OMG GUIZE WINDOWS IS WORSE THAN LIEK ONE MILLION SPACE STALINS BECUASE THEY ARE HAZ ALL TEH MOONEHS!!!!

Oh wait. Apple is the worlds most valuable company. I lied. 

-Lord Brony

Blind leading the blind. Some people just don't see it.

I assume you intended to say, the OP has Not returned...

Evidently, 10 pages later, nothing wrong at all...

Windows Blue looks likely to replace Windows 8 as early as next year, according to Microsoft insiders.

According to unnamed sources speaking to a Chinese news site, first spotted and translated into English by ZDNet, Microsoft is planning a major update to its operating system towards the second half of 2013 - and it is likely to keep doing so every year thereafter in a serious change to its release schedule that will see it brought closer to Apple's operating model. 

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/software/1296226/windows-blue-to-replace-windows-8-in-2013-sources-claim 

Yep. MS is going to say: Soon we will change to an apple model. Please buy into our scheme, we need cash badly to maintain our usurper profit margins we enjoyed so long.

It's a question of very simple math. MS major revenue streams for their business products are drying up as the old locked in system doesn't work anymore. They blundered with W8,Surface and winphone.

In other words, if they don't do something about it shareholders are going to be mighty discontent in a few years when the fixed contracts run out.

So they need a new business model. But now they have to operate where they never operated before: in a fair and even competitive market. Evidently by joining the UI's they had the illusion that by their platform virtual monopoly they could rope in the tablets and phones by making their OS look and behave like it.

That that was bound to fail stands to reason, no sane person wants his high powered pc to behave like an underpowered mobile phone. So apart from some rare exceptions W8 fell on deaf ears.

So they started to give it away in the hope that way they could regain the desktop, problem is that w8 without the hideous UI is just w7 with some slight tweaks. So although giving stuff away free works for a while, one day you will have to regain the losses incurred.

And there is only one way to do that, become Apple. Control the hardware (UEFI), how you can install software, charge on that.

Not so hard to grasp now is it?

petrossa...

You are STILL using some annoying/useless browser/text editor which includes 1/2 page of BLANK with your posts... to the point they need to be edited/cut.

Can you please simply use the text reply window within the forum.

Seems to me that Microsoft was/is quite willing to compromise... and that Apple is a greedy effer.

This, from the article....

"Microsoft has persisted in trying to work out a compromise with Apple, but has thus far failed to come to an agreement. The company offered to remove all subscription options from its application, leaving it a non-revenue generating experience on iOS. The offer was rebuffed."

.... says it all for me. Microsoft is saying that it would provide the additional service free of charge to IOS users, yet Apple is refusing to budge, thus denying its customers a service they might otherwise use.

I knew there was more than one reason why I dislike Apple.  Apart from chasing down more technological patents than the remainder of the entire tech commuity combined, and launching more lawsuits than the entire series' of Perry Mason, LA Law and Rumpole of the Bailey, Apple would purposefully deny its customers a freedom of choice, simply because it can't take a cut of free.  That to me is the lowest of the low, and for its arrogance, Apple will never see a cent of my money.

I read starkers experience with Win 8 and decided to follow suite and install Win 8!

I am pleasantly surprised, I find it intuitive. Navigating with mouse is cumbersome so I will be getting a touch-pad soon.  I expected all manner of gotchas but so far nothing, not being a "power user" could be one reason !

Much faster startup and shutdown is a big plus for me and alot snappier in use!

 Miss my Windowblinds tho, I know the team is working on it at Stardock, so it will be ready when its ready!

Thanks starkers!  

I find it funny that some peope still don't realise that the reason these big businesses are making the decisions they are making is because enough people want them to.  Interesting.

As I have stated in this thread time and again.  They (big tech business) must be doing something right or they would be no longer.  No amout of anti-this or anti-that hyperbole will change the fact that more and more people are moving toward "connected" (ie. cloud etc.) and mobile-based computing every day.  That is why the companies you love to hate have shifted their focus there as well.  Get on the train or move out of the way! 

Guess I'll move out of the way. Why? I don't trust anyone with my data so I will never use cloud based storage.

Good thing I don't use IE.

Glad to have been of service in some small way.

Yes, Win 8 is a top notch OS, but it is only the beginning of a new era of computing.  In other words, it is the precursor to much greater things to come, and why I decided to get on board now.  To attempt entry 2 or 3 Oses down the track would leave one with too steep a learning curve, and by then I'll be a much older dog who won't easily take to new tricks.

As for the mouse being cumbersome, well I'm not finding it that way.  I changed some settings in Control Panel and it's quite zippy now.  Having said that, I might find a touch-pad to be even zippier once I'd gotten accustomed to it.

It may have been considered a monopoly some years back, but not these days.  Apple is probably more monopolistic these days, and certainly greedier, more arrogant and loathesome.  The consequences of Apple's relentless pursuit of patents has yet to be felt, as in Samsung recently felt just a small measure of its legal wrath and the worst is yet to come.  In fact, I see Apple and Google banging heads in the not too distant future, and that Google will prevail because it has the resources and will out-Apple Apple in the courtroom.

Maybe kona's because he's stuck with an old P4 until finances improve, but not mine... 4.2ghz; 16gb DDR3 RAM; GTX560; 240gb SSD; Soundblaster X-Fi Fatality Pro.  No pad or phone is going to cram that much power into such a small enclosure, and why desktop PC's will always be required for content creation/editing.