Microsoft inks $617 million deal to bring Windows 8 to 330,000 Department of Defense employees | GeekWire

“[The agreement] recognizes the shift to mobility,” said David G. Simpson, DISA’s vice director and senior procurement executive. “Microsoft is committed to making sure that the technology within the agreement has a mobile-first focus, and we expect to begin to take advantage of Microsoft’s mobile offerings as part of our enterprise mobility ecosystem.”

Make no mistake - there can be no shift to mobility. You cannot productively work with a computer unless you are sitting down and focusing on the task at hand. That means table and chair, or laptop at the very least. You most certainly can’t get anything done on a device with an App Store. It is, in its very essence, not a tool for creativity. Almost not worth linking to, for fear of feeding the troll. ADDENDUM: There are some big benefits outside of the schlock about mobility. Sharepoint 2013 provides ‘Skydrive Pro’ which enables internal cloud storage of documents (think Dropbox). This is a far more flexible and reliable way to work collaboratively than simple file sharing and can scale up to far bigger and more complex scenarios - Windows 8 and Office 2013 (and hopefully other business applications will) natively support this. To my knowledge, Microsoft is the first company to strongly emphasize private cloud storage and that’s a pretty big leap forward. My concern about Microsoft’s propaganda war against desktop software (in favor of Metro - yes I’m going to call it Metro) continues to run strong. If consumer editions of Windows force us all into the App Store’s shackles, we’re doomed. Read more: http://www.geekwire.com/2013/score-microsoft-defense-department-windows/