Pro?

[Telstar1948]

It would seem from this thread, with Jeff Roach's comments regarding MS's future plans, that MS needs to devote more resources to the Modern UI apps so that their flagship vessel, Surface, can sail more strongly and faster than ever before.

 

[oion]

It would seem from this thread, with Jeff Roach's comments regarding MS's future plans, that MS needs to devote more resources to the Modern UI apps so that their flagship vessel, Surface, can sail more strongly and faster than ever before.

MS can't get involved directly with applications/apps that were developed by third parties like Adobe--that's entirely in their (the developers) court. However, MS definitely needs to keep developing the APIs underlying all that programming to make things easier for such devs. I mean, 8.1 finally added stuff like VPN support on Windows RT.

 

[jnjroach]

Microsoft has funding support for top tier app creators to port apps to Windows 8.1.

 

[oion]

Microsoft has funding support for top tier app creators to port apps to Windows 8.1.

That makes the 3rd party developers look even worse... :x

 

[jnjroach]

Just to reinforce the point... Mary Jo's article today:

Microsoft starts de-emphasizing the Desktop with Surface 2 | ZDNet

 

[CrippsCorner]

If they dont go this way they'll never get the devs to transition. It is only the wrong way to go if you always plan on having a desktop, which they do not...

Sent from the SurfaceForums.net app for Windows 8

I know, and again, I think this is the wrong way to go

I presume there will always be a 'desktop version' for businesses etc. there's no way Microsoft would screw themselves like that, is there? That maybe the way I would have to go too (as well as many techie people I would presume) or in fact, people might start looking at OS X which would be a real shame.

 

[ALLCAPS]

Metro is nice, but it's nice on a tablet. I wouldn't want to use it as a development or business platform. Microsoft believes this as well. Where's metro visual studio? Where's metro Office? Even on an RT, Office is on the desktop. What about gaming? NVidia and AMD rely on Windows to make the OS that their enthusiasts games run on. There are no demanding metro games. Hydro Thunder? Pft. Even the metro version of 3Dmark is a joke. If they were to try to kill the desktop all they'd accomplish is a ton of people would refuse to upgrade, just like they did with 8, or they'd jump ship to OS X.

Which would be a shame. Windows 8 on the right device, like the Surface series, is a joy to use. It's amazing, and something I'd never have expected Microsoft to pull off as well as it has, but it's not complete without the desktop half. Maybe it can slide on an RT because it's a tablet, and you probably already have a desktop computer, but if you were to go to the store and buy a desktop, and it only has metro apps, and no desktop, it'd be a joke.

 

[oion]

It's fine for the future if MS always includes desktop mode but maybe it's hidden in administrator settings. I'll be clinging to the traditional MDI interface for the rest of my life, probably.

So the only way Metro would become the de facto Windows interface without desktop is if productivity applications are designed to work without a mouse. Productivity notwithstanding, I don't see the gaming industry moving this way for a very, very long time either.

 

[jnjroach]

Metro is nice, but it's nice on a tablet. I wouldn't want to use it as a development or business platform. Microsoft believes this as well. Where's metro visual studio? Where's metro Office? Even on an RT, Office is on the desktop. What about gaming? NVidia and AMD rely on Windows to make the OS that their enthusiasts games run on. There are no demanding metro games. Hydro Thunder? Pft. Even the metro version of 3Dmark is a joke. If they were to try to kill the desktop all they'd accomplish is a ton of people would refuse to upgrade, just like they did with 8, or they'd jump ship to OS X.

Which would be a shame. Windows 8 on the right device, like the Surface series, is a joy to use. It's amazing, and something I'd never have expected Microsoft to pull off as well as it has, but it's not complete without the desktop half. Maybe it can slide on an RT because it's a tablet, and you probably already have a desktop computer, but if you were to go to the store and buy a desktop, and it only has metro apps, and no desktop, it'd be a joke.

Office Gemini is the Modern UI version of Office and will be released in Q3 of MS FY2014 (Jan-Mar 2014) if we are to believe Mary Jo. I've heard buzz of moving VS to Azure to be a service.