gshaw

Nope, it's a "Microsoft online services" account or ADFS federation. The only accounts that will have LiveIDs are legacy ones that already have SkyDrive.

I became very wary of motherboard NIC chipsets a few years back and had anything we were going to buy in volume in on test to double check what it came with before committing to purchase. Had enough aggro with non-Intel NICs and didn't want that again - generally anything from the cheaper range of HP \ Lenovo \ Dell has the nasty NICs in and the Pro ranges have proper Intel ones onboard.

Seems a right waste of time and effort having to get everyone to install an app manually each time they need one to do an activity but I guess that's the Apple way that's got into people's heads these days eh

Seeing as there's one more generation of Intel boards left I'd imagine the OEMs must be having negotiations with one of the big 3 to offer an equivalent platform as I can't see them being able to offer a viable product otherwise.

Also check out www.windows-noob.com as the step by step guides on there are spot on for getting a working system up and running... best way to learn imo rather than sitting and reading through a 500 page book and still never having seen the real thing in action

I can see it now... propietary locked down rebranded Dell hardware with locked down Win8 bootloader to complete the Micro-Apple conversion MS seem to be attempting to do at the moment

Stone, Viglen & co won't be pleased at this news - it's the only way they've been able to provide a stable platform for their products as 3rd party stuff has poor quality NICs \ drivers and the product ranges change lige the wind

If for once we get a direct price translation I'd be very interested - that said knowing the usual rip-off UK pricing it'll probably be another £100 on top taking it to £799 or above

And therein lies the problem. Microsoft for some reason seem to have designed Windows 8 as if all networked managed machines are going to disappear overnight and be replaced by pure BYOD the next morning. Maybe that may be the onward trend but the product has been released for today where most places still have at most a mixed environment and need managed devices as part of their provision. For those users MS is basically forcing them to stay with Windows 7 even if they wanted to move to 8... businesses won't care as it saves them licensing an OS upgrade but it's not doing MS any favours as 8 has hardly been a resounding success in the retail market either. Almost seems like they're abandoning the one thing they had as their USP (enterprise management) in favour of following Apple (badly). If you want a poorly managed device for BYOD get an iPad, the users will appreciate the shiny logo at least...

@Arthur they should've released the Surface RT with full enterprise management features i.e. domain join, SCCM management (not InTune, come on do you really want another management platform having set up System Center?!) etc not the ridiculous cut down "home use only" experience MS have forced solely to extract more $$$ for the Surface Pro. In the meantime the lack of decent Win8 hardware must have Apple doing the happy dance as they ponder iPad4. Probably too late now but an RT for £400 that could work as a standard domain machine but only run Metro apps + Office would've sold like hot cakes. Would also have kept people on the better Metro tablet experience as their first look at Win8 rather than concentrating on how irritating it is to use in Desktop mode. On a tablet it's a much better proposition and may have helped offset the negativity around the ropey desktop user experience. Instead RT is looking like a white elephant that's neither here nor there. I think it's fair to say you're probably the most clued up on here when it comes to Win8 so if you can give me a technical reason why an RT can't be an enterprise machine I'm all ears. Seeing as MS have managed to port the whole of the OS and Office 2013 to ARM I doubt that's the reason somehow so what else can it be apart from profit margins?

Maplin would be stuffed if RS / Rapid Electronics would sort put their ludicrous postage costs. Priced up some LEDs from Rapid... about a fiver for the LEDs with £8 p&p?! Lovefilm is useless for games, the new releases are always conveniently out of stock. GAME must still be on the edge as well...

Like the WinRT debacle it's putting profit before technology \ usability, I expect that kind of attitude from Apple but MS going down the same road is really disappointing

Good info from @Arthur but what a stupid design (or lack thereof from MS) that turns a simple installation into a multi step waste of time and effort. Attention to detail, especially for those who have to run the systems every day goes a long way and seems to be sorely lacking from the current releases (Metro app deployment etc)

I've been trying to learn to like the Start screen but I think if I had to use Win8 daily as my only OS I'd install one of those to get jump lists back for documents (I hate the idea of having loads of pinned Taskbar items so that's not an option). I also find the jarring move between Desktop and Metro mode very distracting, the only workaround being Winkey+R and remembering the paths for any non-standard apps I want to use... not exactly efficient Two options to solve this without needing a Start Ment (imo) - enable an indexed search box for Winkey+R in Desktop mode instead of needing the Start screen - create a slide out panel from the right of the screen to launch apps whilst in Desktop mode Either or would make the process of starting an extra program much slicker and less distracting

It's the inconsistency that's really killing the product - with 8 you often have that feeling of "what interface am I going to get now?" Ironically despite rushing Win8 to market to compete with the iPad the hardware available isn't up to scratch for the OS (imo) so in 20:20 hindsight MS really could've waited another couple of months and had some decent tablets (including Surface Pro) sorted as well as a while longer to sort out the UI issues. Whether they'll get a 2nd chance with an SP1 re-release with more suitable hardware is debatable, the market may have given up and moved on by then which could really spell trouble for Microsoft.

SCCM is great for imaging, the automation and reporting makes life so much easier once you get it all set up. I was using 2007 so can't comment on 2012 but seems pretty similar, just a prettier GUI which is always good

I got my SLR from Jessops as I wanted to pick it up in person rather than have it thrown around by a delivery company but the buying experience was a pain - to get the same price in-store I had to buy it online through my phone and wait while the order got processed in the system before they would hand it over. Could understand if it was a price match scheme but it was the same company! I reckon there could be a place in the market to use some of these vacant retail units as some sort of shared distribution centre for brands like Jessops who could then use them as a showroom \ pickup point but conduct the majority of the business online. Seems like many businesses can't justify all these individual high-street shops but maybe a different model could work?

The design and build looks spot on, all comes down to the price point now

Which ones did you find to be the deal breakers that aren't in there? On the hardware side again you prove the point at the top of the page that the MS devices are just too pricey for what they are.

EES = Office installed locally everywhere EES = Office 365 everywhere, free with EES for the standard package Wouldn't bother running an internal SharePoint now for most reasonably sized organisations as the 365 version would do the trick for student \ staff collaboration. File storage however can go wherever you prefer it to be and doesn't have to be all-or-nothing i.e. put your file shares where you want and use as much \ little of the cloud service to suit your needs. Cost = same as what you pay for Office anyway (unless you've junked it completely for Google Apps, not many people gone down that road yet as far as I know)

Not if you want the full powered MS Office experience rather than cut-down Google Apps - not everyone wants 100% cloud and Google in charge of their data. Microsoft has a better blend of internal \ cloud that you can choose how far you want to go, rather than Google's "you're in or you're out" stance. Why would I want to be forced to use a cut down web-based management product if I've invested in the all-encompassing SCCM infrastructure for everything else? Why would I want to be restricted to what policies I can apply when I have powerful GPO control for the rest of my network? As it stands the device is a 2nd class citizen in terms of the rest of the Microsoft product range and it really doesn't need to be. Interestingly in the graphic posted above I thought SCCM 2012 could manage Android devices and didn't need InTune or has that changed?

Personally I think the hardware side of Windows 8 thus far has been really poor. Nothing of good enough quality \ price point to become a "must have" over an iPad or Android tablet. Microsoft had a chance to do something big with the Surface but seem to have squandered the opportunity. Granted some may say this is to keep the OEMs on-side but they've not exactly busted a gut to make that allowance worthwhile (imo) I still think preventing businesses using Windows RT is a big fail, spoke to more people today and they think exactly the same I do... what they want is an affordable, secure device to edit Office files on the go that links up seamlessly with their internal network and the cloud. They want that device to cost no more than the equivalent iPad, to be thin \ light with decent battery life. Surface RT ticks the boxes if it could be properly managed... instead it's looking like a white elephant that doesn't suit home or business users. Looking for a laptop for work use at the moment, considered the touchscreen convertibles but the (OTT) price increase over similarly specced standard laptops doesn't make them a viable option and renders the touchscreen an expensive gimmick rather than core feature.

Nail on head, also why I still think MS were crazy charging such (comparatively) high prices for the Surface devices... real opportunity missed there imo

I think I'm leaning towards the Lenovo T430s, I'm a big fan of the scrabble tile Lenovo keyboards having had a couple of them now (x100e, E330, E530) and the rest of the package seems pretty decent.

I'm looking for a work-spec laptop at the moment, something solid \ portable with enough grunt to last easily 3-5 years of moving around regularly. Considered a tablet-esque convertible but still seems a bit gimmicky for real tech work so options seem to be... ThinkPad T430s - hard-working, rock-solid business laptop from Lenovo (US) Latitude E6430 Details Would go for an i5, probably 8GB RAM, any thoughts on either of the above?