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A greater questions (IMHO) is more, what would (or will) the consumer reaction be to this. Android and Apple have the lock on consumer confidence and loyalty. Microsoft is well known for (well, you know what they're well known for). Outside of gaming systems; I think their goose is getting cooked. <BR>
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The market will drive what gets built. Apple sells how many millions of units per quarter? How many millions of units per quarter too of Androids are sold globally? Then there's Microsoft...and they sell what and how much? It's looking to me that they are loosing the war and this may be a last ditch effort at gaining a lock on ARM. I don't think consumers would go for it and don't think manufacturers would go for it for that reason. <BR>
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I work for a manufacturer and we build with UEFI enabled systems. All are open, unrestrictive and free for further development so they are OS agnostic for the most part. We have Windows 8 in the lab for testing (it sucks too that I've seen) but it's not the mainstream part of my sandbox these days. The bulk of our clients go with Linux or XP. Very few with Windows 7...none with Vista that I have ever seen.<BR>
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I applaud the efforts of the FSF and will support it...but feel the greater public will not embrace Windows 8 as it is coming onto the scene a bit late and they (the mobile media hungry public) already get their appetites whet from Android and Apple....<BR>
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I could be completely wrong and off-base, but that would be my take. Personally, I think Microsoft is nearing it's end in the desktop OS scheme and will only be found in the gaming sector. <BR>
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Rant over....cheers!<BR>
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RinL<BR>
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On Thu, 2012-03-01 at 11:27 -0500, Jim Kinney wrote:<BR>
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Ah. Videos online. The bane of freedom-friendly software everywhere. <BR>
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Yep. Can't have unlicensed people looking at the stuff we post for free. So we make 'em pay twice, once for the codec and again for the extra bandwidth for the encryption.<BR>
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