Tag Archives: Microsoft

How Ubuntu lost me as a user?

How Ubuntu lost me as a user?

By not supporting WUBI in the latest build of Ubuntu. I have not had Ubuntu installed ever since I moved to Windows 8. There are loads of issues I read installing Ubuntu along with Windows 8. These are not even related to UEFI as my system is quite old and has a regular BIOS. It’s just that Ubuntu documentation has become absurdly complex for me to give it a try anymore. Microsoft has done a great job messing things up for folks like me who used Ubuntu as a second OS using tools like WUBI.

So, instead of fixing the mess and providing an easy way out, they are just giving up on users like me. Telling me to resize my Windows partitions and installing Ubuntu on its own partitions. No can do.

Microsoft’s aggressive pricing strategy in India!

Microsoft has been rather aggressive with their software pricing strategy in the Indian market.

Windows 8 upgrades were available for Rs. 1999 for older systems and Rs. 699 for recently purchased machines.

And they have done something similar with Microsoft Office 2013.

The pricing of individual apps in the MS Office suite are absurd. But they have gotten the subscription thing perfect.

Home users can buy a monthly subscription for Rs. 399. Yearly subscription is for Rs. 3999.

This is valid for five machines. This comes to Rs. 2.2/2.7 per machine per day if you actually have five machines that can use this option.

A logical move would be to find four friends who are interested and share the cost. Rs. 800 per year per computer is pretty cool if Microsoft Office is essential to your computing life!

Closed ecosystem is a closed ecosystem. It is not designed to benefit the user!

Closed ecosystem is close. It is not designed to benefit the user!

I was reading this Reddit thread and was amazed that some folks using Reddit believes that Microsoft is doing a good thing by having a restrictive app ecosystem for Windows 8 powered devices.

The restriction is currently implemented only on the Metro apps (I am going to call them Metro apps coz I have no idea what Microsoft prefers to call them these days).

These folks believe that it is a good thing as users would not be able to install un-optimized apps that kill the battery of Windows RT based Tablet PCs faster. And then there is point about malicious apps that might cause more harm than good to the user experience.

Thankfully, there are other folks who realize what is happening and contradicting the above beliefs.

Microsoft is doing an Apple here. Just like what they did with their Windows Phone platform. They want to get paid a share of every app that is sold through the official app store for these devices. And of course every developer is going to be charged a fee even if he plans to release free apps only.

I can understand if they were putting these restrictions only on the Windows RT devices that would run on Tablet PCs. But the restrictions on Windows 8 devices is baffling. Windows 8 would run on laptops and desktops. They would still allow side loading of regular Windows apps. So what is the problem with allowing side loading of Metro apps on these devices?

I mean it’s not like Metro apps have capabilities that are not available to regular apps? Regular apps are perfectly capable of having malware abilities that can steal private information and broadcast it over the internet.

From what I see, Microsoft is just doing it slowly. Future versions of Windows would probably place even more restrictions on what kind of apps you can install on your own computer. Apple of course has already done it with Mountain Lion by adding a Gatekeeper feature. Microsoft would be next.

Some thoughts about the new Nokia Windows Phone 8 devices

Some thoughts about the new Nokia Windows Phone 8 devices

Nokia announced their new Windows Phone 8 powered devices last night. Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 would be their latest offerings in the smartphone market.

I have to admit that they are doing good work with their WP phones. The design is unique. They bundle a lot of exclusive apps which are pretty cool. They have done some good work with the camera and the touchscreen technology.

The company blundered of course by not announcing any definitive launch plan. Pricing was also not revealed. We have no idea when these models would arrive in India and at what prices. Nokia for example has not even bothered to launch Lumia 900 in India because it simply would have failed to compete against the competing devices powered by Android.

However…

Both the models announced yesterday are fairly high end which means that we are looking in the price range of Rs. 25-35k if not more. This price segment is totally dominated by high end Android devices from Samsung and HTC.

I know a couple of people who might go for either of these two devices because they are bored of their current Android devices. Apple iPhone users are of course going to stay away. But for someone like me who is pretty tied up with the Google ecosystem, WP8 and Lumia devices are simply not an option.

For one, it requires me to start using Microsoft powered services like Hotmail/Outlook, SkyDrive and of course Bing. Secondly, it is not as flexible as Android when it comes to storage management and installation of apps.

Another problem is that Google has pretty much stayed away from Windows Phone platform. There are no apps for Google Maps or Google Drive or even Google+. WP8 might change that and we might finally see Google launching apps for this platform. But their apps would not be as powerful as the integrated apps offered by Microsoft. User experience is going to remain third grade.

I see absolutely no reason to think about discarding Android as my choice of Android platform even though I am sick of the lack of options I have when it comes to Android devices.

Another thing…

Windows 8 of course changes a lot of things. Microsoft services are tightly integrated in Windows 8 which might push me to start using them once I upgrade. Windows Phone 8 is also likely to feature deep integration with Windows 8 which might make life easier for managing the phone itself.

One good example is integration of SkyDrive… Photos taken on the phone are synced in real-time with the computer through this platform. Google on the other hand has nothing comparable. Dropbox does an incredible job of offering a similar functionality!

Microsoft has an amazing opportunity with both of these platforms when they arrive in the market later this year. Google would have to watch out for this combined ecosystem because it threatens their massively successful Android project. They would have to ensure that they have apps connected to their own services optimized for Windows 8 especially the modern user interface otherwise known as Metro.