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New PC double-take

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40hz:

Probably a bit more than $2 - anti-competitive lawsuits are costly.
-f0dder (May 06, 2013, 11:58 AM)
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The semi-official story was that Microsoft had got it in its head that optical drives were somehow on the way out, and couldn't see the point of paying a $2 USD license fee on every single copy of Windows 8 they would ever ship - which was apparently the deal they had previously.

Don't forget we're talking (they hope) about hundreds of millions of copies of Win8 @ $2 each here. It's not exactly small change. Except in terms of customer satisfaction and the overall larger scheme of things.

But that's not something Microsoft has been too savvy about in the last two decades... ;D

f0dder:
The semi-official story was that-40hz (May 06, 2013, 01:50 PM)
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...I wonder if the EU settlement and the N editions of Windows doesn't have something to do with it? :P

IainB:
@40hz: Oh, thanks for that. That's very informative.
I wondered why new PCs would come loaded with proprietary 3rd party DVD players - since XP days. I usually found them lacking or they wanted money to upgrade to a version that actually did anything useful. So I tended to not use them, preferring to use (for example) VLC, Winamp or Real Alternative. Nowadays I usually just use VLC and nothing else, and I continue to disable Windows Media Player because of its DRM functionality and because it tries to call home - I block it at the firewall too, just in case. (A pity to not use MS MP, as it  has a good database system.)

I was interested in Win8, because MS has apparently cunningly embedded some cross-integration with MSO 2013 + Win8 + IE10 + SkyDrive + Outlook.com), so you don't necessarily get the whole ball of wax unless you upgrade to all the latest versions of these things. It's called "lock-in" I guess, but it is cunningly done with a velvet glove, though the proverbial iron fist is probably inside that glove.
SharePoint users have this issue in spades, as SharePoint is (deliberately) incredibly well-integrated with MSO, IE and the Win OS, but you have to have all the latest versions of everything to be able to use all the latest functionality. On a treadmill for life, paying a tollgate fee to MS as you rotate.
Anyway, I still have MSO as an incentive to migrate to Win8, but the disincentives seem to include the sorts of thing you mentioned above, and others - e.g., the dropping of ClearType functionality (ergonomics is kind of important).

x16wda:
the disincentives seem to include the sorts of thing you mentioned above, and others - e.g., the dropping of ClearType functionality (ergonomics is kind of important).
-IainB (May 07, 2013, 12:54 AM)
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Yeah, and the lack of ClearType is only part of that.  Outlook, for example, uses way too much white space.  And I mean just that - white space, no borders or boundaries, no visual cues about where one thing starts and another stops, borders that are just thin line boxes.  Very large sender names, all spread out too much.  I guess the idea is it will work better that way when you are navigating with your finger.  (I navigate my finger to them somewhat differently though.  :P)

IainB:
^^ Yes, what @x16wda said.

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