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Opinions/Editorials Title: Windows 8 Should Be Free If Win 8 only includes the superficial features that are predicted, then it's a tweak of Win 7, not a new OS, and we shouldn't have to pay for it. According to various reports, some contradictory, Windows 8 may be upon us in 2012. I have to ask the obvious question: Who cares? I don't ask this to be caviler. I really would like to know if anyone cares. In the olden days, when a new OS was released, there was always a reason and always a need. For example, when 3.5-inch floppies came out, the drivers needed to be incorporated into the new OS. Or when volume sizes of the hard drive went beyond the ability of the OS to recognize them, support for the ubiquitous CD-ROM had to be built into the OS. You see the point. With the Windows platform, this process appeared to be easier to accomplish, and much of Windows development was centered on look and feel to make sure Apple wasn't prettier and jazzier. At the moment, I see this battle as a dead heat, with no edge going to either OS. I sure do not see Apple pulling ahead on the desktop, as it is now concentrating on the iPad. That said, there are some reported Win 8 features that look interesting. I'm keeping an eye on the supposed portable workspace capability. The way I understand it, this is similar to the way Migo and at least two other USB-centric initiatives once operated. These let you put your environment on a USB stick to take to other machines. On the stick, you could install software that could also be effortlessly moved around without re-installing. Adobe CS5 immediately comes to mind for this. I'm thinking that you should be able to create a portable Win 8 environment on a stick, install Adobe CS5 onto the environment, and then waltz it around from machine to machine. I can see how handy that would be. It would probably kill a lot of Adobe sales though. In my home office, for example, I have three machines, and I seldom use Photoshop on one of the machines, but if I had it on there I'd probably use it on occasion. The stick would be perfect. Otherwise, it is a waste of money for me to have the redundant copy of Photoshop. But in some commercial environments on a budget, I can see a whole office worth of people sharing one or two sticks amongst a dozen people, since the boss is too cheap to buy 12 copies. This would change some dynamics. The fact is that this sort of portability has been needed for over a decade, and it was apparent that all the attempts to make it happen from smaller companies were not going to work. Microsoft will get kudos if it can make it work, or if it even bothers to follow-through with the idea, since it will negatively affect Microsoft products as well as Adobe. So I expect it would be hobbled and not work as expected. ZDNet has a good run-down of the supposed features expected in Win 8. As you can see, almost all the features are incredibly superficial and meaningless. These include a stupid MSFT "App" store and some webcam software, which seems to incorporate the real eye-roller: facial recognition log-in. Are we suddenly in the CIA? This has to make you wonder what Microsoft is doing with its developer resources. How about fixing bugs instead? When you go over the complete list of predicted, new features, you are going to ask yourself exactly why Microsoft would charge money for this? Windows 8 is an obvious tweak of Win 7 and should be free to all users of Win 7 and Vista. Let's be real. This is not a new OS, and we shouldn't have to pay hundreds of dollars for it.
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#2. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
No thanks, I have no use for a bloated, buggy, and insecure OS. Friends, don't let friends, do Windoz. I've got XP way down at the bottom of my boot-loader (grub) list, and always choose one of the Linux's. Right now I'm on Sabayon, which is a flavor of Gentoo Linux.
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