Microsoft Surface: The new field standard?

[eronald]

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/windows/videogallery2b.aspx

Towards the end, 1Gb copied over USB3 in 8 seconds, and Lightroom, run on the x86 version.

Edmund

[buckshot]

Oops..deleted.

[bcooter]

Actually,

The next professional workstation.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?81124-HP-820-Tower-RED-EDITION&p=1025022#post1025022



Apple is for colored Ipods, 10 year olds playing angry birds and your mother to update her facebook page.

IMO

BC

[michael]

UnLess you're just kidding, please refrain. We don't need this silliness here.

MICHAEL

[skimasks]

PC related brands (Microsoft, Intel, Nvidia) have always been the standard. Nothing is new with that HP Red endorsed box. It's just put together already as to not scare off those who need everything prepackaged for them (Apple's demographic.)

[eronald]

UnLess you're just kidding, please refrain. We don't need this silliness here.

MICHAEL

Michael,

 I was a computer journalist for 15 years. I reviewed hardware, cameras and software.
 Microsoft presented the x86 version of the Surface today, a slate with USB3, a Wacom pen and Multitouch, and demoed it running Lightroom, and specified that it was intended for apps such as Lightroom and Photoshop.
 I don't see any silliness here - the iPad is clearly not a professional field conversion and retouch tool, this thing is billed as being one by the world's biggest pro software company.

 I do understand that you expect courtesy of posters - I fail to understand why the site admin should flame me for posting a link to an announcement.

Edmund

PS. Maybe I shouldn't be so touchy. It's just the end of the day.

[BobDavid]

Agree with Edmund on this one.

[James Clark]

Michael,

 I was a computer journalist for 15 years. I reviewed hardware, cameras and software.
 Microsoft presented the x86 version of the Surface today, a slate with USB3, a Wacom pen and Multitouch, and demoed it running Lightroom, and specified that it was intended for apps such as Lightroom and Photoshop.
 I don't see any silliness here - the iPad is clearly not a professional field conversion and retouch tool, this thing is billed as being one by the world's biggest pro software company.

 I do understand that you expect courtesy of posters - I fail to understand why the site admin should flame me for posting a link to an announcement.

Edmund

PS. Maybe I shouldn't be so touchy. It's just the end of the day.

I believe Michael's comment was directed to bcooter's crack about Macs, not your link, FWIW.

[Jeremy Roussak]

I believe Michael's comment was directed to bcooter's crack about Macs, not your link, FWIW.

I agree - in fact, it didn't even occur to me that it could be otherwise. Michael?

Jeremy

[bcooter]

I didn't find my comment to be inflammatory, (as that wasn't the intent)  in fact much less so than the many dozen of editorials I've read on this site downplaying Hasselblad for protecting their brand and mostly limiting their back and camera sales into one platform, or the 15,000 canon vs. medium format vs. Nikon threads that permeate this forum which border on Nascar nation brand worship.

What I meant was going forward it seems Apple has found the professional imaging market a non lucrative endeavor.

Read the Wall Street Journal and see where Apples makes their money.

75% of Apple's financial shares come from consumer I-devices and the newest powerbooks have abandoned firewire.

Where does this leave medium format which is very dependent on firewire tethering?  Where does this leave studio's like ours that have over 300 or so terabytes of data based in firewire drives?

Red seems to have found  a solution, partnering with promax and HP, (they're not the first) and if you've priced out PC boxes vs. Apple you can see PC boxes offer more specialty configurations for professional imaging than Apple, which is a fairly abrupt about face, given the industry and public's perception that Apple is the creative brand, PC/windows the business brand.  Today In reality the perception is 180 vs. the reality.

In fact when it comes to speed, adaptability and no room for error the motion picture industry has much less room for error than the still industry and they went to PC boxes for heavy lifting a decade ago.

Now I do have a dog in this hunt as our studios personally operate over 17 MAC stations and at this stage given the change in FCP, the dead end of apple color and the limitation in apple hardware seems like our options are clear, just as RED's options we're clear.

If anyone reads this is a flame war or something to cause trouble, then then in my view they are reading into something that was not the intent and obviously they not very adept at keeping their ear to the ground and watching the real changes in the professional imaging world.

At least the professional imaging world that turns a profit for professional artists.

IMO

BC

[michael]

Edmund, not directed at you at all but at the dig about who Macs are aimed at.

Hope to see you again this year at Photokina.

Michael

As for the Surface(s), I applaud Microsoft for taking on Apple with this. The tech press isn't that impressed yet, but the marketplace will decide.

As for Mac Pros, clearly Apple sees them as a declining market segment. Many, like me, aren't even going to upgrade their desktops. My new MacBook Pro Retina test out as the fastest Mac yet, exception some Xenon server configurations. Attach a good Monitor and a Thunderbolt RAID and it more than meets my needs for stills and video editing.

[eronald]

Edmund, not directed at you at all but at the dig about who Macs are aimed at.

Hope to see you again this year at Photokina.

Michael

As for the Surface(s), I applaud Microsoft for taking on Apple with this. The tech press isn't that impressed yet, but the marketplace will decide.

Michael,

 Sorry, I *was* too touchy. Do hope to see you at PK again this year. Maybe we should all arrange an evening Kölsch meeting?
 
 I like the Surface; The fact that Microsoft is doing their demos with Lightroom is very encouraging. Now that Microsoft have finally discovered the qualities of careful get-it-right-the-first-time design, we might as well give them some positive feedback

Edmund

[kencameron]

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/presskits/windows/videogallery2b.aspx
Towards the end...
Edmund

Thanks for the link and especially for the advice that the interesting bits are towards the end. Watching the whole thing would have been  time out of my life that I would have resented losing. My deepest sympathy to the IT journalists, bloggers, etc, who have to sit through this kind of thing to make a living. "Steve Ballmer, Steven Sinofsky and other Microsoft executives"  are not great communicators. However, the prospect of a "Tablet" that runs Lightroom is genuinely interesting. I have never been interested in Tablets, and had been planning to buy an Ultrabook, but will hold off for a while to find out more about this product.

[fike]

I was pleased to see it had USB host with a standard plug.  Unfortunately it is USB2, but this is a step in the right direction.  The inability to work with a file system and connect standard storage devices to ipads really limits my ability to use it in the field.

[yaya]

I hate to say this but this reminds me of the series of Mac Vs PC adds....

13:39 is where it gets interesting....I think MS should not try to be groovy, because it is not in their culture. They should stick to suits and to what they know best, and not try to be Apple...

The product looks promising though...boring and uncool but promising!

[eronald]

I was pleased to see it had USB host with a standard plug.  Unfortunately it is USB2, but this is a step in the right direction.  The inability to work with a file system and connect standard storage devices to ipads really limits my ability to use it in the field.

The x86 version is specced with a USB3 host.

Edmund

[Chairman Bill]

Let's hope that reliability is better than some might fear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1zxDa3t0fg

[eronald]

The one place where I think both Windows and Mac have equal reliability is during demos
And I've been to a lot of Steve Jobs keynotes.
One of the ways to stay awake during Steve's endless self-congratulatory drone was to try and see whether the machine he was firing up had frozen and he was covering up for it. Every machine had a spare sitting next to it.

Edmund

Let's hope that reliability is better than some might fear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1zxDa3t0fg

[BJL]

The Surface Pro version (with Intel x86 processor) is a very promising refinement of the Windows tablet PC concept, and a strong contender in the MacBook Air/ultrabook category. I am glad to see Microsoft, with both this and Windows Phone, embracing the advantages of tight integration of hardware and software design. I can see a Surface Pro with docking station as the only computer many people need.

However, the size, weight, ultrabook level pricing of around $1000+, and initial lack of much touch-friendly software all put the Surface Pro in a different category than most of the iPad market. So the big question for me is whether the ARM-based WindowsRT version of the Surface, running only newly written or ported software, not any existing software for Windows 7 or earlier, can develop enough software and accessory support to be viable in the "pad" or "slate" category pioneered by the iPad, as opposed to the "tablet computer" category created by Microsoft a decade ago. Microsoft's goal seems to be that from now on, most Windows software will be written in a way that works with the input device being either only a touch-screen or only a keyboard and trackpad/mouse: let us see how that plays out.

P. S. I just realized that the forthcoming Windows Phone 8 changes to using the same NT kernel for its OS as Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro, and adds support for some progrsmming tools previously available only for regular Windows but not Windows Phone 7. Maybe that will lead to more touch-oriented apps being cross-developed for both Windows phone and Windows pad/tablet devices, and give MS more chance of catching up on mobile app selection. The momentum of using iPhone apps and developers being able to easily adapt them to take advantage of the extra iPad screen space helped to get the iPad market going.

[fredjeang]

... but at the dig about who Macs are aimed at.

All I can tell you is that very recently, a few weeks maybe, I'm assisting to a massive switch within the profesion. We know that this has been almost exclusively a Mac world, but wind is starting to blow in another direction.
As I'm one of the very few in Madrid who works on PC for some years, I've been surprised to be asked questions about peecees by profesionals all life Mac users and adicted at the brand wanting to switch to PC. Very specially whith people who are growing in motion, but not only.
One of my biggest boss has started to buy an HP workstation at first to cover compositing and editing tasks and since then, harly touched his Macs if not for mailings.

The very curious thing is that the shift is recent but seems to be massive.

I think Coot is right to say that the Apple's target now has changed to the masses, they do great stuff but when really big power is needed, the path to go IMO are PCs now. Therefore I'm sure we're going to see more and more PCs workstations in the pros studios.