Buying a new device? Buy from the owner of a store.

If you are going to buy a new Windows 8 machine get it from Microsoft. If you’re getting an Android tablet get it from Google. Of course you can only get iOS and OSX from an Apple product. Kindle and Nooks also fall into the category of owners of the store. 

There are so many devices, with so many choices. So why am I advocating buying devices from the people who own the stores on their machines? You can get the Kindle store on just about anything, and you will be able to have Microsoft’s store on any Windows 8 machine. The answer is that the store is where the money is. But there is another reason that I will share with you in a moment.

Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Barns and Noble, and Google don’t have to make a cent off of their hardware. What this means is that other companies who are producing computers or tablets have to make all of their money from the slim profit margins that they get from selling their hardware. The aforementioned companies don’t have to make any money at all from selling their products. It’s similar to Microsoft making their money off of games and services for the Xbox or Nintendo making their money from selling copies of Mario Cart. Bottom line you are going to get more hardware for your buck if you buy from the store owners.

The other reason for buying from the maker of the store is that they are also the makers of their Operating System. If you make the OS and the hardware it runs on then it’s most likely going to run better. Yes the Kindle and the Nook are based on Android but they have highly customized it to run on their devices. It’s the same as Mac OSX being based on Free BSD then massively customized to work only on Apple hardware.

All that being said it may explain why most Android phones seem clumsy compared to an iPhone. Yes Samsung has done a good job with Android but most really haven’t. I would have no qualms at all about getting a Google phone with Android installed; I would bet it would run great.

Microsoft Is Going For Broke With The Metro Interface

A little over 30 years ago Microsoft landed the role of being the operating system provider for International Business Machines (IBM), thus planting in the minds of the business community that Microsoft was the software company of choice if you do business. In the early to mid-80s there were other companies out there that had operating systems with greater capabilities than IBM PCs. Both the Apple Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga had impressive Graphic User Interfaces that Microsoft was just beginning to develop. But at the time the Macintosh was looked at as an educational computer and the Amiga was looked at as a graphics platform and game box. Both were not taken seriously by the business community.

In 1985 IBM sealed its fate when it asked Microsoft to write OS2. The problem was that at the same time Microsoft was writing OS2 for IBM, they were selling a Disk Operating System (DOS) for other manufacturers, and Microsoft quickly overshadowed IBM. From that time forward Microsoft controlled the operating system that the vast majority of business computers in the world used to do business, and Microsoft’s DOS became the Operating System norm.

Microsoft was in a great position, and if you wanted to be a player in the computer hardware or software game you had to play ball with Microsoft. Microsoft used its knowledge of its own operating system to make Microsoft Office outperform competitors like Novel’s WordPerfect to dominate the office suite space. If Microsoft thought you were getting too big for your britches then it would put you in your place. For example, when the Internet started making its way out of universities and into the living rooms of the general population, Netscape was your entry point to the World Wide Web. Microsoft saw Netscape as a threat and made it a priority to squash them. Microsoft created its own web browser, Internet Explorer that was derived from Spyglass Mosaic, and simply made it part of every version of Windows 95. When people purchased a PC, Internet Explorer was right there ready to guide them to the new World Wide Web, thus pushing Netscape out of the way. Using their OS muscle has been Microsoft’s way of doing business for years, forcing everyone to partner up and play ball. But things have changed, and Microsoft was caught off guard.

The internet has grown over the years and the speeds to connect to it have gotten so fast that in some places you will be able to connect to the internet as fast as 1 Gigabit per second with Google Fiber. This is 100x faster than the existing 10mps that most of us are using. This makes cloud computing super-fast, and makes your native OS less relevant. If a software provider creates a program that can run on their server through a browser then the browser becomes the OS and it doesn’t matter if you are running on Windows, MAC OSX, Google Chrome, Linux, or Android.

Gadgets other that the typical PC hook into the internet, and popular operating systems for those devices like Apple’s IOS that runs on iPhones and iPads, and Google’s Linux based Androids rule those markets. There is a fundamental shift going on right now, and Microsoft can’t stand it.

So how is Microsoft handling this shift in the world of operating systems and connections? They are betting everything on Windows 8 and the Metro interface. Microsoft is betting that their tablet/laptops, phones, and new Metro interfaced OS can dominate everything and let them once again flex their OS muscle to drive how people use technology. But how will the Metro Interface save Microsoft?

Windows phone 7 with the Metro Interface and its little squares and rectangles was a huge flop. It appears now that Microsoft is throwing their baby (Windows) out the window, and replacing it with the little squares and rectangles that the public has by and large rejected. If you look at Microsoft’s history, they have dominated not because their OS was the best, but because it was the norm. Microsoft led by Steve Ballmer, who has been with Microsoft since the beginning, is betting that they can force the Metro Interface down the world’s throat and make it the new norm replacing Android and IOS. Microsoft’s reasoning is that you’ll get used to it, business will get used to it, and they will be on top once again. Getting us used to the Metro Interface is the only reason they are offering cheap upgrades for $15 if you buy a PC with Windows 7 right now, or sell Win8 to you for $40 if you upgrade from any other version of Windows after it comes out.

I’m not a fortune teller, but I don’t think this is going to work for Microsoft. I think it will help to keep them relevant, but not as a dominator; they will be just another choice. I think this move is going to be enough to light a fire under developers to get busy. The public will be unhappy with Windows 8, and some hardware manufacturers are already unhappy with Microsoft building their own devices. I think you will see more alternative OS laptops like the Chrome Book, and laptops sporting Linux springing up. The tablet market will be more varied with Microsoft’s entries, but they are not going to push iPads, Galaxy Tabs, Nooks, and Kindle Fires off of the map.  Whatever happens this will end up being an interesting year for technology, and I look forward to seeing how it all turns out. Personally I’d like to see Microsoft fall flat on its face, simply because I don’t like seeing bullies win, but I don’t think that will happen. Hopefully the events of this year will have a humbling effect on Microsoft who hasn’t always played well with others over the years, but I doubt it.

Microsoft Office 2010 Starter

I hadn’t heard of Microsoft Office 2010 Starter until I saw it included with a laptop computer I was looking at online. I’ve been using libreOffice exclusively for some time and have grown to enjoy using it, but I was curious to see exactly what this starter version of office was. So with a few searches on the internet I was able to find that Microsoft decided to get rid of Works -which just sucked anyway- and to add a version of Word and Excel that do not have all of the features of the paid version. They also included a little rotating advertisement in the bottom right side of the screen.

To tell you the truth I do like using Word and Excel but the price of $100 to purchase them is excessive. If the price for a home version were more on the line of $29 then I would be happy to fork over the money to pay for it, but when I can get a full blown compatible office suite for free why would I spend $100 per computer to do so. This brings me to 2010 Office Starter.

First off the things that are missing from starter I don’t use anyway. Starter is missing the ability to use pivot tables in Excel, and the ability to see revision history in Word. Those missing features are no big deal to me at all. The advertisement in the bottom right hand corner doesn’t bother me either. So to tell you the truth I’m pretty happy with it. If I really wanted to upgrade to the full blown Office program I could by buying it for $100 but I won’t. If I really need to do a Power Point presentation I will do it in LibreOffice.

I think it’s smart of Microsoft to provide this with new computers. With so many free ways to create documents using free software or online with sites like Google Docs they needed to do something to stay relevant to the average user.   Microsoft only provides Office 2010 Starter preinstalled on new machines, but they don’t care if it’s copied. It will only run on Windows Vista and Windows 7. You can download it here, click on the rectangular box under Microsoft Windows Starter 2010, and start using it.

Have fun. 

What bothers me about Windows 8

I'm hearing all of these rumors about Windows 8 being like the Windows phone, built to work with panes and and be more like a tablet. When I use my iPod touch I don't worry about getting maleware at all because I get software from Apple's on source. My iPod works as I expect it to work. My Android phone, same thing. My Laptop running Ubuntu, same thing, I don't deal with malware on them. But any of my Windows based computers constantly get malware even with Virus software running all the time. I have to periodically run Superantispyware to ensure that they will run properly.

So here comes Windows 8 trying to act like all of the other things devices that I have that aren't plagued with malware issues. Malware and panes seems like a nightmare waiting to happen. I simply don't understand why Microsoft can't deal with these problems. Anyway that's my 2 cents worth.

Microsoft Free Antivirus is the #1 used.

According to OPSWAT an industry leader in software management SDKs, of the Free antivirus solutions Microsoft Security Essentials has pulled ahead in the free antivirus software game.

Microsoft Security Essentials has a 10.22% market share followed by Avast at 9.34% and AVG at 9.24%

I’ve started protecting all of my own computers with Microsoft’s offering mainly because it seamlessly works with Windows, updates easily, and doesn’t bug me with nag screen. It also helps that it works just as well as the others.

Yes, it does smack of the not so good ole days when Microsoft started making Internet Explorer part of their operating system, but I must admit that I like their antivirus software. Microsoft has been putting out some fairly nice Free software lately that they don’t really advertise.

I think Microsoft is trying to re-invent themselves on the consumer side of things, which is changing fast and not in a way that Microsoft is accustom to. They simply have to innovate quickly or end up only being significant in the business world. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does in the next couple of years.

Dan