I predict the Surface will flop due to lack of software

[spinedoc77]

I agree - my point is just that for so many years, a certain group of people considered Macs to be overpriced toys and now that they've come into their own and are generally both higher quality and priced competitively, the same crap they got isn't being shoveled on to the legacy manufacturers, whether it's HP, MS or Dell. Apple has shown people that you get what you pay for. Want to pay $300 for a laptop, you're going to get exactly what you paid for.

And yes, there are tons of legacy desktop programs written for Windows, but I'm certain that they're not all going to work with Surface or even Windows 8 on other platforms. And frankly it shouldn't work that way. Companies producing programs should be working towards the future, not building programs that work on any and every system, even if it's 20 years old. That build it for the lowest common denominator thwarts innovation and change.

Yeah I agree with your points. Apple makes incredible hardware and deserves the credit for pushing other hardware makers into making their products better.

You are also right that companies should be working on new software paradigms that work with hardware today. My only point is that all the legacy software works, and works much better than you think on a touchscreen, but it's still desktop software being shoehorned into a touchscreen. But give it some time, it's still VERY very young and at least MS is trying to unify. They have a lot of clout and hopefully will push software makers to fall in line. MS have already done incredible work with Office for example, Office 13 works extremely well if you use it as a laptop, tablet, stylus, or a combination, it really shows how much work and thought MS put into this paradigm.

 

[jmgregory1]

Yeah I agree with your points. Apple makes incredible hardware and deserves the credit for pushing other hardware makers into making their products better.

You are also right that companies should be working on new software paradigms that work with hardware today. My only point is that all the legacy software works, and works much better than you think on a touchscreen, but it's still desktop software being shoehorned into a touchscreen. But give it some time, it's still VERY very young and at least MS is trying to unify. They have a lot of clout and hopefully will push software makers to fall in line. MS have already done incredible work with Office for example, Office 13 works extremely well if you use it as a laptop, tablet, stylus, or a combination, it really shows how much work and thought MS put into this paradigm.

Yep, agree completely. I do find it strange how some software companies seemingly sat on their hands as time and technology marched on. This is even more apparent, as I'm sure you're aware, in the medical device field, where some companies are using software to drive their devices that seems on par with the power and sophistication of a Texas Instruments calculator.

MS only bought themselves time by allowing support of legacy systems and operating systems and they obviously didn't use the time very wisely to bring their own systems up to speed. I suppose that's a common problem once you grow to the size they are.

And I should talk, the machine my company uses to produce our product uses "computers" that are nothing more than glorified switches driven by a rudimentary system. 5 years ago we were told it would cost upwards of $500k to upgrade and have it driven by a real computer system. Today, we'll spend around $50k, which includes both hardware and programming for an even more sophisticated system.