The Death of Dual-Boot Devices & Windows XP

The world of technology as always is motoring along with new releases, mergers, people calling for Apple to release something new and great, etc. Through all this noise, I want to point out some things that I think will have a big impact on the world of tech in the next few months.

In the past couple months we’ve seen several companies announce dual boot devices – devices that run both Windows 8 and Android. However one of the only companies to actually bring these devices to the market is Asus. It’s now come out that both Microsoft and Google have asked these companies to stop, or to not release dual-boot systems. Both companies have threatened to not support dual-boot systems or provide any updates. For companies trying to make these devices, taking on one of these giants is hard enough, but taking on two is near impossible. Which is why we have seen very few of these units hit the market. The thing is, these devices revolve around a really cool concept, although the idea hasn't quite been perfected in any of the devices we've seen so far. In my store, we are selling one of the Asus all-in-one’s, which is running Windows 8 when it’s docked as a desktop, and then switches to Android when it’s removed and used as a tablet. This gives customers the best of both worlds, giving them a full operating system when using the device as a computer, and when using it as a tablet they get access to a bigger app store, as well as an OS that is easier on the battery. From the view of the manufacturers, I understand why you wouldn’t want these devices to exist. After all, who wants to share their room with someone else? There’s also the marketing headache to consider, as well as support for the device if one system is less secure than the other and allows the entire device to become corrupted. All of this said, it looks like Asus is being forced to pull their devices from the market, taking with it any hope for dual-boot devices to take off. 

Microsoft announced, months ago, that they would be ending support for Windows XP on April 8^th, 2014 (they’ve even got a countdown clock on their website). This means that they will no longer be releasing patches and fixes, allowing hackers a much easier time to take advantage of vulnerabilities. The shocking thing is that even though the system is 12 years old (which is ancient in the world of tech), it is still running on approximately 30% of PCs. Microsoft is attempting to push everyone over to Windows 8.1, but a large number of users have instead run out to buy a Windows 7 upgrade, sticking with what they know and hoping to skip Windows 8 altogether (there are already rumours about Windows 9). However Microsoft is not making this easy, ending shipments of Windows 7 upgrades to many retail stores and not selling it on their own website. To be fair, they are worried that they will run into the same issue with Windows 7 that they are having with XP - approximately 50% of PC users are running Windows 7. The strangest part of this whole story is that around 95% of the world’s ATMs are running Windows XP. This leaves them incredibly vulnerable to hackers, and apparently Microsoft has agreed to extend support for these machines for a while, at a huge cost of course. They will also be ending support for Office 2003.

Sticking with Microsoft, it is believed that they will be announcing their new Office for Mac 2014 on March 27^th. Apparently, this new version will also include a version of Office for the iPad. This would be an interesting move on the part of Microsoft because they will be competing directly with Apple’s office suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) which are now free on the iPad. It will also remove one of the key selling features of any Windows 8 tablets, especially the Surface, which is that they are the only tablets that can run Microsoft Office. It is also unlikely the Microsoft sells Office in the app store considering Apple takes a 30% cut. With Microsoft selling their software on iPads, it looks like they are undermining their own hardware and operating system, but we will have to see what kind of demand they receive.

One last point of interest: a book was recently released by journalist Yukari Iwatani Kane, called Haunted Empire. It is about how Apple has fared in the past two years without Steve jobs, and looks at whether the brand can stay relevant and iconic without him. Of course Apple fans aren’t happy with it and disagree with its view of Apple’s declining future. Looks to be an interesting read!