Forbes: Microsoft Is Fast Turning Into A Sideshow

[Dot Matrix]

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Yes... I did use Windows 8, but honestly... I'm used to know exactly what I wanted to do and be able to do that. I won't learn the little secrets of Windows 8 because, well... Metro Apps are pretty useless to me. If I want that kind of behavior for a certain app, I'd rather have widgets or websites that do that pretty well. I'm not using a tablet. I'm on a Retina Macbook Pro, and if I want widgets, I can certainly swipe with three fingers to the right and access all the widgets I want. I don't have to deal with another UX made for tablets to do what I want ON A DESKTOP.

Good luck with your frankenstein OS. It is not for me.

Metro isn't just for tablets, dude, but whatever.

Large or small isn't much of a choice for someone with dozens of shortcuts. I wish tiles would be resizable to any size I desire.

That's supposedly coming with "Blue", a la Windows Phone 8. But I still have dozens of tiles on my screen too, the fact that I can separate them into groups helps alleviate clutter.

[Luis Mazza]

Metro isn't just for tablets, dude, but whatever.

Of course it isn't... Microsoft told you that it is for desktops too. Just like hovercrafts are made for land and water. They sell like hotcakes, don't they? At least in Florida. Or don't? /s

[HawkMan]

I'm still waiting for you to make any actual arguments and not just troll with replies like "it's not, but I don't have any reasons wp for why it's not, but it really isn't and you're all fanboys"

[Luis Mazza]

I'm still waiting for you to make any actual arguments and not just troll with replies like "it's not, but I don't have any reasons wp for why it's not, but it really isn't and you're all fanboys"

I'm still waiting for you to engane on serious thinking and start to make sense, as you're ALWAYS the only one who is lost with my arguments. Maybe you should calibrate your english comprehension? Or maybe you should stop calling other people trolls, when you have nothing else better to say than the usual defensive BS like "you're trolling". Give me a break.

[Dot Matrix]

Of course it isn't... Microsoft told you that it is for desktops too. Just like hovercrafts are made for land and water. They sell like hotcakes, don't they? At least in Florida. Or don't? /s

Microsoft didn't tell me ****. I tried the OS, and I like it. I see the OS for what it is: The foundation for Windows releases to come. The start of dynamic computing. Windows 8 actually saves me time.

[HawkMan]

what arguments, in this whole thread you have not given a SINGLE actual arguments, I on the other hand have, several times. even to your posts where you go on about obviously faulty windows 8 information that you could only have gotten from listening to a windows 8 discussion on the mac rumors forum by other people who has never used windows 8.

Now for example, explain to the how the icon based charm menu for example is textual. and how right clicking a tile, a concept that has been integral to windows and any non Apple OS since last century, is confusing.

[Luis Mazza]

Microsoft didn't tell me ****. I tried the OS, and I like it. I see the OS for what it is: The foundation for Windows releases to come. The start of dynamic computing. Windows 8 actually saves me time.

You speak like those sects where people go in trance while repeating mantras. IT's funny :D

[HawkMan]

I'm still waiting for you to engane on serious thinking and start to make sense, as you're ALWAYS the only one who is lost with my arguments. Maybe you should calibrate your english comprehension? Or maybe you should stop calling other people trolls, when you have nothing else better to say than the usual defensive BS like "you're trolling". Give me a break.

I also earlier in this thread explained how windows 8 and the start screen is more efficient than the old start menu, and I'd even say any other launcher out there today. If you want to appear as a grown up with actual arguments and not a pure troll, why don't you stop ignoring my posts and posts some actual counter arguments to that one, that is if you actually have some, which I don't think you do.

You speak like those sects where people go in trance while repeating mantras. IT's funny :D

oh look, another ad hominem post with no actual argumentation. still waiting.

[Luis Mazza]

what arguments, in this whole thread you have not given a SINGLE actual arguments, I on the other hand have, several times. even to your posts where you go on about obviously faulty windows 8 information that you could only have gotten from listening to a windows 8 discussion on the mac rumors forum by other people who has never used windows 8.

Now for example, explain to the how the icon based charm menu for example is textual. and how right clicking a tile, a concept that has been integral to windows and any non Apple OS since last century, is confusing.

You and the parachute people that go down on some threads and comments always use the same tactic: you grab on a mistake the other part makes and try to transform that in a single huge disgrace, by dismissing all other positive arguments and content that has been stated.

That makes you look like an ignorant rat. Don't be one... You live in Norway. Don't destroy the image of highly developed country you live in, with your attitude. lol

Bye.

[capr]

anyone think the reason windows 8 isn't blowing you off your rocker is because windows 7 was so good... people don't have a reason to change/upgrade. of course the sales would be as good, they are simply reaching a different market.

[HawkMan]

You and the parachute people that go down on some threads and comments always use the same tactic: you grab on a mistake the other part makes and try to transform that in a single huge disgrace, by dismissing all other positive arguments and content that has been stated.

That makes you look like an ignorant rat. Don't be one... You live in Norway. Don't destroy the image of highly developed country you live in, with your attitude. lol

Bye.

So you had no real argument to contributed. I haven't dismissed a single think you said, since you haven't given any argument to dismiss. and I haven't grabbed onto any mistakes since with no real arguments, given you haven't done any mistakes, well except for not giving any real arguments just breaking forum rules.

Also yet, another post with no arguments only attacking the person... it seems to be the only thing you ever do, not only in this thread, but in every thread on this forum. you never give real arguments, just dismiss other people's arguments as wrong and throw in some ad hominems.

[Luis Mazza]

So you had no real argument to contributed. I haven't dismissed a single think you said, since you haven't given any argument to dismiss. and I haven't grabbed onto any mistakes since with no real arguments, given you haven't done any mistakes, well except for not giving any real arguments just breaking forum rules.

Also yet, another post with no arguments only attacking the person... it seems to be the only thing you ever do, not only in this thread, but in every thread on this forum. you never give real arguments, just dismiss other people's arguments as wrong and throw in some ad hominems.

Sorry... Your words don't make sense with your questions asking for arguments. I doubt anyone here has even a single clue of what arguments you're exactly asking for. You're pretty much confused overall. I give up.

[HawkMan]

You know arguments like

Ubuntu is a terrible OS because it's doesn't play well with computers running any nvidia card, the performance of the accelerated GI is pretty bad, unless you tweak it to turn off vsyn, FSAA and any other filtering making it look horrible, and even with vsync on it has horrible tearing... and os on and so on...

Meanwhile your idea of argumentation is

Windows 8 is horrible. and anyone who likes it is wrong and fanboys(though you're known to throw in a few more directed ad hominems in there with it)

I welcome you back when you grow up and learn to put in the "because" with something behind it that you are willing to stand behind and follow up and defend. THAT is argumentation and discussion.

[Luis Mazza]

You know arguments like

Ubuntu is a terrible OS because it's doesn't play well with computers running any nvidia card, the performance of the accelerated GI is pretty bad, unless you tweak it to turn off vsyn, FSAA and any other filtering making it look horrible, and even with vsync on it has horrible tearing... and os on and so on...

Meanwhile your idea of argumentation is

Windows 8 is horrible. and anyone who likes it is wrong and fanboys(though you're known to throw in a few more directed ad hominems in there with it)

I welcome you back when you grow up and learn to put in the "because" with something behind it that you are willing to stand behind and follow up and defend. THAT is argumentation and discussion.

You clearly didn't read even half of what I wrote in this thread today. Do your homework, as you also didn't read my comments in the news yesterday and started to write things that I didn't say. So I suggest you start reading everything that the person you accuse of not arguing in a thread (at least what was said hours ago), before criticizing me.

Also, you didn't answer my question objectively, as you're playing like a child once again, writing generic things like "you said Windows 8 is horrible". I said much more than that with ACTUAL ARGUMENTS, just read the thread or go back to your videogames, because maybe there you can actually win something. Regarding arguments, you have a lot of work to do to improve yours and understanding others.

[HawkMan]

Fanboys are in denial.

Then comes acceptance. But if you, fanboy, wants to stop this cycle, why don't you show your history of Microsoft fanboyism and send those WITH CRITICS to Steve Ballmer?

The problem is... you agree with what's being done. That's why you'll never be a CEO of anything other than a grocery store and that's why he must leave Microsoft if he loves the company more than his own proud.

We all want Microsoft to succeed... But denying it's huge problems, as the ones listed in Forbe's article, won't help AT ALL.

Sure, Mr.

That's exactly what you and them are hoping for.

Unfortunately, your denial will survive even if MS does fail. But failing is subjective, as the company won't die... as your denial won't die either.

It's ugly and confusing and not made to be used by a mouse. That is enough of a total failure and sales are bad and will prove that even further.

Like it or not, sales are BAD for what Microsoft is used to. Also, they don't seem to have an outlook for improvement.

Regarding the mobile experience: it is also ugly and confusing. About the name: nobody can stand the name WINDOWS for another 20 years. That is also another huge problem that is often ignored by Microsoft.

So your first three posts, the first two, are nothing but ad hominem attacks against the so called fanboys, your word for anyone who doesn't hate windows 8.

the third one. here we have excellent argument that windows 8 s ugly and confusing. yet no reasoning why. when you where asked why it was confusing you gave FUD answer that are not only vague, but outright wrong.

after this we pushed for more explanations why either the desktop or the mobile is confusing, and you have not yet delivered, so the ONLY arguments you have given in this thread is, ugly and confusing.

so, I'm still waiting.

[MorganX]

Meanwhile your idea of argumentation is

Almost all Windows 8 threads deteriorate because of extremist on both sides. Those who love it see nothing wrong with it and think those who don't like it are "resistant" to change and similar arguments. Those who don't like it, end up simply arguing with those who love it who attack their reasons for not liking it.

Start menu vs. Start page arguments are subjective and mostly opinion dictated primarily by personal preference and the type of work you do.

I don't think very many on Neowin wants Windows to fail. I would say it's fair to say many here make a living related to Microsoft products. It's like American politics, extremism will always result in a shouting match.

Windows 8 (Modern UI) isn't nearly as close to computing nirvana as its fans would have you believe and not nearly as bad as its detractors would have you believe, except for search, Xbox Music App, and Xbox Video App. But that's just my opinion and preference, lol.

[HawkMan]

as for acting like a child, I'm not the one throwing a tantrum, calling other people names and not giving proper argumentation. do you know where they argue like you do here, without reasons or proper arguments ?

Start menu vs. Start page arguments are subjective and mostly opinion dictated primarily by personal preference and the type of work you do.

believe and not nearly as bad as its detractors would have you believe, except for search, Xbox Music App, and Xbox Video App. But that's just my opinion and preference, lol.

Well I gave argument earlier as to why the start page is objectively not less efficient and is in fact a better, faster and more efficient launcher for anyone who uses it as a launcher, which is what it is anyway.

And noone has said metro is perfect, but it's a lot better than anything else out there, as a launcher. personally as it is right now I don't see much use for the metro apps. though some I like and have uses, like netflix and such. I do fully expect metro apps to mature and become viable alternatives starting with blue and fully with windows 9. But unlike some, I don't expect the desktop to ever go away, well maybe not "ever", but certainly not with 9 anyway, maybe by 10 or 11, but by then I also suspect while "metro" is the design language, it will have changed and evolved quite a bit from the infancy it's in now.

[Luis Mazza]

So your first three posts, the first two, are nothing but ad hominem attacks against the so called fanboys, your word for anyone who doesn't hate windows 8.

the third one. here we have excellent argument that windows 8 s ugly and confusing. yet no reasoning why. when you where asked why it was confusing you gave FUD answer that are not only vague, but outright wrong.

after this we pushed for more explanations why either the desktop or the mobile is confusing, and you have not yet delivered, so the ONLY arguments you have given in this thread is, ugly and confusing.

so, I'm still waiting.

I really would like to see WHERE exactly you asked for objective reasons as to why I think it is ugly and confusing. Dot Matrix did ask me why I think the tiles are confusing, and I answered.

So you can say that I have being making ad hominem attacks among my ARGUMENTS (like citing Forbe's article, for instance, which is full of arguments and it is the theme of this thread).

The problem is that being ad hominem does help us to understand the aspects of why people love Windows 8 so blindly here on Neowin, just like Morgan X said above... "they make a living of it". So, here you go with a citation from Wikipedia regarding the benefits of some aspects of ad hominem:

Doug Walton, Canadian academic and author, has argued that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue,^[13] as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words.

The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem reasoning is essential to understanding certain moral issues, and contrasts this sort of reasoning with the apodictic reasoning of philosophical naturalism.^[14]

Olavo de Carvalho, Brazilian philosopher, has argued that ad hominem reasoning not only has rhetorical, but also logical value. As an example, he cites Karl Marx's idea that only the proletariat has an objective view of history. If that were to be taken rigorously, an ad hominem argument would effectively render Marx's general theory as incoherent: as Marx was not a proletarian, his own view of history couldn't be objective.

So, clearly... Stating ad hominem attacks against fanboys is just as useful as stating arguments do defend my opinions, as I clearly did when OBJECTIVELY ASKED FOR.

Your understanding of what is being written and also, your ability to express correctly what you want are flawed. For instance: you often refer to someone's post without quoting the person... Your grammar is many times poor and you make generic comments, without being objective as to ask the person directly what you want.

So, the problem seems to be you.

[MorganX]

Well I gave argument earlier as to why the start page is objectively not less efficient and is in fact a better, faster and more efficient launcher for anyone who uses it as a launcher, which is what it is anyway.

As a launcher, probably. Especially since you have to optimize limited real estate with no method of nesting. But the Start Page, thanks to live tiles, is also a dashboard of sorts. Just as the Start Menu can be a very effective search tool, file and computer browser.

Many things simply must happen in the Desktop Environment. Anyone managing lots of files and using context menu actions is going to find a right-click much more productive in Windows 7, or the Windows 8 Desktop Environment. And they may find all of Metro a nuisance and/or annoying.

Windows 7 and 8 both work, quite well, and both have shortcomings if you're going to look at them critically. People should use whatever works best for them.

Anyone happy with Windows 7, it's performance, and device support doesn't "need" to upgrade. There are no important apps that run on Windows 8 and not 7. But sooner or later, they will want to upgrade to 8 or 9, it is inevitable. Most of those who criticize 8 are trying to shape Blue or 9. Because clearly, there is work to be done. The Desktop Environment isn't going anywhere soon. The Modern UI cannot replace the Desktop Environment by any stretch of the imagination in its current state.

[MorganX]

but then it doesn't really try to replace the desktop, it lives beside it, and works with the desktop. the desktop is the work area, the metro start screen is the launcher and alternative for those who want to use it as such, an information dashboard.

No disagreement with that whatsoever. Back to the start menu for a moment, it does all that it does for people, "within" the work area (the desktop). Not beside it (or IMO, on top of it.) A lot of people find that efficient and/or preferable. Microsoft has taken that away, to suit their needs. Those users can get away with skipping 8, but I doubt they can skip 9. There most likely will be apps for 9 that won't run on 7. Just accept that as a fact for some users and you will understand why some of them are not happy.

When a for-profit company has a monopoly, for all intents and purposes, of desktop computing, any unilateral change they decide to make will have financial ramifications throughout the economy and with millions of users and organizations. In fact, a great conversation (though probably not one for Neowin) is whether or not it is healthy for one company to have that much influence over the economy and information workforce. With such a radical change Microsoft has created years of revenue stream from upgrades, to re-certifications, to training/trainers, IT worker skillsets (goes with certifications), etc. etc.

If Microsoft does this again, many, many, people and organizations will actually have that conversation. During MS' DOJ oversight period, this topic was discussed here and there. This will be very interesting to watch. Blue and 9 will be very, very important.

[COKid]

Come on, you guys. ENOUGH!

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

there's NO CLICKABLE TEXT in Windows 8. None. That's all Windows Phone, and even there there's very little of it.

Huh? :s

[HawkMan]

No disagreement with that whatsoever. Back to the start menu for a moment, it does all that it does for people, "within" the work area (the desktop). Not beside it (or IMO, on top of it.) A lot of people find that efficient and/or preferable. Microsoft has taken that away, to suit their needs. Those users can get away with skipping 8, but I doubt they can skip 9. There most likely will be apps for 9 that won't run on 7. Just accept that as a fact for some users and you will understand why some of them are not happy.

When a for-profit company has a monopoly, for all intents and purposes, of desktop computing, any unilateral change they decide to make will have financial ramifications throughout the economy and with millions of users and organizations. In fact, a great conversation (though probably not one for Neowin) is whether or not it is healthy for one company to have that much influence over the economy and information workforce. With such a radical change Microsoft has created years of revenue stream from upgrades, to re-certifications, to training/trainers, IT worker skillsets (goes with certifications), etc. etc.

If Microsoft does this again, many, many, people and organizations will actually have that conversation. During MS' DOJ oversight period, this topic was discussed here and there. This will be very interesting to watch. Blue and 9 will be very, very important.

personally I found the whole "the start menu is jarring and break my workflow" argument a bit of a stretch and somewhat hyperbolic. if you're actually working on something all your apps are up and running anyway. that aside though, it's their right to not like metro on a personal level or like the style. on a purely effective level though, none of them have really given an effective argument for making Metro less efficient than the start menu. with one small exception, the three people in the world who actually use the "jump" lists in the start menu :p good idea, but technically it didn't work very well and wasn't used by anyone but a small handful and even then it was only useful in a very few situations, unfortunately we can't make a GUI that's perfect for all the small situations but have to make one that's effective in the bigger pictures and where it's used mostly, and if that means sacrificing some of the niche features, then that's what has to be done.

Luckily Windows 8 doesn't require much in the retraining department, the IT guys should be able to pick it up right away, with a bit of an adjustment to their workflow. the regular users who aren't so set in the old ways are in my experience those who take the shift to the metro ways the easiest and most will be able to pick it right up after the intro tutorial "video". Up until a certain level anyway. the senior users (aged 70-75+) are in general(though not universally) very reluctant to change, mostly because they feel they don't understand computers, they don't want to understand them and they're afraid to click stuff. This is an age limit that goes up every year though, as old people get more and more technically literate, and as the generational shift gets older. a few years ago, the same switch from XP to Vista was impossible for those 50-60+. and in 2001, XP was impossible to learn for those ~50 and many in the 40 range.

of course nowadays kids come out of kindergarten with their own pads and able to code their own games in high-high level building block languages. Actually being able to run their make your game software for their 6-7 year or so old kid was the primary requirement for a customer when he bought a new laptop last year.

It will be interesting to see how much MS can do as they're out from the oversight. We're just seeing the start of it yet, and it takes time to make the massive changes they want to do and the unifying they want to do post oversight.

and I hope blue and 9 will fix a lot of the little nags and bigger nags with modern UI, though I'm happy using it as a launcher and for stuff like Netflix, and tune in and other background stuff. heck once someone makes a decent irc app that can show multiple channels in side dock mode, I'll even use that. but there's little stuff, like when I set up the computer for an old guy(yeah we're talking past the 75+ here :)) on Friday, it annoyed me that I couldn't pin a shortcut to desktop IE easily in the start menu, even start iexplore didn't work, I had to specifically state iexplore.exe then I was able to launch and pin desktop IE from metro. for most this wouldn't be a problem and it would have been better leaving him with metro IE. But Since Norways bank ID system used by pretty much all the banks here, for logging in and signing documents and transactions use java-... well desktop IE it has to be.

[Dot Matrix]

Huh? :s

I already mended my mistake. I forgot about that. It's no different than the clickable text in Windows 7, so that argument from Luizz can be put to bed.

[bandit_liberty_rumble]

I already mended my mistake.

I see. Sorry about that. :)