Deep Integration Means No Backwards Compatibility
Microsoft is drawing the line on hardware selection and choosing for you what systems their OS will run on.
The above statement is an over generalization but in a recent blog post from Microsoft they are claiming a win with Windows 10 which is nothing more than "how you look at the data". Or in this case, "We gave it away for free to create positive marketing for the future".
Last week at CES we were excited to see Windows 10 devices from many of our partners, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, and Toshiba win over 50 major awards, including Best of CES, Best 2-in-1, Best Gaming Laptop and many more. It has been awesome to welcome hundreds of new Windows 10 devices - adding even more options for people choosing Windows 10 around the world. This builds on the momentum we've seen, with over 200 million active devices already running Windows 10 and unprecedented demand from our enterprise customers.
I know for a fact (cause I was there) that many enterprise customers shield their networks from Microsoft updates and even setup their own authentication servers so they can control when updates are released so to prevent their ecosystem from going down due to a bad update or too many updates being applied at once.
The blog goes on to talk about Deep Hardware Integration which is a fancy term for saying they asked chip makers for help them make their code run efficiently on their hardware. This goes against what made Windows popular in the beginning but aligns with what they are doing with the Surface. These days if your hardware wasn't supported simply download a driver and away you go. By aligning hardware to software they are in fact telling the consumer when you buy a new PC you can run Windows 10 or you can throw it away. (Or run Linux, which isn't aways a good solution)
Granted for a retail system this isn't much to ask however, for the hardware enthusiast this forces us to be even more selective in our component choices almost to the point of eliminating a good number of options.
I would hate to think what this will do to new people just getting started with the computer hobby. You know, the type of people who think a 6700K is more powerful than a 5960X?!?.
Overall I can see why Microsoft is going down this road. The process of writing and testing software on mulitple platforms is expensive and all of the excess tends to slow things down. However, you don't agressively push something "this much" unless there is something in it for them.
I phjear what that could be.
Related Web URL: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/0...
