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Vista 8 is Trying to Compete With Android

Summary: An artificially limited environment such as Android is being imposed on users of the next version of Windows

"Microsoft kills Windows 8," say the likes of Pogson and ourselves. With more and more antifeatures it becomes abundantly clear that OEMs will look at non-Windows options. Microsoft makes matters worse as the "final build of Windows 8 has already leaked to torrent sites, which is giving the propellerheads a chance to dig through the code. One revelation will probably not sit well with enterprise customers: you can't bypass the don't-call-it-Metro UI.

"Normally, you have to boot Windows 8 and when the tiled desktop UI (formerly known as Metro) came up, you had to click on one of the boxes to launch Explorer. Prior builds of Windows 8 allowed the user to create a shortcut so you bypass Metro and go straight to the Explorer desktop."

"This is why Microsoft is trying so aggressively to tax Android with patents."Well, Vista 8 repeats the mistakes of Vista and now that Android may come to the desktop Microsoft might get no second chances. "There are millions and millions of people using Android on their smartphones," writes one blogger, "and even some that are using it on tablets. What would happen if there was a version of Android released for the desktop?"

As one who uses the almost latest Android (4.0, not 4.1) on a tablet every day, I sure see why Microsoft should worry. Android is "better Metro than Metro" -- so to speak -- and it's free. This is why Microsoft is trying so aggressively to tax Android with patents.

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