Remember the Windows 7 launch party? Their marketing department has some issues if nothing else, and I think that's most of what the complaints ultimately focus on. They seem to have thoroughly blurred the lines between the tablet OS and Windows 8 leading up to launch, possibly just through incompetence in their presentation.
I think the journalist here is confused for no good reason. Perhaps because he likes to make his own definitions of things. Windows 8 is the new release of Windows. It will be delivered in two builds: ARM and x86. The former being more limited and called Windows RT. They share the Metro UI but not very much of the traditional desktop UI. There. That's it. It's not really confusing at all.
While you summed it up in far less words than the author of this post, I'm pretty confident the general consumer would have no idea what you just said.
It's unlikely that the average consumer would care much about the difference. Consumers might just want a portable tablet that they can use for email, Internet and read/write Microsoft Office documents. Business users will just use what there IT departments give them and if Windows 8/RT can run their legacy apps, that is a big win.
It might take a few years for Microsoft to adjust, iterate and revise, but I don't think they will let Windows 8 fail.
Recall that it took the XBOX a few years to break into a market with two, very strong, established players (Nintendo, SONY) and now XBOX is leading that market.
And there's new tablet offerings of Windows 8 that will be Windows 8 (not just look like them with the Metr... Modern UI) in a few months. If I didn't know that, I'd be pissed in a few months. If I do know that, I'll probably wait to see what the options and pricing are in a few months.
Even for those 'in the know', there's a lot of confusion and decision making.
EDIT: I say this as someone who has fond memories of MS from many years ago, became an antiMS bigot for a bit, and now just would like to see them succeed. Not as a huge fanboy so much, but as someone who likes to see a marketplace of good options/ideas. MS has often botched good tech seemingly because of internal politics, and that's sad to see.
You don't need to wait a few months to get "real" x86 Windows 8 tablets. Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba are all releasing x86 Windows 8 tablets and/or convertibles this week.
So you'll need to wait if you specifically want the Microsoft Surface Pro, but you'll have other choices starting on Friday. In fact there will be more x86 devices than ARM devices shipping with Windows 8 this week.
Customers won't care. Most people don't follow the development of a software product and will call it Windows 8. If they need to differentiate between the desktop and the new interface they'll come up with their own way to describe it (the tile interface for example).
>> "And Windows RT and WinRT are different things."
Windows RT is the tablet operating system. WinRT is the Windows Run Time something customers will never hear mentioned and never care about.
As for the 'full' Windows 8 tablets vs the arm Windows RT ones I don't think consumers will care either. Most people will probably try it before buying, see what it can do, and as long as it still does that when they get it home they'll be happy. Full Windows 8 tablets will be quite a bit more expensive by the sounds of things anyway so they'll be aimed at a different market.
The average consumer is going to have a hard time figuring out the difference between two Windows computers, one RT and one the full Windows 8, that look exactly the same yet only one can run Word and browse Flash-capable websites.
And the average consumer knows nothing about ARM or x86 so that isn't exactly a good way to state the difference.
I fact both can run Word (!) because Microsoft ported Office to ARM but I guess that was not your point. I wasn't stating it for the average consumer. Here, let's try that: Windows RT has only "this fancy new UI" but cannot run old programs. Windows 8 can run them all. See? Quite easy to explain.
I'm a Mac/Linux guy so I really don't care that much about Windows. However, I am a "let's just roll with it kind of person," so if you do like Windows why not just give Microsoft a chance? They are taking a bold step forward. How about giving it a chance? Even if it's a "failure", it'll still be bigger than my two favorite OS's in a matter of ... weeks ...or months?
It's like this for every major product launch - gives the techbloggers something to talk about. Give it a few weeks and they will be bemoaning the next IOS / Android / Ubuntu release. I put this kind of thing into the "Bad News Sells" category. See http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/NewsInterest1986-2007.pdf
I agree with the statement about confusion here, though of course only the future will tell how successful it is. Of particular note to me is that on Amazon, you can now preorder Windows 8 [1]. The options are "Windows 8 Pro", "System Builder 32/64-bit", "System Builder Professional 32/64-bit", and "Windows 8 Pro Pack". So is Pro 32-bit or 64-bit? The "Pro Pack" says it upgrades from "Windows 8" to "Windows 8 Pro" -- where is "Windows 8" available?
Thinking that this was just because Amazon hadn't yet gotten the full list of items, I went to the windows site [2], expecting to find the usual matrix of options and features, but found nothing -- just a link to a blog post that talks about pricing scheduling for updates for Windows 8 Pro, with no indication of what the "Pro" means or what the alternatives are.
When apple does something new it's a "breakthrough" and "innovation". When Microsoft does it's "confusing".
Surely the launch(es) are more complicated than most MS launches, but that is because this a bold complex move. It's a humongous achievement if MS can make it big in the mobile world.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 57.8 ms ] threadThe uninformed consumer will go to others for guidance. As long as the CSR's are informed there won't be a problem.
Flagged for being - Windows FUD tripe.
It might take a few years for Microsoft to adjust, iterate and revise, but I don't think they will let Windows 8 fail. Recall that it took the XBOX a few years to break into a market with two, very strong, established players (Nintendo, SONY) and now XBOX is leading that market.
Except Windows RT cannot, and Windows 8 can...
Some of these articles from 'so called' techies over the last week or so are really starting to feel like a bit of a click through bandwagon.
And Windows RT and WinRT are different things.
And there's new tablet offerings of Windows 8 that will be Windows 8 (not just look like them with the Metr... Modern UI) in a few months. If I didn't know that, I'd be pissed in a few months. If I do know that, I'll probably wait to see what the options and pricing are in a few months.
Even for those 'in the know', there's a lot of confusion and decision making.
EDIT: I say this as someone who has fond memories of MS from many years ago, became an antiMS bigot for a bit, and now just would like to see them succeed. Not as a huge fanboy so much, but as someone who likes to see a marketplace of good options/ideas. MS has often botched good tech seemingly because of internal politics, and that's sad to see.
So you'll need to wait if you specifically want the Microsoft Surface Pro, but you'll have other choices starting on Friday. In fact there will be more x86 devices than ARM devices shipping with Windows 8 this week.
Customers won't care. Most people don't follow the development of a software product and will call it Windows 8. If they need to differentiate between the desktop and the new interface they'll come up with their own way to describe it (the tile interface for example).
>> "And Windows RT and WinRT are different things."
Windows RT is the tablet operating system. WinRT is the Windows Run Time something customers will never hear mentioned and never care about.
As for the 'full' Windows 8 tablets vs the arm Windows RT ones I don't think consumers will care either. Most people will probably try it before buying, see what it can do, and as long as it still does that when they get it home they'll be happy. Full Windows 8 tablets will be quite a bit more expensive by the sounds of things anyway so they'll be aimed at a different market.
And the average consumer knows nothing about ARM or x86 so that isn't exactly a good way to state the difference.
Thinking that this was just because Amazon hadn't yet gotten the full list of items, I went to the windows site [2], expecting to find the usual matrix of options and features, but found nothing -- just a link to a blog post that talks about pricing scheduling for updates for Windows 8 Pro, with no indication of what the "Pro" means or what the alternatives are.
So, yes, confusing.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000843871
[2] http://windows.microsoft.com