Rant on Windows Changes!

Creating the Windows 8 user experience - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Update: I have been testing Windows 9 for a week now.  So though the issues I bring up bellow are still valid, I can see how it will make a solid tablet OS.  The key thing to think about is that Windows 8 is MS first real post PC OS.  I can't see any solid reason to move desktop from Windows 7, but for the future of tablets perhaps Windows 8 will carry the ball where Android failed: providing a solid tablet OS.

Just to let this off my chest: Why is Start page this necessary!

How to begin, well if you made a Start pages for my issues with Windows 8 it would contain boxes like this:

1. I know who I am and what I look like, why put this information in the corner of my OS!  And what does it mean that something as root as my OS is tailored to me?  What information can Microsoft harvest about me via the OS now!
2. I don't need boxes that give me links to all the Microsoft Cloud products because most of them are not very good.

   

   What is the secret to Mac OS X success?
   

   

   It looks and feels and acts like a good version of Windows XP

   

   Mac OS X is not trying to change the way we interact with the OS because Apple can leave good enough alone and concentrate on what counts: making the link between software we like and hardware better!  

3. Didn't I tell you I didn't like the layout when I got an iPhone or Android over a Windows Mobile phone?  
4. How many Macs do I need to buy before you listen?
5. Ever notice what the Mac OS X interface looks like?  It looks like XP!  Its an XP that works and is stable.  

Microsoft Office For Android and iPhone! Yes!

Our dreams to be answered?

"The mobile Office apps are very much in demand and are among the top paid apps in the iTunes App Store. Although we have Apple's Pages, Keynote and Number apps, which are consistently in the top ten bestsellers list after iWork for iPad's launch in 2010 but they don't serve the purpose perfectly.

"The market for Windows Phone has not been favourable, though tablet-friendly Windows 8 is in the pipeline but the market giant iPad would not let it go that easy. In such a scenario, releasing a mobile version of Office suite may augment the survival of Windows Phone in the market. "

Microsoft Office For Android To Arrive This Fall

Microsoft has one major mantra: fight them until you beat them at their own game.  But like all good companies, and few governments it seems, Microsoft also has a standard Plan B: if you can't beat them join them.

Recently I have seen a major change in Microsoft open source.  In 2007 I felt like I dropped a bomb when I even brought up open sourced to a group of Microsoft sales people on Biztalk.  I got the impression that they were not supposed to talk the subject.  Since Microsoft has become the main open source cloud hosting platform.  The company was able to see the writing on the wall and come alone.  So will they do the same thing with Android and iPhone?

Salesforce pushes collaboration

 "Salesforce.com has updated its Chatter social enterprise tool to add instant messaging and screensharing. The move puts Chatter in competition with Citrix’s GoToMeeting, Cisco’s WebEx and other collaboration tools. 

"The company, which has 150,000 Chatter networks, is continually adding features to its primary social enterprise tool."

Salesforce pushes collaboration with Chatter update | Networking | ZDNet UK

Its good to see Facebook coming in to this space, but it is also hopeful that the market will develop open standards so these different providers can all interact.

Pirate Pay torrent 'blocker' backed by Microsoft

 "A Russian company has developed software it says can disrupt and prevent people from downloading pirated content. 

"Pirate Pay has been backed by Microsoft and has so far worked with Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures to stop "thousands" of downloads. 

"The tool poses as real bit torrent users but then "confuses" peer-to-peer networks, causing disconnections. 

"Critics argue that the method will be ineffective in the long term"

BBC News - Pirate Pay torrent 'blocker' backed by Microsoft

This is simply wrong.  What ever the threat of IP lose to massive companies is, the solution is not Microsoft spending millions to create 'punking' technology.  Already many regimes in the world disrupt social networks to prevent things they don't like.  In Bahrain and Russia regime forces have often flooded Twitter in an effort to disrupt discourse around democracy.  What Microsoft is adding here in an industrial component that will punk social networks as a feature, converting what is now and unethical practice in to an business.

I call this kind of conduct 'Troll Bombing'