The Verge, reporting that Microsoft lost almost a billion dollars with Surface RT, in this quarter alone. “At the end of the day, though, it looks like Microsoft just made too many Surface RT tablets – we heard late last year that Microsoft was building three to five million Surface RT tablets in the fourth quarter, and we also heard that Microsoft had only sold about one million of those tablets in March.” That’s catastrophically bad.
So when’s the $99 fire sale happening? Sad thing is, I still wouldn’t buy one for that price. I’m not even sure at $49. I guess it would make a decent tablet for web browsing, if you don’t already have one. I’m not sure what else it would be good for. I was kind of hoping that RT would take off because of Metro on Windows 8, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
Edited 2013-07-18 22:58 UTC
I would have paid $99 in a fire sale for one, except that (I believe?) the boot loader is encrypted to prevent Linux from loading on it. Looks like a sweet target for an Ubuntu or Plasma Active port, too. Oh, well.
Agreed. If someone finds a bootloader exploit before they have a fire sale, I’ll get one.
Otherwise, they’d probably have to cut the price down to something like $10-20 where I could justify getting it as something to shelve for when I eventually feel I’ve learned enough about electronics and surface-mount desoldering to cannibalize it for the screen.
Suppose it’s not hackable to put android on ? If it is, I’d buy for £50 and be happy.
Nope – thanks to the wonders of “secure boot” it is “secured” to run Windows only. Only if you could flash the EFI rom with a “unlocked” image it could be possible to do such thing, but as far as I know it is hard coded (maybe a PROM, so no flash possible) and you are out of luck here.
And yes – that’s the same “secure boot” Microsoft demands all hardware makers have to put on their motherboards to get a “Windows 8 certification”. The only difference with the above is you very generous can get a “Microsoft key” from Verisign (free for personal use and $99 if you are a pro) to be able to boot into another OS, or you can disable or enable “secure boot” bios-wise every time you want to reboot from Windows 8 to another OS. Needless to say it wont secure Windows at all, but creates an artificial extra hurdle to use anything else but Microsoft Windows..
But – at least on other platforms that have “secure boot” it is possible to run another OS..
For now….
Secure boot is a good thing, despite your protests to the otherwise.
MBR malware has been on the rise for years.
Edited 2013-07-19 05:51 UTC
That depends on how you compare the pros and cons.
As implemented, I think Secure Boot is terrible for competition and I think that’s intentional. I’d have no problem if that weren’t the case.
For example, if there were a simple, cross-vendor standardized (and tested) way to grant an unsigned bootloader permission to run and register its own keys.
Perhaps something like this to make it hard to trick ignorant users into it:
1. If the user didn’t call up the manual boot device chooser menu by holding F8 while booting, fail hard if the bootloader’s signature can’t be verified.
2. If the user did manually select a boot device and the bootloader is unsigned, display a big, scary but ultra-concise warning with the user being required to type “I Understand” to pass.
(Something like “You are trying to start an operating system provided or modified by an unrecognized vendor. This usually means that your computer has become infected. Unless you are are absolutely sure you know what you are doing, please turn off your computer and contact a technician. Otherwise, please type “I Understand” and press Enter.”)
3. Somewhere in the process, there would be a checkbox with an equally clear message which would grant the OS some kind of one-time authentication token to allow it to register a new signing key in the bootloader.
Hell, even the Chromebook developer switch model has some advantages over UEFI Secure Boot.
Edited 2013-07-19 06:57 UTC
Chromebooks are just as gimped because they can’t install windows without mucking about with the bios, however nobody is crying from the rooftops about how Google are restricting choice.
So, tell me, when was the last time you booted your PC off a floppy disk?
Bootsector malware has been on the rise? Really? What year do we have? 1995?
Most computers are attacked over the network nowadays, not boot media.
This whole justification for “Secure Boot” is just bullshit.
Mcafee seems to believe the mbr attacks are on the rise. But other then that i have not found any sources. And mcafee, yeah well they not unlike ms lives on spreding fear among the costumers…
I think he means rootkits, not MBR viruses, which are two different things.
Secure Boot isn’t about old-style boot sector viruses. It’s about rootkits, which still exist and still attack current versions of Windows.
Edited 2013-07-19 08:29 UTC
Drumhellar,
“I think he means rootkits, not MBR viruses, which are two different things.”
Or maybe he meant linux
There are less controversial ways of protecting the MBR against the former two, but users intentionally booting alternatives are tough to block…Just sayin’
Edited 2013-07-19 09:47 UTC
I’m just waiting for when we can have a Surface post without rehashing the same tired SecureBoot crap.
Fine, you don’t like it, you won’t buy it. The first hundred times, and I’m being nice here, it might’ve been a productive discussion. But now what use does it serve, pat each other on the back and agree?
Nelson,
“Fine, you don’t like it, you won’t buy it. The first hundred times, and I’m being nice here, it might’ve been a productive discussion. But now what use does it serve, pat each other on the back and agree?”
That’s your opinion, but it seems that you don’t have much appreciation for the competitive harm caused by OS restrictions. Alternative operating systems make up a small percentage of the market, so not many are directly affected in absolute numbers. However it does negatively affect the majority of us who are in that group. Consider that it doesn’t make sense to buy duplicate hardware just to be able to try/use an alternate OS when you own hardware that’s perfectly capable of running it already (artificial restrictions aside).
I learned to use linux when I was in grade school because I was able to dual-boot it on my “windows computer”. I even learned how to write my own OS on my commodity hardware because it didn’t lock me out. I would not have been able to do so if I had needed to buy a separate computer in addition to my main desktop. Even today I have a windows/linux laptop because I still need to use windows for work and I still prefer windows for some things anyways. I don’t want to purchase & carry around two separate laptops just because MS demanded windows-supported computer manufacturers into blocking alternatives.
These things may not matter to you or others who aren’t alt-os users, but please do try to understand why a lot is at stake to those of us who are. I count our blessings that MS backed down on the x86 front, but now is the right time to fight these restrictions on ARM *before* they become permanently established as a norm.
You buy a Microsoft Surface and you don’t like it that you can’t install something else.
lucas_maximus,
“You buy a Microsoft Surface and you don’t like it that you can’t install something else.”
So what? I bought a Windows 7 laptop, it doesn’t mean I want it to restrict me from dual booting something else.
Think about the future when ARM has greater computer marketshare. I don’t want my hardware freedoms to be relegated to the x86 platform, that’s arbitrary and shortsighted.
Edited 2013-07-20 13:20 UTC
It not like Microsoft have monopoly on the arm devices sold. I could understand the criticism if the situation was reversed.
lucas_maximus,
“It not like Microsoft have monopoly on the arm devices sold. I could understand the criticism if the situation was reversed.”
That’s true, and that’s probably why MS felt it could obligate all manufacturers of Windows RT to block end-user modifications. They might be clear of antitrust laws, but they’re still not above criticism.
While you may perceive this to be an anti-microsoft sentiment, that’s not really accurate. A proliferation of closed platforms concerns me a great deal regardless of who’s responsible. Hypothetically if MS would have taken the side of openness with windows 8 & windows RT, I’d be praising them for it right now.
The point is that it is sold as device and not a computer.
The argument as far as I am concerned is similar to arguing that you be able to run Linux on your Xbox 360 … it is ridiculous to say that the overwhelming majority of people that bought the device actually consider this in their purchasing decision.
lucas_maximus,
“The point is that it is sold as device and not a computer.”
Ok, so it just so happens to run the same modern / metro apps as a windows 8 laptop, the same app store, the same MS Office, a similar form factor to a laptop, but now that it runs on ARM it’s a “device” and not a “computer”, how convenient!
:rollseyes:
” it is ridiculous to say that the overwhelming majority of people that bought the device actually consider this in their purchasing decision.”
Except that I didn’t say it, it’s a straw man. In this very thread I quote myself “Alternative operating systems make up a small percentage of the market…”
Edited 2013-07-20 21:26 UTC
It is a device in the same way most people think of a smart phone as a phone and not a computer that happens to be able to make a phone calls.
At what point do you consider something a device and not a general purpose computer?
The definition is fuzzy at best. So if something is sold as a complete artifact i.e. a Windows 8 tablet, then it gets considered as such. A desktop PC or laptop is typically sold “with an OS”.
There is no right or wrong answer. However if it is sold as a “Company X’s Product” rather than “Product that can Run Company Y’s OS” than I am going to call it a device.
Dumb question. If I want to get an x86 tablet where I can install anything, I can go to my favorite OEM and get one. If I want an arm machine (tablet please) that I can install anything on, where do I go?
If anything the arm market seems a lot less competitive than the x86 market, but monopoly finger-pointing hasn’t kept pace.
Hi,
I do definitely see your point, and I think we can find some common ground in agreeing that there is a need for some form of secure booting mechanism.
You think the knobs should be able to be turned on, and I (and this is something I’ve probably changed my mind on) would be inclined to agree after further investigation.
It would be of great benefit if the end user was ultimately in charge of which public keys (in addition to the default MSFT one) were stored on their machine.
From there they could accept signed images from their favorite distro and maintain the chain of trust all the way through.
Alternatively the secure mechanism should be switched out so the more technically inclined user could have their box the way they want it, security ramifications be damned. I definitely understand the culture in alternative OSes may even favor compilation over shipping signed binaries, at which point a secure booting mechanism is more of a hindrance.
I think the x86 implementation ticks all of these boxes (albeit with shoddy OEM implementations which scare me), but the ARM versions do not. This is something I think should change (and maybe we can agree here).
I probably came off as bitter initially for which I do apologize and I appreciate you taking the discussion in a productive direction.
Nelson,
I’m trilled at finding common ground here, yes I agree secure boot on x86 fills the most important needs of both windows and alt-os users. Also it would be great for all ARM manufacturers to adopted a fully standard (of course unrestricted) UEFI stack rather than the arbitrary mess of proprietary solutions existing now.
I was thinking of ideas to improve secure boot further: something along the lines of being able to install a new OS on an empty or hosed system without any local media by typing in an HTTPS url and performing the installation online, letting UEFI install the keys automatically. This way any OS vendor could provide install images online and their users would require nothing more than a simple url to start installing the OS and configure secure boot from scratch. This could all be behind a password protected administrative account within UEFI, with maybe a default password and/or reset mechanism to get in.
This would be a boon to the modding community. As you pointed out, the modding procedures on typical ARM systems are difficult, non-standard, error prone, risky, brickable, etc. If this were a standard UEFI feature then the steps to return a device to a known state would be: Enter UEFI, Locate HTTPS (re)install feature, type desired installation URL (or accept OEM default), wait for install to complete, done.
Edited 2013-07-21 05:08 UTC
Okay. Enlighten me. How else does one guarantee that the boot loader and the kernel haven’t been modified prior to boot?
It depends what you mean by “modify.” It’s relatively easy to generate proper software hashes/signatures to check consistency/correctness of a specific executable, without the need to limit how the user may use the devices they purchased and which they own legally.
Drumhellar,
“Okay. Enlighten me. How else does one guarantee that the boot loader and the kernel haven’t been modified prior to boot?”
There are many possible mechanisms. However let me clarify that it’s not really the secure boot mechanism that is controversial so much as the policy of keeping owners out of the chain of control over hardware we supposedly own. With x86 thankfully we won the fight as owners to keep control over our hardware’s security features. With ARM, this battle is ongoing.
Edited 2013-07-20 03:52 UTC
What fight, the option to turn it off was given to you.
I love to know why running an OS has turned into a political campaign.
lucas_maximus,
“What fight, the option to turn it off was given to you.”
I know, and I already said I’m very thankful for that. I think antitrust played a big role in that, however if you want me to give MS credit for doing the right thing then sure I can.
Thank you Microsoft for not locking out owners from control over x86 bootloaders. I’d be grateful if you could give us the same freedoms on ARM computers as well.
:rollseyes:
…I’m still waiting to hear about these mechanisms. Merely saying they exist doesn’t make it true.
Drumhellar,
Secure boot is already such a mechanism, obviously there are other ways to authenticate the system startup code. But like I said the controversy isn’t over the security mechanism itself, so long as owners are ultimately in control over the security mechanism then I’m happy with it. If you really think owners shouldn’t have control over their own hardware (aka windows rt), then I’m afraid that you and I are never going to agree.
Edited 2013-07-20 20:18 UTC
I of course said no such thing. I don’t think I even implied it. I only took issue with a previous post that essentially said the type of attacks secure boot protects against don’t exist.
You also still haven’t answered my question of how you verify the authenticity of the boot loader and kernel without Secure Boot (or something similar). You repeatedly assert that there are ways, but you still haven’t mentioned any. Instead, you repeat the same old FUD that Secure Boot exists solely to prevent <2% of users (i.e. Linux users) from installing anything other than Windows.
Drumhellar,
“I of course said no such thing. I don’t think I even implied it. I only took issue with a previous post that essentially said the type of attacks secure boot protects against don’t exist.”
That wasn’t my post.
“You also still haven’t answered my question of how you verify the authenticity of the boot loader and kernel without Secure Boot (or something similar).”
That’s because it’s beside the point, in terms of openness it’s the control and not the mechanism that’s important. Note that systems using PKI are going to be somewhat similar because PKI is a generic concept; what makes PKI stand out is being able to update the bootloader without touching the public key stored in EFI’s NVRAM. However as tylerdurden already pointed out, it’s pretty trivial to save and verify bootloader hashes and be as secure as secure boot. You could implement a secure process to update the EFI hashes on update too (say a second bootloader for updates & system recovery).
Edit: Note that I prefer a PKI solution myself.
“you repeat the same old FUD that Secure Boot exists solely to prevent <2% of users (i.e. Linux users) from installing anything other than Windows.”
Your putting words in my mouth since I did not say that Secure Boot exists solely to prevent users from installing anything other than Windows. On x86 that’s completely wrong since the secure boot mechanism is under owner control and can be used by linux.
Edited 2013-07-21 01:31 UTC
Dude, if you have gained so much access to a machine that you can write to the bootsector, what’s the point in doing that already?
You already have FULL access to a computer at the time and can copy and manipulate any data that you want.
Adrian
Well, the benefit of rootkits is that they tend to go undetected. You can have adware/spyware running, and a hacked kernel can make the associated processes completely invisible to everything else. Or, the hacked kernel can be designed to trick anti-virus software into thinking viruses were properly and correctly removed when they weren’t.
I’ve always worked with the assumption that Secure Boot was more of a reaction to Windows 7 loaders like DAZ Loader. That’s just my theory though.
Edited 2013-07-19 10:21 UTC
This is probably it. For the most part.
That’s actually a valid reason to use a protected boot loader since it prevents the loading of a manipulated kernel image, i.e. one where the key protection has been patched out.
Yet, just because Microsoft cannot fight every single bootleg copy of Windows, it’s not justified to install such a lock-out mechanism into all new PCs being sold.
Adrian
I tend to be wary of Secure Boot because of how shoddy OEMs are at implementing it. The stories of Samsung laptops being bricked by non-Windows OSes booting on them is horrifying. That has ramifications beyond just Linux.
In addition, I am in favor of the user being in control of which public keys they store, plus the ability for tinkerers to turn it off completely. Both on RT and on x86.
I do think Microsoft is within their right to lock it down, I just don’t think its necessarily the wisest choice. Letting it be switched off like x86 boxes can wouldn’t really compromise security much, provided it was forbidden as a default.
I can totally sympathize with the tinkerer, hobbyist OSDev, or just the brave soul who wants to compile their own kernel image. They should be able to take the training wheels off of their PC if they want.
But, that doesn’t mean I go spouting off about it on every Surface thread, that kind of noise in my opinion defeats the purpose.
These devices don’t have a user visible BIOS I guess and can’t get these ‘security checks’ disabled, but PCs do…
for now.
Lennie,
“These devices don’t have a user visible BIOS I guess and can’t get these ‘security checks’ disabled, but PCs do…”
My wife’s Samsung tablet has a simple “BIOS” to perform some basic functions like flashing firmware over USB. Don’t these windows rt tablets have a similar mode?
Edited 2013-07-22 21:02 UTC
I hope Microsoft hangs in there, and eventually enjoys success. Surface looks cool – I’d be tempted to pick one up, even though I just dumped Win8 for Kubuntu.
Kubuntu over Windows 8? Was this a drunken dare or something?
Heheheh. Dare? No. Drunk? Possibly.
It’s more a matter of convenience than anything else. I dumped Windows primarily for privacy concerns, but will likely carve out some disk space and add it again, just because some of the games I bought through Steam haven’t been ported to Linux, plus I think I want to get back into Diablo III.
I might give the Fedora KDE spin a go, now that the Optimus is supported in nVidia’s Linux drivers – they’re a huge pain in the ass to install in Ubuntu – but Bumblebee seemed more convenient to install on Ubuntu than other distros.
Really, I’d prefer FreeBSD, but there’s no Optimus support yet, and the pre-compiled packages for Xorg aren’t built with KMS, which means building a newer version from scratch via ports. Mixing older packages (say, KDE) with newer software (Xorg) from ports produces unpredictable results.
It’s too bad that it hasn’t been more popular. I really like mine. Having Word and Excel on a tablet is great – I use it at work all the time. My kids love playing games on it and my Android tablet’s been collecting dust since I got it.
Is it the right fit for everybody? No.
Did it get a lot of bad press for not meeting expectations? Yes.
Does it work well for me? Yes.
If they do have a $99 fire sale, I’ll be getting at least two more.
The draw of office on a tablet I can understand, but this? There are literally tens of thousands of more games for Android than Windows RT. Why would they use your RT tablet instead of an unused Android one?
If they have 3-6million sitting in a warehouse they’re inebriated and whoever made that decision needs to be fired. Holy crap.
No way out of the gate they were going to sell that much. Especially not with an ecosystem that needs to go from 0-60 quickly.
I’ll also admit I was wrong about Surface price reductions merely clearing left over inventory for a new model. This is a major write off indicating a gross overestimation of potential sales.
They shouldn’t have diversified that much in such a short time. Microsoft has:
-Windows Desktop
-Windows Modern x86
-Windows Modern ARM
-Windows Phone
All incompatible between them.
Apple Has:
-OSX
-iOS
Google Has:
-Android
-Chrome Store/OS
I’m also surprised they killed C# at this point. While it’s true that most developers of large apps or games prefer C++, they would have been able to have many of the apps work everywhere.
Edited 2013-07-19 03:36 UTC
WHAT?! Do you have any idea how the developers ecosystem looks like on Microsoft platforms?! Are you aware of all the .NET stuff that was presented at BUILD 2013?
The only thing C# related that they killed, was XNA as are pushing C++ for games.
All mobile vendors have C and C++ support as part of their SDKs, while for C#, developers need to buy Xamarin stuff.
Edited 2013-07-19 06:00 UTC
No he’s not. Neither is ze_jerkface below with his bs
Edited 2013-07-19 10:25 UTC
Err in the other thread, too early. Need coffee.
They most certainly did not, c# is one of Microsoft’s premiere languages, the last thing they would do is kill it.
Me thinks he’s already gone. He was in the news last week.
Balmer is not responsible?
Edited 2013-07-19 05:59 UTC
No he’s not. That’s what makes him a bad CEO.
CEOs delegate responsibility. If they fail at those responsibilities, they are fired. There’s a chain of responsibility. I’m sure you’re aware Ballmer is one person, despite the boogey man like characterization you’re obsessed with giving him.
Weren’t you the one here who was constantly claiming that Surface was selling like crazy and that the numbers look promising and that Microsoft is doing everything right herp de derp?!?
Microsoft and people like you should finally understand: No one wants Windows on their tablets and no one wants a mutant Windows which doesn’t know whether it’s a tablet or desktop operating system.
This whole strategy from Microsoft is just hopelessly flawed and if they don’t finally realize that, they’re gonna die like the other big players like Commodore, Atari, digital and whatnot.
http://www.businessinsider.com/windows-monopoly-is-getting-destroye…
I’m sure you’re aware (or maybe you’re challenged and you’re not) that you can order too much stock and still sell a modest amount. The two are not mutually exclusive.
I don’t even know why I’m going into this with you, if my last comment on the subject, complete with references to market statistics from various sources wasn’t enough, then there’s no convincing you.
Not all write offs are for hard assets either, like the acquisition write off Microsoft did a little while ago.
Anything else, dipshit?
I can’t make sense at all of WinRT..
If they wanted to do ARM, they could have just made it a windows phone 8 tablet.
If they wanted a lightweight and not battery hungry version of the regular surface, they could have gone Atom and keep BW compatibility.
But a completely different and incompatible version of the OS? wtf?
Divide and reign…
Kochise
Intel got more power efficient faster than they expected is what I’m guessing.
Think about the state of Intel on tablets, Windows Phone, etc at the time these decisions were made.
And the RT port will help when Mjcrosoft finally fully unifies the platform.
Plus RT has more tablet optimized apps than Android at this point, that’s why you scale down and not scale up.
And another perfect pull out of his ass by Nelson! How does he do it?
PS: Scaling up is exactly what Apple did with iPad.
How many tablet optimized apps exist for Android?
you’re the one making the claim, have you consider the possibility it is your responsibility to substantiate it?
Most stats I’ve seen (and its hard because Google won’t break down numbers, I wonder why) peg the figure at the tens of thousands.
Windows 8 by comparison has over 100,000 tablet optimized applications. That’s a pretty wide gap.
I asked because he seemed to sure I was wrong that I was interested in which statistic he had.
Windows 8? I thought you were talking about Windows RT
Edited 2013-07-19 20:37 UTC
Metro applications (for the most part) run on both, give or take a thousand or two. There are over 100k tablet optimized Metro apps for Windows 8/RT.
If being able to run on a tablet OS is the only criteria, then Android has 700000 tablet apps. Being modern UI does not make them tablet optimised. Modern UI allows them to be usable on a tablet, nothing more.
PS: That 100k includes games, all Android games run on Android tablets without issues.
No it is not the only criteria, and they are tablet optimized because they are optimized for tablet form factors, not 700,000 blown up phone apps.
That was Apple’s main (and strongest) point in criticizing the Android app ecosystem, and it holds true today.
I remember them showing the official Twitter application on iOS, then a blown up phone version on Android. Even the Windows Store has a proper Twitter application.
But you can go ahead and pretend they’re the same thing if it makes you feel better, lol. I thought I was the one pulling shit out of my ass?
so the answer is: no, you can’t substantiate your claim objectively.
Got it.
You’re wrong, and I’m sorry I’m not going to waste time holding your hand and walking you through why. Windows RT and Windows 8 run the same exact Metro applications.
There are more Metro applications than there are tablet applications for Android, unless something dramatic has happened with Android tablet stats.
I find it unlikely given that Google has not publicly shared such stats, and that Apple also dinged Android for the same exact thing not too long ago.
Its a shame, because for a while I did consider you as one of the few reasonable people left on this website.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/1/4484344/microsoft-100000-apps-wind…
http://parislemon.com/post/33185341335/google-finally-pushing-for-t…
Edited 2013-07-19 23:33 UTC
Ideas worth taking into account should stand up to scrutiny. If you need to bring out very subjective assumptions and arbitrary qualifiers, then don’t be surprised if I consider your point suspect. Even if you end up being correct after all.
We have gone through this a few times before though; you seem to operate under the delusion that your personal qualitative opinion somehow constitutes validated quantitative fact. Perhaps that explains why you seem to become irate whenever your words are not taken as canon?
In any case, not earning your “approval” has really hit me hard in he feels. I guess I will just have to pick up the pieces and take it one day at a time, one day at a time…
There really isn’t a doubt that Windows 8 / RT apps are one in the same. So I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
It does take a little bit of critical thinking, and given that I do believe I am right, it isn’t unreasonable to expect me to become frustrated when others do not arrive at similar conclusions.
That said, I think I’ve been vindicated often enough. Examples being pretty much Nokia’s results for the entire year.
For example, in Q3 2012 Thom wrote a pretty scathing article on the dip in sales. I called it a blip. I got destroyed for it and ridiculed endlessly.
Guess what, it was a blip. Volumes increased sequentially every quarter since.
Another example being Nokia’s imminent death (according to some). Nope, Nokia is still alive and doing much better than a year ago. Now the goalposts are moved again. According to cdude and others Nokia should be dead this quarter.
Another example being WP uptake. I said WP would increase market share steadily in key markets. When shoots of growth started showing I was again ridiculed for suggesting it, by doing, guess what, critical thinking. Look today and you see WP growing its market in key markets like the UK and Italy.
Another example is the profit warning that some here rumored would come. Whoops. Never came.
More often than not with these things the complete picture is never presented, and expecting it every time for the sake of argument is an impossibly high standard. What can be done is taking the available evidence and extrapolating from it as much as you can.
I at least try to make my thought process very clear when I do this type of analysis, and disagreeing with my conclusions on those merits is fine with me. You did it last thread and I enjoyed the back and forth.
However being dismissive because Google has failed to publish stats for me to go off of, or because I don’t feel like pulling Microsoft’s entire catalog to prove an inconsequential point (That a small percentage of overall Win8 apps don’t cross over to RT) is wrong in my opinion.
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence as they say.
I love the Surface RT but it never stood a chance.
Microsoft built it’s company on low-cost mass volume PCs. Consumers expect cheap devices.
I wish they’d stop trying to act like Apple.
Microsoft is not a hardware company, they are a software company. The majority of Microsoft’s profits come from licensing windows and office. Given that windows is the most widely used os in the world and desktop manufacturers have to pay ms a royalty fee for having windows pre-installed (it’s $50 for each computer that has windows installed) that’s how they can have strong earnings despite losing close to a billion dollars on Windows RT.
Microsoft also collects licensing fees from small businesses, government schools etc. And since windows has 90-92% marketshare with no close substitute, they are technically a monopoly.
It’s interesting that despite losing $900 million dollars they were still profitable thanks to their monopoly licensing windows. Also no one else can license windows or fork any of their software, that is how they obtain billions of dollars every year, combined with their marketshare.
Simply put Microsoft’s monopoly is the unintended consequences of copyright lasting way too long. If there was no copyright laws in software, Microsoft wouldn’t be able to garner billions of dollars in licensing fees every year, and they would not able to lock the consumer to using windows, while making their software incompatible with the competition.
This chart proves my point.
http://infogr.am/Microsoft-revenue-by-division
Edited 2013-07-19 21:46 UTC
Surface RT machines are very cool looking, but that coolness factor only works when the device is used as a tablet. When you attach the keyboard and try to use the thing as a laptop-replacement anywhere but on a flat, solid table/desk-top surface, it is useless. Trying to balance the thing on your lap with the kickstand and flexing keyboard is an exercise in frustration. It just doesn’t work. There are those who say that it does work just fine that way, and that’s fine if it does for them, but a traditional laptop design is FAR more useful and stable in that situation. There are far cheaper real laptops that do the job much better.
Charlie from SemiAccurate notes two more points:
* Dell now sells their XPS 10 tablets at or below hardware cost
* Lenovo appears to have stopped taking orders for the Yoga 11
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/07/22/microsoft-drove-the-bus-off-the-…