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Windows 8 Sales Below Projections
harrymcc writes "With early reports on Windows 8 sales indicating that the new operating system is off to a slow start, it's worth pondering what Microsoft could have done differently. Over at TIME.com, I considered several different scenarios, ranging from one in which it released a much more conventional Windows upgrade to one which would have been much like like the Windows 8 we got — except with the ability to boot directly into the desktop, complete with Start button."
that is pretty telling of what they should have done differently.
We didn't need another OS. Windows 7 was still alive and well, by releasing Windows 8 they only confused / distracted the current user base. I can't even count how many people have asked me what is special about Windows 8, besides the horrible new desktop I honestly can't really saying anything. No one is ready to upgrade from 7 to 8, if they waited another year or two then the outcome would be different, they haven't given people the chance to want something new.
I don't have much of a reason to switch to Windows 8. I understand there are a few performance benefits and a couple of nifty tie-ins, maybe an app or two, and the new Start screen which isn't *that* bad. But Windows 7 is working just fine. Why upgrade?
Why do we have these same news reports every time MS releases a new operating system?
The truth is that Windows 7 (and even Windows XP) is more than sufficient for most users. For that matter, a ChromeBook is sufficient for "most" users that really need only a web browser. I work in IT during the day and do some software development so I use a computer and applications heavily at work, but when I'm home, a Chromebook would do pretty much anything I need a computer for. I'm not into gaming and haven't purchased software for my home laptop in years - I've bought a lot more apps for my phone than for my laptop. Even if I were interested in gaming, I'd probably use a game console so I could play on my TV.
Additionally, most users don't ever want to upgrade their operating system - they'll wait until they buy a new computer since that's generally necessary to take full advantage of the new OS anyway.
As long as MS maintains its OEM channel, then Win8 will be a slow steady success. Though they really need Win8 RT to be successful since the PC buying trend seems to be shifting to tablets.
As a developer, I feel the job of the OS is to launch applications and then get out of the way. This is something Windows 8 fails at.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
There is a major difference between upgrading from windows 7 to 8 ass there was from xp to vista or xp to windows 7. XP came about before things like wireless G was ubiquitous. It didn't handle a lot of web frameworks very well and it was frequently populated with applications that look far shinier than it did. Combine that with the large time gap between OSes, most people were running XP on laptops with external pci wireless cards or no wireless at all and they were seeing friends, family, and coworkers with sleeker, faster, easier to use laptops that just worked with any wireless network they were in range of and actually like similar in quality aesthetically with all of the applications people were running on it.
Nobody has a problem with their current version of windows 7 where they're thinking "If only I had a new windows 8 laptop this would be so much faster/easier/less frustrating etc". In fact, the processing power required to complete most tasks your average lay windows user does has pretty much stagnated over the past five years. Screen resolutions are virtually unchanged for most; Web browsing, email and productivity apps are pretty much at a stand still processing wise. The biggest changes in leaps and bounds have been internet bandwidth and the ability for network cards to process internet bandwidth has never been a bottleneck. This is why tablets are starting to takeover for lay computer users, because the stagnation in processor requirements have allowed smaller form factor hardware to catch up.
All in all, for most user upgrading doesn't mean a shiny new toy, it means work learning a new interface. Combine that with cost and the fact that it offers no solutions to problems or limitations they are currently having with windows 7 means nobody really wants it.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
Dont you get that the entire purpose of Metro is to force advertising into those tiles...
Good-bye
I like the idea, except that it's not just developers and gamers who would prefer the start menu. They should have kept Metro as an optional install for tablets and touchscreen-enabled desktops. It's not about whether you want your RAM used up for pretty sliding menus, it's about whether those pretty sliding menus are an appropriate design for the way the computer is being used.
Metro is inappropriate for a desktop computer. If you get rid of Metro, than Windows 8 is a nice little upgrade to Windows 7.
... when even Windows-fan-boi site Neowin.net, the anti slashdot talks about how WIndows 8 is failing and what went wrong afterwards.
Basically, Sinofsky made the decision to drop the start button in a meeting with Balmer saying it was a must if users were to get used to Metro. They must get immersed so Windows 8 phones can sell more etc.
Here is a little business 101 lesson. Your customers decide which UI you use and how you design your product. Not the other way around! Every company that told customers this is what you will do and how you will like it do poorly or go under. No one listens to them and MBAs feel it is their job to convert customers and tell them what to do.
They feel to acknowledge the customer can just walk out the door and take his or her business elsewhere.
So they fired Sinsosky and that is a good thing. Sad, as he did a great job for Windows 7 but they did not do any QA or UI usability testing with METRO. Just get it out FAST!! and it was was rushed. Customers hate change and Windows 7 works just fine thank you very much.
After numbers come it the problem will only get worse. Lets hope they do not something really stupid like get rid of the desktop entirely and just be a tablet company now. They lost focus on their core strengths which is another business 101 lesson you never do. They are not a consumer gadget entertainment company and they killed their number one product and money to get there. Wow! Balmer should be fired next too
http://saveie6.com/
Whose 'projections' were they, exactly? Not anybody outside Redmond's board of directors...
No sig today...
Windows started as reaction to Mac OS. As such it was crap until Windows 3.11 workgroups in the early 90's. We dealt with Windows, but it was a kludge.
There was a lot of happiness with 3.11, and much happiness with WIndows 95. It was 32 bit and was really the first modern OS that MS had.
But then Windows 98 killed the streak MS was having, along with using IE to integrate the various products instead of creating a consistent undercarriage. NT was a mish mash at first, but by the time WIndows 98 came out it was a superior product, which meant MS was in the current situation of pushing inferior OS to users that perfectly happy with, for them, the superior NT. That was me.
Windows 2000 and XP, the sucessor of NT, finally made the Windows platform whole again, but then MS started getting into the infinite SKU look within a product, and really messed us up again. But really for a long time XP was it.
But Apple was getting aggressive again, and MS got jittery and made Vista, which no one would leave XP for. I finally upgraded from XP to Windows 7, which I must admit was a adult and rational product. It runs nice.
So here we are again, with Windows 8. Evidently a innovative product, but for me, someone who uses Windows only to do certain technical work, am I going to care enough to upgrade, especially since I have to pay full price since I run as virtual. Absolutely not. In fact, I recently bought some PCs for some other people and was consistently told that sales were up as people desperately wanted W7 machines.
It is the upgrade cycle. We get used to working in an OS, then MS every couple years expects us to change our habits to satisfy their needs for sales. It did not happen in the 90's and it s not going to happen now. When MS just develops good software, they are fantastic company. But when they are trying be overly creative or reacting to Apple, they produce crap.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Only Microsoft calls removing features an upgrade... no, wait, Sony has done that, too.
Yeah, right. Apple does that more often.
Going from Lion to Mountain Lion made my 3-monitor system almost unusable (due to the particular needs of my setup, which worked fine with Snow Leopard and Lion). I had to buy an app (TotalSpaces) that restores functionality removed by the Mountain Lion "update".
In fact, when I heard what MS was doing with Windows 8, my first response was "Those idiots think they are Apple?". Apple can pull crap like that off because people will just buy the "latest Apple". For Microsoft the best case is for people to buy something new if it can do more (otherwise they will sit with their trusted Win XP, Office 2k3 etc).
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
This is exactly the problem. Windows 7 is great as a stand alone experience. Metro is great as a stand alone touch experience. Microsoft is determined to force the convergence of them, despite no evidence that this particular venn diagram has any crossover: live tiles may be great for pure consumption (sometimes), it really kinda sucks for multi window productivity. Maybe 30 years from now we'll all work in such a radically different way that the live tiles will seem way ahead of their time, but right now, they're trying to ram a VW beetle sized peg into a square hole.
Apparently Jacob Nielson is an idiot. My windows8 has three windows open right now.
Yes, the desktop works the same way it did before, except that they killed the Start button and force users to go through Metro instead. But users are no longer brought to the desktop upon logging in. Instead they are dumped directly into Metro, which does indeed have the limitations outlined by Jakob Nielsen. And it's not made obvious to new users how to get back to the desktop from there.
The bottom line is that with Windows 8, Microsoft deliberately sacrificed usability on the desktop for marketing reasons (pushing Metro into people's faces to bring more visibility to their tablet/phone products).
From those *thousands* of people on the forums were screaming "Don't take away the start button" and "make the metro interface optional," and hundred of other sensible rational suggestions, we told you so.
Someone, or some group, deep in the heart of Microsoft chose to ignore them all.
If they haven't been fired yet, they *should* be fired. Immediately. For incompetence AND being arrogant asses. This crap impacts the lives, businesses and productivity of millions of people. This is not a "House" episode. You get no points for being clever and obnoxious. Hopefully, all you get is shitcanned while some poor set of humbler, and more experienced SOBs go in and try and figure out a way to clean up your blundering mess.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.