The reason Intel is not producing hot chips anymore

[John Connor]

Yeah, I can see offices typing on tablets.

 

[Dadofamunky]

It wouldn't shock me if in 8-10 years, or less, the smartphone we have on our hip could run Photoshop and Illustrator spectacularly well, handle all office and creative apps with no issue, and have ample storage and display performance for any important application. (Games? Well, that might be a different story, as would high-end 3D graphics development. But maybe not!) By then, the "desktop" will be completely beside the point. It's about smaller and more powerful. Moore's Law says this will happen and I still think it's 'in force.' There is nothing today that comes close to contradicting Moore's Law. We live in interesting times, and they are going to continue to be more interesting. Desktops will be dinosaurs.

 

[mikeymikec]

In America, "hot" also means 'good,' as in a hot car or a hot chick. In this context, "hot" was a pun for enthusiast chips.

That's doubleplus good.

It wouldn't shock me if in 8-10 years, or less, the smartphone we have on our hip could run Photoshop and Illustrator spectacularly well, handle all office and creative apps with no issue, and have ample storage and display performance for any important application. .

That'll either be an enormous device to attach to one's hip, or another display revolution is required, perhaps some sort of projector unit to shine the display up onto a (purpose made?) surface, or some sort of holographic projection.

Otherwise, there are reasons why people go for large monitors so they can actually see what they're doing, because I doubt that the next major revolution is going to involve everyone carrying around a super-magnifying monocle for their smartphone-type device.

To say that the desktop PC is going to be replaced entirely by the smartphone is as absurd as suggesting that smartphones are going to replace televisions. While there is some television-type watching going on on desktop PCs and smartphones, the large screen in the living room is hardly likely to be phased out. Such basic 'needs' for technology aren't going to disappear, but they do merge together, just like most people have something with a lot of computer-type functions sitting beneath their television already that digitally records episodes and can handle complicated schedules and probably browse the Internet too.

Everything you can do on a television could already be done on a computer that is more than ten years old. Who wants to bet that people were predicting the death of television ten years ago?

 

[NTMBK]

I can only image how great netbooks would have become without everyone and his mother going crazy over dumbed down tablets.

Netbooks died because Microsoft wanted them to die. In order to get a cheap Windows 7 Starter license, netbooks had to have crazy limitations like a screen with no higher resolution than 1024x600- and those limitations stayed in place for years and years, even as screen tech rapidly improved.

 

[NTMBK]

Tiny PCs like the NUC, Brix and ZBox will probably replace your traditional Dell "big box o' nothing": a micro-ATX case where 80% of the space is wasted, because literally everything is integrated onto the motherboard these days.

There will still be a desktop market for people who need serious compute; but it will probably use processors based on the server chips, e.g. the Haswell-E range.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

most people just use the web, so for most, portability and speed of bootup trump computing power. when the apple surface pro tablet comes out, that will probably set a new trend of replacing even laptops. the component pc where you replace parts is definitely dead for 99% of people, you cant even buy pci components in places like walmart and officedepot anymore. it wasnt helped by the fact that ms and intel stopped innovating

 

[ShintaiDK]

Tiny PCs like the NUC, Brix and ZBox will probably replace your traditional Dell "big box o' nothing": a micro-ATX case where 80% of the space is wasted, because literally everything is integrated onto the motherboard these days.

There will still be a desktop market for people who need serious compute; but it will probably use processors based on the server chips, e.g. the Haswell-E range.

DDR4 will also further push MiniITX and the custom small factors further. Since only 2 DIMMs due to Point to Point topology.

 

[blackened23]

So you're going to ignore all the evidence that PC sales are slowing, Processor sales are slowing, etc. and say the PC market isn't dying down?

Seriously?

OBVIOUSLY there is still a use for desktops, but EVERY company is realizing that if you focus on desktop market you will FAIL. Mobile chips is where every company's focus is. Yes, I still LOVE having my desktop. I would be lying if I said my laptop and tablet don't get a TON of use. Actually about to watch some TV using XBMC on my tablet right now. It was much quicker to take it downstairs and has a much longer battery life for viewing TV than my laptop and it's mobile unlike my desktop.

You still got a CRT monitor too brah?

This right here, completely spot on. The younger crowds and average purchasers are far more interested in mobility and do not care about hulking desktops (outside of a small niche of PC gamers + content creators) - the next generation of buyers buy mobile and nothing but mobile. That is just the state of the market now.

It's mostly the older guys who can't adapt their thinking, who refuse to embrace change, who refuse to acknowledge tablets. Probably the same guys still using flip phones and said "who needs mobile phones" back in the day. I was leery on the idea at first but after having used the ipad for several years? It's one of the best and most wonderful devices I could possibly ask for. I rarely use my PC for browsing and media consumption anymore, and the fact that I could do it on the go with excellent battery life is icing on the cake. Now someone might say tablets can't do X. Well, eventually they will - tablets can have keyboards and external monitors just as PC's can, and the capabilities are rising in that respect. In the meantime, you can still buy desktops if you need the power, but that just isn't the focus of the market right now because desktop sales are in the toilet. Like it or not, that is just a fact. Intel cannot focus on a market that is shrinking by double digits every quarter.

Besides, if someone wants hot and power hungry chips (looks at thread title) it seems that AMD loves making hot, loud and power hungry chips, so there's always that.

 

[SammichPG]

Those types of units are really only going to see one MAJOR usage, and thats in a business/industrial environment where company's want a physical computer attached to a workstation. Sure you might get some HTPC home theatre end users, but the majority of those people are going to sway towards laptops or tablets, or an xbox or playstation for their entertainment needs. Hell I honestly dont know why the sale of monitors for desktops is so popular still, when I can go to walmart and buy a 36" vizio for the same price and hook my desktop up to it.

because a 36" vizio or any tv is a terrible desktop monitor

 

[BSim500]

"So you're going to ignore all the evidence that PC sales are slowing, Processor sales are slowing, etc. and say the PC market isn't dying down?"

Correlation does not = 100% causation. As others have said, the rise of the tablet occurred at the same time as both hitting the Ghz wall / slow IPC gains & desktops reaching market saturation point. This means people are now keeping desktops for 3-4 years vs 1-2 years of before. That in itself is going to halve upgrades (with or without tablets). You'll see the same thing when tablets hit saturation point (just as DVD players, flat-screen TV's, etc) all have reached saturation and are now "mature". Smartphones are heading that way. Just because it isn't hyped to the hills doesn't mean it's dead. Marketers will simply move onto the "next big thing" that "you must have or you're a nobody" as they did from netbooks to tablets.

Will notebooks go away if tablets get powerful enough.

No. Because the biggest notebook vs tablet difference is not horsepower but the lack of a decent keyboard / application features. Try typing a 30,000 word dissertation on a touch-screen. Even if tablets had serious full features, you couldn't fit an Office ribbon on a small screen without hiding half the features (meaning it now takes twice as long to insert text boxes, footnotes, comments, watermarks, etc).

"It wouldn't shock me if in 8-10 years, or less, the smartphone we have on our hip could run Photoshop and Illustrator spectacularly well"

No, because yet again, the biggest difference between a desktop vs tablet is not horsepower but ergonomics. That thing that most makes desktops "immobile" (24" screen + proper keyboard) is precisely what gets everything done 2x faster vs a laptop and 8-16x faster vs a 7" tablet on "large apps". Try editing an Excel spreadsheet on a Google Nexus. And DTP requires a screen to be at least 120% vertically larger than its paper equivalent for accurate 100% size editing.

As for ergonomics in general:-

1. Larger 20-30" screens that people use all the time for editing photo's, video's, coding, development work, running two applications side by side, or just better immersive gaming than sitting 8ft away from a TV are an absolute dream. You can get so much done much more quickly when you don't have to keep ALT+TABbing all the time like on a cramped <16" screen (or screwing up your eyes to see tiny 6px size fonts on a small tablet). Same with stupid glossy screens outdoors (or with a window behind you on a sunny day) vs matte ones - I would NEVER sit in front of any glossy screen all day long. They didn't call the glossy versions "GlareBook Pro" for nothing.

2. Desktops have keyboards separate from the screen which makes for far more positional comfort without having to constantly bend your neck forward (eg, typing all day long). It's also better for the eyes to have monitors a little further back than 12" for all day, every day use. There was a report a while ago about how there was far less eyestrain / glare / headaches on desktops with typical 18-24" view distances on matte screens, vs laptops with 12-18" view distance on glossy screens. Glossy tablets are even worse with just 6-12" view distances.

3. Storage. I know it's a shock, but many people need more than 16-32GB of storage space. And "cloud computing" is not a serious solution to still needing a lot of fast, local storage for temporary files / scratch disks, etc, when editing.

4. Reliability. Desktop components often have much lower failure rates than laptops & tablets. Desktops cannot be beaten for "uptime" when it comes to replacing broken keyboards, screens, worn out fans, PSU's, etc, without having to call someone out or ship it off for repair. Even a serious CPU / motherboard failure can be fixed same-day. Most businesses I know use desktops for that fact alone - if you know a decent local IT guy, they can often be fixed same day. In fact I once knew a local small business that switched from laptops to desktops pretty quickly after they sent one off to Dell for repair and got it back 6 weeks later (with a freshly cracked screen)!

It's a delusion to believe that you can fit everyone needs onto one device. It won't happen. The huge backlash against MS trying to force Windows 8 PC's to be "big tablets with keyboards" is perfect proof of that. Microsoft are just trying to peg W8 on the back of a tablet craze at the moment to "offer" an integrated Apple / Google style advertising billboard for PC's (Windows Store) because beyond that, there's not much else to sell W8 on ("Hey guys! We've removed Media Centre, Network Map, MPEG2 codecs, Start button, creating an Adhoc Wi-fi via "Set up a new connection or network", etc, for you, and replaced it with an ugly flat interface! Aren't you lucky little people!") D:

You won't ever get a world where people will only ever use tablets (outside of Hollywood movies & tablet marketing) and not PC's due to ergonomics of large screen applications alone. You can get novelty photo editors for 7" Android tablets, but watch anyone try to seriously edit a photo beyond cropping, and it's an exercise in pure pain that takes about 8x longer than even free Paint.NET on an 7-year old laptop. Laptops are better but still don't come close to a 24" HD screen for detail or getting stuff done in the minimal amount of time.

There's also the cynic in me that thinks app developers don't want full Windows tablets to take off. Why? Because if you're coming from a PC and buying an Android / Apple, then you're going to have to rebuy all those mobile apps, games & utilities you already own on a desktop, all over again... (which is what the tablet and Win7 vs Win8 thing is really about - treating the hardware / mobility features as merely a "portal" to the app-store centre show-piece and users as "marketing audiences" rather than customers).

 

[seitur]

Tablets will not replace PC, same as consoles have not replaced PCs as gaming hardware. They'll simply complement them.

PC market swap to longer uppgrade cycles. Market already did - AMD abandoned high-eromermance CPU market completly and Intel will continue to switch to longer-uppgrade cycles instead of very fast pace developemnt that was in past. Of course that'll mean that for few years sales will shrink. People wallets are not made out of rubber (especially in current economic model that make lower and middle class continuesly poorer and poorer each year in developed countries ) - most people simply don't have more money to spend on electronic hardware when we talk about long-term spending.

Tablets sooner or later will meet same fate. Their sales will stop growing and people will keep them for longer before they will change them for new model.

Pre-build standard tower desktops will take most of the beating. Smaller pre-build or self-made (by user) form factors will keep growing. Mid to high-end workstations will see much smaller shrinkage and will eventually stabilize (and maybe grow again someday).

 

[Torn Mind]

Tiny PCs like the NUC, Brix and ZBox will probably replace your traditional Dell "big box o' nothing": a micro-ATX case where 80% of the space is wasted, because literally everything is integrated onto the motherboard these days.

There will still be a desktop market for people who need serious compute; but it will probably use processors based on the server chips, e.g. the Haswell-E range.

Some organizations and users can use the compute of a standard voltage i5 but don't have the budget to afford the enthusiast chips. The upper mainstream will still have a decent selection to choose from.

 

[William Gaatjes]

The Register has a nice piece on the decline of the PC and the rise of the tablet, Here.

And this is why Intel is turning its back on us.

It is mainly the industry using the PC that kind of shaped the pc.

How should we see doing an excel sheet on a tablet for example ?
Or type a document.

I prefer a separate keyboard/mouse combination and monitor because it is more productive when compared to a touch screen.
In the end we still get a separate keyboard and mouse because it is faster. I can imagine, the screen and the computing element/storage will be integrated for the cheapest low end versions. When it comes to more calculation power, it makes sense to keep things separate for business applications.

If i look at a tablet with lot's of calculation power, it is in the price range of a low cost PC with a larger screen and more powerful APU.

 

[Torn Mind]

Tablets won't replace PCs because they often get soft-bricked and you need some OS, be it Mac, Windows, or Linux, to service it. But they will siphon funds away from sales and get you hooked into using one, and reducing the time spent on the desktop/lappy for tasks tablets CAN HANDLE, which isn't Photoshop, power browsing, etx. Ipads still sell for 500 bucks despite the slower hardware because people love using that thing.

I'm typing this on a Nexus 7 right now in portrait mode.
In addition, backing up content is quite necessary and PC storage is the fastest way to send and receive data to the device.

 

[Atreidin]

No way desktops are going to completely die off. That claim is just hyperbole. There are far too many tasks that are much better with a nice-feeling full-size keyboard and a large screen. That's not even considering that the computing power of a desktop will ALWAYS be higher than any portable device, simply because of the higher power draw and heat dissipation capabilities.

Frequently connecting and disconnecting cords and peripherals to and from a portable device gets annoying. Even if only for the sake of convenience, many people would rather have a device that sits there and is always ready for them to sit down and go to work without having to fiddle around with anything.

I'm not sure why so many nerds are so excited for desktops to die anyway. Desktops are way more customizable and give you much more control over your hardware than any tablet or laptop. The entire industry is drifting more and more toward vendor lock-in already, and I'm of no mind to hasten that. I'm not all that excited at the prospect of only being able to buy certain models of my computing devices that I can't upgrade or change, instead I have to throw it away and buy a whole new shiny brick I have no control over. I also don't like to fight the manufacturer on technical and legal grounds to find ways to install and modify my own software and use my device however I want because I freaking bought it and own it and it's mine.

 

[ehume]

When my company went through and replaced its desktops, it replaced them with more desktops. When I go to other offices, I see monitors with ITX cases strapped on the back (what do you call these? AIO hybrids?). Or I see Dell all-in-ones.

I think AIO's are the future for office computing, but I think the current desktops, AIO hybrids and AIO's running Win7 will not be replaced for a long time -- until the companies -- like mine -- that bought underpowered slow machines realize their mistake and upgrade. Once a company makes a decision on screen and CPU/mb, the thing will physically last years or decades. So why not buy the monitor with the system? AIO.

But business systems designed to sit on the desks of receptionists and caseworkers need not be large. So they will shrink.

Hobbyists like the larger boxes and motherboards because they give us room to work. Judging from the amount of effort expended and the number of companies expending that effort, it appears that there are large numbers of hobbyists out there.

Then there are the people who do serious computing with their desktops. How big is that market?

But it appears to me that although hobbyists and serious computing folks once were a large part of a small to medium-sized market, we are now a niche in a large market.

I am not sure if the hobbyist market will continue on its own, or piggy-back on the market for serious computing folks. What concerns me is if the market for the two continues to shrink -- even in relative terms -- the cost of our rigs will rise.

 

[mikeymikec]

Netbooks died because Microsoft wanted them to die. In order to get a cheap Windows 7 Starter license, netbooks had to have crazy limitations like a screen with no higher resolution than 1024x600- and those limitations stayed in place for years and years, even as screen tech rapidly improved.

I'm not sure that's true, because I don't think I've ever seen a netbook (running WinXP, 7, or 'other') perform well enough for me to label it as "nicely responsive".

The rest of the industry sells on the notion of "bigger is better". Netbooks are smaller therefore they're cheaper, according to this notion. "Cheaper" does not give you the best resolutions, screens, processors, etc. The budget netbook model had to sacrifice everything (except weight) to achieve decent battery life. Without the investment (that a platform would get if it wasn't a "budget" item), there was virtually no innovation.

If netbooks had been sold as a premium item to begin with, then we might have had a different result. Instead, Apple had the idea of selling premium tablets, which hastened the demise of the stagnant netbook class.

Tablets would not have achieved mass adoption if they had been initially pushed as a budget item. However, I personally look at tablets and think "yes, they're a nice idea, but why the hell would I want to pay laptop prices for something that isn't as good as a laptop in any respect (that I would appreciate) except battery life and startup performance?".

 

[William Gaatjes]

When my company went through and replaced its desktops, it replaced them with more desktops. When I go to other offices, I see monitors with ITX cases strapped on the back (what do you call these? AIO hybrids?). Or I see Dell all-in-ones.

I think AIO's are the future for office computing, but I think the current desktops, AIO hybrids and AIO's running Win7 will not be replaced for a long time -- until the companies -- like mine -- that bought underpowered slow machines realize their mistake and upgrade. Once a company makes a decision on screen and CPU/mb, the thing will physically last years or decades. So why not buy the monitor with the system? AIO.

But business systems designed to sit on the desks of receptionists and caseworkers need not be large. So they will shrink.

Hobbyists like the larger boxes and motherboards because they give us room to work. Judging from the amount of effort expended and the number of companies expending that effort, it appears that there are large numbers of hobbyists out there.

Then there are the people who do serious computing with their desktops. How big is that market?

But it appears to me that although hobbyists and serious computing folks once were a large part of a small to medium-sized market, we are now a niche in a large market.

I am not sure if the hobbyist market will continue on its own, or piggy-back on the market for serious computing folks. What concerns me is if the market for the two continues to shrink -- even in relative terms -- the cost of our rigs will rise.

I agree.

And windows 7 is great. Microsoft should have put more effort in making programs more 3D. Subtle improvements in use of programs by making proper use of 3D effects. Side or top Toolbars or menubars that you can just rotate around on a virtual axis while selecting one of them. Works great with mouse and touch. Not that ribbon crap that office has now.
The return of pull down menu's. Yes please...

I find windows 8 horrible in how it looks too. Windows 7 has still potential and i hope Windows 9 is just windows 7 reloaded (with rotatable toolbars).
I also like the windows logo of Windows 7. Windows 8 logo looks like crap.

 

[mikeymikec]

ehume's logic seems sound regarding AIO PCs, they're the middle ground. Laptops aren't good for a working posture, tower desktops aren't good for cables and physical positioning, and plenty of computer roles do not require mobility and an unnecessary and ready-to-fail battery is wasted money.

What would be nice is a standardised interface for monitors into the AIO mobo spec, but that's not going to happen because AIO has already begun and upgradability is not good for the PC-selling industry.

i hope Windows 9 is just windows 7 reloaded

That's not going to happen. Currently most of the IT-type industry is another "copy the living daylights out of everyone else" phase. At most the successor to Win 8.1 will have a couple more nods (like Win 8.1's Start button) towards the non-touchscreen-crowd because that's what business/serious users will desperately want, but that's it.

 

[gipper53]

I can tell you what we do at my office. I work for an architectural firm of about a 100 people. We use a lot of high end PC technology for our staff.

Our production staff and designers are using top end workstations with dual monitors to power the 3D software (Revit and 3D Studio Max). We use Boxx brand workstations, they have water cooled, overclocked 3960X CPUs, 32gb RAM, Quadro 4000 graphics, RAID SSD, etc. These users need the horsepower.

Project Managers and those who don't use the 3D software daily use either HP Z1 all-in-on pro workstations or HP Elite Book mobile workstations. Not as much power as the Boxx but still very potent.

As of last month, many of the "bosses" are now using Surface 2 Pros as their primary computer. These folks rarely run demanding software, mainly doing email and MS office. When at their desks they plug them into larger monitors and wireless KB/Mouse, and it acts just like using a desktop. When they are on the move, they just take the Surface with the standard Surface keyboard cover. They like this setup and the Surface does everything they need.

I could see many people doing this last approach in a few years as the Windows tablet becomes more powerful. Surface 2 Pros are a bit pricey for average home use still, but as prices fall and power increases I could see this being a popular preference. Tablet when you want it, PC power when you need it.

 

[William Gaatjes]

ehume's logic seems sound regarding AIO PCs, they're the middle ground. Laptops aren't good for a working posture, tower desktops aren't good for cables and physical positioning, and plenty of computer roles do not require mobility and an unnecessary and ready-to-fail battery is wasted money.

What would be nice is a standardised interface for monitors into the AIO mobo spec, but that's not going to happen because AIO has already begun and upgradability is not good for the PC-selling industry.

With respect to memory i kind of was waiting for it to happen that motherboards get soldered on memory because of the chosen technology.This would be bad for the memory stick selling companies, though.
Then only the processor, USB and PCI-e expansion would be left for upgrades.

That's not going to happen. Currently most of the IT-type industry is another "copy the living daylights out of everyone else" phase. At most the successor to Win 8.1 will have a couple more nods (like Win 8.1's Start button) towards the non-touchscreen-crowd because that's what business/serious users will desperately want, but that's it.

Hulk Sad !

 

[Remobz]

Very interesting thread and a good read.

Here is my small story.....


I am not a pro in the sense that I need a heavy duty raw power PC to run any programs like photoshop or CorelDraw etc.

Only reason I upgraded my PC in the past was to play games at an acceptable frame rate. I bought my first laptop (14 incher) about a year ago and since then my desktop computer has been collecting dust. I have not played games for awhile and the only reason I can see myself upgrading or getting a new desktop would be to play BF3 or BF4. However, I must say that surfing the net on my desktop using a nice 23 inch IPS panel is really nice compared to a crappy 14 inch laptop.


So one may ask why not just go back to my desktop to surf the net on a nice 23 inch IPS panel?

The simple answer for me is portability and convenience. When tablets become more powerful and have more options then I will make the switch from laptops.

And for the record....I am 40 and NO ONE in my age group or circle of friends and family have any desire to buy desktops now. They all own consoles, laptops or tablets. My young cousins and nephews rather own a PS4 or gaming laptop to play modern games.
Personally, I think its cheaper to just build a budget gaming desktop to play modern games. I still feel like a dinosaur though....lol!

 

[Matt1970]

You 13 brah?

But seriously, I agree it it because intel has no competition, and thus little reason for us to buy more stuff. My 5 year old pc only needed a graphic card upgrade and it should last for another 2-3 years on the CPU side before an upgrade. Never before has a 5 year old chip (870) still been equal to a mid range processor.

That's a good point. 5 years ago you were more than likely running Vista., If your machine ran Vista it will run 7 & 8 even better. I am running a 5 year old chip too. It's an E8400 @ 3.6 and I could easily get 2-3 more years out of it. Might even go a couple more with a Q9650.

 

[Arkaign]

That's not going to happen. Currently most of the IT-type industry is another "copy the living daylights out of everyone else" phase. At most the successor to Win 8.1 will have a couple more nods (like Win 8.1's Start button) towards the non-touchscreen-crowd because that's what business/serious users will desperately want, but that's it.

I think we have to look at it from Microsoft's perspective, and then figure out a balance that would work.

Microsoft wants to corral you into their controlled ecosystem, that's by FAR the #1 reason they have the Metro/Tile world side of thing to begin with. It also is true that the traditional Windows desktop is a terrible interface when you're dealing with a touch-centric device.

However, the tile world is pretty crap to navigate with a keyboard, mouse, and non-touch display. Further, touching your desktop monitor is impractical at best.

I've configured several Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2s for clients, and it actually works fairly well there.

Anyway, the software is just not there yet for the desktop market. Too many apps and even cloud apps are just garbage to deal with with a touch interface, so the only truly efficient way to deal with them is with a keyboard and mouse (Excel, QuickBooks, Salesforce, ACT, Timeslips, Photoshop, etc, etc). Not only is it unlikely that touch/tile versions of these will be as functional as the desktop variants anytime soon, but there aren't credible alternatives to these for corporations that rely on these apps as core functionality to get stuff done.

Now beyond that, you also have users multitasking quite a lot. At each of my client sites, the typical user is running several web tabs, often in multiple browsers, along with Outlook (Office 365), a handful of office documents, a cloud file browser, and some random apps that are specific to their job, such as QuickBooks or Photoshop. The Windows 8 and even 8.1 standard just doesn't work well for these people with a default configuration. Every care has to be taken to prevent them from being thrown into Metro, because it causes all of their work to disappear from view.

So the problem is how to have a hybrid OS that serves Microsoft's financial goals without making things hell for their most stable customers : the business world.

I'd propose a 'desktop mode', in which you could launch and use Microsoft tile apps from the desktop. Movable, non-full screen, resizable, and not ludicrously inconvenient. Hilarity ensues when a heavy desktop multitasker first launches a PDF file in Windows 8 (quickly combined and then replaced by extreme anger and much cussing at the IT department). Giving them the option to exist in the same workspace as traditional apps would solve this problem. A good or great app would still sell just fine, Microsoft gets their cut, people could also use them in 'Mobile' mode with the full screen Metro interface, and so on. But it wouldn't 'break' the traditional desktop workflow, which is incredibly efficient for these users.

Also in 'desktop mode', you'd have the option set by default to having a PARTIAL (maybe 1/4 of the screen by default!) Start screen, which also doesn't cover the taskbar up.

The combo of that would really really sell. The people who love the way it already is could set it that way (Call it 'mobile' and even make it the default setting if they want). The people who are heavy desktop business users could have their systems (the ones that currently sell with Windows 8 Pro, sold or leased in bulk to corporate customers) default to the 'desktop' mode I've described above.

Problem solved, billions made Microsoft can send me their check

In all seriousness, if I had just described Windows 8, Microsoft would have had a HUGELY more successful time with the OS, making quite a LOT of additional profit.

 

[Arkaign]

That's a good point. 5 years ago you were more than likely running Vista., If your machine ran Vista it will run 7 & 8 even better. I am running a 5 year old chip too. It's an E8400 @ 3.6 and I could easily get 2-3 more years out of it. Might even go a couple more with a Q9650.

Well not only that, but the average quality of system offered by big box retailers gone DOWN over the years instead of UP.

I remember not that long ago WalMart had lots of MicroATX systems with Core 2 Duo E7xxx or AMD Athlon X2, X4 at legit speeds, etc. Not GREAT systems, but at least usable imho.

Now they have a ton of AIOs and other garbage with AMD netbook processors, along with other neutered laptop crap. Look at this pile :

http://www.walmart.com/ip/HP-Pavilio...ows-8/27436153

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-E-Series-E1-1500-Notebook-Processor.84852.0.html

"On average the cpu performance of the E1-1500 is a bit below an Athlon X2 L310 at 1.2 GHz. "

Barf. Yes, I've used one of those systems (not that exact model, but the same thing in a super slim case), and it was BEYOND horrible.