Here's the funny thing. We have here a shining example of why Microsoft is becoming irrelevant.
You're making the case that Windows ME sucked, Vista sucked, 7 was good, and 8 sucks.
You're absolutely missing the bigger picture, which is this: nobody cares about operating systems anymore. Everyone, I think, finally gets that the function of the operating system is to get out of the way of the application that the user is running. iOS and Android are perfect examples of this. Everyone who argues about operating systems now talks about contextual menu this, flat button style that, driver update this, without realizing that the typical primary use of a computer these days-- desktop, laptop, tablet, whatever-- has nothing to do with the operating system and everything to do with HTML and JSON.
You talk about how a lot of people bought iPads thinking that it would fully replace their PC, and now they're disappointed. I would argue that, based upon the rate at which mobile web traffic is increasing, those people are anything but disappointed.
I have serious doubts that there will be a Windows 9. There will simply be no market for it. No kid today is asking their parents for a Windows Phone or a Surface. None. When those kids grow up, Microsoft will simply stop existing save for the Xbox.
I have serious doubts that there will be a Windows 9. There will simply be no market for it.
This one statement about Windows 9 speaks volumes as to your viewpoint. This statement is so colossally and obviously incorrect that it actually brings into question your every opinion on this topic.
Here's the thing - Microsoft has been working on Windows 9 since November of 2012. Here's just one citation on that:
It's been speculated for a while that Windows 9 would be released in 2014. Did you not hear that Microsoft is more rapidly releasing operating systems going forward? In fact I've seen roadmap documents for both Windows 9 and Windows 10 and know that they have R&D departments working on features for both concurrently.
And this brings me to my main point... You know nothing about Microsoft of today. In your entire resume, you list one Microsoft technology - SQL Server. Can you just admit that you're completely ignorant about what they offer today? Your arguments are a mix of 1996 to 2011 rants and product complaints based on things you've heard and not experienced. It's intellectual dishonesty to be so critical of a company and their products when you have not used modern versions of what they offer.
Windows has a 92+% operating system market share as of July of 2013. The next release of Windows is going to be released in the next 12-18 months. So let me ask you - your honest opinion is that Windows market share will go from a virtual monopoly to low enough where Microsoft will just give up on operating systems and not release the next version? I refuse to believe that someone who can log into a computer can actually believe such a ridiculous thing as that.
But they're not, they're using binary packed protocols, /maybe/ BSON.
The thing is, the web is most valuable to me when there are stable parseable formats that I can push into my native infrastructure(voice and UNIX commands with clear, standalone graphics output), there isn't room for "apps" in my world, even if they're "webapps".
The reason I don't use webapps, is that using them for my essential tasks would cost me hours of time per week in waiting for buffer-bloated connections to deliver my miniscule control packets to finally update the view I'm looking at; One can spend several seconds waiting, where I could spend one framedraw waiting for the same result locally.
You're making the case that Windows ME sucked, Vista sucked, 7 was good, and 8 sucks.
You're absolutely missing the bigger picture, which is this: nobody cares about operating systems anymore. Everyone, I think, finally gets that the function of the operating system is to get out of the way of the application that the user is running. iOS and Android are perfect examples of this. Everyone who argues about operating systems now talks about contextual menu this, flat button style that, driver update this, without realizing that the typical primary use of a computer these days-- desktop, laptop, tablet, whatever-- has nothing to do with the operating system and everything to do with HTML and JSON.
You talk about how a lot of people bought iPads thinking that it would fully replace their PC, and now they're disappointed. I would argue that, based upon the rate at which mobile web traffic is increasing, those people are anything but disappointed.
I have serious doubts that there will be a Windows 9. There will simply be no market for it. No kid today is asking their parents for a Windows Phone or a Surface. None. When those kids grow up, Microsoft will simply stop existing save for the Xbox.