Windows 8 helping me sell sell sell.

[heatlesssun]

Yeah, the recently used programs was in the Start Menu but I've not seen anything like it in Windows 8

 

[MrCrispy]

Comparing to iPad is not valid and you know it. Everyone is raving about Metro on a tablet. On a pc, not so much.

 

[heatlesssun]

Comparing to iPad is not valid and you know it. Everyone is raving about Metro on a tablet. On a pc, not so much.

And how people perceive Windows 8 on conventional devices isn't really the point. No one at the end of the day is really going to give a rats ass about another desktop and mouse driven version of Windows. The reviews would just tell people to go iPads and other tablets if that were the case. And no matter how much complaining their is about Windows 8 on desktops, it'll still be far more compatible with existing Windows hardware and software than an OS X Mac or a Linux distro.

 

[brucedeluxe169]

And how people perceive Windows 8 on conventional devices isn't really the point. No one at the end of the day is really going to give a rats ass about another desktop and mouse driven version of Windows.

And this is where I fear Microsoft, and you, are wrong. Despite their mobile push, Windows 8, *is* MS's next desktop OS, and it will be judged in how well it serves that important, dominant, and indispensable niche. Sacrificing important aspects of the desktop, like the start menu, will create an outsized backlash from the media and power users, fair or not, that will taint Windows 8 on the desktop in the same way that Vista was tainted....

And tablet success or not, success on the desktop, in terms of perception, is still the most important goal for MS to achieve....

 

[Dmitri]

And how people perceive Windows 8 on conventional devices isn't really the point. No one at the end of the day is really going to give a rats ass about another desktop and mouse driven version of Windows.

But Windows is a desktop OS?

 

[twwabw]

I still feel that the biggest danger to MS with this kiddie-cartoon they've created is alienating Business, and Business users. Whether the home user likes it or not is not what drives the majority of their bottom line. It's Business. Business licensing and services are their biggest revenue source and profit center. Not home users. And I will tell you this- business will not like this. Period. "Learning something new" might be cool and great for us on our new home PC, or new tablet or gadget, but "different" costs money- and that's money wasted. 100% waste. Forcing end users to learn a different interface does nothing to help a business make money.

 

[XOR != OR]

I still feel that the biggest danger to MS with this kiddie-cartoon they've created is alienating Business, and Business users. Whether the home user likes it or not is not what drives the majority of their bottom line. It's Business. Business licensing and services are their biggest revenue source and profit center. Not home users. And I will tell you this- business will not like this. Period. "Learning something new" might be cool and great for us on our new home PC, or new tablet or gadget, but "different" costs money- and that's money wasted. 100% waste. Forcing end users to learn a different interface does nothing to help a business make money.

I'll only amend that with, "if the different interface doesn't provide a tangible benefit", but otherwise completely agree.

And no. Trying to turn the desktop into a tablet does not provide a "tangible benefit".

 

[heatlesssun]

And this is where I fear Microsoft, and you, are wrong. Despite their mobile push, Windows 8, *is* MS's next desktop OS, and it will be judged in how well it serves that important, dominant, and indispensable niche.

I'm not saying the desktop isn't important but it certainly doesn't seem to garner much interest or excitement these days. How would Windows 8 as just another keyboard and mouse driven OS running applications that look like they are from the 1980s compared to tablets and smartphones fare against them? There's 10,000 articles a day by tech pundits on how an iPad or tablet can replace a PC. I don't think I've ever seen one article about how a conventional PC can replace a tablet.

Sacrificing important aspects of the desktop, like the start menu, will create an outsized backlash from the media and power users, fair or not, that will taint Windows 8 on the desktop in the same way that Vista was tainted....

I saw all of the backlash from the media and power users about the ribbon in Office 2007. Looks like they got that one wrong. Is the Start Menu really all that or is it something that's just familiar? Remove or change something familiar to millions of people and of course there will be backlash. Nothing can advance without risk and part of Microsoft's problem these days is that it has been so risk adverse and forced to placate so many users with so many expectations.

And tablet success or not, success on the desktop, in terms of perception, is still the most important goal for MS to achieve....

Perhaps, be success in a market that is in relative decline to tablets isn't all that important a goal in a market that you already dominate. It's an acceptable risk to disenfranchise some desktop users, users that have and can use Windows 7 if they want, to gain a foothold in a market that you HAVE to have some penetration in and have NONE in currently.

But Windows is a desktop OS?

True, but where's the future in that if you're Microsoft or its OEM partners that are having a hell of time right now with growth in conventional PCs.

 

[heatlesssun]

I still feel that the biggest danger to MS with this kiddie-cartoon they've created is alienating Business, and Business users. Whether the home user likes it or not is not what drives the majority of their bottom line. It's Business. Business licensing and services are their biggest revenue source and profit center. Not home users. And I will tell you this- business will not like this. Period. "Learning something new" might be cool and great for us on our new home PC, or new tablet or gadget, but "different" costs money- and that's money wasted. 100% waste. Forcing end users to learn a different interface does nothing to help a business make money.

Consumers are VERY valuable to Microsoft. Business as always years behind adopting the latest versions of Windows. And I heard the same training argument used with going from Office 2003 to 2007 and it simply wasn't the issue that many were making it out to be. Plus business wouldn't be adopting Windows 8 anytime soon even it were the greatest keyboard and mouse OS in the history of humanity. Which again is why consumers still matter a great deal to Microsoft.

And no. Trying to turn the desktop into a tablet does not provide a "tangible benefit".

There's a number of benefits. One being that there will be a whole new generation of much better looking and simpler apps for people to consume content that otherwise wouldn't have been develop for the PC. It seems like no one wants to see PCs be fun and interesting to people anymore. Just the same old same old.

 

[daglesj]

Thing is though guys, most of the corporations are not going to buy Windows 8.

Windows 8 isnt in the replacement cycle for most corps. The cycle was set years ago for Y2K when most went with NT. 2000 hardly got a look in then XP came along that gave the stability and lock down of NT but also meant corporations growing mobile workforces had a decent platform too.

Microsoft knows this too. Windows 7 is the corporations choice and this was locked down and decided a long time ago. 8 wont be ready for corporate deployment for another 12 to 18 months (no sane IT director decides to move 10000 staff to a new OS on release day) so that's way off. Currently developers and coders are beavering away making all those old IE6 web apps and other propriety applications run on Windows 7/IE9. 8 isn't on any of the major IT directors agendas. As for tablets, well I still believe that unfortunately the iPad will be the corporate choice. The iPhone is now becoming the corporate phone and only a mad man would say that WinMo7 will take its place. So if you have gone to the trouble of moving over to the iPhone then its not so much of a stretch to integrate the iPad. Why add a third with Metro tablets? Several of the big software players such as Sage are bringing out iPad capable versions shortly. It's a shame but there you go.

So MS is gambling that domestic take up will prepare the corporate workforce eventually for the next corporate cycle around 2019.

 

[YeuEmMaiMai]

Thing is though guys, most of the corporations are not going to buy Windows 8.

Windows 8 isnt in the replacement cycle for most corps. The cycle was set years ago for Y2K when most went with NT. 2000 hardly got a look in then XP came along that gave the stability and lock down of NT but also meant corporations growing mobile workforces had a decent platform too.

Microsoft knows this too. Windows 7 is the corporations choice and this was locked down and decided a long time ago. 8 wont be ready for corporate deployment for another 12 to 18 months (no sane IT director decides to move 10000 staff to a new OS on release day) so that's way off. Currently developers and coders are beavering away making all those old IE6 web apps and other propriety applications run on Windows 7/IE9. 8 isn't on any of the major IT directors agendas. As for tablets, well I still believe that unfortunately the iPad will be the corporate choice. The iPhone is now becoming the corporate phone and only a mad man would say that WinMo7 will take its place. So if you have gone to the trouble of moving over to the iPhone then its not so much of a stretch to integrate the iPad. Why add a third with Metro tablets? Several of the big software players such as Sage are bringing out iPad capable versions shortly. It's a shame but there you go.

So MS is gambling that domestic take up will prepare the corporate workforce eventually for the next corporate cycle around 2019.

2K and XP are functionally idenical under the hood, and that any update to XP could have been given to 2K, There are a lot of companys that used it as it was NOT a resource hog like XP. The only reason a majority of PCs use XP is because it has been around for like 10 years and you are still able to downgrade a windows 7 machine to XP (you will be able to do this until Win 7 is EOLin 2020) 2K was the test bed and XP was the refinement of said test bed. Back in the day it was argued that XP really should have been a service pack to 2K as it brought nothing but cosmetic changes in the beginning.

I would argue that the predident for OS longevity was set with NT4 (8 years of support '96-'04)and as a result people expected it with 2K and XP as Win 2K had 10 years of support and XP has over 10 with at least 2 more to go...(2014 is the end of extended support at this time)

As for using a wp 7 in a corporate environment, it's doable and it works OK but WP7 meant to be a consumer device not a corporate one.

I actually like WM 6.5 as it can join a domain and do things on the network relatively easy....

 

[daglesj]

The reason a lot of corps went with XP was due to them switching to NT around 1999 and then needing a replace all those dust filled, fragmented, 15 minutes to boot Compaq 200Mhz 64MB PCs around 2002/3. XP was the sensible choice at that point.

The fact its been around for 10 years had nothing to do with it as it had only been out 2 years at that point. I would say most corps would have been running or rolling out mostly XP by 2005 (if they had any sense).

Used to love going round and switching the 166/200Mhz Compaqs we had to 233Mhz with a dip switch. Yes major overclocking was going on in corporations!

 

[YeuEmMaiMai]

The reason a lot of corps went with XP was due to them switching to NT around 1999 and then needing a replace all those dust filled, fragmented, 15 minutes to boot Compaq 200Mhz 64MB PCs around 2002/3. XP was the sensible choice at that point.

The fact its been around for 10 years had nothing to do with it as it had only been out 2 years at that point. I would say most corps would have been running or rolling out mostly XP by 2005 (if they had any sense).

Used to love going round and switching the 166/200Mhz Compaqs we had to 233Mhz with a dip switch. Yes major overclocking was going on in corporations!

I'm pretty sure that 2K was no longer available to purchase in that timeframe as XP professional had already succeeded it and MS at that time typically killed of sales of a older OS when a new one came out. in 2002/3 XP was what you had to go with as 2K was already out of retail

 

[brucedeluxe169]

Thing is though guys, most of the corporations are not going to buy Windows 8.

Windows 8 isnt in the replacement cycle for most corps.

This is actually a pretty valid point that I hadn't really considered before... and a good counterpoint to my criticism about the start menu and other confusions on the desktop... If MS positions Windows 8 primarily as a consumer OS, and Windows 7 primarily as the Enterprise OS for the next few years, I become alot more forgiving when it comes to their UI experiments...

We'll see... I mean, there *is* a Windows 8 Professional in the wings....

 

[heatlesssun]

As for tablets, well I still believe that unfortunately the iPad will be the corporate choice.

Windows 8 tablet have a lot of options that iPads don't in the corporate world.

1. x86 Win 8 tablets can join a domain and even ARM devices can work with group policies

2. There's this obscure little suite of programs called Office, full versions of which will be on x86 and ARM devices and be 100% compatible with the desktops and laptops since its the same app

3. The ability to develop line of business applications for both desktops and tablets with a single deployment using the same tools that developers use for every other Windows OS and service, from desktops to servers to cloud services like Azure

4. The ability to run natively without some terminal service technology like Citrix to run even legacy Windows desktop applications on x86 tablets, so which while not optimized for touch may work well enough with touch to run as is

5. Cutting back on numbers of devices. A docking or convertible Windows x86 tablet might be able to serve as both a tablet and a desktop/laptop for those employees that need both

For businesses it comes down to cost, productivity, security and flexibility and for a large number of businesses with existing large investments in Windows, Windows 8 is going to win on a lot these points versus the iPad and Android tablets.

 

[XOR != OR]

There's a number of benefits. One being that there will be a whole new generation of much better looking and simpler apps for people to consume content that otherwise wouldn't have been develop for the PC. It seems like no one wants to see PCs be fun and interesting to people anymore. Just the same old same old.

And in businesses, "fun and interesting" aren't considerations. "Does it work?", and "Don't change it if it does" are. In businesses, when an application works you don't do major rewrites; I have lost count of the number of apps I maintain that were written in the 95 days that people still rely on. Sure, they look dated...but they work, and their users would be highly annoyed if the app were ported to a new interface.

No, businesses will not be using metro apps any time soon.

 

[XOR != OR]

Windows 8 tablet have a lot of options that iPads don't in the corporate world.

1. x86 Win 8 tablets can join a domain and even ARM devices can work with group policies

2. There's this obscure little suite of programs called Office, full versions of which will be on x86 and ARM devices and be 100% compatible with the desktops and laptops since its the same app

3. The ability to develop line of business applications for both desktops and tablets with a single deployment using the same tools that developers use for every other Windows OS and service, from desktops to servers to cloud services like Azure

4. The ability to run natively without some terminal service technology like Citrix to run even legacy Windows desktop applications on x86 tablets, so which while not optimized for touch may work well enough with touch to run as is

5. Cutting back on numbers of devices. A docking or convertible Windows x86 tablet might be able to serve as both a tablet and a desktop/laptop for those employees that need both

For businesses it comes down to cost, productivity, security and flexibility and for a large number of businesses with existing large investments in Windows, Windows 8 is going to win on a lot these points versus the iPad and Android tablets.

Now this I agree with. I know of a number of solutions I'm looking at where a windows tablet would fit perfectly; and a number of places where I as forced to use something else.

The ipad may rule the consumer space, but I have no doubts that when a MS tablet is released, it will quickly take over corporate environments.

 

[heatlesssun]

And in businesses, "fun and interesting" aren't considerations. "Does it work?", and "Don't change it if it does" are. In businesses, when an application works you don't do major rewrites; I have lost count of the number of apps I maintain that were written in the 95 days that people still rely on. Sure, they look dated...but they work, and their users would be highly annoyed if the app were ported to a new interface.

No, businesses will not be using metro apps any time soon.

I work in the largest of the large of corporate IT environments and understand what you're saying. I also know that there are a ton of these old applications that if they ever needed updating, no one would even know where to begin or even if the purpose they serve it still relevant to the business of if there isn't a better way.

Sure, businesses probably won't develop Metro apps in numbers for a number of years. I think Microsoft understands this as they recommended that businesses that were doing Windows 7 deployments to continue and know full well that businesses never are early adopters of new versions of Windows.

 

[daglesj]

At the end of the day all MS has to do is make Metro a switch-able option if you don't wish to run both desktop and Metro in parallel and re-add the Start button as an option too.

Then all the noise goes away. Going to be a stubborn thick skinned bastard that decides to stick with the current plan.

Options, customers love those.

 

[Arainach]

At the end of the day all MS has to do is make Metro a switch-able option if you don't wish to run both desktop and Metro in parallel and re-add the Start button as an option too.

Then all the noise goes away. Going to be a stubborn thick skinned bastard that decides to stick with the current plan.

Options, customers love those.

If they followed that plan, you'd still have people running the Windows 3.1 UI. At some point, progress needs to be made.

 

[brucedeluxe169]

If they followed that plan, you'd still have people running the Windows 3.1 UI. At some point, progress needs to be made.

Indeed, and using touch interfaces to replace traditional interfaces on the desktop is not the progress most of us want to see..

 

[Gorankar]

If MS was not pulling this bone head move with Metro, what would we be talking about?
The improved task manager, the faster boot times, the general snappiness of the new OS?

Metro has pretty much buried all other discussion regarding Win8. While I certainly agree that Metro is pretty much a waste on the desktop, and no start menu is beyond stupid, I wish there was more to Win8 than that. To be honest I am not seeing a great difference between Win7 and Win8, if you add a start menu and just click through metro.

 

[chinesepiratefood]

Even excluding Metro, you could easily argue Windows 8 has more changes compared to 7 than 7 did compared to Vista.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Just thought I'd post this opinion from Ars basically regarding this discussion...
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/ne...re-the-windows-8-consumer-preview.ars?src=ggl

It talks about how the operating system works on both desktop and tablet configurations. And general opinions on how well Metro works.

 

[heatlesssun]

At the end of the day all MS has to do is make Metro a switch-able option if you don't wish to run both desktop and Metro in parallel and re-add the Start button as an option too.

Then all the noise goes away. Going to be a stubborn thick skinned bastard that decides to stick with the current plan.

Options, customers love those.

No the noise might go away but then there are other problems. If Metro and the Start Screen could easily be disabled then the desire to create Metro apps is dramatically reduced and then you have for the first time Windows with two different UI. And you really can't disable Metro in Windows 8, it's the new API and too many things depend on it.

If Microsoft doesn't commit to Metro and the Start Screen, no one else will. Yes there will be growing pains but tablets are simply too important and touch UIs are simply becoming a way of life in how people use computers.

 

[heatlesssun]

Indeed, and using touch interfaces to replace traditional interfaces on the desktop is not the progress most of us want to see..

It's not the progress SOME want to see. There's simply far too many Windows users out there to make that kind of judgment call based on the grumblings of a relatively paltry few advanced Windows users.

 

[bigdogchris]

Even excluding Metro, you could easily argue Windows 8 has more changes compared to 7 than 7 did compared to Vista.

And you would lose that argument. Other than a ribbon Windows Explorer on the desktop (because you excluded Metro), what has changed other than a few new features? 7 was a total ground up kernel rebuild.

 

[Gorankar]

Heatlessun, MS and you are going to have to show the others and myself that Metro will be better received on the desktop in the regular world than it is in this thread. The proof will be in the sales numbers, the number of downgrades to Win 7, and the number of downloads of software like ViStart. I believe that if they do not bring back the start menu, and place a big ass flashing arrow saying "Click this button to use your PC like you always have.", on the Metro screen desktop icon on first boot, that MS will have have guaranteed Win8 and Metro receives even worse treatment than Vista did.

 

[heatlesssun]

Heatlessun, MS and you are going to have to show the others and myself that Metro will be better received on the desktop in the regular world than it is in this thread. The proof will be in the sales numbers, the number of downgrades to Win 7, and the number of downloads of software like ViStart. I believe that if they do not bring back the start menu, and place a big ass flashing arrow saying "Click this button to use your PC like you always have.", on the Metro screen desktop icon on first boot, that MS will have have guaranteed Win8 and Metro receives even worse treatment than Vista did.

You're correct, the proof will be in sales numbers. But a button that brings back to classic UI that people have been bitching and complaining about for over 20 years isn't going to be much of a victory for Microsoft.

 

[XOR != OR]

You're correct, the proof will be in sales numbers. But a button that brings back to classic UI that people have been bitching and complaining about for over 20 years isn't going to be much of a victory for Microsoft.

Wait, people complain about the classic UI?

I see this more as a New Coke situation. Remember back in the 80s when the coca cola company "fixed" coke? Ya, neither do I; I remember they introduced a change nobody wanted, but that's about it ( and, relevantly, changed it back very quickly ). I very much see Metro as the modern day equivalent.

 

[daglesj]

What makes me laugh are folks going "oh yeah but you see Windows Mobile will soon be the standard for corporations and Windows Tablets too!"

Really? That's not what my IT buddies in the corporations are telling me. That's not what I see when I go down to London to meet my City buddies.

The corps are moving to iPhone and even iPads are being hooked into networks as standard. It's iPhone everywhere now. No one wants WinMo7.

Maybe its different in Armpit, Arizona but in London it's Apple 1 : Microsoft Nil.

I bet New York, Paris, Berlin etc.isn't radically different.

I think the only way MS could make a major dent in the phone and tablet industry is to give the gear away for free.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Even excluding Metro, you could easily argue Windows 8 has more changes compared to 7 than 7 did compared to Vista.

of course. but the big difference is, almost all the changes in windows 7 you can't even see or access yet it makes a huge difference between vista and 7. almost all the changes in windows 8 pretty much slap you in the face. personally i hate the metro UI and theres no chance in hell i'm going to windows 8.. tried for about 10 minutes on my laptop and promptly deleted it and the partition and went back to windows 7. i'm sure the UI works great for touch screen devices, but guess what.. i don't friggin own one nor want one so why the heck should i have to deal with it on my desktop?

 

[chinesepiratefood]

And you would lose that argument. Other than a ribbon Windows Explorer on the desktop (because you excluded Metro), what has changed other than a few new features? 7 was a total ground up kernel rebuild.

Not even close, Vista was built from the ground up, and Windows 7 just tweaked Vista.

 

[XOR != OR]

What makes me laugh are folks going "oh yeah but you see Windows Mobile will soon be the standard for corporations and Windows Tablets too!"

Really? That's not what my IT buddies in the corporations are telling me. That's not what I see when I go down to London to meet my City buddies.

The corps are moving to iPhone and even iPads are being hooked into networks as standard. It's iPhone everywhere now. No one wants WinMo7.

Maybe its different in Armpit, Arizona but in London it's Apple 1 : Microsoft Nil.

I bet New York, Paris, Berlin etc.isn't radically different.

I think the only way MS could make a major dent in the phone and tablet industry is to give the gear away for free.

Not exactly. Right now Apple has the lead because it's about the only game in town. However, corporations need central management of devices, something which is severely lacking in Apple's offerings. Once MS releases a product which addresses that need expect to see a shift in momentum.

Of course, this highlights MS's lack of market research again; they should have had something to address this 6 months after the first ipad made a splash. Yet here we are, several years later, and they are only just barely getting their act together.

 

[daglesj]

Thing is though just how many staff in a 5000+ sized organisation will actually be able to justify the need for a tablet? If the tablet costs say $500 in the shop then the corporate supported rate is probably $1500+. If the workers need a laptop or desktop and a smartphone to do their 'serious' work on then that's quite a cost. Plus gadget envy creeps in, one exec gets one and they all have to have on whether they need it or not.

We all know the tech pigs, the ones that have to have the company smartphone, non smartphone, the blackberry, the laptop, the desktop and the tablet. The fact they only use the laptop is neither here nor there, they have to have everything. We had folks like that then we cracked down on them and limited them to just what their job entailed. There were some tears but we clawed back a fortune in gear.

The liability of having hundreds of tablets in a corporation is not something that appeals to a lot of IT managers.

 

[daglesj]

Not even close, Vista was built from the ground up, and Windows 7 just tweaked Vista.

I think the story is that the Vista team had spent a couple of years trying to sort out what was going to be the Vista codebase but it was going badly. It was a mess and just causing all sorts of headaches and issues.

Then one day the Project leader was walking past an office at MS and found a small group working on a really clean version of Server 2003. They had tidied it up and tweaked it for some work they were doing.

So that codebase was copied over to the Vista team and worked started from scratch on that code. Hence why Vista took so long.

Thats what I read anyway.

 

[daglesj]

OUCH! Good point.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57399248-75/microsofts-metro-does-it-need-itunes-to-thrive/

 

[XOR != OR]

Thing is though just how many staff in a 5000+ sized organisation will actually be able to justify the need for a tablet? If the tablet costs say $500 in the shop then the corporate supported rate is probably $1500+. If the workers need a laptop or desktop and a smartphone to do their 'serious' work on then that's quite a cost. Plus gadget envy creeps in, one exec gets one and they all have to have on whether they need it or not.

We all know the tech pigs, the ones that have to have the company smartphone, non smartphone, the blackberry, the laptop, the desktop and the tablet. The fact they only use the laptop is neither here nor there, they have to have everything. We had folks like that then we cracked down on them and limited them to just what their job entailed. There were some tears but we clawed back a fortune in gear.

The liability of having hundreds of tablets in a corporation is not something that appeals to a lot of IT managers.

True, but irrelevant to what I was saying; once a decent, manageable MS tablet exists, it will quickly displace apple in the corporate environment due to the management tools that come built in to the OS ( assume a need exists for tablets for a moment. It's a niche device, certainly, and application specific, but a need does exist in a variety of settings ).

It's weird to have watched this stuff from BES to now; BES was a good step for it's time, but they never really progressed much beyond their initial concept. Even with that, if you want to manage and secure devices, they are still the best game in town. Yet even with that, Apple/Android and even MS are now offering such compelling features that many corporations are "doing without" the management features they previously used. Now, it's kind of a race between these three; who can give the consumers what they want AND offer the manageability of BES/RIM devices?

MS looks to be going after that crown, and while I'm a little surprised it's taken them this long to get going, I'm even more surprised the other vendors don't even seem to have been pursuing this.

 

[wonderfield]

Apple could fairly easily release an ARM version of iTunes for Windows 8 ARM tablets...if Microsoft allowed third-party developers that opportunity, that is.

 

[Numan]

OUCH! Good point.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57399248-75/microsofts-metro-does-it-need-itunes-to-thrive/

iTunes needs to DIAF so this is probably a good thing. Aren't all the iThings sharing to and from and iclouding their crap anyway? My wife's ithings do, even if she's aware of it or not. Point being, iTunes shouldn't be needed, just setup and do your thing on the device.

Ironically iTunes is the old, same UI, cruddy running thing that was needed years ago for the clickwheel ipods but isn't needed at all anymore thanks to more recent mobile device OSs, yet people are making articles about a Metro version of iTunes... Can you see the parallel here?