Wishing Windows well in its new role
"The era of PC dominance with Windows as the single platform will be replaced with a post-PC era where Windows is one of a variety of environments that IT will need to support", Van Baker, Gartner research vice president, says. The days of Windows as the applications and device hub are over.
The implications are huge for businesses, which must adapt to something else, too. While native mobile apps are all the rage today, their future is uncertain. Gartner forecasts that by 2016, more than half of those deployed will be hybrid, and that's good for any platform favoring HTML5, including Windows.
Windows 8 is the new XP
Microsoft's newest and oldest supported PC operating systems share some strange similarities. Windows 8 and XP launched during times of tepid computer sales, forecasts of low adoption and initially weak sales. Neither lifted PC shipments during the launch quarter. Yet the older software went on to be such a workhorse, as much as 40 percent of the install base clings to the OS -- nearly 12 years after launch. That's the future I see. Windows 8 isn't the new Vista, as so many pundits proclaim, but the new XP.
I am quite vocal about the changing of computer eras, a position taken up before Apple started selling iPhone in early summer 2007. But the change is a process gradual at first that accelerates over time. In the case of Windows or the typical personal computer set against cloud-connected devices there can be redefinition, and, with it, renewed relevance. No one should underestimate Microsoft or ignore the past when evaluating present trends. The PC and Windows died before and resurrected.
Does Patch Tuesday make your Windows 7 computer endlessly reboot?
For the most part Microsoft's Windows updates, known as Patch Tuesday, aim to fix problems as opposed to causing them. That is not always the case, and the most recent update, which took place this week, is a shining example of what happens when good intentions go bad.
On April 9th Microsoft released two "critical" security updates and seven others rated as "important" for both Windows and Internet Explorer as part of its latest round of updates, collectively covering 14 issues. However one of those fixes, labeled KB2823324 and aimed at the Windows 7 file system kernel-mode driver, went badly for some customers. The result was reports of blue screens of death (BSOD) and also infinite reboots.
Don't blame Windows 8 for weak PC shipments
Well, well, perhaps Windows 8 isn't cause for all the PC market's woes, as IDC strongly stated yesterday. Gartner's first-quarter assessment is grim but no reaper. The analyst firm lays blame partly on consumers unwillingness to pay more for touchscreen models and asserts that the business market actually grows. Also, the firms released contradictory data, with Apple showing glaring and shocking differences.
Mikako Kitagawa, Gartner principal analyst, doesn't blame Windows 8: "Consumers are migrating content consumption from PCs to other connected devices, such as tablets and smartphones". The first factor pulling down PC shipments, which by Gartner estimates fell 11.2 percent globally during Q1, is tablet competition, then. Not Windows 8.
Microsoft beats Windows XP users into submission
What shameless exploitation. I know PC sales are slow, with Windows 8 giving no lift. So Microsoft resorts to this? Today, Stephen Rose issues an ultimatum: Windows XP support ends in 365 days. From April 8, 2014, there will be no more patches and updates for you.
How outrageous! Microsoft cuts off XP users thirteen-and-a-half years after releasing the operating system. My leather jacket is older, and the clothier who made it isn't forcing me to buy a new one. Nor does Texas Instruments demand I upgrade from the calculator purchased in college. If users want to run Windows XP forever, Microsoft should let them. Instead, it's compute at their own risks or upgrade.
Support for Windows XP ends a year from now, should you care?
In exactly 365 days Microsoft will stop offering support for its still widely used but venerable operating system. XP has certainly had a good run. Microsoft will have supported the OS for 12 years, which shows how incredibly popular it was (its success also perhaps speaks volumes about how much better than its successors it was perceived to be, I’m looking at you in particular Vista).
But now Microsoft is dropping extended support for XP, so what does that actually mean for consumers and businesses who are still using the OS?
Microsoft wins, even if the PC loses
I am simply stunned by the ridiculous number of "Microsoft will be dead in four years" stories, following Gartner's grim PC forecast three days ago. I offered brief analysis then and promised something later, and this is it. Yesterday, colleague Alan Buckingham posted first: "Microsoft is nowhere near death's door" -- and he absolutely is right.
Throw a rock, and you can't miss a doom-and-gloom armchair analysis. Among the many are "Gartner: Microsoft is dead, Windows has expired, Office has ceased to be" (Computerworld); "How long can Microsoft go on like this?" (InfoWorld); "Apple's ultimate victory over Microsoft" (Motley Fool); and "Gartner may be too scared to say it, but the PC is dead" (ReadWrite). For the most part, all these armchair pundits are mistaken. Hugely.
Gartner says the PC has no future
Today, Gartner offers grim prognostications for the PC's future, which is not surprising. That the analyst firm took so long disturbs and reveals much about how all these consultants seek to preserve client contracts before anything else. I've warned for years that connected-devices would diminish the personal computer's relevance, much like the mainframe's decline three decades ago. The PC era is over, as I asserted here 26 months ago. On Halloween 2008, I asked in a Microsoft Watch post: "Will your next PC be a smartphone?" What took Gartner so long? The "new device religion" analysis still misses the mark, too.
Following IDC's lead, Gartner now combines PCs, smartphones and tablets into a single forecast. By that measure, in 2012, Android worldwide device shipments (497 million) exceeded Windows (346.5 million) and will more than double (to 1.07 billion) by 2014. Analysts warn the operating system that defined the PC era will struggle with Apple iOS and OS X to be the second dominant platform. By many measures, the circumstance looks grim for Microsoft and Windows, and that's already the popular sentiment today among blog posts and news stories about Gartner's forecast. Don't believe them.
The next Windows won't be called Blue
Microsoft knows something about cool codenames, but little on how to name actual products. Whistler, Longhorn, Cougar, Blackcomb, Vienna and even Blue all sound great, resounding and promising, but that impression goes away fast when Microsoft baptizes its creations: XP, Vista or 7. The guy with the cool names went on a bathroom break, and all the boring suits took over.
That's the very same impression I get after reading about Microsoft's "Looking Back and Springing Ahead" blog post, which touts a number of apparently impressive achievements and future plans that the company has. Lo and behold, there's even a strategy in place to raise the pace for "updates and innovations" -- that's the "new normal across Microsoft", according to the company. But then I notice the Windows Blue reference.
Better late than never, Free Studio 2013 v6.1 supports Windows XP
DVDVideoSoft Ltd has released Free Studio 2013 v6.1, a minor update for its freeware media tools bundle for Windows PCs. The tool, which provides a front end of no less than 48 different tools for recording, downloading, converting and editing both audio and video, comes with the promise of unspecified improvements and new features.
Notable changes include adding Windows XP support to the recently released Free Video Call Recorder for Skype, which is now also available in additional 12 languages, including Chinese, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
Makeover Windows 7 with Modern UI
Windows X has released updates for its skinning tools, Windows 8 UX Pack 7.0 (for Windows 7) and Windows 8 Transformation Pack 7.0 (for Windows XP, Vista and 7). The programs bring much of the look and feel of Windows 8 to earlier desktops.
One notable change this time around is the inclusion of WinMetro as an alternative Start Screen for both packs. Windows X says the program is stable and not resource hungry, which perhaps is why they’ve made it the “Immersive UI” alternative, but if you prefer the older Newgen, just the charms bar, or nothing at all, then all those options are still available.
Microsoft updates Windows Azure with Hadoop and Dropbox deployment support
Microsoft's ongoing process to improve the company's cloud platform, Windows Azure, has reached a new phase. The software giant has, yet again, introduced a number of new features for Windows Azure, including the HDInsight service for Hadoop clusters, support for Dropbox deployment and Mercurial repositories, as well as enhancements to Mobile Services.
Windows Azure Mobile Services can now be used as a backend by "pure" HTML5/JavaScript clients, Apache Cordova/PhoneGap apps and Windows Phone 7.5 clients. The feature complements the previously-introduced Android Client SDK (Software Development Kit) and support for iOS, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8.
Microsoft pushes out Windows 7 SP1 on March 19
For those people who haven't moved on to Windows 8, don't worry -- you will still get something new. Microsoft has announced that Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 will automatically push through the Windows Update tomorrow.
This is not entirely new, though. In fact, Service Pack 1 released way back on Feb. 9, 2011, but has remained optional. Users could previously install SP1 from Windows Update, but the task required manually adding it to the installation list. The difference now is that Microsoft will no longer give users a choice in this matter. That is not a bad thing, because SP1 rolls together a number of security updates for your computer.
New Kinect for Windows SDK coming March 18
Yesterday at the Engadget Expand conference Microsoft's Bob Heddle, the director of Kinect for Windows, announced a new software developer kit is coming very soon -- tomorrow, in fact. Version 1.7 will be made available March 18, and Heddle promised it will be the "most significant update to the SDK since we released the first version a little over a year ago".
Version 1.7 promises new interaction, including push-to-press buttons, grip-to-pan capabilities, and support for smart ways to accommodate multiple users and two-person interactions. Heddle explains that "we wanted to save businesses and developers hours of development time while making it easier for them to create gesture-based experiences that are highly consistent from application to application and utterly simple for end users".
Your security problem isn't Microsoft, it's everyone else
I suppose we sort of already knew this. Ever since Microsoft turned on the firewall by default back in XP SP1, Windows is safer to use and improves with each new version. Perfect? Far from it, but the imperfections are more about what you add than what Microsoft provides. Secunia reports that the vast majority of problems experienced by Windows users these days are caused by third-party software.
In a new report Secunia tells us: "In 2012, 86 percent of the vulnerabilities affecting the Top-50 programs in the representative portfolio, infected third-party programs. This means that only 14 percent of vulnerabilities present in the Top-50 programs on the computers of the PSI users stem from Operating Systems and Microsoft programs. The 86 percent is a substantial increase from the previous year -- 2011 -- when vulnerabilities in third-party software represented 78 percent". The number of third-party vulnerabilities is up from 57 percent six years ago.
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