My kids get iPads from K-5 and then Macbooks from 6-12. I can tell you that they do nothing more than use a bunch of websites, write papers, and play Minecraft. A whole lot of money for a video game/web device.

Excel. That's the killer app. Until Excel works on Linux, nothing else will take over.

I don't think that's the kind of "remote" the article is talking about. Timezone issues are the same whether the team is "remote" or not. Global companies have people "on-site" all around the world.

What happens in three years when their CIO has moved on to another job, the economy takes a bit of a downturn, and the next CIO doesn't want to spend a bajllion capital dollars on upgrades? Pay-as-you-go will always be a better option.

Not out of the question, but I predict that "next year" is too quick.

I wouldn't say it's the end of Windows on the desktop, but it does feel like Windows Server has only a release or two more before it's done. Azure is being built around open source systems, .Net Core and PowerShell are cross platform, and there is a ton of work being put into making Windows 10 a better open source development platform. Maybe that's all to get the Windows software engineers accustomed to working with Linux so Windows Server can slowly be phased out???

Really? What is their leadership team thinking? Even if they take off, the revenue from a $2000 bike is dwarfed by that on an SUV, and there are already established players in the market.

Software engineers and business analysts may love it, but when you're updating stuff too often, it becomes a mighty headache to the end user. MS is simply too big to go this way with Windows....you can't update a billion devices 2x a year without something breaking.

With fingers that aren't "that small", how do you ever input your password successfully?

That is all.

Microsoft made some serious effort toward unifying a desktop, tablet, and phone into a single unit with the Display Dock. Paired with UWP apps, this was a pretty slick little setup. Too bad the Windows phone platform never took off. https://www.microsoft.com/en-u...

100% uptime, until the first disk fails.

I've worked from home now for 5 years and never want to go back to an office daily. The work I do, though, has been setup such that working from wherever actually "works". We have a central system to plan the work, open communication channels on Slack, Skype for Business, or even phone calls (haven't gotten one in about 4 years, though). There are a few things I've learned:
1. You have to be okay with people just dropping in on you via Slack or something similar. The only time you can't allow it is when you're in a meeting or really working heads down on something complex. When someone pings, you respond. It's the digital analog (oxymoron) to passing in the hallway...
2. You need to be flexible about your time. Getting a ping at 7pm has to be okay with you if you're working with people from other time zones.
3. You do need occasional team get togethers. These are great for everyone, including the folks who actually are in the office. I used to go to the office for a week per quarter, and now it's more like a week every 6 months. 3 days is probably enough, but there has to be some face time. The best for me would probably be 3 days per quarter, but I can live with my current setup.
4. I, personally, have to have people around me, so I work from Starbucks or the library quite a bit. I'm fortunate in that I don't have a lot of critical meetings, so the background noise hasn't hurt me yet. I think a co-work place would be even cooler, but I don't have one around me and I'm afraid they'd be more expensive than my $2.50 cup of coffee a day.

Renting software really sucks when you have to pay for it yourself for your own use. I don't think that the subscription model is really that bad, though, for corporations. The subscription makes the annual cost predictable and you can budget for things. It also keeps rogue IT guys from installing too many copies of the software, thus putting the company at risk of an audit.

You've never actually "owned a copy" of a piece of software anyway. The licensing agreements let you use it for whatever period that you clicked Accept to in the license terms. The subscription model just flattens the cost out of a set number of years, instead of forcing companies to pay a ton up front and then having users fight for upgrades again 3-4 years later.

Now, for home use, it blows. I'm sorry, but I have no reason to personally pay for software that I can get an alternative for for free.

Is that a Chinese knockoff of HP? WTH?