Gut-Check Time For Windows 8, Microsoft

theodp writes "GeekWire reports that, for better or worse, the upcoming week is shaping up as one of the most pivotal in Microsoft's history, as the software giant makes its pitch for Windows 8 at two important conferences. First, Microsoft will be huddling with hardware and software developers beginning Tuesday at its sold-out BUILD conference ('BUILD will show you that Windows 8 changes everything'), where it's rumored that Samsung will unveil a Windows 8 tablet. And on Wednesday, CEO Steve Ballmer and other execs will be holding the company's annual Financial Analyst Meeting, which was delayed from its traditional summer date to allow the company to put its Windows 8 strategy in context for Wall Street. So, are we about to finally see the realization of Microsoft's vision for Information at Your Fingertips (Part 2), which Bill Gates introduced with a hokey video at Comdex 1994?"

Comments

Keep Selling Windows 7

[DanielRavenNest]

Windows 7 is a nice operating system, and is selling well. If they don't do something stupid like stop selling it when Windows 8 is released, they will do fine.

Re:Keep Selling Windows 7

[ozmanjusri]

Too desktop oriented.

Sort of.

This rejigging of desktop Windows is pretty good evidence that MS didn't see the trap they were setting themselves with WP7, which won't scale to tablets.

Not to mention that, while "Windows 7 is a niceer operating system" than previous versions of Windows, it's still not a very interesting or innovative platform, and is only selling well because it's the default OEM install. It's certainly not growing the market, which groundbreaking products tend to do.

If you look around the current OS scene, there's a lot more innovation and excitement than there has been for decades - you have the phones, with fast new text input methods like Swype, tablets with tilt and touch interfaces, UIs like Android, Meego and iOS that are instantly responsive on their dual core ARM devices, even new laptop/netbook form factors based on online data storage (ChromeOS). It's all an indication that the computing world is finally routing around the damage that is Microsoft's desktop computing monopoly.

In that context, Win7 looks pretty lifeless. It may be faster than Vista, but even on good modern hardware it still feels like the UI is mired in honey. And under the hood, sure, there were improvements, but nothing that changed the way users worked. Microsoft is rushing W8 to the market because they have to get SOMETHING out there to still seem relevant.

Re:Keep Selling Windows 7

[Skarecrow77]

I'm not sure what hardware you're using windows 7 on... but Windows 7 on my 3 year old Desktop PC is a hell of a lot more responsive and snappier than Android 2.2 on my 2 year old phone.

Android 2.3 on my 1 year old tablet is better, but still not as good as the desktop.

I love me some Android, but consistently instant-reponse it is not.

Re:Keep Selling Windows 7

[walshy007]

Microsoft has to keep their customers on the upgrade treadmill, even if they're still getting paid for selling the old version, because they have to keep their platform a moving target.

They've advanced from that, they are now getting $15 a pop from almost every android phone sold. So they don't even have to make anything anymore and they can still make profits just from leeching on others work.

Re:Keep Selling Windows 7

[Anthony Mouse]

They've advanced from that, they are now getting $15 a pop from almost every android phone sold. So they don't even have to make anything anymore and they can still make profits just from leeching on others work.

For now, but that's only a consequence of the unconscionable nature of software patents, in that someone who claims you're infringing a patent can hold you up and threaten to have your products removed from the market unless you pay up. It doesn't provide you any time to work around this patent you've never seen before, but by the same token it isn't a permanent situation because they have to tip their hand and list the patents they're holding so that in the next version you can design around them.

On top of that, all it would take to put a stop to it is for Google to buy some patents that Windows is infringing. Or, for that matter, if we would all just come to our senses and recognize that software is not patentable. (And we'll see how quickly the major companies get that pushed through soon enough when some patent troll holding a blocking patent inevitably demands an injunction against e.g. Windows unless Microsoft pays them 50% of their revenues.)

Re:Keep Selling Windows 7

[jones_supa]

Support networks how? I recently purchased a USB-ethernet device. I simply attached the device to my laptop and ethernet cable, and it worked.

After doing hours of research regarding to what USB ethernet devices actually work under Linux? ;)

Re:Keep Selling Windows 7

[ozmanjusri]

Android, which is basically an iOS "me-too!" UI, only tooled for nerds and customizers

It's not what you think. You should try it someday.

Re:Keep Selling Windows 7

[AJH16]

It is also worth pointing out that comparing a desktop operating system and something like Android or iOS is apples to oranges (sorry for the bad play on words :) ). Android and iOS are designed to be light weight, low power, mobile operating systems. They are not really full featured and have a lot of serious limitations. They are great for what they are intended for, but I would never want to run Android on desktop hardware. (At least, not for day to day use, doing it just to do it might be entertaining for a bit).

Multitasking, networking and platform adaptability are probably two of the biggest areas. Android does it a whole lot better than iOS, but even still, compared to a modern desktop, the capabilities are a joke (but quite impressive for the hardware they run on.) Networking services that are built in to modern desktop OSes require third party software and are fairly hit and miss from my experience on mobile platforms. The driver support is perhaps the largest issue. The amount of tweaking that goes in to getting Android to run on different hardware platforms is fairly extensive compared to the desktop world. I can throw just about any components together and get Windows running on it in less than an hour most of the time. The same can't be said for Android and iOS only deals with about a dozen hardware platforms specifically designed for it.

Planned obsolescence treadmill accelerating

[GameboyRMH]

When they rushed out Windows 7 after Vista flopped that was understandable, but now Win8 is coming out just as quickly behind Win7. It's like they're doing the famous trash-good-trash-good pattern on purpose. Rush out the next trash OS to get the next good one out sooner.

Re:Planned obsolescence treadmill accelerating

[North Korea]

Windows 7: 2009 Windows Vista: 2006 Seems they've taken three years release cycle, which is a really long time compared to Linux distros and Mac OS X. It's better than the time after XP anyway, which really started to feel like an outdated OS, by security standards and features too.

Re:Planned obsolescence treadmill accelerating

[GameboyRMH]

XP and 7 are the good ones. Vista and 8 are the trash OSes (an app store, the ribbon disease spread over the whole OS and a tablet UI? Trash.)

Re:Planned obsolescence treadmill accelerating

[saleenS281]

Rushed? Vista was extremely late because they tried to do too much (WinFS anyone?). They were on a 3 year cadence for just about every release prior to that. They're now back on their normal cadence. I get the impression your first experience with Windows was XP if you think this is "rushed" for Microsoft.

Re:Planned obsolescence treadmill accelerating

[North Korea]

Are Ubuntu and Mac OSX "trash OSes" too because they have app stores?

Besides, Vista was a good OS, but it changed the Windows fundamentals so much that many apps broke. But to advance, improve security and to use better driver model Microsoft had to do it at some point. There was nothing wrong with Vista but the old badly designed programs that stopped working with it when MS had to take the step forward.

Re:Planned obsolescence treadmill accelerating

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7: 2009
Windows Vista: 2006

Seems they've taken three years release cycle, which is a really long time compared to Linux distros and Mac OS X. It's better than the time after XP anyway, which really started to feel like an outdated OS, by security standards and features too.

I'm using XP on modern hardware and it screams. I don't feel the need for "modern" UI features that are nothing more than eye candy. The only reason I can see for moving to Win7 is SSD support (and additional RAM with 64 bit). Win 8? Haven't seen anything about it yet that looks interesting.

But to tell the truth, even with my "outdated" Velociraptor and Q8300, with XP 32 bit, this is a super fast and efficient machine. I'm not a gamer, nor am I into video on my PC. So I'll gladly trade a fancier UI for raw speed and stability.

My boot times could be a little faster, but I only boot up once a day. And app load times are less than 5 sec. even for Photoshop. Why would I care if they could be 1 or 2 sec?

And security may be important for the clueless, but I'm a careful surfer and haven't had a virus for years.

I'll only update when hardware requirements force me to -- that is, when my current machine breaks down. Or, when a vital piece of software forces the upgrade.

Re:Planned obsolescence treadmill accelerating

[SplashMyBandit]

The difference between an "app store" and a "repos" is that they get different points in Scrabble(tm).

Re:Planned obsolescence treadmill accelerating

[swalve]

I think the idea is that Windows users don't have to upgrade. Apply the patches and service packs and it will work just fine until the equipment is replaced. Unlike the rest of them, where every time you turn around there is some dependency for an application that requires you to upgrade your OS.

Re:Tablets, Phones, and what's wrong with XP or wi

[North Korea]

I don't think Microsoft is that late for tablets. Quite frankly, I think the current Android tablets still aren't worth using. That leaves you with iPad, so there's definitely some market open for tablets and what Microsoft has shown about Windows 8 for tablets it looks quite nice. On top of that you get the support for Windows apps, which is a huge deal.

But even on normal computer side, Windows 8 seems to improve many things over 7, which already is really good OS.

Re:Tablets, Phones, and what's wrong with XP or wi

[Skarecrow77]

The desktop PC Is a dying platform.

No, it's not. The form a personal computer takes may change slightly, but it's not going anywhere. I think you'll just find an atrix/bionic or EEE Transformer style computing experience coming, where your phone/tablet becomes your computer, and when you bring it home you just plug it into a docking bay with a good ole fashioned keyboard and large LCD screen. and maybe even a mouse, cause there's no way that you're going to want to play quake 6 with touchscreen. That's mid-to-long term though. in the short term, nothing portable is powerful enough to replace a real desktop for real computing work. sending an email or reading a pdf is not the kind of work I'm talking about either.

The average person is increasingly moving to smartphones an iPads to get away from the viruses, driver problems, malware, and other crap that infests Windows desktops.

smartphones already have viruses and malware. try again. most phones even ship with bloatware already.

It's too late for MS. To paraphrase B5, the avalanch has started, and it's too late for the pebbles to vote. The world had a few decades of Wintel, and it doesn't want to have more.

You writing this on your iphone? or are you man (or woman) enough to admit you've got an x86 cpu on/under the desk?

Yes, but don't abandon Windows 8...

[Pollux]

Windows trying to release Windows 8 with its tablet shell interface on a mainstream PC makes about as much sense as Apple release iPads with a command line shell. Here's what I mean; watch this video (starting at minutes 15) where the presenter tries to show how Windows 8 is just as easy to use on a laptop as it is on a tablet. It makes no sense for any user to have to move the mouse around that much just to get to the object they want to select. Microsoft needs to stop taking this silly "one-size-fits-all" approach with its OS. Make one OS for the enterprise, another for laptops (primary PC machine purchased nowadays by home consumers), and another for tablets. Tailor the shell to fit the machine, not force the machine to fit into the shell.

Now, while I still have my administrative gripes about Windows 7 (bloated size of WinSxS directory, unable to easily unlock a workstation locked by a user, behavior of & driver support for legacy devices, etc.), but I would still recommend that Windows keep selling Windows 7 for the enterprise rather than try to force us to swallow Windows 8. We want something newer, and a lot of these gripes could be fixed w/ SP2. Stop with the one-size-fits-all crap. Market Windows 7 for the enterprise and tailor it for the enterprise. Let Windows 8 start and develop on tablets. If Windows 8 turns out to be a good OS on tablets, I would predict in a very short amount of time, laptops will start to ship w/ touch-screen interfaces to take advantage of the Windows 8 shell.

Re:Yes, but don't abandon Windows 8...

[zach_the_lizard]

If Windows 8 turns out to be a good OS on tablets, I would predict in a very short amount of time, laptops will start to ship w/ touch-screen interfaces to take advantage of the Windows 8 shell.

It may spawn touch-screen laptops, but they won't be well received or used for very long save for some specific niches. Why? Gorilla arm syndrome. Holding your arm in front of you to touch a screen for long periods of time just wears it out. It'll suck quite a bit. Using it for maybe one or two things might be OK, but using it over and over will be a chore that will rapidly be painful.

TL;DR unless Microsoft ships a new human arm, I don't expect touchscreen laptops to take over the general laptop market.

As for the rest, some of the stuff isn't just a service pack away. For example, they're supposedly integrating a new and improved version of Hyper-V in at least some desktop versions of Windows 8. There's also rumors of per application virtualization. I don't think either of those would be simply bolted on in a service pack.

Re:Yes, but don't abandon Windows 8...

[mcrbids]

Strangely, Linux gave up the "one size fits all" and runs nicely as a desktop O/S on my Fedora Core laptop, and as nicely as a mobile O/S on my Android Moto Droid2 Phone. There is very little software that works on both platforms, they are effectively completely different Operating Systems.

Software engineers like the number 1. Unifying a whole suite of problems into a single framework feels better at a gut level, it just seems right. And even though Microsoft has been trying for almost 20 years to get this unified approach to work and has failed repeatedly, they'll keep trying because they are software engineers of the modest type - the type arrogant enough to think they have all the right answers but not quite smart enough to figure out how nor that it's a bad idea.

Some things never change

[Waffle Iron]

Microsoft's consistent marketing strategy for Windows over the past quarter century can be summed up in a few lines:

int main() {
  int i = 1;
  while (true) {
    printf("Windows %d changes everything!\n", i);
    sleep(7e7 + ((double) rand()) / RAND_MAX) * 7e7) ;
  }
}

Re:Pathetic

[J. L. Tympanum]

No, the problem is that everything Windows does natively is done wrong.

Re:lot's of corporate uses is just rolling out 7 w

[Anonymous Coward]

(Score:3, Unintelligible)

Tablets and smartphones for developers

[Dennis Sheil]

With the explosion of smartphones and tablets, HP announcing they're leaving the PC business and all the news being how Windows 8's perhaps main feature being tablet (and smartphone) ability, the mobile aspect of Windows 8 is what many people will be looking at.

I hear some Windows fans talk about how Windows 8 is going to come in and eventually dominate smartphones and tablets. However, Apple already has been in the smartphone space since mid-2007, and the tablet space since April 2010. Android has been around since October 2008 in the smartphone space, and Honeycomb came out in February of this year (and a few months earlier things like the early Samsung tabs were coming out). Developers have spent a lot of time learning these platforms and writing code for them. The App Stores and Android Markets are filling up with apps, which are being improved continually by updates based on user feedback. Over 550,000 Android smartphones are being turned on a day. Customers are familiar with the apps on their phone, and how to do various things on their phone or tablet.

What do we he hear from Microsoft? It's all just vaporware so far. Even if developers want to develop for an SDK with no device, there's no SDK out yet. Maybe it will be put out after this conference. Also - Microsoft has been saying a lot of it is HTML 5 and Javascript. I'm happy about that, but it doesn't really exploit all the code and experience for Visual Basic, Silverlight, .NET and so forth. I understand they backpedaled on this a little bit, although HTML 5 and Javascript will still be on it. They're kind of forced to do this - they can't force mobile developers to develop just for Microsoft, they have to hope that the popular iPhone/iPad/Android applications are easy to port to Windows 8 so they can get some applications that way. Microsoft's Windows 7 smartphone/tablet market share is very, very low, so due to the lack of any kind of monopoly strongarm, they're forced to open up a little bit.

The two things Microsoft has going for it is the existing Windows code base, and the ability for people to connect to their PCs, or PC formats (Word, Excel) or Microsoft servers at work (Exchange etc.). As people dump Microsoft PCs for iPads and Android tablets, this lock-in becomes less important. Also insofar as the Windows existing code base, both Apple and Android have had a lot of C++ OpenGL code which used to be primarily dedicated to Windows ported to Apple and Android mobile devices. Miguel de Icaza and company have even brought Mono to Android, so a lot of C# and .NET code can get on Android. As existing Windows code can often be used on Android, this lessens the advantage of Windows 8.

And then there's other things. Microsoft makes money selling Windows 8 to manufacturers like HTC and so forth. Google gives Android away for free, and makes money on the hook-ins it has for Google Maps and so forth. I guess with the Motorola purchase, Google will make some money actually selling the hardware as well. Microsoft has to sell an unwanted product to manufacturers, when a free, popular OS already exists, with a user base of millions, with an Android app market with hundreds of thousands of apps, and many developers working on creating new apps and improving existing ones.

I also wonder how hard it is to develop for Windows 8. For Android, I can download Eclipse on a Linux machine, and the Android SDK, make an Android emulator, develop code in Java (with a few calls to special Android SDK Java classes like Activity), pay Google a one-time lifetime $25 fee to put as many apps on Android Market as I want, and I'm all set. I can even release the app to a non-Market competitor site and save the $25. So the whole shebang costs $25 for life. What will Windows be like? Will I have to pay to get on their app store? Will I have to buy Visual Studio or something? If they don't make things real easy and cheap for developers, they're going to have problems. They might even have problems if they do make things real easy and cheap.

Windows 8 mostly is Windows 7

[williamhb]

Windows 7 is a nice operating system, and is selling well. If they don't do something stupid like stop selling it when Windows 8 is released, they will do fine.

I suspect we should just consider the "Metro UI" as a very hyped gadget layer (like those HTML+JavaScript gadgets that both Windows and Mac have had for years now), but allowing them to be more complex, better performance, giving them a new "swipey" way of accessing them, and allowing you to run your Windows Phone 7 apps as Windows 8 gadgets. Dashboard/Sidebar redux.

I think MS is hoping this will be a tipping point where these HTML+JavaScript apps now become actually useful and usable, and that the portability of gadgets between Phone 7 and Windows 8 will be a market advantage. But I don't see any way in which this should detract from existing Windows 7 usefulness. Just if you're on a tablet, you'll be interacting with the dashboard much more, and if you're on a desktop you'll be interacting with the desktop much more.

Re:Tablets, Phones, and what's wrong with XP or wi

[Dunbal]

The desktop IS dying, and has been for years.

Emphasis mine. But this should be your first clue. What's taking them so long to roll over and die? Desktops are moving into a very real niche market. The guy who needs a server but not a rack. The guy who crunches a lot of numbers. The guy who needs lots of hard drives in a RAID array. The scientist who needs to plug in custom hardware. The gamer who needs to keep up with the video card upgrade cycle (which is much faster than the CPU cycle). Becoming niche is not the same as dying.