Analysts Like Win 8 More than Some Users
Windows 8 creates more mixed emotions than a Madonna Super Bowl halftime show. The fact that half the people seem to be tearing their hair out isn't stopping some analysts like IDC from predicting big things for Win 8. To be clear, IDC is not saying XP, Vista and Win 7 users are all going to all upgrade in place. Clearly most of Win 8 criticisms are about Win 8 on keyboard- and mouse-centric machines, with the rest centered on having to switch back and forth between "Metro" and Desktop interfaces.
IDC instead is predicting big things -- specifically for tablets where Metro mostly rules the roost.
The research house thinks Microsoft will build around three million Surface machines this year, with millions more being built by OEMs. Unfortunately there were no real predictions as to how many will actually sell.
Best guess as to price was an iPad-like $600, which to me is pretty compelling. I wrote a while back that the Surface could be an iPad killer. It may not be as slick as the Apple machine, but it should have all the tablet features, plus be a full work-capable PC to boot. I have an iPad, but don't use it much because my laptop is a better browser and I get all my work done on the Dell (no matter how boring a machine it is).
A Surface for the price an iPad? Twice the usefulness and only twice as hard to use? What a deal!
Posted by Doug Barney on 08/27/2012 at 1:19 PM