[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Why Windows RT is hurtling toward disaster here

[newyorkcitymale]

I still think people are missing the point of Surface. It was created to set a high-end standard to showcase the software, not necessarily to sell like hotcakes. I mean, if Microsoft wanted to goose sales for Christmas, they could've easily lowered the price... but hey did not. Why? Probably for the reason I just stated. Surface RT isn't priced for everyone.

It's priced for the enthusiast who wants the best Windows RT has to offer. Microsoft's OEMs will soon be releasing competing devices running RT at different price points (mostly lower than Surface RT). This way, Microsoft isn't really competing with its partners directly (well, not at every price point at least).

The same applies to Surface Pro... although I expect that one to sell quite a bit better than RT... since it's "real Windows."

[agrippa]

Windows RT was a desperate attempt to enter the tablet market at the lower-end. Any competent smart phone can do the same things that windows RT can. For example my year old droid Razr can be hooked up and have a web top application I have access to all the Internet, Along with productivity which includes Google Drive. The only extra thing I need is HDMI cable and Monitor, Can also bring your own keyboard or mouse Which many people will have extra. Which you can find at home or at your workplace. This is just one example of how poorly windows RT was conceived. The Surface is a brilliant piece of hardware I give you that. But to spend that much money for a very limited app the ecosystem and the basic version of Microsoft office, that's Just pathetic.
Windows RT had great potential and it still does have great potential I hope Microsoft wakes up and realizes this, If they drop the price by hundred dollars it might be more palatable. For anyone who compares apples to oranges Will find that Android OS and the iOS are superior to Windows RT in every way. Like I mentioned before my smartphone can accomplish the same things that Windows RT can. It's also infinitely portable has better battery life. I had high hopes for the surface and windows RT. But it seems that Microsoft didn't share that optimism.

[cyang00]

I bought the Surface RT when it first came out, I really like it. There is that one part that I didn't like, no it's not the lack of apps, it's the lock down that we have on the device. The only way for RT to survive in my opinion is to unlock it and let the user do what every they want on the ARM processor. Unlock the boot loader, unlock the installation restriction and this product will survive.

[KLanD]

The problem with the RT is that people keep comparing it to a PC, compare it to something similar, like the iPad.

The pro on the other hand should be compared to PCs.

[vgslim]

Not sure I understand the advantage of buying a Surface with RT. If you can buy a Asus Tablet with Windows 8 for less.

[stakeouttoo]

little by little.. EVERYONE will find out that Windows 8 in it's present form is JUNK.. garbage.. MS trying to shove this OS down the throats of the consumer.. not even a desktop option when booting up..

[MacNewton]

IS WINDOWS RT A ILLEGITIMATE CHILD

Fact: Microsoft’s entire software line has been led by a group that came from the mobile device division. The XBox team has set the pace for Windows RT devices , as evidenced when Microsoft unveiled its Xbox Music and Xbox Video services across phones, PCs, and gaming consoles. So you see folks, the Surface RT was DOA from the start. Instead of a business system it's a game system with the xBox UI.

DOES BALLMER HAVE MENTAL PROBLEM?

We all know that Steven Anthony Ballmer BEHAVES LIKE HE has mental problems. Just like its developer Win8 has taken on some of Ballmer health ensues.

DOES WINDOWS 8 HAVE A SPLIT PERSONALITY?

Synonyms of a split personality. (1) alternating personality, (2) dissociative identity, (3) multiple personality

PREDICTION

As a long time Mac / Windows user & programer, I can say without any hesitation that if Microsoft continues to push Win8 (as it is now) onto the public, there will be a dynamic change in the buying habits of many LONG TIME MS users.

APPLE

The Real Trojan Horse. ( not the malicious type)

Billions of Windows users (Government, Business and Personal) are now deciding that Microsoft has betrayed them and are now willing to move over to OS X. They are now well informed on how good Apple products are. A very large percentage of them are using Apple products and understand that Apple produces reliable devices, software and services.

APPLE AS A WINDOWS SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Believe it or not, but Apple is one of the worlds largest software developer for windows. iTunes & Safari are the top two that come to mind.


IF NOT APPLE, LINUX?

If your users are not inclined to buy into Apple, then it will be one of Canonical partners that will fill the bill.

ASUS has been working with Canonical to bring to market. Canonical and Dell continue to work together to deliver the best machines running the best of Ubuntu. Canonical has been shipping Ubuntu on Lenovo's Think Center and Idea Center machines for over one year.

What is Ubuntu: Commercially sponsored Debian-derived Linux distribution



Thank you Ballmer for pushing people over the edge.

[John2jio]

Quote

little by little.. EVERYONE will find out that Windows 8 in it's present form is JUNK.. garbage.. MS trying to shove this OS down the throats of the consumer.. not even a desktop option when booting up..

They already have!

[lamorpa]

Quote

I still think people are missing the point of Surface. It was created to set a high-end standard to showcase the software, not necessarily to sell like hotcakes. I mean, if Microsoft wanted to goose sales for Christmas, they could've easily lowered the price... but hey did not. Why? Probably for the reason I just stated. Surface RT isn't priced for everyone. It's priced for the enthusiast who wants the best Windows RT has to offer. Microsoft's OEMs will soon be releasing competing devices running RT at different price points (mostly lower than Surface RT). This way, Microsoft isn't really competing with its partners directly (well, not at every price point at least). The same applies to Surface Pro... although I expect that one to sell quite a bit better than RT... since it's "real Windows."

Any job openings in your department at Microsoft?

[lamorpa]

Quote

little by little.. EVERYONE will find out that Windows 8 in it's present form is JUNK.. garbage.. MS trying to shove this OS down the throats of the consumer.. not even a desktop option when booting up..

Nothing should ever change. Everything should just stay the same. Comfort comes from sameness.

(sent from my Compaq Portable)

[Fatesrider]

As long as it's a tablet (or a crippled laptop if one wants to finger paint and use a barely functional keyboard and stand accessories that costs more - however you want to describe it), it still suffers the inherent handicap of the tablet form factor just like the iPad and any other tablet.

There are products that do a better job of delivering media. There are products that do a better job at productivity. They're called laptops. Last I looked, though the selection is dwindling as OEM's move toward tablets because their margins are far, far more lucrative than laptops, they're still available and cost about the same.

Why waste so much money, lose so much productivity and deal with so much hassle for the sake of an illusionary convenience? (after all, a laptop comes in one piece while a tablet comes in multiple pieces if you want to use it like a laptop - more to tote, more to buy and more to lose or break and it still isn't going to do all that you might need it to do on the go).

And yes, I speak from experience. The majority of my tablet-owning clients have all expressed dissatisfaction or disappointment with their devices for the reasons I mentioned here.

[MKZ1945]

I agree with “MacNewton” that Steve Ballmer tends to come across as a bag of nuts, and I don’t believe he has been good for the image of Microsoft. Microsoft, as a business, needs to find a Steve Jobs or another Bill Gates.

However, I would like to see the statistics showing that BILLIONS of Windows users are moving on to something else because of Windows 8. If these people are shocked by the difference between Windows 8 and Windows anything else, they are really going to be shocked when trying to move to OS X or Linux. The comment made by “Iamorpa” seems to come up from many others in one form or another on this site. Many people don’t like change. I predict many who shun Windows 8 will move from Windows XP to Windows 7, or remain with Windows 7 and wait to see what the next version of Windows will bring. Having been around the business world for many years, I don’t believe there will be any MAJOR migrations from Windows to an Apple OS. Most business, unless they are startups, are slow to just migrate from one version of Windows to another, or even from one version of user software to another. There are a number of reasons for this that I’m not going to go into here, but they are fairly obvious reasons if you think about it for awhile. I personally don’t know of any businesses going to Windows 8 at this time, but I do know of those abandoning XP in favor of Windows 7. Not much of a learning curve in that move and much of the software is surprisingly compatible or requires little modification.

It’s not hard for anyone to believe Apple develops software for Windows. So does Linux and so does every individual computer programmer I know. There’s BILLIONS of Windows users out there, so why not. It’s were the money’s at, and MONEY is the root or foundation that most people and businesses make their decisions on. There was a discussion recently on one of the network business cable stations that stated that around 6.5 billion computers are used in the world, over 5 billion use Microsoft and around 100 million use Apple. They went on to say that over half the world uses Apple products. The point being made that while Microsoft, in the past, has aimed its products more towards the business world and because of that the people that use these computers in business also use them at home. Apple tends to aim their products at the general public, so many of these people have both Apple and Microsoft based products. I believe Microsoft is now trying to break into some of the Apple products world, but I don’t feel Apple has that much to be concerned about. I expect their major problem area is going to be competing with Android. At the computer side of things, Linux may be a larger threat to Apple then to Microsoft. If any business abandons Microsoft, Linux is a much cheaper direction to go to the either Apple or Microsoft.

[TechConc]

KLanD, on 15 January 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

The problem with the RT is that people keep comparing it to a PC, compare it to something similar, like the iPad.

The pro on the other hand should be compared to PCs.

Well, therein lies the problem. Microsoft's single vision of Windows everywhere has led to customer confusion. The moment I heard MS's plan for both an ARM and Intel based device, I knew they were hosed. Customer confusion never leads to high sales.

As for the Surface, it failed for the same reasons all of the other iPad competitors have failed. It tried to take the iPad head on. The only "success" in the tablet market outside of the iPad has been in the smaller 7" devices like the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. They carved out a different market niche, however, even there, the "success" only comes by selling the product at or below cost.

[Bald]

yes, with Ms basically saying win32 developers may stick 20 years of experiences in the... i can see how they are loving Ms now, and how they are running to populate the winrt store, so they can lose even the thinnest idea of control overvtheir own software distribution,mand when they are limited to the ridiculus rt apis, that proven to be so poorly conceived that even microsoft itself was not able to roll out decent metro applications to replace desktop applications removed by windows 8 squarepants.
imho with this MS has lost an "eight"

[Bald]

Quote

Nothing should ever change. Everything should just stay the same.

your irony misplaced is.
newer does not always mean better, thats why two word we have for...

[KLanD]

TechConc, on 15 January 2013 - 10:36 AM, said:

KLanD, on 15 January 2013 - 08:21 AM, said:

The problem with the RT is that people keep comparing it to a PC, compare it to something similar, like the iPad.

The pro on the other hand should be compared to PCs.

Well, therein lies the problem. Microsoft's single vision of Windows everywhere has led to customer confusion. The moment I heard MS's plan for both an ARM and Intel based device, I knew they were hosed. Customer confusion never leads to high sales.

As for the Surface, it failed for the same reasons all of the other iPad competitors have failed. It tried to take the iPad head on. The only "success" in the tablet market outside of the iPad has been in the smaller 7" devices like the Kindle Fire and the Nexus 7. They carved out a different market niche, however, even there, the "success" only comes by selling the product at or below cost.

No, I think it's more a case of 'reporters' trying to find negatives with unrealistic comparisons.

Being #2 in a booming market isn't a failure. By your logic OSX and Mac machines must be a failure since after all this time they aren't #1 and don't kid yourself, just because Apple likes a ridiculous profit margin doesn't mean others are losing money. You don't go into business to sell items at less than they cost you and to think the Fire and Nexus 7 aren't turning a profit is just asinine.

[cyang00]

Quote

little by little.. EVERYONE will find out that Windows 8 in it's present form is JUNK.. garbage.. MS trying to shove this OS down the throats of the consumer.. not even a desktop option when booting up..

I don't think you've used Windows 8 to it's full capacity and it seems you have only read what others are saying. I have Windows 8 on my custom built tower and it boots into the desktop without any customization. Rarely do I use the Metro UI since all my software is pin to my task bar or it's shortcut on the desktop. It's a new experience and you should give it a try. Every software I've used before still works just fine on Windows 8. Windows RT will soon follow as more software is built to support ARM processor.

[KNARCH81]

To all the MS and Windows 8 doom and gloomers.....Windows 8 is a "TOUCH" optimized OS, and the MFR partners of MS just tried to unload their old Windows 7 PC / Laptop designs without touch screens - this showed clear lack of innovation, and is the biggest reason that MS decided to mfr their own devices - see MS Surface RT, and Surface Pro. The touch enabled devices that were new designs - Lenovo Yoga, HP Envy X, etc. were all next to impossible to purchase because of lack of stock. Intel has mandated all future devices support touch, and peoples complaints about the OS being difficult to use are completely unwarranted, and biased due to Tech Blog sites Apple fandom. Windows 8 is not going anywhere, nor is MS, and those that think otherwise are just foolish. Windows 8 is truly innovative, and will set the standard for PC's, Laptops, Hybrid's, and Tablets (RT) moving forward. If you have yet to try out MS's own Surface RT, you are missing out on a device that is light years ahead of anything Apple has released. Now that Intel Chips are not as power hungry (Ivy Bridge, and Haswell), expect to see full Windows 8 Pro tablets doing things that an Ipad will never be able to do. Until Apple releases a touch capable device that dual boots IOS, and OSX, or completely re-designs their OSX to run all IOS applications and supports touch based input, they will be behind. I commend MS for their forward thinking, enabling the user base to use their PC however they want - if its a desktop computer, use it as a desktop, if its a tablet, use the touch enabled "metro" interface, and modern touch applications, if its a hybrid, use both - another words, it does it all.

I have a Surface RT, as well as an Ipad. I no longer use my ipad, it collects dust on my desk, actually, I used it as a mousepad when I was doing work on my surface the other night while sitting on my couch (needed a hard surface). I have found that the Microsoft Store is more than adequate, especially today, less than 3 months after launch, I have replaced every app that I had on my Ipad with a better, or equally good application. The only things missing from the MS store, are the good 3d games from Gameloft, and EA - which I am positive will come in the next few months. The fact is that 100's of millions of people will be buying these "Touch" windows 8 devices, and if your a developer and choose not to develop for the platform, I assure you someone else will have a similar idea, and will beat you to it. Samsung can keep making phones, and oversized android phones (they try to call them tablets, but they are just phones with big screens).

RT Desktop - lets see....MS Office, and File explorer, Native Windows Remote Desktop, those are 3 very big reasons that this tablet is light years ahead of an Ipad, or Android tablet.....not to mention, it has an integrated full sized usb port, and a unique keyboard cover.

My prediction is that MS sells 10 million + Surface Pro devices in the next year, and Windows RT will continue its growth due to the expansion of the Windows Store, and the addition of more application geared to Touch based OS.

I also predict that in 2015 (3 years after windows 8 release), Apple will release dual booting MacBook hybrids, with removable "ios/ipad" screens, and sell them for double the price as a comparable setup with Windows 8 - Apple fans will rejoice, and think its the best thing since sliced bread, and that it was an original idea.

[McAnally123]

OK interesting... Apple Google have large head start so this is number 3 horse. Advanges already large user base. disadvantage already large user base with need to adapt strategy and bringing forward user base of old technology add new innovation but differenciated. Difficult problem indeed. Concentrate on existing developer, new developers, offer incentives maybe even open source some of the code for new innovations establish relationships with developers of Android and iOS. Offer software tools that deploy to multiple platforms created by guess who, Microsoft. Partner with Apple, Google in creating virtual machine which will execute code from all three app markets... each partner gets share of runtime revenues, customers may eventually win. Or not, just idea. Still tablets and pads don't offer same functional experience as desktops and laptops... time for MS to adjust... but running out.