Hi Tim,
I have a few thoughts:
1)A six month development cycle strikes me as ridiculous. You might want to touch base with one of the smaller but well regarded laptop makers, such as Sager, which I believe customizes laptops that are OEM'd by Clevo, one of the major laptop manufacturers in Taiwan (where most of the world's laptops originate, including those from the major American companies). Or perhaps consider a different major manufacturer than Acer, such as Asus.
2)For the desktop alternative, consider going with a well regarded builder of custom computers, such as Puget Custom Computers.
3)I'm not sure that going with Windows 8 is a good idea, for several reasons:
(a)While I personally haven't yet tried out any of the W8 preview versions, what I have heard from a number of people who are computer enthusiasts, and who (like me) build their own desktop computers, is that it is very different than the type of operating system that Windows users have become accustomed to, ever since Windows 95. And those enthusiasts, who are vastly more computer savvy than the average computer user, are finding that even for them a substantial learning curve is necessary.
(b)The initial release of W8 will undoubtedly be immature and buggy to some degree, and will most likely continue to be so until the first Service Pack is released many months afterwards.
(c)The Windows 8 versions of application software that will be used to perform the music server-related functions also figure to have quirks and bugs initially, that don't exist in the Windows 7 versions. Or, if no Windows 8 version is planned by the developers of the particular software, and it is anticipated that the Windows 7 version will run identically on Windows 8, who knows how true that will turn out to be?
IMO. Hope that helps.
Best regards,
-- Al
I have a few thoughts:
1)A six month development cycle strikes me as ridiculous. You might want to touch base with one of the smaller but well regarded laptop makers, such as Sager, which I believe customizes laptops that are OEM'd by Clevo, one of the major laptop manufacturers in Taiwan (where most of the world's laptops originate, including those from the major American companies). Or perhaps consider a different major manufacturer than Acer, such as Asus.
2)For the desktop alternative, consider going with a well regarded builder of custom computers, such as Puget Custom Computers.
3)I'm not sure that going with Windows 8 is a good idea, for several reasons:
(a)While I personally haven't yet tried out any of the W8 preview versions, what I have heard from a number of people who are computer enthusiasts, and who (like me) build their own desktop computers, is that it is very different than the type of operating system that Windows users have become accustomed to, ever since Windows 95. And those enthusiasts, who are vastly more computer savvy than the average computer user, are finding that even for them a substantial learning curve is necessary.
(b)The initial release of W8 will undoubtedly be immature and buggy to some degree, and will most likely continue to be so until the first Service Pack is released many months afterwards.
(c)The Windows 8 versions of application software that will be used to perform the music server-related functions also figure to have quirks and bugs initially, that don't exist in the Windows 7 versions. Or, if no Windows 8 version is planned by the developers of the particular software, and it is anticipated that the Windows 7 version will run identically on Windows 8, who knows how true that will turn out to be?
IMO. Hope that helps.
Best regards,
-- Al