Why The Microsoft Surface Just Died - Forbes

[Geek-9pm]

The full title is:
Why The Microsoft Surface Just Died Last Week
Here is the link:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2014/03/31/why-the-microsoft-surface-just-died-last-week/
Note to moderator. I have nothing against the MS Surface. I would like to have one. Some readers believe Forbes is a serious magazine and their opinion may have consumer value.  Judge for yourself. Here are  the first two paragraphs:

Would I purchase the Microsoft Surface? Not anymore. And I’m not sure that you should either.
I’m looking for a new laptop and the Surface has been one of the top contenders. I like it a lot. And although a slow seller for Microsoft it’s been gaining in popularity and many reviewers have given it high marks. It’s a powerful little laptop, lightweight with a Windows 8 touchscreen and a long battery life. Sure, it’s a little pricier than some of its competitors. But it’s also both tablet and laptop and integrates tightly with other Microsoft applications (like Office) so for a business user like me it seems worth it. It was on the top of my list. Until last week.
...

[Salmon Trout]

From TFA (the next sentence in fact) - the reason in the TFA author's opinion: Microsoft released Office for the iPad. Quite how the Surface "died" because of that, for people who have one, I don't know. Quite how that affects people who don't have an iPad and/or don't want one, I don't see that either. But heigh-ho. Another Geek "news" story.

[evilfantasy]

I was in Fayetteville, NC last week and I needed something that is normally only found in office supply stores like Staples or Office Depot. Out of 4 different stores the only tablets they had out on display were Microsoft Surface tablets. Not one Apple tablet or Android OS was on display. Kind of strange?

Well I look at it from a loss prevention stand point. To me it says that they can not display iPads or Galaxy tablets because people are stealing them as fast as they can display them so they gave up and removed them from display. The Microsoft Surface tablets are safe on display because they aren't even worth stealing. NOBODY wants them, not even thieves.

BTW I never found what I was looking for...

[Geek-9pm]

... To me it says that they can not display iPads or Galaxy tablets because people are stealing them as fast as they can display them so they gave up and removed them from display. The Microsoft Surface tablets are safe on display because they aren't even worth stealing. NOBODY wants them, not even thieves.
...

May I have permission to quote you out of context?
My purpose is to show that the new Windows 8 devices have Anti-Theft features built into the hardware and software.

[evilfantasy]

Store demos don't have all of the security features activated. It's an unregistered device. They take it out of the box and put it in Demo Mode or it arrives as a stripped down demo model. Thieves don't know that though and still steal them thinking they are fully functional.

Cars have OnStar and Lojack but are still stolen by the millions each year. Thieves don't care about security features as long as the product can be sold.

Apple devices have good built in security but you still see morons being tracked down and arrested soon after the theft occurs. Apple and Android products are in high demand on the black market. Windows phones/tablets, not so much.

[Geek-9pm]

Thanks for your response, evil fantasy
Awhile back Intel introduced an Anti-Theft Technology. I have not seen any mention of it here. The technology does not really give physical protection, but reduces the liability with stolen data. Under US law it is illegal to have your corporate laptop stolen, unless you have a way of dealing with the problem to protect customers privacy.
Part of that is related to the new secure boot feature of Windows 8. And I understand the Intel has no plans to make it work on Android devices.

About the MS Surface. I wish I had on e. If any thief out there can not sell one, he can donate it to me and get a tax write off.
I don't mean you , evilfantasy. You would never steal a MS Surface. 

[evilfantasy]

I wouldn't mind seeing Microsoft Surface begin to seriously compete with Apple and Samsung. Competition breeds innovation.

[patio]

The CH News Editor position is still accepting applications...

[BC_Programmer]

Just to be clear here, Geek-9pm seems to think that UEFI Secure Boot, which is designed to prevent unauthorized modifications to the boot executable on the UEFI partition is a anti-theft device. This seems to be a result of trying to imagine what the feature does based entirely on the name (Secure Boot) Rather than taking the rather unorthodox approach of actually looking up what it does.

Secure Boot does not perform any form of user authentication. The authentication and code signing certificates are for the boot executable.

UEFI does cover 'user-authentication' things in the same way as BIOS passwords, and works similarly to EFI. However it's notable that:

UEFI is managed and specified by the Unified EFI forum, created in 2005. Intel's involvement was the creation of the original EFI, which started in 1998 with the "Intel Boot Initiative". The UEFI forum is led by representatives from AMD, AMI, Apple, Dell, HP, IBM, Insyde, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Phoenix technologies. Neither EFI/IBI nor UEFI appear to provide any "anti-theft" capabilities. At least nothing beyond standard BIOS passwords. UEFI systems can be setup with pre-boot applications that support things like biometrics if desired.

but reduces the liability with stolen data. Under US law it is illegal to have your corporate laptop stolen, unless you have a way of dealing with the problem to protect customers privacy.
Part of that is related to the new secure boot feature of Windows 8. And I understand the Intel has no plans to make it work on Android devices.

UEFI nor secure boot do either of these things. They do not provide any data protection on the system. It is, of course, possible for Pre-boot applications to be installed on the UEFI partition to support features such as encryption and/or biometrics. For the Surface for example, Windows 8 supports a Preboot "bitlocker". It needs to be enabled and used, though.

It is also not in any way related to Secure Boot. It is a good example of the use of Pre-boot applications added over top of the standard Boot logic.

And I understand the Intel has no plans to make it work on Android devices.

Android has had full-device encryption for a while .


At any rate I do not like any of these mobile devices or tablets. The reason is because people think they are easy to program. This could be the case, but I've found their programming capabilities to be complete, hacked-together garbage, bogged down with red-tape, restrictions, and "developer licenses".

Consider, for example, a simple case. a mobile receipt printer being used by somebody with a tablet.

This is something I have had to look into myself and the fact is that the entire mobile ecosystem is a gigantic ball of garbage when it actually comes down to doing things that matter.

This is partly the blame of the manufacturer in that the device doesn't seem to have any support for any OS other than Windows and Linux. Which seems fine until we notice that the Windows support is x86 only and the Linux support is only by patching the kernel and basically re-building android yourself to add the appropriate device support. However as far as I can tell no similar mobile printers support mobile systems- so I'm not even really sure what they are doing. They may be designed for use with "Full PC" laptops, rather than tablets. Which is fine until we come to the problem where Tablets are the cool way to do business now and everybody wants to be able to handwrite values into their tablet and have it be sent to the database and then have a receipt be printed on the spot.

Another issue is that moving from a desktop environment to a tablet requires that- despite the hardware being similar- so many things be re-written that it completely defeats the purpose. A "App" designed to run on a Tablet cannot reference ANY external libraries at all except those that are themselves designed specifically for use on mobile. Which seems reasonable except when we are talking about things that have nothing to do with the user-interface; additionally it prevents any such "App" from ever interacting directly with any database at all.



The only method of communication actually supported is HTTP. In our specific case this means that in order to support a tablet device, we would need to setup a third server, specifically for serving only on-site tablets. a server for the ancient system, a server of the new postgres database, and one for a web server (or of course they could be on one machine that was powerful enough, but it's still more crap that would need to be written and maintained. And that doesn't even go into the details about apps requiring signing.

[evilfantasy]

The way I understand it is that Secure Boot has to do with security against malware and/or OS corruption, not theft. The mobile version(s) of the Windows OS are actually a very secure virtual environment. That's why you don't find antivirus apps in the Windows Phone Store. They aren't needed because of Secure Boot.

[BC_Programmer]

That's why you don't find antivirus apps in the Windows Phone Store. They aren't needed because of Secure Boot.

Well Secure boot wouldn't stop some of the more droll forms of adware/malware, just rootkits and low-level stuff. Drivers need to be signed also which prevents a lot of malware but they can still do damage (eg. copying files or sending them to a remote system, etc). I think another reason why malicious software would be less common is because releasing stuff to the app store requires the author to provide a lot of information about themselves to create a Developer account,(and it's not free either) meaning that it is almost impossible to upload software anonymously. Pretty similar to Android/iOS in that regard, I would expect. And for RT of course x86/x64 malware can't run. Not sure how such malware would interact/work or not on a Windows 8 Pro/x86 system.