsoft Windows Phone spokesperson on September 14 if the OS had RTM’d and was told Microsoft “had nothing to share at this time.”
If the OS has, indeed, been proclaimed “done,” it’s time for handset makers and carriers to do their final testing and preloading of the OS onto new phones.
Microsoft wouldn’t allow its phone partners to let folks try the WP8 devices that Samsung and Nokia recently unveiled. I’d expect at least part of the reason for that was the OS wasn’t yet fully baked. (This also is probably at least part of the reason Microsoft has delayed making the Windows Phone 8 software development kit available to more than just its own employees and a select group of Connect testers.) Read More
Windows 8 Mission far from Accomplished
Microsoft today announced that its new client operating system,
Windows 8, has reached a very important milestone called “RTM” or “release to manufacturing”. The Microsoft team deserves congratulations in this accomplishment as this took almost three years in the making with the shedding of blood, sweat and tears. While this is a very big milestone, Windows 8 is very far from the end game and has a lot of things to prove before the mission is accomplished. Microsoft knows this, but I don’t think many realize just how far Windows 8 has to go.
Hardware Compatibility
Microsoft has done a lot to ensure hardware compatibility with Windows 7 peripherals, but until the most popular installed base has been tested, it’s a crapshoot. One of the biggest things Microsoft needs to quickly disclose is what peripherals work well with Windows 8 and RT, work with limited functionality, and which don’t work at all. This will be very evident as OEMs like HP and Dell, ODMs like Compal, channel providers like Best Buy and peripheral makers like Logitech run their product through “wide area tests”, testing their own PCs and tablets and associated peripherals. Peripherals with Windows applications like printer/scanners and video cameras will need the most work as these are full blown Windows apps. Windows RT devices will have the biggest challenge as they aren’t compatible with legacy applications. Read More
Gabe Newell of Valve: Windows 8 “a catastrophe”
This week at the video game conference known as Casual Connect, Valve head Gabe Newell has taken out the knives and cut up a nice clean slice of Microsoft with heavily negative comments on their next big operating system Windows 8. Newell’s Valve and Steam create a video game environment in which people can download games and keep their accounts with access to those games in the cloud. Newell is currently working to bring big-name games that otherwise would only have been for Windows and OS X machines to Linux in the meantime.
With Newell speaking so negatively about Windows 8 it seems almost inevitable that he’s got a back-up plan set in motion. As it turns out, his move with Steam toward Linux as an operating system of interest is “a hedging strategy” as he describes it. His predictions about Windows 8 certainly don’t place him in the favor of Microsoft on the whole, though their having their own gaming portal too never really added up to a great relationship between the companies in the first place.
“[Windows 8] is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. We’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. … It will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.” – Newell
This move adds to Newell’s comments that without the open nature of the PC in general, Valve would never have been able to exist. Speaking on the controlled nature of Microsoft’s own Xbox LIVE integration and built-in Windows Store, Newell noted that there’s always a “strong temptation” to close a platform because of the profits that can be gained. Developers, he noted, “look at what they can accomplish when they limit the competitors’ access to the platform, and they say ‘That’s really exciting.’” Read More
Microsoft: Windows 8 will go on sale Oct. 26
Microsoft says Windows 8 will go on sale Oct. 26. The upgrade to its operating system is designed to work better with touch screens and on tablet computers.
Microsoft announced the date in a blog post and at its annual sales meeting Wednesday. The software company had said earlier that Windows 8 would go on sale in October.
Microsoft is releasing the software as a downloadable upgrade that day for PC owners, and letting PC makers start selling computers with Windows 8 the same day.
As an upgrade for users of Windows XP, Vista or 7, Windows will cost $40. That’s much less than Microsoft Corp. has charged for previous operating system upgrades. People who bought a Windows 7 computer on June 2 or later can upgrade for $15. Read More
With Windows 8 on horizon, Microsoft declares new war on Apple
Windows 8 PCs are officially coming in October, and Microsoft is holding nothing back when it comes to going after the competition. In an interview with the tech news organization CRN, Microsoft’s chief executive said that while the company has “ceded some of the boundary between hardware and software innovation” to Apple in the past, it is not going to do that anymore.
“We are trying to make absolutely clear we are not going to leave any space uncovered to Apple,”
he told the publication at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference on Monday. He went on to say that Microsoft will be going hard after the consumer cloud market, hardware, software and the tablet market as it looks ahead.
There is certainly something interesting happening at Microsoft as the company completely revamps its operating system with the more touch-friendly Windows 8. Not only does the company have its own app store for tablets and computers, it’s also messed around with some of its most recognizable OS features such as the start menu. For traditionalists, there’s still the familiar mouse-and-keyboard navigation. But it also has its own, completely different live-tile interface reminiscent of Windows Phone.
Microsoft has generated some good buzz ahead of its new launch, not only with previews of its new system but also with the introduction of its Surface tablet, which impressed techies with its innovative keyboard cover design. But many are withholding judgement until they get their hands on one to try it out — or until Microsoft reveals a price. Read More
Dell ‘Super Excited About Windows 8,’ Vows No Dell Smartphones
Appearing in a wide-ranging on-stage interview here at market researcher Gartner’s annual security and risk management conference, Dell offered insights into several of his company’s rapidly evolving business lines, including the decision to walk away from Android tablets in the U.S. market in favor of Windows.
“I think the Microsoft Windows 8 solution is going to be very attractive to customers for a number of reasons,” Dell said. “You’ll see us at launch, at Windows 8 launch, with a full complement of devices–tablets, hybrids, convertibles–you know every imaginable and maybe some unimaginable forms.”
Dell said that he expects Windows 8 devices to enter the market with an attractive price point, and that in the business sector, where the company primarily plans to focus, shops that already run Windows will be inclined to remain in that environment as they deploy tablets and other new devices.
Windows 8 ‘Evolutionary’
Dell said he is “super excited about Windows 8 and what that brings to touch computing and tablets,” saying the next iteration of the operating system will chart an “evolutionary path for Windows into tablets.”
Dell also confirmed that the company plans to bring an ARM-based tablet to market. But his enthusiasm for mobile devices does not extend into the smartphone arena. He said in no uncertain terms that the company has no plans to bring a phone to market.
“You’re not going to see us in phones, not in terms of hardware,” he said.
As for Android and Apple devices, Dell said that the company is making a bid to offer businesses support through its expanding services division, which takes a “device-agnostic” approach.
“If you have an iPhone or an Android phone, we want to manage and secure that for you,” he said.
Those efforts tie into Dell’s work on desktop virtualization, which includes integration with mobile devices running Android or iOS. Dell indicated that the company will introduce a new package of software for securing and managing Apple and Android devices in a virtualized desktop environment later this year. Read More
Ballmer’s Windows 8 Forecast Not as Bombastic as First Reported
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is known for his hyperbole and bombast. He once bounded onstage at an employee event, jumping around and screaming “I LOVE this company,” which helped him earn the nickname, “Monkey Boy.” This time, the hyperbole seems to have been a case of lack of clarification of his remarks earlier about Windows 8.
Various news outlets reported that Ballmer told an audience at the Seoul Digital Forum in South Korea on May 22 that he predicted that 500 million users would have Windows 8-powered devices in their hands by the end of 2013. Windows 8 is expected to be released sometime this fall. Well, that sounded like an overreach to a number of Microsoft industry watchers.
The second-day story, however, is a more nuanced prediction by Ballmer. TheWebsite GeekWire reported May 23 that, based on a transcript of Ballmer’s remarks in Seoul, that he was talking about all Windows machine sales, not just of Windows 8. And some of that Windows 8 adoption could be upgrades of Windows 7 machines. Read More
Dell, Windows 8, and the Future of the PC
Dell isn’t happy. As things go, the PC era, that is the Personal computer era may be over. As I’ve mentioned in another post, (Windows8 Prognosis for Sales), what consumers want of their PC, and businesses want, are different. The PC at the private consumer level is about communication, and entertainment. And guess what, that is what tablets, and laptops can provide. And as proof of this, just look at the tens of thousands of apps that are available for tablets. Where are they for the PC? Some are available…but the PC functions in an entirely different environment.
Which brings us back to Dell, one of the biggest PC makers in the world. Dell’s recent 1st quarter earnings reflect the view that things aren’t looking up for them.
Dell figures, that with slow growth, the PC industry will try to use some other means to induce customers to come back to the PC. Hence Windows 8.
With Windows 8, the format of the PC will change because Windows 8 will expand the touch screen basis of operations and this means that to fully appreciate what the apps and programs will do, you need a monitor larger than the tablet.
In a recent public meeting Dell officials gave their synopsis of the merit of Windows 8.
” We think that the touch screen products will certainly cost more. They are more in the price points and price bands that we tend to operate in. We will have the full complement of products around the time of Windows 8. Unlike other Windows transitions, you generally are going to need a new PC whether it is a tablet or notebook with touch or some derivative hybrid. The product refresh cycle associated with this release of Windows is likely to be very different from other releases, but it is hard to know exactly what it looks like.”
Dell Computer Systems…on the way out?
From this you can take several points. New Windows 8 based PC’s will cost more because of the touch technology. They also are in the process of creating new products to handle the touch technology, whether it is on video enhancement cards or monitors. Nevertheless, Dell like other manufacturers will have to adjust in order to compete with tablets and PC’s. But they still don’t have a good reason to give to users to stick to the PC and not move away. If they let the PC market get away, or blend into the tablet market, then they will have to make major adjustments. Their 1st quarter earnings may be just a preview. Read More
Rant4u 