Let’s say that you’re an editor of a technology publication and you’re wondering what might be the best way to inform and educate your readers. What are the first words that come to your mind?
“Nonsensical pundit cage match,” right?
No? Oh. Well, then you don’t work at ZDNet.
“The Great Debate: Windows 8 slate or iPad, which is the better tablet for the enterprise?”
Tip o’ the antlers to Lessien who somewhat frustratedly notes:
ZDNet has taken to writing fanfic. Windows 8 “slates” aren’t on the market for months!
Fan fiction isn’t really new at ZDNet: It’s just one weapon in its arsenal of nauseating page-view-maximization schemes.
The Macalope has a great topic for the next Great Debate: Astrology or science, which governs the laws of how the universe operates?
As of this writing, 80 percent of ZDNet readers believe companies would be better served by devices that don’t exist yet and run an unproven operating system than by a highly popular and currently shipping tablet with a rich ecosystem, thank you very much.
Which is kind of funny, because back here on planet Earth more than 80 percent of companies looking to buy tablets say they’re going to buy iPads. The rest didn’t state a preference because they had to go vote on the Great Debate.
If ZDNet readers were looking for sanity they wouldn’t have to go very far. ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes pretty much lays out the problem for Microsoft here.
The tablet has been pretty much stitched up by Apple and I don’t even see Microsoft causing much of a disturbance when Windows 8 ARM tablets start making an appearance. In fact, OEMs will have an enormous challenge on their hands to bring a Windows 8-powered tablet to market that can compete against the iPad on price, battery life, screen quality, performance or portability.
As the Macalope has said repeatedly—but never in a page-view-jacking format like the Great Debate so maybe that’s why ZDNet readers don’t seem to get it—Microsoft wants people to think they don’t have to compromise. Windows 8 tablets will run not just mobile apps but all Windows applications at acceptable speeds with a positive user experience on affordable hardware.
And no one in all of Windows fandom sees anything wrong with that promise. Here we are in 2012 and the maxim the Macalope coined four years ago is still true:
It’s amazing how future Microsoft products beat current Apple products time and time again, isn’t it?
What was the yet-to-ship Microsoft product back in 2008 that was predicted to trounce the currently shipping Apple product?
Windows Phone 7.
So, yeah.
[Editors’ Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]