[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Outlook was just reworking their email stuff yet again, MS bought Skype, Skydrive was made in reaction to Google Drive and previous technologies like it, Office 365 is just another way of paying for Office, Xbox Music is just a music store, Surface has some promise but isn't nearly the first of its kind, WP8 is very nice but needs some work, and Windows 8 needs even more work.MS has done some good things, but they're mostly not innovation and they've had a lot of screw-ups too. Even WP8, perhaps universally the best of them, is just an improvement on WP7 much of what it is, is again, just a reaction to other companies such as Apple and Google. MS needs to get into higher gear with polishing and when practical, innovation (granted that's really a buzz word at this point).[/citation]
Outlook.com almost gives me the power of the Outlook program from Office 365, but web-based and free, OK email itself isn't very interesting but it must be doing something right because 20 million of the 60 million are former Gmail users
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MS did buy Skype, but now it is fully integrated system, it is on phones, PCs and soon to be Xbox 720, integrated into Office and will be merged with Lync, MS may have bought the Skype name but it is vastly differant animal
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Skydrive may be just cloud storage but it is not a reaction to Google Drive, several companies pushed out cloud storage all at the same time and the popularity of the services have only come to a head very recently, cloud storage is again pretty boring stuff but it is the total integration that makes it a good product
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Office 365 is not just another way of paying for Office, it is a way to have a full strength Office Suite that is totally mobile and I can use it anywhere even if it is not installed on a machine. Googe Docs is good, but serious businesses will want to stick with Office, things like BYOD will mean all you need is a network connection and you may as well be sat in your office
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Xbox Music is not just a music store, it has free streaming music similar to Spotify and can integrate all the existing music already on your PC, it looks amazing on a big screen TV
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Surface Pro is the first of it's kind and a very good attempt, it willl make a lot of people very happy - please note I only refer to the Surface Pro, I still think the ARM RT is a toy and a huge mistake - if the Surface Pro manages to sell well, which I hope it does, then the Surface Pro 2 will be a monster to be feared by all the lazy OEMs that have got rich and fat off the back of the PC industry and not innovated into the tablet era
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WP8 is very good, Windows 8 has some niggles that I have worked around alreay but so did XP and Windows 7 prior to service packs or some basic 3rd party customisation, the global software industry is awash with people that have made a very good living making skins, customisations and such and Windows 8 is just another OS to work with, the UI aside Windows 8 is fast, stable, secure and has loads of under-the-hood improvements - it has even resolved some issues I had with DOSbox for some really old games and memeory management is fantastic - does it need more polish? Maybe, but I would prefer a product that works that I polish myself than the alternatives that look polished but just don't have the function or the capability.
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