XPost: comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   From: znu@fake.invalid   
      
   In article ,   
    Chris Ahlstrom  wrote:   
      
   > ZnU wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:   
   >   
   > > In article ,   
   > >  Chris Ahlstrom  wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:   
   > >>   
   > >> > I mean, seriously?   
   > >>   
   > >> Microsoft will simply co-opt the ARM tablet market through sweet-seeming   
   > >> OEM   
   > >> deals and some plain old browbeating, push the hardware to become more and   
   > >> more powerful, and larger and larger, until it moves out of the tablet   
   > >> arena, thus all but killing the market.  Just like it did with the small   
   > >> netbooks.   
   > >   
   > > The reason that approach worked with netbooks is because netbooks really   
   > > were just small, cheap laptops. Once they got a little more powerful   
   > > (which was just a natural consequence of technological development), the   
   > > regular version of Windows, as an OS suitable for use on laptops, was   
   > > suitable for use on netbooks, and crushed alternatives with which users   
   > > were less familiar and which had inferior application compatibility.   
   > >   
   > > Tablets are a different story, because traditional desktop UI provides   
   > > an inferior user experience on tablet devices, when compared with UI   
   > > actually designed for touch interaction. As a consequence, standard   
   > > versions of Windows are _not_ especially suitable for tablets, making it   
   > > much harder for Microsoft to subsume the tablet market into the desktop   
   > > PC operating system ecosystem that they largely control.   
   >   
   > Like I said (well, hinted, actually)... Microsoft will cripple that market   
   > niche, effectively killing it.  Maybe they'll kill it with the standard   
   > Windows interface, or maybe they'll put a Win 7 Phone type interface on it   
   > and kill the tablet market by making the machines too bulky/expensive to   
   > sell.   
      
   If Microsoft releases such products, people just won't buy them. It   
   won't particularly hurt other vendors. In point of fact, Microsoft has   
   already had bulky tablets running desktop versions of Windows on the   
   market for a decade. Everyone just ignores them.   
      
   > Of course, a lot may happen by 2013 to take it completely out of their   
   > miserly little hands.   
   >   
   > Microsoft:  "We're the leaders!  Wait for us!"   
      
   Microsoft isn't what it once was. That doesn't work anymore.   
      
   --   
   "The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to   
   anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it   
   must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)