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Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

If Microsoft was a B2C company, the article would be spot on. They are not, however, Apple. They are primarily B2B. Windows didn't come to dominate the desktop because consumers loved it. It dominates because it provides a value proposition to businesses. Success with consumers is part of that value proposition, and one of the things which gives it an advantage over Linux.

RT is a long term strategy. It's not a tablet OS. It's the phone too, just not yet, fully.It's not targeted at consumers. It's targeted at enterprise.

As a B2C company, Apple will not offer a roadmap or backward compatibility. Google being an advertising agency, will always seek to read one's data. Microsoft knows what it is.

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Xbox is "B2C", in a very big way.

The impression I got was that it was intended for consumers. Why else would you only sell it in a Microsoft store? (I did see one in a Best Buy. It was buried in with the other tablets, while there was a shining white table with iPads a few feet away, with actual people around it fondling the merchandise).

It's true that MS did give most of their full-time employees free Surfaces. I assumed this was to promote internal use, and hey, who doesn't like free stuff?

The hardware is great, but the Windows group really, honestly didn't know how to ship a tablet OS -- they're a B2B group trying to do B2C, but not really understanding what it takes. The result is emabarassingly bad in spots. My wife was having to deal with The Scourge That Is the Windows Registry, using the event viewer and task manager to diagnose some bug in WinRT. They really do not get it . . . or if they do, it's not at the level of design and management where it matters.

You don't have to do this kind of mucking around on a Xbox. There are good reasons for this. Yet the Xbox is based on Windows. Interesting.

Windows has been institutionalized inside MS to the extent that you can't ship a platform that doesn't use it. You need to use a /lot/ of it, and it's a procrustean bed, at best. Windows is getting really old and creaky; things that you might be able to justify on a desktop (e.g., a corrupt registry, or a service horking and needing some TLC) are just death on a tablet, and having consumers drop into desktop-level tools to fix stuff is just sad.

(Don't get me started on WinRT).

Microsoft have always eaten their own dogfood. That's where Server and Office and Project came from...and obviously, Visual Studio.

Giving RT devices to employees continues this tradition. It's also evidence that this is an enterprise strategy, not B2C.

I used Windows 2.0. I was using WordPerfect when the first versions of Word were being developed. Surface is an MVP.

[edit]

A Note about Xbox. The way Microsoft handled the RRoD issue was pure B2B. They made it right for people out of warranty. Their choice of three years was the same as the period over which businesses depreciate assets. A B2C response would have been, "You should have purchased XboxCare."

[/edit]

If its an enterprise play, how come its software doesn't tie into the enterprise? No outlook, no power in Office, no AD integration: these are all things critical in the enterprise.

MS is certainly going to take the intel-based Surface into the enterprise. This one seems like a weird chimaera, sitting between the enterprise world and the consumer world. And that won't capture the average tablet buyer's imagination.

That's a good question. The answer I think is that Microsoft's ARM strategy is long term.

Instead of kludging around in the OS, you refactor Outlook, Office, Active Directory, etc. to better address the new reality of less powerful devices becoming prevalent. Clearly that's already happening as Microsoft pursues improvements in the cloud. It is also the same direction the companies the techpress love to compare them against - Apple and Google - are pursuing.

Microsoft's bet is that they will be better at delivering cloud services to enterprise (and thereby to consumers). I think the evidence makes this a pretty safe bet.

The Surface Rt is prefect when using RDP and Citrix.. It could use a higher resolution screen and maybe go down in price a bit... But it works pretty well as a thin client.

We'll have to disagree about your concept of what B2C means. MS did the right thing by its customers for RRoD; I wouldn't call that B2-anything.

My point was that the Xbox was /designed/ from the ground up -- from the choice of components to the way the OS is booted and managed -- to be a consumer product. The Surface, not so much. And it shows.

Edit: Let me be a little more concrete.

Xbox: No registry. Registries suck; they become corrupt, they're hard to manage, they accumulate bloat and mystery. If a consumer has to deal with a registry, it's epic fail time.

Surface: A couple weeks ago my wife was editing the registry on her Surface in attempt to recover it. OMFG.

Xbox: A pretty decent security story, with decent support in the OS.

Surface: That's cute, guys.

Xbox: Turn it off accidentally? Trip over the power cord? No problem.

Surface: What are these things you call . . . "transactions"?

The Xbox pricing also showed some backbone. I don't know what the Surface people were thinking.

[By 'it' in the 2nd paragraph, I mean Surface, btw.]

>RT is a long term strategy. It's not a tablet OS. It's the phone too, just not yet, fully.It's not targeted at consumers. It's targeted at enterprise.

If that is the argument then MS will fail. This isn't 20 years ago where corporate could dictate what tech you used.

As it is, half of these arguments in this article are flawed. The Surface isn't as good as what was offered by OEMs or Apple. .

How does the Surface weigh more than an iPad 3 when the iPad 3 had a high-res display and was already considered to heavy? Why does the Surface have a kickstand that is useless on your lap when typing? This is what hardware design is about.

Other Win RT tablets cost more because of the lack of cash that MS has where they can pay for pre-production costs and, at the same time, they don't have to pay licensing fees for the OS

It should be irrelevant to MS if MS is competing with other OEMs. Their goal was to increase revenue.

I'm sure MS will get better at hardware and software but they should learn patience first instead of being so quick in attempting to jump both Apple and Google in product development.

The delta in weight between the iPad3 and Surface is pretty close to zero (15 grams). Furthermore, while the iPad3 has the HiRes display the Surface does have a USB and MicroSD slot and a better feeling body material.

And the kickstand is usable on my lap. Not as nice as a laptop, but I use it on my lap nearly everyday.

I'm sure MS will get better at hardware and software but they should learn patience first instead of being so quick in attempting to jump both Apple and Google in product development.

Actually they did the exact right thing, IMO. You don't get great at HW design by not shipping. The Surface is a very good product. Not great, but it will get better I'm sure. Much like the iPod and iPad.

>You don't get great at HW design by not shipping.

You also don't get sales by shipping a product too early. The Playbook proved this. There are inherent design flaws within RT that has also plagued W8 usability that MS did not give proper consideration of before release.

WinRT/WinPhone are not B2B OSes. B2B lives off the ability of a business to deploy their inhouse software that they (or somebody they contracted like Accenture) deploys on their infrastructure. A lot of these applications did move to the Intraweb. However Microsoft restricts the choice of web browsers that WinRT/WinPhone users can get, so if IE RT/Phone lack the capability you need, you're out of luck.

The WinRT/WinPone strategy is aping 1:1 after the Apple B2C business model. Your "analysis" that this was a B2B solution is spot on wrong.

The problem is that there's a whole US generation not being brought up in a PC household. You don't think kids of today are gonna make purchasing decisions of tomorrow? That companies are going to be able to sustain a PC-only environment in the face of the fact that the majority of college students are using Mac? That businesses across the board are adopting "BYOD"?

This is what should terrify MSFT - this is absolutely devastating. This is why they have XBox. This is why they attempted the Zune. This is why they have a tablet.

Yes, the business environment is MS' bread-and-butter, but it's going to suffer catastrophic hits over the next 5-10 years as the "Anything-but-Windows" generation grows up. You seriously think that companies will be able to maintain their MS hegemony when the majority of new employees have grown up with a Mac, iOS, and/or Android?

Make no mistake - this is huge, and what will break Microsoft's back. A diversified IT client base breaks Microsoft's stranglehold. You pay a fortune (a definite price premium) for Exchange, Office, SQL Server, Sharepoint, Windows Server, etc. because it gives you labor/cost savings in an all-PC environment.

Once you throw iOS, Mac, Android, etc. devices into the mix, you no longer have that advantages. If I was a CIO or CTO and my business users were complaining that IT is too restrictive, that it's impacting hiring and employee retention - there's no way that a "MS-only" policy is going to stand. If you're a startup or other small/medium sized business - why wouldn't you switch to Google Apps for Mail? Oh, and it includes a lot of other things, too (groups, "office-lite" collaboration; oh and a Chromebook that "just works" within this environment).

Not that MS won't still be a big player in businesses but a lot of the "demand" for MS business apps are propped up by economies of a homogenous environment. Once that starts to unravel, there's no stopping it.

ref http://macdailynews.com/2012/06/06/gartner-apple-macs-invadi... http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/09/24/nearly-58-of-college-s... http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/08/08/mac-share-colleg... http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/08/07/big-macs-on-campus/

> Windows didn't come to dominate the desktop because consumers loved it.

PC users did not hate it. Most DOS users were not ready to move to Macs and Windows provided an easy migration path, with 3.1 being, finally, good enough and able to run multiple DOS applications simultaneously.

And at the time (this is pre OS X) apples OS was not preemptive multitasking which is sort of required for a useful window based GUI

> sort of required for a useful window based GUI

Not really. At that time, I was programming under Windows 3 and I quickly learned to call yield() from within long-running functions. It was not perfect, but it was good enough.

Microsoft is and wants to be a B2C company. Half their initiatives, from Xbox, WinPhone, to Zune to Media Centers, and yes even Windows OS is squarely directed at consumers.

"RT is a long term strategy. It's not a tablet OS. It's the phone too, just not yet, fully.It's not targeted at consumers. It's targeted at enterprise."

Comments on the original article point out that Windows RT lacks outlook and active directory integration. Is that the case?

They are shipping an MVP.

The first iPhones didn't have an AppStore, or 3G.

A business platform that lacks the only features that differentiate Windows on the tablet from android and iOS isn't minimally viable.

"What's more, it's a poor fit with traditional Windows network environments. Office 2013 RT doesn't include Outlook, and Windows RT's built-in Mail and Calendar apps are lousy substitutes. Neither can Windows RT join an Active Directory domain, so forget about Group Policy and other tools used by Windows IT managers."

The missing features listed above all sound like MVP features if Windows RT was targeted at a B2B audience.

Their Surface marketing also seems focused on a B2C audience, not a B2B one.

Giving employees free devices doesn't indicate anything either way.

Nothing in this thread convinces me Windows RT is a B2B-focused device.

The bar for "minimum" has been raised since the iPhone's release.

Looks like they missed the V (as in viable).

you should tell that to Microsoft then, because they themselves position RT for consumers.

source: we are working with MS on building a Win8 app. i am quoting MS themselves here.

RT does not connect to AD. it is not enterprise ready in any form.

Businesses work on desktops and active directories. WinRT makes no sense on the desktop, and it offers no AD.

So MS has nothing to offer here, B2B wise.

They made a huge mistake, pretending that desktops and mobile devices are the same beast. And they're gonna pay for it, in sales and market value. At the end of 2013, they should be a even less relevant than today.

> At the end of 2013, they should be a even less relevant than today.

At the moment, Microsoft own slightly less than 100% of the enterprise desktop market. At the end of 2013 they will almost certainly own slightly less than 100% of the enterprise desktop market.

You live in a bubble.

True. But also at the end of 2013 even more employees will be bringing their own devices - phones and tablets to work so they don't have the enterprise lap top. These devices will run Android and iOS in a roughly 50/50 share of OS distribution.

The enterprise supports the work their employees need to do by giving them the traditional desktop tools - this is Microsofts market and always has been. But more and more those tools are overkill for the job the employee needs to accomplish so they are turning to the tools that work for them in their personal lives.

Very few people in the enterprise are going to stop using their Windows desktop/laptop, they are just going to supplement it with their phone/tablet - at least in 2013 anyway. People have been doing that for over a decade with Blackberrys.

Anecdote 1: I see iPads on trains to London as often as I see Thinkpads (and the odd Dell) now. That was not the case a few years ago. Trains to London arriving before 9am are pure business I can assure you (£130 return second class). A few Mac laptops in first class, solid Thinkpad/iPad and blue shirt territory in 2nd.

Anecdote 2: The middle managers where I work all have iPads and shared access to desktop PCs. They are using an rdp client on the iPads for access to some business applications. This has happened over the last two years.

Anecdote 3: Most people visiting my place of work to specify systems (heating; photocopying; interior decoration; networking; compliance with various standards) now have iPads. That has happened in the last 18 months.

No hard stats but I have noticed this change.

What industry do you work in? I have not yet seen (in London) a single work-issued iPad. I've seen one or two people who have brought their own in to work, but they don't do anything more with it that check email and read a few word documents.

I've also never seen anyone on a train use an iPad for anything that looked like work. There are loads of them, but everyone is playing games, reading news etc.

My anecdotal experience is that BYOD iPads are talked about a lot, but it very rarely seems to actually happen - just a handful of upper management types, who usually struggle to open up a pdf on the thing.

Just anecdotal: what I see each morning as I walk past the London train. You are probably right, perhaps there is a bias on the sample.

I work in education. Middle managers entering data on an iPad is easier in a classroom with 30+ people milling around - no need to sit. They do email and access RDP on them as well. There was tablet use before from years ago for similar reasons.

I don't know what the people on the train are doing, but it looks like corporate applications. Not shopping or video. Some reading and annotating of PDFs. I don't want to start shoulder surfing!

The advice/late train people at the station now use iPads to display timetable info as well by the way. They move to where the slightly confused knot of passengers left by the train that broke down are, instead of getting them to queue up. Seems a sensible use of a tablet given the cost of a person.

Let's see. To the businesses, MS has nothing substantially new or exciting to offer.

True, desktop usage will probably remain about the same (with a slight decline), but meanwhile, the mobile computing world is growing rapidly, with MS being largely out of the picture.

Desktop OSes will continue to sale, but they become day-by-day a very small fragment of the OSes out there. Win7 is a great OS, but I'm sure various alternatives, coming from the mobile world and leveraging their success there, will try to replace it.

I love Windows (7), use Visual Studio and other Microsoft tools daily, but this has nothing to do with the real changes that occur in the tech world.

MS bet wrong, and as occurs in the free market, they'll lose.

None of what you just said, regardless of whether it is true or not, changes the fact that Microsoft are incredibly relevant, and will continue to be for the immediate future.

That's a rather ambitious strategy I feel. If it is seen as DOA I don't see enterprises clambering to develop software for it.

Enterprise users seem happy enough with their Win7 laptops and the odd iPad. Once they start feeling the need to move forwards , I get the feeling that WinRT will be but a memory.

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