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Hopefully back to a 80's like scenario where there was plenty of manufactures and operating systems to choose from.

It was sooo great how nothing would work with one another </sarcasm>

I hope so too! I diverse ecosystem of operating systems is good for everyone.

And the times of lock-in much greater than today - all the investment in a usable setup, all its hw & software, couldn't be moved to other platforms (typically, not even from the same manufacturer). Additionally, NVM that 80s micros were generally too limited & not the best deal, there was also a big risk of getting simply a total flop of a platform.

Other than that, there were essentially only 3 platforms that mattered ...maybe 5; not much different than now. The rest were rubbish - even most of the 5 were, considering their prolonged death (Commodore for example was still pumping out C64's in 92 or 93, and flooding less fortunate markets with them)

Luckily the PC, with its powerful hw and sw brought by its economies of scale, liberated us from those.

It what way was Kinect a success? Do you have a citation?

...I don't mean to sound confrotational. I don't know if Kinect was a success or a failure. I'm just curious. I saw the Kinect in the store and at a friend's house. Both times nobody could get it to work.

It what way was Kinect a success? Do you have a citation?

...I don't mean to sound confrotational. I don't know if Kinect was a success or a failure. I'm just curious. I saw the Kinect in the store and at a friend's house. Both times nobody could get it to work. "

There is a Microsoft store across the street from where I work and While I don't know if Kinect was a success or not I don't have one and neither does anyone I know (kind of says something). I have seen it working in the store and it does track pretty well. Of course one would hope that Microsoft would know the proper settings and distances to set one up.

As of 2011, it was the fastest selling consumer electronics device ever.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12697975

It what way was Kinect a success? Do you have a citation?

...I don't mean to sound confrotational. I don't know if Kinect was a success or a failure. I'm just curious. I saw the Kinect in the store and at a friend's house. Both times nobody could get it to work. "

I haven't used it myself but from what my friends tell me it's quite good. What I do know is that they sold lots of them and the Xbox had strong sales after its introduction.
Im a Physics student and if you search the web you'll see the Kinect being used in all sorts ways for experimental purposes both in the office and at uni. When a product aimed primarily at the game console market manages to have such an appeal in so many other technological areas, it can only be considered a success in my opinion.

Microsoft sold 180 million licenses in its first 18 months, which was more than Windows XP in its first two years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/apr/25/windows-7-lic...

Hardly a failure.

Statistics, statistics and <redacted> lies.

Remember that the PC market as a whole is several times larger when Win 7 came on the scenes than when XP did.
Please try to be sensible in your comparisons unlike the majority of hacks especially those who work for the once esteemed journal you quoted.

Exactly ms doesn't really sell windows, they sell a license to use windows. That's how their monopoly rolls, the majority of ms profits comes from their oem deals selling licenses of windows and ms office.

All of this possible because of the copyright laws in software (the source of microsoft's monopoly). In other words ms is heavily dependent on the government's enforcement of ip law to obtain the majority of their profits.

Edited 2012-10-17 09:04 UTC

That "total failure" Vista still has more users than all versions of OSX combined, and an order of magnitude more than all Linux distros combined.

And Vista SE just got a PR trick of "lucky 7" in its name.