Database Users

Android 3.0 Platform Highlights (and SDK preview)

"Android 3.0 is a new version of the Android platform that is specifically optimized for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets."
See
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/01/android-30-platform-preview-and-updated.html
and
http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-3.0-highlights.html
Would love to see this on our Archos gen8 devices, but I guess that is unlikely...
Here are some of the highlights:
UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices: Developers can use a new UI components, new themes, richer widgets and notifications, drag and drop, and other new features to create rich and engaging apps for users on larger screen devices.
High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation framework lets developers add great visual effects to their apps. A built-in GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of common 2D rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific activities or views. For adding rich 3D scenes, developers take advantage of a new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript.
Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance.
Rich multimedia: New multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through MTP/PTP, give developers new ways to bring rich content to users.
New types of connectivity: New APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP let applications offer audio streaming and headset control. Support for Bluetooth insecure socket connection lets applications connect to simple devices that may not have a user interface.
Enhancements for enterprise: New administrative policies, such as for encrypted storage and password expiration, help enterprise administrators manage devices more effectively.
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YES. This is awesome

Bonus video...
Motorola XOOM promo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI1qwLtTukw

You DO really think that 101 will get honeycomb? dont be fool

No.. not for gen8.. maybe for the next generation.
Honeycomb needs dual processor and 512MB of RAM.. It maybe could be used on a rooted gen8 device with swap RAM and overclocked CPU??

Tesla74 said:
No.. not for gen8.. maybe for the next generation.
Honeycomb needs dual processor and 512MB of RAM.. It maybe could be used on a rooted gen8 device with swap RAM and overclocked CPU??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Last i heard there was no requirement for Honeycomb, & that came from one of the Google employees. I'm trying to the the link where i saw this now.

Veritas06 said:
Last i heard there was no requirement for Honeycomb, & that came from one of the Google employees. I'm trying to the the link where i saw this now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those must be recommended specs I read. Still if that is what is recommended then it may have a hard time without it being rooted.

We've got ample processing power & 3D power to run honeycomb. The question will be : will Archos do their homework ? (their track record is not so good) and if not then will there be a community driven effort to build one.

"Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance." - that clearly implies the ability to run it on a single core processor.

usersky007 said:
"Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance." - that clearly implies the ability to run it on a single core processor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, on the emulator it is awfully slow, but that's true with 2.2 too. Included Apps are:
Browser, Calculator, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Custom Locale, Dev Tools, Downloads, Email, Gallery, Messaging, Music, Search, Settings, Spare Parts (!), Speech Recording.
Got quite a few launcher restarts when using it, maybe giving the emulator only 256MiByte RAM (as Archos Gen8) might be too few to work with.

From what I've heard, the emulator is slow regardless.

hope there will be an update to 3.0 for archos 101,but is the hardware powerful enough to run it?

Veritas06 said:
Last i heard there was no requirement for Honeycomb, & that came from one of the Google employees. I'm trying to the the link where i saw this now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
4qu4rius said:
We've got ample processing power & 3D power to run honeycomb. The question will be : will Archos do their homework ? (their track record is not so good) and if not then will there be a community driven effort to build one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
usersky007 said:
"Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance." - that clearly implies the ability to run it on a single core processor.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sokini_ said:
hope there will be an update to 3.0 for archos 101,but is the hardware powerful enough to run it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
read the previous posts ^

Hum, people have found this blue wallpaper?

lolo33 said:
Hum, people have found this blue wallpaper?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.androidcentral.com/wallpapers-ringtones-themes/56561-honeycomb-wallapers.html

I've found another source but thanks anyway.

Somebody already has it somewhat working on the Nook Color which is less powerful than the Archos. Here is the thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=930223
I wish I had the skills to do this myself or I would. Ah well, since it is working on one, maybe somebody will take the time to get it running on the Archos. I doubt Archos will, they will save it for Gen 9. They will probably release a 2.3 release though.

koltz said:
Somebody already has it somewhat working on the Nook Color which is less powerful than the Archos.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Running yes but very slow.

[Q] Windows 8

The new windows 8 will have arm tegra support, will I be able to install windows 8 on my xoom?

we'll see when it comes out.

The first public beta should be out within a month or so, and if you know where to look you should be able to find the very early alpha/beta leaks. I have no idea what level of work would be required to boot it on existing hardware or even if it's possible with the kit we have today

As far as I know, the main idea of windows 8 was the ability to run on a MUCH LARGER range of devices and architectures. They demoed win 8 on a ARM tablet a long time ago. Who knows what they have accomplished since then. All i know is that we would have a lot of re-partitioning to do on our xooms to fit win 8 on our limited /system partitions. But then again, idk if it will run on a Linux kernel. I only know the basics.
Just my 2¢

It could be run native, but I don't think it'll happen. The biggest loophole for Windows Phone 7 to be ported to Android is the fact that it's closed source. Therefore, there isn't been any developer trying to get WP7 running on an Android-phone. And therefore, I think the same loophole applies for Windows 8.

Vistaus said:
It could be run native, but I don't think it'll happen. The biggest loophole for Windows Phone 7 to be ported to Android is the fact that it's closed source. Therefore, there isn't been any developer trying to get WP7 running on an Android-phone. And therefore, I think the same loophole applies for Windows 8.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally forgot about it being closed source. >.> ....Well if win8 is put on a tegra device nativley(spelling?), then could porting it to our device be easier?

Yes, then it would be easier. Someone ported WebOS to an Android-phone that had nearly the same hardware despite being closed source, so it COULD be possible if it was put on Tegra2. But I doubt that, since Kal El is coming.

Its not windows 8 running on tegra...its the drivers....i don;t know who is gonna go through all the troubles making specific drivers for xoom...only thing i could hope for is that windows 8 has a big database for generic drivers that works...

well windows 8 dev downloads are available at 8pm PT (2hours from now) would we know about preloaded generic drivers then?

kenfly said:
well windows 8 dev downloads are available at 8pm PT (2hours from now) would we know about preloaded generic drivers then?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As per Engadget's review of win 8
ARM devices will be supported, but not in the developer preview
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHrcz7zcm_8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

I have the dev build, if I put it on a usb stick can't I just set my xoom to boot from usb
Kidding, Kidding. Anyway, I was thinking that since the xoom supports USB host, and should supports ARM, it should be installable like a normal computer if you can somehow boot the installer - and assuming there is at least basic driver support for the necessities.
I suppose they would also need to release an ARM build.

in essence yes
or even if there is a running arm version all we would really need is the install.wim...nothing else is really super important
But I am thinking that Microsoft is being strict with ARM because they may be designing it specifically for oems, so they may not have a general vendor license like with Microsoft laptops/computer/netbook

Yes Win8 will support ARM. No, the current dev build does not contain that code. The build number will be higher, they don't even have the setup done for ARM support yet. Windows 8 is not Windows 7 and will not be bound by the same restrictions when it comes to hardware as previous Windows versions have been. This includes application development. It will be easier then ever to create applications by simply using HTML5 and CSS3 for example.
When Windows 8 ARM support code does make its way into our hands I will be pushing this onto Tegra2 (Atrix4G) hardware asap. Stay tuned, because as soon as MS gives me the code I'm working on the port/drivers. Because these devices are SoC's you are not going to run into the same level of hardware issues with drivers as you may have previously. With a SoC, your support for that ARM SoC will/should include support for the entire SoC, nothing less. You should expect that at least. This includes, audio, video, network, etc. Everything is included on chip now. Welcome to the future folks. Forget what you thought it took to build a computer and realize that now everything is built onto a single chip die. It's really impressive. So impressive that IBM is now stacking these SoC's together with 3M adhesive which dessipates heat. This means you can have a CPU up to 1000 times faster than we have now and still not use up hardly any power or physical space in the package. Times are changing for sure.
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[W8 32b - TF810c] Blueastacks does not work :(

I have tried both Win7 and Win8 versions and no luck at all .
If I start Bluestack directly all I get is black screen with touch icons at the bottom of the window.
The only one that works is screen maximize.
If I start if through attached app I either get above mentioned black screen or it says loading and afterwards again goes to black screen.
Any ideas what I could do?
Does it allow to access Google Play (and apps I have already bought)?

No, it doesn't work. There might be an issue with the video drivers, HP envy x2 has some newer ones but they are buggy and make the screen flicker. Also might be that bluestacks is still beta.
Either way at how much CPU this program will use to emulate even the simplest apps I doubt it will be actually worth it.

Bec07 said:
Either way at how much CPU this program will use to emulate even the simplest apps I doubt it will be actually worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a copy and paste of a bit of text I wrote elsewhere:
Me_In_Another_Thread said:
Bluestacks involves ZERO emulation of ARM. Android apps are run inside the dalvik virtual machine (itself a register based version of the java virtual machine). To run an android app just needs a DVM and its class library: bluestacks pretty much does this. Android native code apps do then get complicated yes but then the android NDK has a rather convenient feature that bluestacks can exploit.
NDK compiles native binaries for both x86 and ARMv7 by default (note default, you can over-ride which platforms it compiles for, I believe ARMv6, ARMv6hf, ARMv7, MIPS and x86_32 are available options although I am not 100% sure on the exact arm versions so might be wrong). Bluestacks is only running on x86 and x86_64 machines. x86_64 machines can safely run x86_32 code. So really bluestacks when it encounters a native app "just" has to run the x86 binary the NDK produces on windows/mac with a compatibility layer. Still a complex job of course.
Bluestacks still has to mess about a bit exposing hardware to "android" correctly and handling a few extra bits and pieces but generally it works rather well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've seen bluestacks running angry birds on an intel atom based netbook. Wasn't as snappy as on a galaxy note 2 but it worked, actually played better than on my old orange san francisco/ZTE blade. Still lagged a little on level loading but once you let the physics settle down you could take your first shot no problem and carry on playing from there. Envy uses a newer gen of intel atoms anyway which are supposedly much better.
I haven't had the screen issues with bluestacks myself but I run it on a full desktop PC with updated drivers and a dedicated GPU etc.

I see what you mean, in the end it might be worth it. All I did was send an error report to Bluestacks but I think more can be done.
The HP Envy X2 uses the Atom Z2760 SoC, as does the VivoTab and all Atom windows 8 tablets to date (the ones released in the past few months to be precise). The latest Envy driver pack installs without issues but instead may cause some. Namely with docking, sometimes the 2nd battery won't be recognized and charged, the mousepad might behave strange and screen flickering that occurs randomly but is easily fixed, (standby->back from standby).
You can give it a try but I recommend backing up your current drivers.

Not working on my vaio as well.In fact it is failing during installation due to graphics card compatibility.Mine is ATI Radeon 7670M..what could be the problem?

galtom said:
I have tried both Win7 and Win8 versions and no luck at all .
If I start Bluestack directly all I get is black screen with touch icons at the bottom of the window.
The only one that works is screen maximize.
If I start if through attached app I either get above mentioned black screen or it says loading and afterwards again goes to black screen.
Any ideas what I could do?
Does it allow to access Google Play (and apps I have already bought)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Jar of Beans
I find it better than bluestacks
There is a similar Project called WindowsAndroid

Thanks, The ill try that.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

I had to use an older version (beta 1, iirc) for it to work on my Vivotab smart. Performance was a dog though.

goofball2k said:
I had to use an older version (beta 1, iirc) for it to work on my Vivotab smart. Performance was a dog though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Works great on my Surface Pro! Even with Instagram!

EMINENT1 said:
Works great on my Surface Pro! Even with Instagram!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For 3 hours or so?

Bec07 said:
For 3 hours or so?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes! Along with Flash video and multiple windows at the same time!
You know with true multitasking, I get three things done 3 times faster, just in time for the 3 hrs.

Yeah, so does the TF810C, it's an X86 cpu and it plays flash like the ARM version for 10 hours or so... You know, like a real tablet, not something as heavy as a netbook with 1/3 of the battery life.
Do you even have a relevant contribution for this thread?

Pots and kettles, Bec07. If you don't like a mobile computer with a 5-hour battery life, that's your call... but it's even less relevant to the thread than what EMINENT1 is posting. Keep it civil and keep it on topic, please.

EMINENT1 said:
Works great on my Surface Pro! Even with Instagram!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure given Surface Pro has a much faster processor than the Z2760. TF810C doesn't run the same processor as the Surface Pro though, it runs the same Atom as the Vivotab Smart so OP may find performance not acceptable.

I tried BS on a samsung S7 with an i5 processor. It worked fine, I guess, but the screen resolution in BS was bad.
Uninstalling it was a pain. The uninstaller froze every time and did nothing. I had just created an image so I will just restore that instead of messing with the uninstaller.
BS is definitely in beta stages...
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app

It works on my TF810C
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edgarpo said:
It works on my TF810C
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Good to know. I am considering getting one. That said, I dont really need bluestacks but then I guess there isnt a reason to not get it.
Can bluestacks apps be installed to microSD rather than the internal storage?

Why not try Jar of Beans.
It works fine for me on Win7 and Win8. Plus it has full Play Store support, root, etc....

the_scotsman said:
Why not try Jar of Beans.
It works fine for me on Win7 and Win8. Plus it has full Play Store support, root, etc....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The TF810C does not have HAXM support. It will be a slow experience.

Android compatibility confirmed and more!

http://jolla.com/media/documents/130916_press_release.pdf
Sailfish OS runs on common Android hardware
Jolla has made a major breakthrough in Android hardware compatibility by developing Sailfish OS to run on
common hardware produced for Android, particularly smartphones and tablets. Vendors interested to utilize
Sailfish OS are now able to develop phones and tablets based on many different chipset and hardware
configurations. This new level of compatibility will enable device vendors who use Sailfish OS to fully utilize the
existing Android hardware ecosystem.
Jolla believes that this breakthrough offers growth opportunities of significant scale for Sailfish OS globally,
especially in China. “We believe Sailfish with Android compatibility is a highly relevant mobile operating system
option for major mobile companies in Europe and in Asia. We are already in discussions with several major Asian
vendors regarding this opportunity,” says Tomi Pienimäki.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really hope that now I can get an Android port for my Xperia T

I was actually just recently imagining sailfish running on my gnex, hope it can became a reality, or even on the future nexus 5 or G2. Now that would be awesome.

zacomaco said:
I was actually just recently imagining sailfish running on my gnex, hope it can became a reality, or even on the future nexus 5 or G2. Now that would be awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If installing the OS on android hw by us will be that easy than how would they make money? Hopefully other companies will pay for it.

goosebumps4 said:
If installing the OS on android hw by us will be that easy than how would they make money? Hopefully other companies will pay for it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mainly for exposure and to create interest like ubuntu attempted with their builds for the nexus devices earlier in the year.

uh oh! will you look at all those apps.
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Arty. said:
uh oh! will you look at all those apps.
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Congrats to all jolla fans. Now i will see around about the most wright android device to buy and install jolla on it =

Apparently they will announce the specs this week
(http://m.digitoday.fi/?page=showSingleNews&newsID=201312920 ... use google translate )

Was going to come here and write about this but you were faster! Couldn't do it at work. But most importantly, just tipped this! Hopefully we'll see it in XDA portal/news

-.-SayaN-.- said:
So possible to run dual boot :angel: :fingers-crossed:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well looks like Sailfish OS will support nexus devices in the near future!!!
View attachment 2265880
https://twitter.com/JollaHQ/status/380226774698696704

zacomaco said:
well looks like Sailfish OS will support nexus devices in the near future!!!
View attachment 2265880
https://twitter.com/JollaHQ/status/380226774698696704
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
without the official support of jolla.

Is there any hardware restriction of jolla OS?
Or the list of device which are available to run this OS smoothly like a charm?

Nope, but Jolla show us last year, that sailfish os works good on nokia N950/N9. N9 has 1 Ghz single Core and 1GB Ram.

kevin12lin said:
Or the list of device which are available to run this OS smoothly like a charm?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sailfish is not available, so there is such list. There is no source code, and no binaries available.

Sailfish OS will you libhybris for running on top of android hw.
here is QML demo on Qt5 on libhybris on Qualcomm chipset.
So atleast there is no major problems with 3D aceleration

don't get it
why do we need a whole new OS? if the apps and the HW is android, why not just create an elaborate android skin and be done with it? by the end of the day, this is what it is- a glorified android skin...
BTW, this is just a comment, not an attack...

natalietsur said:
why do we need a whole new OS? if the apps and the HW is android, why not just create an elaborate android skin and be done with it? by the end of the day, this is what it is- a glorified android skin...
BTW, this is just a comment, not an attack...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why another android skin? Why not create a whole new OS? If, 5 years ago, Google think like you today we haven't Android. It's the same story that repeat itself again, again and again...

natalietsur said:
why do we need a whole new OS? if the apps and the HW is android, why not just create an elaborate android skin and be done with it? by the end of the day, this is what it is- a glorified android skin...
BTW, this is just a comment, not an attack...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SailfishOS is free as in freedom, Android is not that free
Gesendet von meinem Nexus 4 mit Tapatalk

Someone posted instructions on how to port the SDK image of Sailfish over to N9 on jollausers.com . This is only the basic UI and it's missing all the main Jolla apps like calls, maps, mail, browser, sms, camera, etc.. It's just for dev's so they can test their apps.
From that page comments section
username mike7b4 his comment lays it down for you:
--
Notice that Jolla will never have full resources to FULLY port Sailfishos to N9.
What they will do is probadly update the image guide at merproject wiki how to make sailfish image from kickstart file etc…
Then its upto the community to make:
1. GFX driver with Wayland work smooth most important issue. So if you are a GFX hacker start work
2. Make GPS work (those bits are closed source so we have to reverse engineer that stuff because GPS lacks public specs how the Nokia propirairity binary protocol works
3. Make NFC work (same here the daemon in Harmattan is closed source, maybe we can use midlayer from android via libhybris or rewite from scratch)
4. Make sure dialing/sms works and make an UI or use nemo UI because AFAIK that bits is not included in sailfishSDK?
5. Settings app for wifi etc.. Here we can probadly reuse nemo settings apps that is okey
6. Make camera work again right now its not working sice X11 -> Wayland AFAIK
7. Make wifi working(it actually works we just need to make the nemo settings app work)
8. Make USB SDK mode not disconnect
Stuff that we probadly never will see:
1. Core sailfish apps like GPS app/cameraapp and so on.
2. Android Compability layer.
But right now the most important step IMHO is to make sure USB/Wifi connections works so developers can test our sailfish apps on a real device when waiting for our Jollas
--
I'm not a developer but this guy sounds like he knows what needs to be done.

Windows Next = Windows x86 + Windows RT + Windows Phone (+ XBox??)

http://www.businessinsider.com/nadella-merges-windows-phone-windows-2014-7
"This means one operating system that covers all screen sizes," Nadella said to analysts on the quarterly conference call. "We will streamline the next version of Windows from three operating systems into one single converged operating system for screens of all sizes."
We've known that MS is on a big integration shtick for its OS'es at the kernel level, and the "universal apps" thingie was announced. But this above would be a major step up from that. The "one OS for all sizes" reaches WAY OUT THERE, way more out there than Win8's "one UI for all sizes" that it's hard to take this as credible, even though it's a direct quote from CEO man. I think we'd need to get more elaboration from Nad bud, and we will once the press gets this bit between their teeth and runs with it. Suffice it to say, I'll look forward to the Win.Next preview, supposedly coming some time this fall.
Welp at the least MS beeswax will enliven the watercooler chats, eh? I'm almost thinking that I might be wrong about Nad bud, that he may just turn out to be an interesting dude...OK no not really, but we live in hope.

Really depends how thoroughly they mean "one operating system". I mean, to a certain degree, that's already true. Win8.x, Server 2012 Rx, Windows RT 8.x, Windows Phone 8.x, and Xbox One all use the NT 6.2 or newer kernel, all support at least *some* common public APIs, all have many of the same APIs under the cover (OK, haven't verified on the XBOne, but it's probably true there too), all (again possible exception XBOne) use at least some of the same file systems, all have at least similar app sandboxing (moreso with 8.1 / NT 6.3 than with 6.2). I'm not sure about their bootloaders, but it's probably similar.
If they really want to unify the OS behaviors entirely, they're going to run into serious UI issues; essentially the unified OS will need to support everything from 3.5" 480x800 screens with no input but touch to multiple 35" 3740x2160 workstations with no touch input at all. Frankly, I don't see that happening at all.
OK, assume they're at least moderately sane about the UI and aren't going to try and make the phone and PC UIs more than approximately similar in a few respects (like it is now). They still can't actually port over all the various software that comes with the OS to each version; even the relatively stripped-down RT (which in some ways has less in-box software that the home PC versions of 8.x) has an install footprint larger, by itself, than many smartphones' internal capacity. So they'll need to customize the OS software and feature selection per platform, and probably is greater ways than just re-writing "pocket" versions of things like Management Console and Powershell.
OK, but they could still unify the core, right? After all, the difference between 8.x and RT, aside from the CPU instruction set, boils down to a single configuration change... but WP8.x has a very different core library layout (and is missing some functionality entirely). On the other hand, we know it's *possible* to run "normal" apps on WP8 given a suitably-compiled version and a way to launch them; the UpdateOS includes versions of things like CMD.EXE and FTPD.EXE that work even on the stock OS if you don't mind the requirement of running them in an app sandbox. So, why not eliminate the low-level differences?
Well, aside from the fact that this would make WP a bit bigger of install footprint (bad but possibly tolerable), the only "problem" that I can see is that this would make WP far more useful and would make RT not be a case of jailbreak-or-suck. That seems to be strongly antithetical to Microsoft's entire viewpoint where those platforms are concerned... but as you point out, MS has had a major change in leadership (careful, don't step in it) so hey, it could happen.
Or it could be a new CEO blowing hot air that means absolutely nothing. After all, WP8.1 is already about as close to Windows 8.1 as equivalently recent versions of iOS and OS X are (and Windows RT is closer) and really, letting Apple redefine concepts like "the same OS" is what the computing industry is all about these days. Why rock the boat? (Yes, most of this paragraph is sarcastic, aside from the first sentence or so.)

>Really depends how thoroughly they mean "one operating system". I mean, to a certain degree, that's already true.
Yeah, MS watchers said it's the same old--IOW, "foot, meet mouth" for Gandhi Man. Leadership is about many things, but most fundamental is communication. So far, dude is like a PR squawk box gone amok. "We're all about productivity, but we love XBox...Devices are no longer our emphasis, but we're going into the phone biz." Oh.
Re-Org 2.0 (sans 18K heads) + "metric-driven engineering" is Nadella's signature move to turn around MS. I'm taking bets.
Techwise, Win9 will be pretty minor. Short 1-yr cycle + need for 100% Win7 compat = old codebase stays intact. But a face-lift to show TLC for desktop will be welcomed. I think it will do OK, not so much because of improvements, but because the userbase is due for replacement buys, after sitting out the 3 years of Win8. People want an updated Win7, and Win9 will be that.
More important is how MS plans to re-jumpstart mobile, viz the reported "Mobile SKU" sans desktop. RT is at 0%, and WP clocks in at single digits. Win9 will dial back on pimping mobile, so no help on that front. The obvious draw is Office Touch, but bundled Office 2013 freebie had zip impact on sales.
OEMs got burned on RT and jumped off the bandwagon. How many of them will get back on will be a key prelim indicator for RT 2.0. After that, consumer buy-in will be the main hurdle, and dev support will be the third obstacle. In short, long odds.
MS needs an eye-popper. Barring some tech miracle, the usual fallback is pricing. Intel has gone all-out, spending billions in subsidy to get traction in mobile. How MS prices its coming toys will show its willingness to compete. My gauge is that both Windows (non-Pro) and Office will need to be free for consumers. Like right now. If MS had made WP7 a freebie from the start, WP wouldn't be scraping for scraps today. Now it's too late to challenge Android on phones, regardless of what MS does for WP. Office today is at the same crossroads where WP was at 3 years ago.
Leadership is also about the "vision thing"--being able to sift the tea leaves and act appropriately, not waiting until the competition beans you one upside the head. MS has gone flaccid for the last couple of decades, while sucking on the teats of its cash cows. We'll find out if Nadella can be "The One" in 2015. I've a soft spot for Gandhi Man, but he needs to show me more than a PR chatbot.

Now we know it: it's Windows 10
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It lags hehe