PCWorld Apr-13

WINDOWS 8 is Microsoft’s first major effort to weather the tempest of change blowing through the PC industry, but no operating system alone is enough. To shore up its future and to compete with Apple and Google, the software giant must adopt the strategies of its foes. Windows still presides over the desktop, but due to the rapid rise of tablets and smartphones, it beats at the heart of just 30 percent of all consumer computing devices—a staggering 40 percent drop in just four short years—according Forrester Research estimates. To stay relevant, Microsoft needs to change. Going Google First and foremost, Microsoft needs to remember that it’s a software company, not just a Windows company. In these days of rampant second screens and tertiary tablets, a software company leaves a bunch of potential…

Microsoft vs. Apple The February Editor’s Letter, “Why PC Users Hate Microsoft,” posed an excellent question but, in my opinion, provided an answer that ignored reality. One merely needs to look at the iPhone’s complete dominance over every other smartphone model on the market to realize that hardware is not the defining difference. Some gorgeous phones are out there, but they aren’t selling well because of their nonpreferred OS. A superior user experience has created a world full of iZealots while Windows 8 makes it crystal clear that Microsoft still doesn’t get it after all these years. Microsoft keeps offering us what it thinks we should want instead of what we actually want—a completely transparent OS that allows us to enjoy programs and features without feeling that the operating system keeps getting in…

MICROSOFT’S VENERABLE productivity suite is now available to consumers as traditional stand-alone desktop software or as a subscription service. The chart on page 14 points out the features of the various available versions. 2013 or 365? Choosing between Office 2013 desktop software and the new cloud-based Office 365 is a dramatically different decision than it was in the past, because Microsoft has significantly stacked the deck in favor of the latter. While Office 2013 describes only the desktop applications, Office 365 pairs the Office applications with cloud storage. Past versions of Office 365 had fewer features and capabilities than their full desktop counterparts, and they would not work without an Internet connection—but no longer. Today the only scenario that favors Office 2013 is if you want to put the software in Office 2013 Home…

CHROMEBOOKS SUFFER from the same severe limitations as netbooks. Even calling the Chrome OS an “OS” is generous, as it’s crippled without an Internet connection. Yet more manufacturers than ever are making low-cost laptops that run Chrome OS. HP and Lenovo recently joined Acer and Samsung in doing so. The question is why. Fear of Microsoft One culprit behind the surge in Chromebooks is the softness of the PC market. Microsoft’s toe-dip into making hardware with Surface tablets is another. The prospect of keeping all of their eggs in Microsoft’s basket seems to have made manufacturers uneasy, prompting them to turn to Chromebooks. The basic consumer appeal of Chromebooks—low cost and cloud connectivity—also poses problems for manufacturers: Differentiating one model from its rivals isn’t easy. Efforts to make particular Chromebooks more appealing include longer…

Android App Will Snap a Phone Thief’s Image A new feature in Lookout Security & Antivirus for Android, called Lock Cam, automatically snaps a photo from a phone’s front-facing camera after three unsuccessful unlock attempts. It then sends the owner an email message about the attempted intrusion, along with a photo of the culprit. Users can then log on to Lookout.com to see the location of the phone, as well as its location history. Intel Exits the Desktop Motherboard Business The Santa Clara, California, chip giant will begin its retreat from making desktop motherboards once its next-generation Haswell CPU ships, and plans to dissolve its Desktop Motherboard Business unit over the next three years. Intel’s move comes in response to reduced demand for desktop motherboards and to strong competition from other motherboard makers. Windows 8…

WILL BLU-RAY DISC become the distribution mechanism for 4K HDTV? As a format, Blu-ray Disc can handle the capacities involved in 4K. But it would need to accommodate extra layers to add capacity to the disc, or use more-aggressive codecs to compress the video. Current Blu-ray movie discs top out at 50GB for a dual-layer disc; but today we also have BDXL media for use with 100GB or smaller rewritable discs, and up to 128GB write-once discs. One issue facing the Blu-ray Disc Association is whether engineers can add 4K to the Blu-ray format inexpensively. If not, few people will rush out and buy it—awesome 4K image quality or not. A second issue standing in the way of adoption is market demand for 4K media. (Such demand seems likely, in view of…