You're definitely right, there is no honest, open and intelligent Microsoft-centric podcast. I stopped watching all of Leo's podcasts for the reasons you mention. I really like Leo, I've met him at SXSW and PAX and he is a great guy - but he just doesn't "get" the direction Microsoft is going... and rather than try to get an understanding of the unified vision, he just dismisses it. I actually wanted to start a podcast for my site, I just don't have the time to do it with all of my travel. Hopefully that changes in the next 6-12 months though. I don't even have time to blog anymore :-/ Most tech journalists simply don't understand Microsoft. They look and judge Microsoft on their consumer facing products, which is the completely wrong way to look at it. Hell, the services division (which I'm a part of) is an enormous piece of corporate revenue and profits and every single tech journalist is completely clueless as to what we do. The list of amazing Microsoft products goes well beyond just Windows and Windows Phone. Server, Hyper-V, Azure, Lync, Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, Dynamics and on and on. The corporate world is where Microsoft makes the real bread and butter, and a tech journalist who's never been a part of an enterprise environment understands the dynamics of the business world... Thurrott and Foley included. To truly understand the direction Microsoft is going with Windows 8, 9 and beyond you must understand their enterprise strategies, because it is all apart of the plan. That is what sets them apart from Google and Apple yet "journalists" compare them directly to Google and Apple when there really isn't a comparison - as each has completely different long term business models.
The architecture of the system makes it nearly impossible. Again, I'll make the comparison to iOS. There have been 700+ million iOS devices sold, and no major exploits have been found in the code that allows nefarious code to exploit the devices directly. The OS must first be jailbroken before that can happen. Android on the other hand is the wild west, as Google Play apps aren't scanned before being published. The same goes for RT. Since the ONLY apps you can install on RT devices are screened automatically and manually by Microsoft in their store - end users are protected. Published apps can also only access very restrictive APIs on the host system. Even if by some miracle an exploitative app were to be published, since it runs in a sandbox - the system, files and other apps are protected from it. I am not going to say that it is impossible to exploit, but it is extremely unlikely... and even more unlikely that it wouldn't be caught by Microsoft first.
That is why windows revenue went down, because they are selling like hot cakes. The reason why iOS did so well is that maybe a mobile os shouldn't be like a desktop OS. Maybe microsoft should get the hint and stop making the desktop os like its mobile OS. The one thing I love about MSFT is its development tools. I don't think anyone makes anything better than VS.
Sure, how many surface jailbreaks have you seen? Even if you could jailbreak it, good luck righting code for ARM. I'd actually like to see that.
You bring up a lot of excellent points. Azure is one that sticks out in my mind big. Heck, even Apple's cloud services are Azure powered...
I grant you it's unlikely today, but becomes less likely over time. http://surfsec.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/circumventing-windows-rts-code-integrity-mechanism/
It is an exploit that must be manually initiated by the user... hardly a security threat to the average user. That's like saying a refrigerator has a design flaw and is a fire hazard because the owner can open it up and tinker with the motor. I'm not sure you completely understand the technology behind Windows RT, especially the application verification process for Windows Store apps. If you'd like to know more about that process, I wrote an in depth blog post about the Windows Store app certification process. Just like with Jailbreaking an iPhone, that exploit must be manually performed by the end-user (and has already been patched) - not exactly something can be run from an email attachment or a web URL. I have several Windows Store and Windows Phone apps in development, and I've sat through no fewer than 10 training courses put on by Microsoft regarding Windows RT, Windows Store and Windows Phone apps. Exploits like we see today with viruses, spyware, adware and injected scripts simply aren't feasible on Windows RT as a platform - especially now that with Windows 8.1 updates automatically load in the background (unless disabled), so an exploit will be patched before people even knew there was an exploit. No company in the world does more to combat current threats to desktop systems. That very reason is why Windows Store apps exist, to combat the botnets of the future. The beauty of Windows RT and the app store is it adds countless layers of security that aren't currently possible with x86/x64 apps and operating systems. Is it possible that someone could get through all of the layers of security? Anything is possible, but it is highly unlikely and even if it did happen the number of infected machines would be fraction of the hundreds of millions of infected machines today.
I think were on the same page, I just disagree with your earlier stance on viruses, etc. They will come to RT one day in some form. No amount of PFE knowledge is going to change my mind on that, though I do appreciate your insight (interesting blog, too). That's not to say I'm being stubborn here, just that the landscape changes continually and bored bastards eventually find a way to compromise security of all sorts. I also think the jailbreak is fairly significant. Yes, the end-user has to perform the break, but if that device is stolen then it's likely the new end-user has every intention of jail breaking the device and possibly stealing data. Remote wipe can act as a counter, but is likely most effective at the Enterprise level where the devices are tightly managed compared to the consumer.
MS in the enterprise space has some great products and IMO is as strong as ever. I think in public MS will try to play up Windows 8 on the consumer/home user side as a success but that's being generous. Numbers become a little skewed when the previous version generally drops out of the retail space altogether despite what the consumers want. The 'start screen' integration across platforms is an interesting idea in theory but the execution was lacking. Anecdotally most general users I come across either stay away from 8 or tailor it where the start menu (and app store) is generally ignored on a desktop.
The difference is, the ONLY way for an average user to install an app on Windows RT is via the Windows Store. That's it, they can't just install a .XAP file (packaged app) and run it. The device must first be registered as a developer unit before XAP files can be side loaded. So, the apps that a user can install is certified via the process I provided. Then, that app must be loaded - and the API doesn't allow for an app to auto load on install. The app must then access the system kernel and files that it can't actually route to. No app can write to the system core, because the pathways aren't actually there. So it can't get to the system core, so maybe it can get to another app? Nope, there are pathways across apps either. This is where VLC has had huge issues. They need to access the audio codecs in the system itself - and on RT Microsoft had to provide them a route (actually specifics are unknown). I can assure you, if it was more than audio - they wouldn't have helped. I could go on, but hopefully you get the issue. So that leaves only malicious apps directly run on the device. Which would be JPEG files infected, Flash files, video files, audio files, JavaScript, VB Script or various other file types that can be saved and run on the C:\ of an RT-based system. Those files would then to side load an app, but that app could only really infect the machine it is on. The reason current malware is so prevalent is that it is intelligent enough to spread itself to other machines. The problem is, that isn't really an option on RT - because apps could only be spread by the Windows Store. I can assure you that Microsoft closely monitors usage of Windows Store apps, and if an app installation numbers grow too fast, they put under further scrutiny - as they don't want anyone "gaming" the system. I could go on and on, but in the end if someone was smart enough to do it - would it be worth their time? Probably not, when they could just continue to phish user information with faulty websites and such.
I agree. Though I will say that's how I used the first version of Windows. I booted it up to DOS. I'd load up Windows sometimes for certain things...oftentimes just the games that came with it. But for everything else, I'd stick to DOS. In fact, I still launched the DOS prompt (which was still fully functional at the time) even in Win 95 periodically. It was a much lower percentage of the time, but I did it. Point being, this is how things are adopted. It doesn't indicate failure in my mind.
I like this guy's vision on fixing Windows 8 and it'd be cool if Microsoft adopts his ideas for Threshold. Then I might consider upgrading from Windows 7 to Threshold, whether it's Windows 8.2, 8.5 or 9. Link includes screenshots. Fixing Windows 8 He also made a couple of videos of the transition effect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee1YUB4tFYc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJ8ilQbc6EU
Why do I have a feeling these concepts are actually put out by microsoft employees? Or maybe he doesn't have a job. lol
That was the remainder of the Surface RT devices that were sold for a loss - which was initially written off last year. The Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 are a tremendous success as far as Windows tablets are concerned, with about 1.5-1.7 million units sold in the quarter... at a cost range of $449 to $1799. And for those who say that Windows 8 is a failure, PC sales worldwide were down 6.9%, yet Windows desktop sales were down only 3%.
