Well, I for one don't think windows eight was designed to succeed in the marketplace, it was really designed - via UEFI SecureBoot - to throw a monkey wrench into the widespread adoption of GNU/Linux by the average consumer. That's why you won't really see ballmer weep at the poor sales numbers. The fact that microsoft was able to pull that off without a massive anti-trust probe by either US or EU regulators is, I think, being regarded as a quiet success of windows eight during water cooler conversations in Redmond.
Except that it can backfire on them big time, which is if manufacturers see UEFI as hindering sales because they don't even get the incremental Linux sales they will drop it and the Secure Boot initiative will have failed.
And while I would see some people jumping up and down about that, I point out that one of Microsoft's challenges is that people don't want to use it for doing things like browsing the web if all the scaremongering about zero day exploits rages around them.
I am not sure how the industry is going to deal with the eroding trust in systems but I do know that if they don't it will be hard on all of us.
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Well, I for one don't think windows eight was designed to succeed in the marketplace, it was really designed - via UEFI SecureBoot - to throw a monkey wrench into the widespread adoption of GNU/Linux by the average consumer. That's why you won't really see ballmer weep at the poor sales numbers. The fact that microsoft was able to pull that off without a massive anti-trust probe by either US or EU regulators is, I think, being regarded as a quiet success of windows eight during water cooler conversations in Redmond.
They're not out of the woods yet in the EU: http://www.techspot.com/news/52067-microsoft-under-fire-in-e...
Except that it can backfire on them big time, which is if manufacturers see UEFI as hindering sales because they don't even get the incremental Linux sales they will drop it and the Secure Boot initiative will have failed.
And while I would see some people jumping up and down about that, I point out that one of Microsoft's challenges is that people don't want to use it for doing things like browsing the web if all the scaremongering about zero day exploits rages around them.
I am not sure how the industry is going to deal with the eroding trust in systems but I do know that if they don't it will be hard on all of us.