[Windows 8 General] e.mote:
>Those limitations aren't just the "inability" to use full Win32...That's a part of it, of course, but not the whole story.

You'll get no disagreement from me on Metro's limitations. Metro fails on so many levels that if I start, it'll open the floodgates of rant. I do have one observation on Metro that I haven't seen elsewhere:

Metro is a polarizing UI. People tend to either love or hate it, ie have strong reactions to it. Args about Metro usually dwell on its functionality/design, but the strong intensity points to a visceral or emotional reaction rather than a rational one.

From my observation, it's Metro's extensive use of bright primary colors for its tiles, which can't be changed by the user. Colors are very important, enough to be THE overriding consideration in many purchases. We would never buy a car or house, or clothes, in the "wrong" color, which is why products tend to have neutral colors like white or black, or shades thereof. Like elevator music, neutrals are bland and tepid, but it doesn't offend sensibilities. Strong primaries tend to evoke strong reaction, and are normally used for specific demographics (eg teens). Metro's "Fisher-Price" complaint is a legitimate and important concern. People don't give a patootie about "elegant designs," but they do care about their colors.

Metro's history, starting with the Zune, has not been good. Its design & aesthetics aren't appealing enough to push products. Zune died, WP is comatose, RT is stillborn, Windows is sucking air. It has many other issues, some of which you pointed to above. That MS is standardizing on it, and is hoping to iterate it to success, is the major reason why I am pessimistic about MS' so-called "innovations."

>Surface (RT) at $300 for the model that launched at $500 probably would have lost money on every sale, and still stood a significant risk of not seeing much adoption (because the OS is crippled)

If there was a significant risk of not getting traction at $300, what was the risk at $500? 99%?

And would it have lost more money than the $9bil write-down? The billions wasted in marketing? The billions more in the damage to both Surface and RT brands? How much was failure worth?

It's illustrative to contrast Surface with Google's Nexus and Amazon's Kindle Fire. Whereas the Surface has an exotic (expensive) metal shell housing a lo-res display and an underpowered Tegra3 SoC, both Nexus and KF spent the money where it counts, in the SoC and display, and good-enough plastic shells. More importantly, Nexus/KF were sold at a loss (BOM costs were probably break-even) to hit low price points to get the public to bite. They served their purpose as hero devices to bolster their respective ecosystems. Nexus in particular served as a rallying point for the tech enthusiast community, which was important in driving the early phase of Android adoption. The purpose was not to make a profit.

On the flip side, MS wanted everything: It wanted an iPad-like premium brand, it wanted fat profits like Apple's, and it also wanted to push adoption of its new platforms that is starting from zero. It got nothing but eggs.

To be fair, that hubris was under the Ballmer/Sinofsky era, and those gents are no longer with us. The "new" MS regime is supposedly more enlightened, receptive, innovative, etc etc. We'll see how far glasnost extends. Meanwhile, this curmudgeon will duly note that the "free Win for mobile" offer wasn't hard to make, as it didn't materially affect MS' bottom line. The only WP partner left standing (wobbling) was Nokia, which is now part of MS. No danger of losing much rev on tablets either, with Windows tablet share just north of zero. The Windows cash cow is intact. On Office, Office 2013 freebie is bumped in favor of 1-yr trialware O365. But let's all hold hands and sing the "it's a brand new day" kumbaya song. Gosh, I feel a tear welling up... <sniff>

Hahah, as an aside, doesn't Nadella look just a tad bit like Gandhi? I keep expecting the dude to spout some Gandhi aphorisms on stage. I think a relevant one here would be "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." Yes, embrace change and let go of your cash cows, MS.

>You don't have to "sign up as a MS dev", just run a powershell command and enter some Live credentials

Good to know, thanks. What you're describing sounds like a loophole that MS can remove at any time, as it did for the RT8 jailbreak. This is too important to rely on workarounds or jailbreaks; it needs to be official policy. Same spiel as everything else MS: It wants to gain share, but it also wants the control and profits that come with a closed eco. New MS, meet old MS.

>The Win8 dev forum is pretty boring, because XDA isn't the usual place for people to post WinX software

Yes, XDA isn't exactly a hopping place for Windows fans. Then again, with a supposed userbase of 1.5 BILLION users, one'd think that there'll be a teeny bit more love? Anyway, it's not just XDA, there's no Metro dev "community" anywhere AFAIK, other than MS' own technical forums. On the few remaining Windows enthusiast forums, Metro discussions are nil. That alone tells me enough of Metro's chances going forward. If MS is as innovative as it claims, then it better have a plan B on tap for Win9, as the notion of iterating plan A (Metro) to success isn't something you want to bet the company on.

>your claim about Google making Android free is incorrect. The open-source code is and was free, but that was not the OS that most people saw on their phones

Nit-picking, eh? Google certainly isn't a philanthropy, and I don't buy into the good/evil motif that fanboys always harp on. It's not only about money, but control. If Goog gave away everything, then entities like Amazon or Samsung (or MS) would only be too glad to usurp the platform for their own benefit.

The main point is not about whether Android is/isn't free. The point is that it's free/open enough to gain critical mass adoption, which it has done. And of course Goog is entitled to monetize its platforms however it sees fit. As a user (and not a fanboy), I don't care how much money Google or MS makes. What I care about is that there are plenty of software and support available for the platform I choose, preferably with low prices. Android is free enough to allow the thriving dev community that is XDA, among others. It's free enough to CyanogenMod, among others. Companies don't have to use the proprietary Goog services, and many don't (in Asia).

Android has its own issues. As mentioned, Android has stagnated on tablets ever since the JB release over a year ago. While adoption was good for small-size (7") tabs, mainly due to low prices, it hasn't made much headway on the larger 10" size. Nexus 10's lackluster reception is emblematic. Another symptom of malaise is that usage share (measured by NetMarketShare and others) is still overwhelmingly in iOS' favor, which indicates low utility. Improvements to Android to date have been very incremental.

Goog for its part has been dabbling in all manners of side projects, from Glass to Wear to Chromecast to TV to "Internet Things." While the eclectic strategy is part of its DNA, my sense is that Google, like Apple, is at a loss on how to take the next step in bringing tablets (touch-based UI) further into the computing market, ie how to make it into a full-time productivity tool, replacing the laptop. So, it's not just MS that is wanting for "innovation."

Hence, despite Android's market share dominance, I do feel that the mobile market is still wide open for a company able to take that next step. MS has the strongest motivation here, with its need to migrate the (productivity) desktop. But it is saddled with a poor foundation (Metro), and is further hamstrung with its need to preserve the hefty profits from its cash cows. So, it's still a toss-up. My next point of interest will be Google I/O, and whatever announcement MS has for Win9 later this year.