Did we all just witness Windows start to die?

[gertsy]

ZDNet is such tripe.  Every week they publish some new article "death of this or that!!" (I'm looking at you, Ed Bott and SJVN!)  it's just loud-mouthed commentary and opinion pieces to bring in advertising dollars and drum up arguments from the same bunch of commenting jackasses, not real tech news.  I'll normally pass on reading anything there, although if Big Dave is commenting it might be worth a look...

+1.  I think we can tell who's readership is dying. A PC is a personal computer. A Tablet is a form factor. But as we know sales and foot print are two separate things.

IMO Win 8 on a touch screen device is great(if hybrid). If people bothered to use an MS account to log on and learn the simple touch screen gestures they'd actually "get it". I get frustrated on my Work Win7 laptop now when I touch the screen and nothing happens. I also find it a little frustrating on my Win8 non-touch main PC. But what I find especially interesting is that when Microsoft release something new they get bagged for changing something that didn't need changing.  When they don't change they get bagged for not being innovative.  Bit of the Bart Simpson syndrome there.
It strikes me that so called "technologists" can be the most conservative of people.

Just as a side note.  iPad sales have "fallen" 14% this qtr compared to last year. Is that the death knell of the iPad?  I think not.  But the news for PC sales is that they've "slumped" 10%.  Note the "language" difference. Enjoy the tech media ride!

[gertsy]

YES! my evil master plan is working!

All i have to do now is remove windows from 3 billion other PC's around the globe!
not long from victory now!

LOL: Wrings hands and laughs maniacally.

The marketers certainly have their victory in making everybody think that quarterly sales is the indicator for technology usage footprint.

Here's and interesting stat: There are more people who have bought an iPad that don't actually use it to connect to the internet than those that do. What's going on there?

[gertsy]

To a different point Unix has won the tablet war, it's down to Linux based Android and BSD based iOS.  Unix installed base now is around 900 million devices.  The installed base of Windows is hard to calculate because it's been around longer, how many of the 3 billion manufactured units are still in use?  1 in 3?  The numbers are likely close.

Pretty loose definition of Unix.  Any looser and you could include Windows in there too. Unix-VMS-NT-Win8. You do realise Linux is not a Unix branch. Not officially N E way.

@djos : The Office 2013 Ribbon is a bit more touch friendly but it's not there yet.

[gertsy]

Sorry Gertsy but POSIX compliance in the WinNT CLI does not equal "based on Unix".

I rather like it especially in Excel, I find now that i'm used to it I can find what I want orders of magnitude quicker than before. (PS, couldnt care less about touch, Im talking on real computers)

My association wasn't POSIX or I might have quoted Powershell as well.
It was the direct link from NT to Digital VMS that came from RSX-11, Which came from PDP-11, and yes you may have guessed it, early versions of Unix TSS and C.  UNICS Timeshare, or UNIX TSS being the source for all Unix variants.  
Gasps of disbelief I hear. The sound of keyboards clicking searching in google, could it be true?  Suggest you search with Bing if u want real answers..
Linux "appeared" from a binary kernel copy of Minux in the late 80's (From nowhere some zealots would have us believe) around the same time that binary reverse engineering was very popular. (Arrrgh me hearties!!!)
If you were to actually believe the "story" on the origins of the Linux and to some extent the Minux kernel, that would mean that the origins of Windows (of the NT variety ie the current arm) come from the actual origins of Unix whereas Linux does not.  Think about that for a moment.
Though I'm pretty sure you could draw a direct line from Minux to either BSD or Unix32 both university popular in the mid to late 80s. Perhaps those university creators should admit to their "artistry" to re-establish the line and missing link.

PS: Real computers have touch too.  Typed on my Dell XPS12 I7 SSD with Win 8 and Touch.

@Duce.  My experience is the same. Even old CS 1.5 works.

[gertsy]

That would be a suitable analogy were Don Knotts alive.  Or did we just witness another death?
Linus T had open distain towards Minux so ?
Your argument on PDP-11 and the OS that drove the origins of RSX-11 is just as valid or invalid as mine for the same non-evidential reasons.

[gertsy]

What? You're the one making the claim; the burden of evidence is on you. What basis do you have for claiming that RSX-11 was based on Unix?

No burden on me John, I'm only dancing. You replied to me with no more evidence than my original preposition. My basis is knowledge. Can you mind meld over forums?

[gertsy]

I disagree with you Duce. I take my experience. I have used windows 8. I hate it.  I would not even  upgrade my parent's business computer to windows 8.

1. one game I had to change it to windows xp sp3 for compatibility. The game would lag very bad. It was slow before I fix it.
2. one game I had it was so tiny that you could not see it.
3. Windows 8 in 1 year become slow on the desktop. It was taking long time to load up.  (Sandybridge I3 3.30ghz  12Gb of Ram)
4. I am not going to spend hours figuring out how to trouble shoot compatibility for games.
 5. Every session of w8 the video driver would crash. There was no new driver for it.
6. Defragment was a fail.  
7. Windows 8 is the new Windows Me

Tile everything that junk. It not really windows it just a touch screen  thing for useless traditional desktop interface.  I am not going to spend 400-1000 dollars for touch-screen monitor. Pretty much the operation system is brand new.

Most of the W8 detractors knows that it not worth the money. Nor is it worth the time. You have to relearn how to use windows unless your person like me. I got a free third party application that adds an start menu button to it. All the applications are on the list.  It made my life easier.

What OS were you moving from? Win98?
And "in 1 year" means you had to be running an early beta/pre-release?  Not something to base a final opinion on.
What is this defragment thing you talk of?
Windows ME was a totally different architecture?
How is the video driver problem the pre-release OSs fault? I hope you're as understanding when it comes to Linux and video drivers.

There are many things that piss me off in Windows 8, but nothing you've listed.  
AFAIC the experience of the new start screen, IE10 on it, and touch make it the best touch OS I've ever used.  Though I have to admit I haven't used android tablets to any depth, but if they're anything like the phones I don't think I want to, also from what I remember when helping to set one (a Tablet) up for my cousin. Yucky.

[gertsy]

You're the one that made the claim, mister. Where did you acquire this knowledge? Can you provide a link? If not, can you share about your source?

A link?  It was in the 70's pre internet.  Wikipedia, you're kidding me right?  The articles there are only as good as their references. My sources are real life and books (remember those) and they are varied. The original catalyst for my interest was sparked by discussions back in the mid-late 80s with Digital VAX system engineers who worked onsite.  While I was also working on Burroughs MCP with Algol and Fortran. The nightshifts were long and may things discussed but my special interests back then were all things language and OS or Master Control Programs as they were called back then, Operating Systems are what IBM called them. There was as much vehemence and loyalty for brands and flavours back then, as there is now. I remember many conversations vividly and in the intervening years have read many books. I don't expect you to accept any of this and the truth is you don't have to.  But I'm not 'gonna suspend my history and reality for Commodorejohn. Nor stop sharing it.

[gertsy]

The big problem is that ribbons don't make logical groupings. Sure you can put things where you want them, but that is no help to me when I want to do something in different office applications, cut and paste is in different places... What if I want to use someone else's computer, etc... I can't find anything. And since the tried and tested (since 1984) menu bar is gone, I don't have any fall back options.

There is no logic in the ribbon interface.

Yeah the ribbons on 2013 are better but still not totally logical or touch friendly.