Even though Windows 7 is one of the very best incarnations of Windows ever, the business community has been reluctant to give up its tried and true older versions because (a) they paid attention to the news of the disaster that was Vista, staying away from that in droves, and (b) there's a huge cost in changing an operating system for large businesses, especially if new hardware is required. Considering the 'engineered obsolescence' built into new operating systems, requiring better graphics processors, or multicore CPUs, or both, this can be a real problem.
Now, along comes Windows 8, oriented toward the use of touch rather than the traditional mouse and keyboard, and copying the visual apps of phones and tablets. Even the new Windows logo has changed to something dumbed-down that took a design firm to come up with it.
Which would you prefer as a logo design?
This one that we now have? Or would you prefer this new one.........
Frankly, I can't believe that it took a special design firm to come up with this particular revision to the famous Windows logo. I could create something like this in minutes with my Wacom tablet and Arcsoft's Photostudio graphics editor.
So today's "Question Everything" is: "Has Windows peaked with Windows 7 and will it all be downhill from here?"
Some of the experts think so, and the reason they think so is because the business community, or as Microsoft calls them, their enterprise clients, are not about to throw out all those desktop computers and get everyone tablets to play with. Microsoft will tell you that Windows 8 will happily run on the same hardware as Windows 7, and it very likely may, but on the other hand, we heard that before, and ended up buying new hardware to get enough under the hood to actually make use of Windows 7's nicer features. The old engineered obsolescence trick again. The auto industry has been using that one on us for decades. Cars get smarter while we get dumber. Now computers are doing it.
I was one of the first testers of Windows 7, back in January of 2009 when the first test beta came out on January 21st, 2009. I've been using it ever since, and I think it's great. Windows 7 is touch enabled too by the way, but how many of us have ever used that feature? Not many, I'd bet. The HP Touchsmart all-in-one computer is a wonderful thing, and using touch on it with Windows 7 was a nice experience at the computer store, but (a) the novelty wears off fast, and (b) the touch-enabled computer hardware is a lot more expensive than ordinary ones. Like maybe double the price. Do you really need touch-screens that badly? I don't think I do. I doubt that the business world does either. So is Windows 8 going to fly off the shelves, or fall flat like Vista did? Stay tuned, Folks.
Ray, there's another aspect of this question as well. While tablets are great for displaying and using information, they suck at creating information.
ReplyDeleteI think that it will be a LONG time before the keyboard is replaced. I mean, I just saw a video that indicates the typewriter is having a comeback.
Trying to type on my iPad is problematic at best in my opinion.
And having my data in the cloud, no thanks! I'll keep it here on my computer nice and safe.
@ Tommy -
ReplyDeleteI've never had a tablet device because I don't have a need for one, and I agree 120% about the cloud. What's everybody's is nobody's, and we ought to think twice before we trust some unknown entity elsewhere with our own information. They can promise me anything, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be liars and there's no way I could do something about it after the fact.
Speaking of typewriters, I have what could easily be the most computerized word processor ever built - the Canon Starwriter 30.
It can store and retrieve files on
floppies (remember those?) and has
a built-in memory which can hold about ten pages of single-spaced typing before it needs to be downloaded onto a disk. It has about 20 built-in languages, and performs mathematical calculations
like adding or averaging columns of figures. It prints with a thermally sensitive printing head
which activates the characters on
a carbon ribbon, or if you're out of ribbons, it will also print on thermal fax paper.
It only had two big problems: it came out at almost the same time as Windows 95, which made it virtually obsolete right out of the box, and it uses a computer language that isn't the popular one used by most desktop computers, so I couldn't put its floppies into a PC and work on them
because the two couldn't 'talk' to each other, unfortunately. Other than that, it would have been a real world-beater.
If it had a built-in fax, it would have been almost as good as a PC with email, and in some ways better, because it works with actual 'hard copy', not something you'd have to print on a separate unit. I used it daily for over ten years, until it became difficult to get the special ribbons for it, but it is still working just the same as the first day I unpacked it.
It doesn't have any virus problems, it works like a charm, and it does its job without needing any regular updates from
back home. I wish Canon was still making them, but they aren't. It's a shame, because these were very good machines and worked perfectly.
Mine still does, all these years later.
@ Tommy -
ReplyDeleteHave a peek at this article....
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/what-problem-does-windows-8-solve/6856