Sign of the reality of a post desktop world

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It was bound to happen

Office for Android. A MS product for a linux based OS.

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Interestingly, Microsoft has made it abundantly clear that this is Office for Android phones as opposed to Android devices (i.e., phones and tablets). Despite the fact that Microsoft's productivity apps would arguably be more useful for those with tablets, Office 365 for Android is explicitly for smartphone users (similar to how Office 365 for iOS doesn't have a dedicated tablet interface).


If you want a piece of the pie, you'd better walk up to the table...

No sign of a monkey dance from Ballmer on this one.
 
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It's not really a post desktop world, as long as there are offices there will be a large number of desktop PCs around, they are not going anywhere. They last longer than mobile devices, are cheaper and easier to repair and update hardware. Should MS start offering more of their products like Office for use on competitors OS, absolutely.
 
I don't understand. Who would want to pay for that only to have to use it on a 4 or 5 inch screen instead of a tablet?

Sometimes I hate marketing.. Things are just getting worse and less convenient than they were years ago.. LoL!
 
Android tablets compete with the Surface, so they of course don't want to give people an obvious reason to buy a Galaxy Tab instead of the Surface.
 
I don't really care if somebody wants to try to use Office on a cellphone or tablet or whatever. It is their eyesight. I can just see the people squinting right now as they try to type up a letter. Pretty darn funny if you ask me. I don't care if some business really issues tablet computers to everybody and replaces their desktop computers. Who really cares. It is their employees who will suffer and their productivity that may suffer. Better not lose too much productivity when you have competition form other businesses.

I will keep right on using Microsoft Office on my desktop computer with a nice keyboard, a nice mouse, and a nice, large monitor. When the tablet fad is over and people want to return to desktop computers I will already be there.

I am still waiting for the computer design and graphics people to try to do Photoshop on a cellphone or tablet. That is something I want to see. Top quality comedy!
 
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A friend of mine with a third generation iPad was showing an app that rendered some sophisticated images. I asked if the iPad gets hot doing all that work. He explained no, the iPad doesn't do the actual rendering work, the task is uploaded to a server. So tell me what that quad core ARM CPU power is all about again?
lol.gif


I recently got to play with a MS Surface Pro. (The Surface Pro has a cooling fan, so it should be able to do some donkey work.) It made sense of what Windows 8 is all about. But on a conventional laptop of desktop, Windows 8 is more trouble than good. I have not yet seen the benefits compared to Windows 7.
 
There is a certain reasoning to this.

IF the end product Of a word document or photoshop file is to be viewed on a mobile device it certainly could be created on one.

Quality would be ok.
 
I started using Photoshop in I think 1998. Anybody who has worked on photographs and done computer graphics knows that a large monitor is nice.

If I was running a computer design and graphics company and somebody wanted a tablet computer or wanted to impress me by trying to do Photoshop on a cellphone I would tell him-'Sure, you can have your tablet computer. And I expect the entire project to be done on the cellphone or tablet. And it better be good because otherwise you are fired.'

Hard enough doing good work with a proper monitor. Trying to do real work on a cellphone or tablet is not really even funny-it is ridiculous. There is no common sense to handicapping yourself and making it even more difficult to get your work done. A logical person does not think that way.

Probably the only people who might be okay with Microsoft Office or Photoshop on a cellphone or tablet would be the executives who don't actually have to do the work. And it might be hard with such a tiny screen for them to even check the work.

Real work is done on a proper computer. Now if somebody never does any real work on a computer and uses a computer only for Facebook, Twitter, email, the internet, and maybe phone calls a tablet computer or cellphone work be fine.
 
Desktop computers should be available for a very long time. Most gamers still want a gaming computer and it would be kind of hard to play some computer games on a cellphone or a tablet computer. The gamers typically want a desktop computer.

Businesses are not going to toss hundreds of millions of perfectly running desktop computers into the trash. Especially in these hard economic times. They will get their money's worth out of the computers they own now.

And companies like Newegg are still in business and a person can still buy computer cases and computer parts and build their own computer. I doubt if Newegg is going to be out of business in the next few years.

Windows 7 will eventually not be available although the last time I went to Newegg it was still possible to buy an OEM copy, which legally can still be used in the construction of a new computer for sale. Microsoft had to back up a little with Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 can still be setup to work as a desktop computer.

And Apple is still building desktop computers and just recently came out with a new Mac Pro, which is of course very expensive. But Apple shows no sign of suddenly trashing all desktop computers although of course nobody knows what Apple will do next.

For some people who have limited real needs for a computer a tablet computer or even a cellphone is fine. Some of those people might get very tired of a tiny screen after a while if they do any real work on a computer. I kind of look at a tablet computer being kind of a toy for adults. A fad. If I owned a tablet computer I would want to be able to dock it at home so that a larger monitor, my printer, and scanner, were already connected to the dock.

Apple created new markets to make a lot of money. They came out with the iPhone, the iPod, and the iPad, etc. But once they face competition from others Apple has a hard time competing. Don't believe it? Do a little research. Apple has huge competition today in the small computer (tablet) area and Apple had to reduce the cost of iPhones, or at least sell more older style cheaper iPhones. I think it was Steve Jobs who started to push this idea of the mobile computing lifestyle. Or at least he was one of the ones who did so. Steve Jobs also said that the DVD was dead. But it is pretty cheap to convert your music to mp3s and burn a CD and play your music on a CD player in a car. There are costs involved in buying music online and buying an iPod and getting locked into buying a brand that people do not consider. There are very good reasons why some people want you to get away from CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays. They want people to have to buy music from them, buy their equipment, etc. But if you are burning your music to a CD you don't have to use a certain brand, like Apple. You can burn your CDs using a Sony computer, a Dell, whatever.

Apple has really been working recently on various equipment such as iPhones, iPods, and iPads. But in my opinion they may well start putting more effort into desktop computers. Because competition in the small computer and cellphone fields is very tight. Do your own research. According to what I found out the sale of iPods and iPads is down and Apple has been selling older, cheaper model iPhones. Competition is very tight. Apple did not come out with a new, expensive Mac Pro for nothing. And it certainly appears like they have every intention of continuing to build desktop computers and continuing with Mac OS X for those desktop computers.

The so-called post-PC world is total nonsense. Sure there are small computers like the tablet. But there will be desktop computers far into the future, at least until some sort of technology might change that.

I burn my mp3 music onto CDs. I can do that with my old Windows computer. And I can play that music cheaply on CDs in my car. And I don't have to buy into a certain brand or have certain equipment. I say be free.
 
So far, Polaris Office has done everything I need to read a spreadsheet or look at a document on my Galaxy S3 and/or tablet.
 
I won't be getting rid of my desktop anytime soon. I'm a gamer and being able to upgrade components every so often is important to me. I have never owned a laptop and have no intention in doing so. I have no need for all these other fancy gadgets either.
 
You can see the OBVIOUS mass media push to "tell sheeple" err
"consumers" what they want. Of course the mass media is paid in ad revenue by those same tech giants. LOL


What I see is an industry trying to lead consumers by the nose.
 
If you purchase office for non business use [censored] are you thinking. I haven't used office at home in probably 7 or 8 years.
 
That is exactly right antiqueshell. Instead of listening to consumers Microsoft and Apple seem to be trying to decide what consumers need. Microsoft now seems to be under the control of this woman who apparently thinks everybody is going to be using a tablet computer real soon. If Microsoft had done a better job with Windows 8 they could have leaped ahead of Apple and been the leader rather than the follower. They could have setup Windows 8 so it could be setup depending on what kind of device it was going to be used on. Windows 8.1 to me seemed like a step backwards in that direction but they still have a ways to go.

But the nice thing is Microsoft will have to support Windows 7 users far into the future-unless they want to write off hundreds of millions of computers running Windows 7 with many of those computers having Microsoft Office on them. That might give Corel an opening-everybody could switch to WordPerfect. So I think the thing to do is stay with Windows 7 as long as possible when it comes to Windows.

Apple i more complicated. Apple will come out with new software and it usually requires the latest operating system to run the software. And they come out with a new operating system every one or two years. For example, Aperture 3.4.5 will not run on earlier OS X operating systems. I think it needs at least 10.7.5. Another problem with Apple is that they are very secretive and you never know what they are going to do.

And the media does depend on marketing money from Microsoft and Apple so they are controlled to a large degree by Microsoft and Apple. Or at least computer magazines, computer oriented news organizations, etc., depend a lot on their advertising revenue.

I would still like to see major competition between Microsoft and Apple. And major competition for photo editing from Apple, Adobe, and Corel. If there are true competition they would have to be more responsive to their customers.
 
What I think will happen:

Desktop won't go away, they will be low power processor that is running the same OS as the tablet and phone with much larger screen and smaller hard drive, less ram, etc.

This will be huge power, heat, battery, weight, saving compare to today's X86 desktop or laptop, and people will pay less for it (around the same price as a tablet with large screen). There will be less over power you waste vs a full blown desktop today. Corporate will buy a lot of them to replace desktop when retire, and save money along the way.

For application that needs backward compatibility, there will be some years that the x86 and tablet based desktop coexist, but eventually they will all go tablet base.

What I also think will happen: it will be cheaper to move a lot of application that does not need keyboard to tablet, so dedicated "terminal" like cash registers, library catalog station, automation, etc will move to a tablet mounted on a frame (already happened, there are iPad based cash register out there with only an iPad constantly plug in for charge, and wifi based server connection).
 
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As long as there are gamers and businesses, there will be desktops. A majority of tablet users don't care about having photoshop or a full blown MS office on thier tablet, most just use them to check their Facebook page on sonething they do t have to squint on..
 
I think that most of the tablet users will be either people who really do not do much on a computer and rich people who can afford to have a desktop computer and maybe a laptop computer but also want to look cool with a tablet computer.

A tablet is good enough for somebody who merely checks email, goes to Facebook and Twitter, and goes on the internet. Tablet computers are a major fad right now so a lot of rich people want to walk around with one. But go to that rich person's house and they probably have at least a laptop, or a desktop computer. Some rich people would have a Mac Pro at home, a MacBook Pro, and an iPad. And probably the latest iPhone and an iPod.

I can think of a rich guy who made sure I saw his Nikon D3X (about $8000.00 or so) and his professional quality lens (at least $1000.00). But he admitted that the camera and lens were so heavy he was going to get a lighter camera. He asked me to let him try his pro lens on my little Nikon to see if it would work on a lighter camera. Ever try to carry a professional camera around? They are heavy! I had a used professional quality film camera years ago that was rugged and good in bad weather and rough terrain, but it was a load to carry around!

I have a Nikon that cost many times less than his and is much lighter-and has just as much resolution. And I don't need an iPod for my music because I can burn it cheap to a CD and play it in my car's CD player.

I think tablet computers are pretty much just a fad. But they will be good enough for people with limited computer needs anyway and the rich guys might still be walking around with one for a while to impress other people.

People who do real work on computers will still be using at least a laptop computer and they might well have a desktop at home. The desktop computer is really still the cheapest way to go. You can upgrade it and use it for several years. My custom built Windows computer is several years old and still running great.

When I go on a trip with my camera gear the last thing I want to be carrying around is a computer.
 
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