Steve Ballmer: There's no doubt Windows 8 will be a success (Official Release October 2012)

NBC News ^ | 09/17/2012 | Todd Bishop

[SeekAndFind]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is convinced that Windows 8 will be a winner, he doesn’t seem too impressed with Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and he expects Microsoft to build on its core capability in software to become more of a “devices and services” company in the next five to 10 years.

Those are a few of the takeaways from a wide-ranging interview with Ballmer published online by the Seattle Times Saturday evening, providing some insights into the Microsoft CEO’s mindset as the company prepares for the pivotal launch of Windows 8 this fall.

At one point in the interview, Seattle Times reporter Janet Tu asked Ballmer what Microsoft will do if Windows 8 doesn’t take off. Ballmer said he doesn’t have any doubt that it will do well.

“I’m not paid to have doubts,” he said.

Of course, Ballmer wants strike a confident tone in public, but his comments as published don’t acknowledge the huge risk that Microsoft is taking by overhauling the default Windows 8 interface to make the operating system work better on tablets.

In my experience, Windows 8 works well as a tablet operating system, but I believe Microsoft executives are underestimating the potential for a backlash from users of Windows 8 on traditional desktop computers, where the experience can be highly disorienting.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire came up during the interview as part of an exchange about tablet pricing. Talking about lower-priced 7-inch tablets, the Microsoft CEO asked rhetorically if anyone would ever use the Kindle Fire to do homework.

He said, “The answer is no; you never would. It’s just not a good enough product. It doesn’t mean you might not read a book on it.”

[GeronL]

lol.

Facebook and Google browser games are all I really have as an alternative. hah

[Bikkuri]

After 3 months and thousands of web site researches.. I FINALLY got World of Warcraft to work on Mint... (On Windows I was getting up to 160 FPS on a good day.. down to no less than 40 on a bad day).
FPS, using Wine: 2-5 >.< (and no sound:\ ) ... I installed on a Virtual Drive of Win 7 (and Win 7 booted and ran faster than an actual install :o ) .. BUT, I could never get WoW to run :/ not much choice for games :/

[MayflowerMadam]

“Nerds and techies still seem to prefer Windows XP Pro”

I’m not a nerd or a techie although I used to be, and I’m hanging on to our old desktop with XP like grim death. One laptop has Vista (God help us all), the netbook has Win 7, and the new desktop has Win 7. So many of my favorite applications aren’t recognized by the newer versions and won’t even load. I’m grieving the loss of my WordPerfect 12 program.

[Eric Pode of Croydon]

Bigger than Vista, bigger than the Zune!!!

[PapaNew]

Obamacare fully kicks in... that will be 2014

That sucker better be repealed by then.

[discostu]

Not quite exact, they got rid of the start button. But really that and a dramatically improved search are the only real differences between 7 and 8. And that’s actually pretty impressive because the search in 7 is really good. Yeah that default initial “tablet” screen is pretty ugly, but easy to get rid of and land back at a proper desktop.

[PapaNew]

And the survey says...?

Go with Windows 8 or if not then what?

I'm a low tech guy with Windows 7 I think. (Where do I go to confirm which version of Windows I'm using?) I have a standard 2009 Sony Vaio laptop and doubt (but don't know) if it has this SD card slot (whatever that is).

[Still Thinking]

Yeah, I haven’t had any document compatibility problems with OO, it’s editing features that I use constantly in Office, have been doing so for a decade or so, that don’t exist in OO. That and the stupid shared recent document list between all OO apps.

[RegulatorCountry]

If you have to tell the media there’s no doubt, then clearly there is doubt, otherwise it would be unnecessary.

Steve Ballmer isn’t the brightest bull in the china shop, is he?

[rdb3]

Win XP SP3 is what my family used. None even like Win7 in my house, so they’ve fallen in love with Apple.

I use openSUSE 12.2/Slackware.

For the first time in my life, I own a Windows-free house.

Didn’t see that coming...

[GeronL]

I was thrown into this by a corrupted HDD. I have no money for a replacement disk or whatever after shelling out for the new HDD, SO it was blank, or “clean” as they say.

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 Linux and I really like it. I am really new at this, about a week plus a few days now.

I have fixed a screen issue, got the printer driver working, downloaded a new CD/DVD burner program- the one it came with was crap for my machine.

The Ubuntu Software Center makes it easy because if it is there it probably works on Ubuntu Linux.

Oh and I also installed some new fonts today to use on the new Open Office (Libre Office).

I am happy with it. Sure it doesn’t have the games and a few other things and I really miss the stuff I lost on the old HDD but I like this Linux.

[GeronL]

Can it be modded in Linux?

[Bikkuri]

Can it be modded in Linux?

Depends on what you mean by Modded... Being that it's an online game, the file changes are very limited and strict. Some of the text based files can be modded, which is where most of the problems seem to be, in the settings. That plus, as far as I know, we can't use D3D and have to force opengl on both the game and Linux :p

The game itself DID have a linux version several years ago that the game devs (at Blizzard) used.. but it was never public.. and they themselves stopped using it ( X( ).

[antiRepublicrat]

Windows phones are a Yahoo option, along with iPhone and Android.