Gartner Analyst Retracts "Windows 8 Is Bad" Claim

nk497 writes "A Gartner analyst made headlines after describing Windows 8 desktop as: 'in a word: bad.' After web reaction, including one story asking why anyone bothers to listen to the consultancy firm anymore, Gunnar Berger has now yanked the offending sentence from his blog post, saying it was taken out of context and only applied to using the desktop with a mouse and keyboard, and that overall Windows 8 is a good thing. 'If you look at my blog, I've gotten rid of it,' he said. 'It's upsetting me that it's being taken completely out of context.'"

Comments

Was it taken out of context?

[Captain Hook]

Admittedly I tend to only read the tech related news sites but they all picked up on the same thing....

Windows 8 on a desktop just doesn't make any sense.

Re:Was it taken out of context?

[blackicye]

I thought exactly the same thing. He has nothing to apologize for, Windows 8 is bad. It has one of the worst UI designs I've ever seen.

Frankly though, I don't really care about the UI, I've been using the Win2K classic mode since well..win2K.
There have already been user mods and themes to restore the classic interface.

I'm interested more in the kernel and stability/updates and underlying parts of the OS.

I've never liked Aero, or the ME or Vista interfaces or bloated junk like the OSX interface.

I'm not curmudgeonly enough to work purely in a CLI environment, I don't want my OS to look pretty, I want it to run applications, preferably faster and more stably than it's previous iterations on the same hardware.

Re:Was it taken out of context?

[cpu6502]

>>>Windows 8 on a desktop just doesn't make any sense.

What about Android on the desktop? I bet Google could make a lot of money selling PCs with the ad: "Works just like your phone, with the same android interface you know and love." Win8's failure might by Google's chance to chip-away at Microsoft's desktop/laptop monopoly..... just as they chipped-away at Explorer's dominance on the web.

Re:Was it taken out of context?

[Monoman]

Metro on the desktop is fine if it is run as an app and has a dedicated monitor. :-) The desktop in Win8 should be full featured with Metro as an option. I can see Metro being used for kiosks maybe

Typical MS coming out with something totally new is that it always feels half baked. There is a reason why many people believe MS doesn't get things right until (at least) the third version.

Metro on the phones and tablets is another discussion entirely.

Re:Was it taken out of context?

[sproketboy]

Why would anyone bother running modern software on 12 year old hardware?

Re:Was it taken out of context?

[Ken Hall]

In a previous job, where I was a tech manager, the management above me swore by Gartner. Nothing was done without their blessing. Unless, of course, the recommendation disagreed with one of their deep-seated "religious" biases.

In any case, dealing with Gartner was an interesting experience. I would call them and speak to an analyst about some product we were thinking of getting. The analyst would make vague pronouncements about "industry standards", and "best of breed", and "best practices", and usually vaguely recommend whichever product happened to be the front runner in that particular niche at that time. Then I would outline my reasons for choosing whatever product we had determined to be best for our needs. I could hear the analyst hanging on every word, and I just knew our reasoning would make it into the next round of recommendations.

They never gave me anything useful, their sole function seemed to be to validate whatever decision we had already made. In the couple of cases where they did make a serious recommendation in conflict with our plans, the company tended to ignore them and do what it pleased anyway.

Re:Was it taken out of context?

[Cinder6]

I thought Windows 8 was bad, so I downloaded the preview and ran it exclusively for a week. While it obviously still has some bugs to work out (which I am sure will largely gone by October), I find myself having to admit, I liked it. Metro apps are kind of odd on a desktop, but the actual desktop (or is that Desktop?) is still just as usable, and if I can keep 99% of my apps using it, then I will have absolutely no problem with the OS. Frankly, the Start Screen is better than the old start menu. It's much more customizable and acts as a very fast application launcher for anything you don't have saved to your home screen.

I even found myself liking the ribbon in Explorer. Whereas I had to do a Google search to find out how to show hidden files in Windows 7, in 8 it was two very logical clicks away. Even in previous versions of Windows, it took several clicks going through different screens. I can accept that it's not for everyone and maybe Microsoft should add a toggle for old-style menus, but I feel like Slashdot has too much of a knee-jerk reaction to this thing and is engaging in too much groupthink. It's something you have to try out for longer than a few minutes (my first reaction was to laugh at it), which is why I went for the full week.

This probably sounds like a shill post, and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets labeled as one. I don't much care; people will think what they will when their opinions are challenged.

Re:Payday!

[oztiks]

I don't blame them though the nasty job critics do these days is really sickening.

I'm not sure what is with the trend to simply side with every and any Apple product and then have the competition try to create a iDevice "killer", then afterwards, 10 out of 10 times side with the iDevice in closing summary.

I mean the Nokia Lumia which is a great phone got shocking reviews for no real reason other than the fact its fashionable to trash Microsoft. Android devices left right getting the beat down, not factoring in price or purpose.

It's about time the critics stop it with this instant pro-Apple mantra and see devices for their differences rather than some half backed comparison.

For example retina performs poorly in direct sunlight and that many products out there have created solutions that perform better in the sunlight because that's what people want, or a critic complaining about 800px res on a phone vs 900px? What on a phone? A little handheld device that only sucks extra battery juice because of the extra pixels with no real world practical advantage...

It's good that there is some accountability with the comments and users being able to pull the footing out of under these critics sometimes. I remember seeing a Siri vs Tellme YouTube clip, where the reviewer didn't follow the regime of the Tellme interface and used phrases known to work on Siri. There was a huge backlash about it as it was unfairly compared and instead of retracting clip the idiot reviewer got back on YouTube and tried to justify his behavior, which only made him look like even more of a dick and further served to discredit him...

Re:Payday!

[Tridus]

When the Lumia is capable of doing advanced things like have Skype receive calls without being a foreground app, then maybe I can take this seriously.

As it stands right now the Lumia and WP7 are just lousy phones. They're not up to par with the competition. They got better reviews then they deserved considering how many reviewers adored the thing, but the market didn't care.