Well, unlike the carriages of ye olde days the PC will continue to be relevent for many years to come regardless of what OS ends up driving them; you just can't (among other things) play hard-core gaming, perform professional CAD, or do heavy-duty video editting on a tablet or smartphone.
MS proved with Windows 8 that they are more than willing to hang their core user base (consumer and business alike) out to dry in order to foolishly persue a market they have no slightest clue about. While I have some hope for Windows 9, the saying goes that history repeats itself and given that Nadella is someone who puts "the cloud" first I am hardly impressed.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, MS needs to take a step back and look back at its roots and what made it so great. PCs aren't going away, that foolish idea needs to die already. It's foolish of MS that even though they are the undisputed leader of PC operating systems that they simply don't care and would rather toy with the idea of becoming the next Apple or Google.
Hmmm, I bet that's what the carriage makers thought too
you just can't
not yet....
Win8: No they didn't. Win8 had a bad rollout, but so did Win3, Win95, Win2000, WinXP, and WinVista. People forget change is pain. Win8.1 made improvements to Win8 based on customer feedback, and in relatively short time 8.1 update 1 was released.. XP had 3 SPs, Vista had 2.
and look back at its roots and what made it so great. PCs aren't going away, that foolish idea needs to die already.
DOS?
PCs are going away, when who knows. The trend is accelerating toward miniaturization and embedded processing.
TV and DVD players are Internet capable or ready
Printers are wireless
Tire stems are wireless (pressure sensors)
Cars have all sorts of chips in them
Houses are smart and can be controlled remotely *locked, heating/cooling)
New substrates are making chips smaller cooler and faster
Organic LEDs can be rolled up
Laser projection/detection is already available that creates a virtual keyboard
All of this spells the end of a 30 year industry.
It is the young who will adopt and adapt to typing in thin air, not this old man. As the article points out, MS only has 14% of the emerging market - they want 90% of that market too
I think devices like in the movie
The Minority Report will be where the trend goes. Microsoft, the great imitator, has to balance it's current base while building stuff for the next user base. It's not easy!
But..... smartphones - the keys are wayyyyyy to small.
I don't know if you recall the DOS to Windows transition period. Developers couldn't care less about a GUI, it only slowed them down and made them less productive.
This will be my last post on this - it was fun going back through all of the memories about Windows changing. OMG, they changed Windows, OMG!
Bill
.