Microsoft to cut its Surface orders in half (2 millions units instead of 4 millions)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

At this point, I seriously doubt it.
Putting office on iOS would open the corporate market to iPad, which is the main thing MS wants Surface RT to block.

I don't agree with you. Microsoft are happy to sell Office for Mac (in fact Office is THE biggest-selling item of Mac software), without worrying that it'll hurt Windows sales. Microsoft just want to sell stuff.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by JoeD

Scrolling up/down to move left and right felt weird, although I expect given time I'd grow used to it. However, the major issue I had is anytime you right click you have to move the mouse down to the bottom of the screen rather than using a little localised pop-up menu. An interface that makes sense for touch but not mouse imo.

Why would you have to scroll up/down to move left and right?


Logitech apparently makes win8 specialized products:


And I can't find a video showing the right-click pop-up screen popping up at the bottom of the screen. People complain about it being slow to pop up, but it looks like it's popping up in the right place:

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't agree with you. Microsoft are happy to sell Office for Mac (in fact Office is THE biggest-selling item of Mac software), without worrying that it'll hurt Windows sales. Microsoft just want to sell stuff.

And the Mac's corporate presence is? Near zero.
Businesses are too committed to Wintel for Office on Mac to make a difference.
That is not true with mobile devices like phones and tablets, where the main obstacle to widespread iPad adoption is lack of MS Office.
The only way iOS gets a native MS OFFICE suite is if MS gives up on mobile.
That isn't happening soon.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And the Mac's corporate presence is? Near zero.

The big multinational I work for has a shed-load of Mac in its design departments, and goodness known how many iPads used by senior managers.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And the Mac's corporate presence is? Near zero.
Businesses are too committed to Wintel for Office on Mac to make a difference.
That is not true with mobile devices like phones and tablets, where the main obstacle to widespread iPad adoption is lack of MS Office.
The only way iOS gets a native MS OFFICE suite is if MS gives up on mobile.
That isn't happening soon.

Hah, even IBM use macs and tablets but then who's heard of them...

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Why would you have to scroll up/down to move left and right?

The mouse wheel moves up and down, in response the metro screen scrolls left to right along the main icons. It's odd and not natural unlike with a touch pad or touch interface where you scroll fingers left/right to move it left/right. However due to wide screen monitors and a need to make metro work the same on tablet and desktop, there's no vertical scrolling of the metro tiles.

The mouse wheel does move up/down on controls as normal yes, that's not what I was referring to though.

And I can't find a video showing the right-click pop-up screen popping up at the bottom of the screen. People complain about it being slow to pop up, but it looks like it's popping up in the right place:

That's not metro, it's the desktop interface. On metro, when you right click on a tile or in apps such as the mail app, the context menu appears from the bottom of the screen and remains at the bottom of the screen.

There's not really anything wrong with the desktop side of win8, at least I didn't have any real complaints after using it. It's metro that feels awkward to use with a mouse.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by JoeD

The mouse wheel moves up and down, in response the metro screen scrolls left to right along the main icons. It's odd and not natural unlike with a touch pad or touch interface where you scroll fingers left/right to move it left/right. However due to wide screen monitors and a need to make metro work the same on tablet and desktop, there's no vertical scrolling of the metro tiles.

The mouse wheel does move up/down on controls as normal yes, that's not what I was referring to though.

But you can get a mouse that naturally scrolls sideways, and then the movement will be natural.

Originally Posted by JoeD

That's not metro, it's the desktop interface. On metro, when you right click on a tile or in apps such as the mail app, the context menu appears from the bottom of the screen and remains at the bottom of the screen.

There's not really anything wrong with the desktop side of win8, at least I didn't have any real complaints after using it. It's metro that feels awkward to use with a mouse.

Maybe it's not supposed to be used on a desktop.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Hah, even IBM use macs and tablets but then who's heard of them...

They use them, sure.
In what numbers, though?
All the Apple press data you find is all about corporate sales *growth* rate.
Big percentages quoted all over.
But finding out the base?
Ahem, no chest thumping there...

Best number I've found says Apple grew to 5.2% in 2011 from 3.3%.
http://prmac.com/release-id-17279.htm
Which merely brought them back to where they were in the 90's.

Mac isn't irrelevant, but they're as much of a threat to MS in the corporate market as Linux. They are just big enough to keep the trustbusters away without impacting revenue or revenue growth.

What does give MS nightmares about the corporate market is the return of mainframes under the guise of cloud computing. And their answer to that is Azure. Which is why they are dead set about keeping control of the client side of corporate computing and why Surface RT and Surface Pro are important.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't agree with you. Microsoft are happy to sell Office for Mac (in fact Office is THE biggest-selling item of Mac software), without worrying that it'll hurt Windows sales. Microsoft just want to sell stuff.

Yes, but they don't want to give apple a 30% cut.

[WillysJeepMan]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

They use them, sure.
In what numbers, though?
All the Apple press data you find is all about corporate sales *growth* rate.
Big percentages quoted all over.
But finding out the base?
Ahem, no chest thumping there...

Best number I've found says Apple grew to 5.2% in 2011 from 3.3%.
http://prmac.com/release-id-17279.htm
Which merely brought them back to where they were in the 90's.

Mac isn't irrelevant, but they're as much of a threat to MS in the corporate market as Linux. They are just big enough to keep the trustbusters away without impacting revenue or revenue growth.

What does give MS nightmares about the corporate market is the return of mainframes under the guise of cloud computing. And their answer to that is Azure. Which is why they are dead set about keeping control of the client side of corporate computing and why Surface RT and Surface Pro are important.

Your view of OSX in the F500 world appears to be outdated. I can't share actual installation numbers of OSX-based computers within IBM (that information is IBM Confidential) but the number of OSX-based computers within IBM today is dramatically higher than it was 5 years ago. And in the service segments of the company, the inclusion of OSX-based computers in customer solutions is a healthy percentage of the successful contract engagements.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WillysJeepMan

Your view of OSX in the F500 world ...

F500? but I though you were a jeep man, that's a Ford Truck! Sheesh!