<i>Surface is available only through Microsoft, and the limited distribution is going to make it a nonplayer this holiday season. The more powerful Surface Pro -- fueled by Windows 8 Pro to give a more complete PC-like experience than today's Surface -- will be out next month, all but killing demand for the less powerful Surface that's available now.</i><p>Bingo! Surface-RT made it in time for the holiday season... but Surface-Pro did not. Cue the Osborne Effect <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Computer_Corporation#The_Osborne_Effect" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_Computer_Corporation#Th...</a>.
Have been using the Lumia 920 for 2 weeks now. It's the first phone since the original iPhone that I can't stop playing with -- details are just right across the board. It's light on apps but I don't use anything other than email, twitter, and RSS reader anyway. Video/Photos and screen are awesome. Scrolling is awesome. You should give one a try before declaring MS dead in mobile.
I been using windows 8 for a while and it is definitely how the future will look like. It is really good on desktop and it is perfect on tablets. I don't have surface as I already have two ipads and kindle and it would be too much.<p>FYI I use OSX more then win and then it comes ubuntu, which is unfortunate for ubuntu. I am developer so I think I need to know all of them well to be effective.<p>I think Apple is making sure people voice their displeasure with win8 as it is genuinely ahead of OSX in both functionality and design. I can't tell for sure what will happen but I definitely would like to use something like win8 in the future. Also, by saying it is ahead, that doesn't mean it is flawless :), there is a ton of room for improvement.
As a programmer, I always want a powerful, open computer that I can do anything on. So it is taking a long time to dawn on me that the typical American (and I don't know enough about other cultures to speak of them) would much rather have a trendy, hip, portable iPad than a "full" computer. It's not like they're going to learn to program it or anything.<p>I'm sure this has been obvious for a long time to non-programmers who are observing, but I'm glad I'm at least becoming aware now.
It was a mistake to try to make one OS for both desktops and tablets. The form factors and usage styles are too different for a single OS to tackle well.<p>What you end up with is an unholy chimera of an OS that does neither well and the irony here is that everybody in the industry knew this.<p>Truth happens. Microsoft needed to listen but didn't.
The scene: a board room, the meeting is about to start.<p>Steve: Hey Jim, what's that?<p>Jim: This is a surface tablet.<p>Steve: Where's your laptop? We need to go over and edit our serious business documents, which we use for serious business. Tablets are toys. We don't want you playing angry birds in our serious business meeting!<p>Jim: I don't need it. This thing runs full Microsoft office.<p>Steve: Whaaaaaaaa...<p>I think everything will be fine. I see mine as less of a consumer tablet and more of a business one. I am looking forward to the full release of office 2013 (it comes with the preview release).<p>I hope eventually I will be able to compile small custom .net apps for it without going through the store.
linux guy here, microsoft is not disappearing anytime soon(sometimes i think sadly not), nor is windows8.<p>Windows 8 is quite successful believe it or not. Microsoft still owns the government. They can sell them whatever the hell they want.<p>Hybrid tablet/laptops(not talking about surface)? Windows 8 is the best OS to use in that case(it's really just two OS in one nothing more)<p>What about secureboot? Basically EFF has to beg Microsoft to give them permission to install linux on all those new windows ultrabooks.<p>I mean WTF, Microsoft going away? Hell, I wish that was the case!