[sswilson]

Originally Posted by Mars

None of the informed sources I've seen indicate that quality/sales performance of Windows 8/RT was related to Sinofsksy's departure.



I think the biggest problem with RT isn't what people are talking about, it's rather that Intel has put massive resources into R&D and now has Atom chips that are competitive with ARM from a performance/battery life standpoint.

This certainly wasn't the case several years ago when MS started the work for Windows on ARM, but now as a manufacturer, you can put an Atom chip in the same form factor as an ARM chip and get similar performance, but running Windows 8 instead of Windows RT.

As a consumer, the price of Atom vs ARM SoCs is similar enough to be insignificant in the final product - so the primary difference between the two is that RT devices will ship with Office included in the price, and Windows 8 devices will have the ability to run x86 desktop software.



Well, it has a few real benefits over other tablets, off the top of my head:
Excellent integration with MS online services (xbox music, skydrive).
Includes MS Office.
Massive device compatibility advantage. You can plug a Windows tablet into a USB hub with all your regular peripherals attached and hook up a monitor to use with the desktop for Office/IE, or you can remote desktop to a full PC on the tablet's external monitor.



That's essentially the same thing as Win7, just instead of the start menu in the corner, the start screen covers the entire screen.

I'm sorry, no it's not essentially the same. If we were to make a comparison to win7, using the start screen in that manner would be similar to dumping each and every program icon onto the desktop, and haven't us geeks already spent the last 10+ years trying to convince our family/friends not to do that???

Just because the majority of users didn't know how to better manage their icons is no reason to force that bad practice on those of us who know how.