If these rumors and screenshot are accurate, Microsoft Surface will be a failure in the market place. $1000 for the entry level Windows RT version?! I am guessing (hoping) that these numbers are not accurate and are just pre-order prices that are inflated to gain some pre-sales in anticipation of a large demand. Similar to the way some game consoles can command 300% of their MSRP on launch due to availability and demand.

If, however, they are accurate – I’ll pass. I’m happy with an iPad. It does most of what I want, and carrying a Windows 8 powered laptop along side for REAL work isn’t that difficult. I’d like an all in one to do work and play, but not at prices above the usually criticized Apple prices. People complain that Apple is too high priced and the ‘Apple Tax’ is high, what are they going to say about this?

Again, I don’t think the prices are real MSRP, but overly inflated presale prices.

The ARM version will not have the flexibility of Pro when it comes to application compatibility so pricing is key. This version is designed to take the iPad head on, if it cannot compete on price from the get go then we have to ask, "What is the point?" WinRT will of course be on every PC sold from the end of this year but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact  that Microsoft is betting big on WinRT to finally get them into the tablet game. 

Many hate the new Start screen and Metro UI, while there are a few that actually like it. I’m in the middle. I don’t care for it much, but it isn’t anything that I can’t get used to. I am used to it after testing Windows 8 for a while. But, I still miss my Start menu. Start screen as a replacement isn’t as good for my use. That doesn’t mean that it is a failure or anything else – just in the way I use the Start menu, it isn’t as good. I can use the Start screen very well, as can my kids (11 and 13).

The quote in the article that got me is this – if using the Start menu is a three second affair, why replace it with something that makes it a 5 or 6 second affair (or more)? Sure, I can type what I’m looking for, but I have several programs that I know very little. Some are called one thing but listed as the company name first in the shortcut. Too many things to customize to make it work perfect, whereas the Start button required little to no customization and worked great out of the box.

I’ll use the Start screen, and I don’t mind it. It’s just a huge change, and many things don’t feel like they are finished. Desktop applications and the Metro UI along with the Metro UI Start screen are NOT seamless. Switching from 2 desktop applications side by side to a Metro application (which isn’t a dragable window) is a pain. Sometimes, I have multiple windows open, along with the task bar (for time and other info), and maybe a command prompt window. Maybe as a system admin, it isn’t the best solution. Perhaps there are work arounds. I just haven’t found an elegant solution with Windows 8 yet. Windows 7 has it down great… Maybe I’ll just use pure desktop applications and stay away from Metro applications (which there are some great ones, too).

The difference being Metro’s fullscreen, tiled presentation, which is admittedly a little jarring until you get used to it. Aesthetics aside (I think it’s ugly too), detractors insist Metro hinders multitasking because it blocks vision of the desktop — a sound argument until it’s confronted with reality. Again, we’re speaking about Metro strictly as a Start menu successor and I don’t know about you, but when I use the Start menu, it’s a three-second affair: I open the menu and I click a program.

When asked what the best smartphone ever is, Apple’s own Siri comes up with the answer: Windows Phone. Of course, when Apple got wind of what she was saying, they shut her up like a Mob Boss. Reminds me of Santa telling people where to go for better prices and products. But, without the concrete shoes, of course!

Pre pre-announcement announcement here: Monday will be the day Steve Ballmer and Co. announce Office 15 to the masses. Something to look forward to on Monday.

Based on leaks from the Technical Preview, it appears Metro, the main design language for Windows 8 and Windows Phone, will figure prominently in the look and feel of Office 15.

Steve Wozniak, The Woz, has said some very positive things about Microsoft even going as far as saying it’s as if “Steve Jobs came back reincarnated at Microsoft”. Some great things have been coming from Microsoft lately, I agree.

Perhaps one day my wish of hanging out with Woz will be fulfilled. He’s a great guy with an open mind and very brilliant. Just a cool, down to earth guy.

I have much more love for the iPhone now. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can buy a Windows 8 UI theme via the Cydia store which looks very functional. Looks pretty nice. I really love the UI on the phones. Of course, you’d still have to worry about it freezing, locking up, etc.. My wife has an iPhone and she complains about it freezing quite a bit (not jail broke – she won’t let me). My Windows Phone, on the other hand, has never had a hiccup. My old Android phone, although slow, was very stable as well.

The theme includes a Windows Phone-like lock screen complete with notifications, volume controls, and a swipe up to unlock feature. Once Metroon is activated it works in a similar way to Microsoft’s Windows 8 Start Screen, providing a launcher for apps with live tiles providing information on apps at a glance. All iOS apps can be pinned to the Metroon Start Screen and there’s even a Charms bar that appears when you swipe from the right-hand side of an iPhone or iPod Touch. A desktop tile brings you to the familiar iOS home screen and the Charms bar is once again accessible to bring you back into the Metro interface, almost identical to Windows 8’s desktop mode.

Rather than fix the problems with the gadgets in Windows Vista or 7, Microsoft is urging people to disable gadgets completely. After a vulnerability was announced (detailed emerge at the Black Hat 2012 conference), Microsoft offered the temporary fix of disabling the gadgets. A more permanent solution may come in the future, but that is unknown.

With the release of Windows 8, gadgets will not be supported and will be replaced with live tiles, which have a lot more potential and functionality, in my opinion.

Now, Microsoft has issued a Fix It solution to disable Gadgets and the Sidebar. These features, if left enabled, may allow the execution of arbitrary code, and could allow attackers to take complete control of a person’s system, Microsoft warns in a Knowledge Base article.

Windows 8, and Windows 2012, is set to RTM in Early August. Should hit TechNet within a week or two after. October is the timeframe when manufacturers and system builders should get their wares available to the consumer. All the wait and it’s finally here. For better or worse for some people. A lot of very conflicting opinions on this release. 99% of it aimed at the Metro interface.

For the first time, we provided details on Windows 8 availability. Tami confirmed that Windows 8 is on track to Release to Manufacturing (RTM) the first week of August. For enterprise customers with Software Assurance benefits, they will have full access to Windows 8 bits as early as August. Additionally, she noted that RTM is when we’ll be turning on the commerce platform so that developers can start earning money for their apps – we’ll have more to share on the Windows Store for developers blog soon. Of course, right now with the Windows 8 Release Preview, all apps are still free for people to try.

Mary Jo Foley poses the question Can Microsoft speed the pace of Windows? I can see an annual release of Windows, but with a lot of caveats. No more Service Packs, as these would replace them. Low cost to upgrade. Backward compatibility between major releases. Downside: major fragmentation. Developers, technicians, system admins would be catering to the lowest common denominator. Enterprises would update every 5-7 years, but on various schedules (one may start in 2015, another in 2017). Would they want them all synchronized, or can they co-exist in various versions across the network and still be secure? They would be minor releases with only a year of development, beta testing, and release. 

Lots of questions, but a very plausible scenario. What do you think?

But given there’s no true cloud complement to the Windows client, does that rule out Microsoft ever moving toward more frequent Windows releases on x86/x64 platforms? Will business users balk if Microsoft puts Windows on a faster delivery track? And does Microsoft, with its new emphasis on introducing products first designed for consumers rather than businesses (then later adding business functionality), care all that much?

Coming from an unlikely source, Vanity Fair, an article describing how Microsoft is it’s own worst enemy. I’d wonder about the claims made if I hadn’t heard very similar things from Microsoft’s own employees in the past. They are basically fighting with each other, and not just different groups – within the same product group.

The quoted text below shares what several ‘Softies have told me in the past, and that is one of the most destructive practices at Microsoft (among others).

Microsoft has had some very innovative ideas, but their huge bureaucracy has killed those ideas because they didn’t quite fit with their main products: Windows and Office. The sad part is that they were considered irrelevant to their main products until the competition comes out with something similar and brings it to the market with mass success. Then, Microsoft plays catch up, ignoring the fact that they had the same exact product on the table years previously. This is definitely one of my main pet peeves with Microsoft: they kill way too many great ideas only to bring them back years later, when it’s too late.

Blame Steve Ballmer? I can’t. Not yet. Many do blame him, but I don’t think I can put all that on just the one guy. I’m not really a Ballmer fan (of course, I haven’t met the guy yet, so I can’t say for certain, anyway), but the CEO of the company cannot make every decision in the company.

The linked article is a very good read, and I encourage everyone to read it. I’ll be purchasing my first issue of Vanity Fair just to read the full article. Every company makes mistakes, but Microsoft has had more than it should have. Many of those mistakes could have been very successful products. Microsoft really is shooting itself in the foot…

Eichenwald’s conversations reveal that a management system known as “stack ranking”—a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” Eichenwald writes. “If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”