Bill Gates Backs Microsoft's Surface Tablet Solo Venture

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[citation][nom]belardo[/nom]There is a MAJOR error in this article!No, its NOT the same route. Yes, Google always has a NEXUS device (Google branded phone or tablet) - but (A) Google works with a partner (all of them, but 1 at a time) to design the device (B) Google makes $0 from the sale of the device. Yep, the partner makes the money.Microsoft is selling their OWN branded tablets to the consumer, at a profit. They will sell WART OS to whatever partners are left for $80 each. They cannot compete against MS with that. BoM costs exceeds any profits possible. It means an Asus, Samsung or HP WART tablet would cost $50~100 more than an iPad (which = no sale) or sold for $0 profit or loss (which = no profit). No reason to bother.The market for $1200~1600 tablets with decent i5 (why not i3?) CPUs is small... and will continue to be. Win7 tablets have been on the market for 2 years... doing not much of anything.Latest research shows that in developed countries, 70~80% enterprise have ipads in use.WART tablet will fail because of NO apps, little developers, heavy competition from iPad.X86 tablets will fail because they costs $1000~1600.Win8 will fail because it blows and few people actually like it or have the patience to deal with it.I think someone called Bill Gates and begged "please say something about our tablets! We are getting hammered!"[/citation]

Medfield is X86 and can fit into better priced tablets. You should be more specific so that you don't make incorrect statements.
 
We computer geeks are going to complain because we've invested so much intellectually and emotionally into the PC. Many of us get excited at the next fastest CPU, video card, etc.

Unfortunately, the same thing happened with the horse and buggy when the automobile replaced them. The same thing happened when guns and rifles replaced the bow and arrow in war. The same thing happened when machines replaced human labor in various factories.

Now, before you go downrating this comment so much your left mouse button falls off, I'm not saying that PCs will be replaced so mercilessly so fast. I am saying that it will happen over time. Will they be totally dead? Of course not. They'll just be as niche as bows and arrows (as a hobby rather than a practical weapon in warfare) and martial arts (as a sport/hobby or a last resort rather a primary tool in a gun fight).

We often forget that our opinions are that of a small minority (not always, but mostly). Many of us got in the IT industry by loving to tinker with hardware. However, we're going to have to redirect our talents towards other places--like in the datacenter: setting up bare metal servers, SANs, and whatnot and brushing up on our VMWare/Citrix/Hyper-V. This demand will increase as more and more people depend on the cloud (for better or worse).
 
[citation][nom]killerb255[/nom]We computer geeks are going to complain because we've invested so much intellectually and emotionally into the PC. Many of us get excited at the next fastest CPU, video card, etc. Unfortunately, the same thing happened with the horse and buggy when the automobile replaced them. The same thing happened when guns and rifles replaced the bow and arrow in war. The same thing happened when machines replaced human labor in various factories. Now, before you go downrating this comment so much your left mouse button falls off, I'm not saying that PCs will be replaced so mercilessly so fast. I am saying that it will happen over time. Will they be totally dead? Of course not. They'll just be as niche as bows and arrows (as a hobby rather than a practical weapon in warfare) and martial arts (as a sport/hobby or a last resort rather a primary tool in a gun fight).We often forget that our opinions are that of a small minority (not always, but mostly). Many of us got in the IT industry by loving to tinker with hardware. However, we're going to have to redirect our talents towards other places--like in the datacenter: setting up bare metal servers, SANs, and whatnot and brushing up on our VMWare/Citrix/Hyper-V. This demand will increase as more and more people depend on the cloud (for better or worse).[/citation]

A car is faster than a horse. A tablet is not faster than a desktop made with similar technology. These are not analogous.
 
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]A car is faster than a horse. A tablet is not faster than a desktop made with similar technology. These are not analogous.[/citation]

And it's not like Surface can play Crysis either... oh well...
 
Hello Mr Gates, here's 637 KB of RAM make Win RT work with it. Oh and this pesky Internet fad is still persisting but will go away any day.
 
[citation][nom]ta152h[/nom]Keep in mind, this is the same idiot that said no one would need more than 640K, OS/2 was the future, and he couldn't see scenarios for tablets. Bill Gates made money because he bought an OS that IBM decided to use on his PC. Steve Jobs made money because he figured out what people wanted before anyone else did. Their main similarity is they both ran predatory companies that are easy to hate.[/citation]
Well for OS/2 he was correct, it's just that people didn't understand him. He was talking about selling half of OS (or expressed as math formula OS/2) to customers, like Vista and Windows 7 Starter editions 😉
 
I can see it complementing a PC or laptop, but I find it hard to think that a tablet will completely replace PC. Maybe in 20 years, but not in the immediate future. Consumers may be willing to ditch the desktop/laptop, but companies are still going to want a desktop for most of their tasks. I couldn't imagine working all day at a 10 inch screen.
 
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]A car is faster than a horse. A tablet is not faster than a desktop made with similar technology. These are not analogous.[/citation]

"Faster" wasn't the analogy I was going for. "More convenient" was (although, admittedly, that could be debatable as well). A gun is more convenient as a weapon than a bow and arrow. A car is often more convenient for getting from point A to point B than a horse (in this case because it's faster). A tablet may be more convenient for many because it's portable.

Again, put yourself in the shoes of the average Joe.
 
For those of you who are looking toward the "Cloud". I truly feel for you. I know that having access to all of your information from anywhere has it's attraction for you. But I believe having access to that same information is a higher priority for crooks and scammers. I'm sorry, but the "cloud" is frought with dangers as well as advantages. I'll keep my private information private, thank you very much. I have no desire for an enlarged iPhone/iPad clone either. I'll run Win7 until such time as MS decides that the people that do not want metro (with it's crappy button page) are not to be ignored and provides us with a Win7 type of menu and desktop, or until I get tired of it and go to Linux on "all" (not just some, like it is now) of my machines.
Please don't think that I am dumb or naive enough to believe that my voice alone will change anything. I've seen fanbois come and go. I've made a living working on MS mistakes. I just don't believe I'll choose to make my living working on this mistake.
 
[citation][nom]killerb255[/nom]"Faster" wasn't the analogy I was going for. "More convenient" was (although, admittedly, that could be debatable as well). A gun is more convenient as a weapon than a bow and arrow. A car is often more convenient for getting from point A to point B than a horse (in this case because it's faster). A tablet may be more convenient for many because it's portable. Again, put yourself in the shoes of the average Joe.[/citation]

Regardless, it's not as much of an advancement as it is an alternative method. A car can also be inconvenient. For example, a car can have problems that cause inconveniences too. The difference is that you get different problems that may or may not be more easily or more difficultly solved.
 
[citation][nom]jdamon113[/nom]applegetsmelaid Shut the Fuck up. Gates is the Man. Less you been in the PC eveloution for many years. Do not say anything.[/citation]

Gates kinda sucks too. Besides, you might be pushing your luck with the mods if you're going to talk like that.
 
Might as well face it, as gamers we are being ushered out the door and forced to buy crappy consoles.
 
Get back to me when they bring out a dual screen tablet. Until then only a PC is suitable for work.
 
Is it just me or does Bill Gates have a bowl cut in that photo? :)

If anyone knows what he is doing, it is Bill. He is a real life genious anyway. But I'm sure that partners won't be excluded from manufacturing their own tablet so I don't find any of these stories to be valid news to begin with. If Microsoft was disallowing PC manufacturers to compete with their new tablet, then I would see something to report on here.
 


Agreed. A new xbox will come out and we will be forced at with games for the following 5+ years that have sub-par graphics so that they can be ported nearly equally to all platforms including PC. When I own a GTX 1875 FTW edition with 10GB of GDDR8, most of the games will still look like they were made for a GTX 480 from 2013. Sad business if you ask me.

I'm hoping that the next round of consoles don't prompt this but I'm not keeping my hopes up very high.

Look at the absymal list of DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 games we have available. Most games are lofty hugging onto DX9.0c.
 


Many games are DX11 compatible right now and what 2013 game is going to be made specifically for an aging (although still well-performing) GTX 480? Besides, using DX11 does not necessarily make a game look better. Most of DX11's greatest features were simply features that could already be used, but were built into DX11 (presumably for ease of use and standardization, among other possible reasons). If a company wanted to, they could make a DX9.0C game that looks better than any DX11 game out today, granted it would not be a very worthwhile goal IMO. The DX version is not always an indicator of graphics quality. The list of games that use DX10 and/or DX11 is not abysmal.

Furthermore, if MS's apparent interest in making the Xbox 360 is going to come to fruition, then the Xbox 360's replacement shouldn't hold back PC gaming nearly as much as the current consoles have, if at all. Whether or not the PS3's replacement will include a similar upgrading scheme could then be the deciding factor and I'm willing to bet that Sony would figure something out, even if they had to make new models that can be upgraded should their launch model(s) not be capable of it.
 
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