Seems to me there's a simple and major error in this document. Figure 2 shows storage latency in nanoseconds for a spinning disk... I don't know what kind of spinning disks they're using... maybe alien technology?

The site you linked requires registration to actually see the posted benchmark score. Can you give a summary?

I don't think the marketing that MS has put out so far makes it clear enough that there are two different Windows 8s. The Windows 8 RT on the tablet abandons one of the primary historical Windows selling points, that is, legacy software compatibility.

In addition, from what I can tell so far, the current Surface with RT (as opposed to the upcoming Surface Pro) abandons another of MS traditional selling points - business integration: It doesn't integrate with active directory or group policy, and it doesn't have Outlook. In fact it implements a bunch of consumer-centric stock apps (Music, News, etc.) that I think are going to be the opposite of a selling point for the business market.

You only have to look at Vista and 7's Gadgets to see how well Microsoft has previously done pushing developers to a new app GUI. That said, I'm sure that if they stick with it this Windows 8 Applications concept, maybe they'll have a legitimate application ecosystem by the time Windows 9 rolls around. That said, a promise of perserverance and future legitimacy doesn't make me want to go out and buy a Surface right now.

I also understand that MS is planning to remove one of Surface's last remaining legitimate selling points by offering Office on iOS and Android.

The seeming incompetence of this new plan astounds me. Oh and how about that Windows Server 2012 with the new 'Metro' start interface? Why?? Did someone at MS think that system admins wanted to connect touch screens to their servers?

While I agree with your main statement: (Larger, cheaper SSDs would be nice even if we had to live with them being a bit slower), your estimates of hard disk and SSD speeds are pretty far off.

Yes, the SATA 6Gb/s standard supports up to about maybe 600MB/s in practical operation. No, mechanical hard disks do not approach 400MB/s (let alone >400MB/s). The fastest mechanical hard disks on the market right now might get you 170MB/s maximum in a sequential benchmark (read: not a real-world scenario), and only when reading from the fastest part of the disk.
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/WD-VelociRaptor-600GB-Fastest-HD-Ever/?page=6

The fastest SATA SSDs are pushing maybe 300MB/s in these benchmarks, and usually only for read speeds. The reason people are seeing such disproportionate performance improvements with SSDs is access latency. The fastest hard disk might have 6.0ms average latency. SSDs are usually below 0.1ms.

I never said I would use it. I'm just saying that whatever you were using it in 1990, it would still do those things and faster on a modern machine.

DOS (including versions from 1990 or even earlier) still works unmodified on the latest hardware. Might only format 2GB partitions or somesuch but it works and AFAIK it would be proportionately faster on new hardware.

I suspect an old Linux kernel would still run on new hardware too. As long as you are still satisfied with the functions those operating systems support they could still be a viable alternative.

Guess what. Linux developers actually WRITE most of the drivers for Linux THEMSELVES with very little help from hardware manufacturers, for FREE! In contrast, it seems like MS couldn't even be bothered to make an effort to work with hardware manufacturers in order to get stable drivers out in a reasonable time for Vista users.

I don't think this is a fair comparison. Switching from one version of a given distribution of Linux to the next is much different than going from XP to Vista. Your settings are preserved, your GUI is close to identical unless you've decided to move to a new major release or a different GUI altogether. Basically there is a whole lot more choice involved in exactly what parts of the OS you are upgrading and what kind of learning curve you want to deal with

Generally new changes aren't forced down your throat like with MS Windows. Things aren't moved around in the GUI for no reason, application compatibility usually only gets better, and worse comes to worse you can get out your wallet and bribe a package maintainer to repackage whatever application you need for the latest version of your distro. Personally I would much rather talk to a Linux developer than with Microsoft Support.

The average Microsoft user BUYS a new OS when he buys his new PC. There, fixed that for you.

It is a pushy upgrade if the customer doesn't want the new OS and would be happy to buy the new PC at a discount with no OS, get rid of his old PC, and continue to use his current XP license on his new PC. It is a pushy upgrade if the customer is being forced to a new GUI and new program incompatibilities because of lack of bugfix support by the OS manufacturer.

I concur. Your post is both funny and insightful. One time I complained to faculty about the reading material in an operating system class (at a university which I will not mention here), and was basically told that the reason the material was factually incorrect was because things change so often in the CS world. I argued that there were plenty of books written decades ago that were still completely relevant. I was told that those books were few and far between - which is true, but irrelevant AFAICT. I dropped this line of questioning, got an A in the class, and remained frustrated about the ineffectiveness (and in some cases outright falseness) of our assigned reading material.