Digest: Nov. 5, 2012 – Windows 8 & The Surface RT

Well, it’s Monday again. No matter how hard we try, this things seems to come around about this time every week. So, to start your week, here are a few items of note for those interested in technology:

• Windows 8 Ho-Hum –The holiday shopping season – which seems to have already kicked off, may change things but a survey conducted by the Associated Press and GfK revealed the following:
  • 52% of  the 1,200 US Adults polled in this survey have never heard of Windows 8
  • Adding insult to injury, 61% had no interest in buying a desktop/laptop with Windows 8
  • And for a coup de grace, only 35% thought that Windows 8 was an improvement over Windows 7
  • It was probably a substantial portion of that 35% who comprised  the 31% of respondents who were actually interested in Microsoft’s Surface tablet.
  • Read the full story on the PC Magazine website.
• No Help From the Business Sector –While Windows in the workplace has been a mainstay of Microsoft’s revenue stream, it looks like organisations will be slow to hop on the Windows 8 bandwagon. In October, TechRepublic  asked its members to talk about their organisation’s deployment plans. This was a voluntary survey drawn from a pool of people who frequent a particular website so the results are most likely skewed to some degree. Nonetheless, the responses were eye-opening:
  • 49.9 % of organisations have no plans in place to deploy Windows 8 but may do so at some future date.
  • 23.8 % plan to skip Windows 8 entirely
  • 11 % will deploy Windows 8 but have not set a target date
  • 10.7 % plan to deploy Windows 8 sometime in the next 12 months
  • 4.6 % are waiting until Service Pack 1 to deploy Windows 8
  • Hardly a stampede to adopt Windows 8 early on. Read TechRepublic’s complete article.
• Some Hope for Surface – Opra Winfrey likes the Surface RT tablet saying that it feels like a Mercedes-Benz to her. It is worth noting that Opra gushed over the iPad in 2010 by saying “Words cannot describe what I feel for this magnificent device . . .” Opra – who has her own network, BTW – has added the Surface to her list of favourite things that will be featured in a 2-hour TV special scheduled on for Nov. 18th at 8:00 PM. There is no record of how Opra felt about the Microsoft Zune. Read PC Magazine’s full story on Opra’s endorsement.

That’s it for this morning. Have a good day!