caedenv: I don't agree. The selling point of x86 tablets is the Windows(desktop) compatibility. For over a year, shiny $1200~1600 Win7 tablets from major players have been on the market. They are not flying off the shelves... actually, they are mail-order as no retail store seems to actually have these in stock. Win8 versions doesn't really change the price... the i5 CPU hardware isn't cheap. Some people are bitching about the $500~700 iPad pricing... how is an extra $600~800 going to sell? hint, they don't.
MS has been selling the tablet platform since 2001 with the release of XP... its a limited market for some business and hospitals. So it should do okay in the markets it does sell in, it won't come close to $350~600 iPads which have better screens and support.
WART tablets = fail. These $400~600 tablets are supposed to go against the iPad. No 3G or 4G models, only available from the 26 Microsoft stores in the world, no Apps (okay 10 or so), not compatible with the x86 windows... confusion of bait and switch... Imagine a customer buying a WART tablet and then finding out the needed to double their price to get what they were expecting?
WP8 Phones = Fail. MS keeps orphaning their phones with every release. This gets old. The limited # of WP7 will run (good)... I will guess in 3 years, MS may hit 6% market share of WP8, if they are lucky. The iPhone5 should be on the market by then and will just bury WP8. Apple will do to WP8 what they did to Amiga... they will IGNORE it... their guns are on Android. An Apple rep: "What is Windows Phone?"
Office 2013 = stagnant It will sell the same as it always does. Nobody is going to wet their pants to get their hands on it. Its almost like buying a car : Windows (check) Office (check) {Tires, check, doors, check). But MS Office market share is going down slowly... Open Office does 90% of what people need for a much cheaper price. yes, its NO Office 2010, but hey - they write a letter to grandma and dump it into the snail mail box.
Window8 Desktop = Fail For all the reasons you say it won't. Its simply crumble-some to use on a content creation device (computer). Metro is lovely for Phones and tablets... mostly.
I know that MS is trying to create an eco-system... they need to in order to survive. They have failed. Now, if some of us are wrong and Win8-OS is a home-run - then everything changes. People will BUY WP8 handsets... People will buy WART tablets... if the WinOS8 desktop experience blows them away. This is what I thought, until I actually used Win8 on a desktop.
But I think most people will HATE Windows8, which means they will NOT buy WP8 and WARTs. I will never install Win8 on my computers... even if MS sold it for $1. Too bad, I really like most of the improvements to Win8 desktop... The skin in ver. 8400 is great, but MS rips it out and goes full metro on the UI... its ugly.
I'll stick with Win7... and plan to migrate to Linux... I have little need for Windows... as do more and more people.
You see, with all these Android and iOS phones and tablets, it shows people that Microsoft Windows *IS* not needed. I was going to go with a Lumia phone... but I'm getting a new Android phone in a week or so. And you know how those 2 year plans go.
Balmer sunk Microsoft... their company social system is a mess with infighting and corp. back stabbing. They don't innovate. Their stock value has been $30 for years. Apple is $615+ today. Apple makes more money from JUST THE iPhone4 than everything that is Microsoft.