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Windows 8 Killing PC Sales
yl-roller writes "IDC says Windows 8 is partly to blame for PC sales suffering the largest percentage drop ever. 'As if that news wasn't' troubling enough, it appears that a pivotal makeover of Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating system seems to have done more harm than good since the software was released last October.' According to a ZDNet article, IDC originally expected a drop, but only half the size."
There hasn't been a damn thing in the last several years worth upgrading for. Gamers and developers aside, there has been nothing at all interesting happening in the PC world.
I'm still on a 2.0ghz C2D laptop and had no intention of upgrading anytime soon.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Wasn't Microsoft blaming the actual manufacturers for low sales at the start? Are they aware that it's actually their own fault yet?
Back in the Windows ME days there were no viable options for business to go to, except for NT which many were already using. They can't afford a colossal mistake every other OS release anymore. At this rate, they'd be better off keeping Windows 7 for twelve years, or however long XP went without a replacement. At least then they wouldn't be losing market share.
Over and over again? It's the same as what IBM did with the PS/2 MicroChannel in the '80s and Intel with Itanium in the early 2000's.
Just because you have majority market share doesn't mean you can treat your customer base like a cattle drive. They have to be coaxed, not ordered to move. Show them the mountaintop, but also show them how they can migrate with minimal disruption to their applications, data and working style.
Win 8 isn't killing PC sales. Tablets and the fact that most people use their computers for internet and email means you don't have to upgrade your computer every couple years. I still use 6-7 year old computers for everyday use if I need a new one I can go buy one for 3-4 hundred. I don't even use windows so for me and most of my friends and relatives the new computer doesn't even get to boot windows for the first time.
Both my parents have computers that are aging and now do 90% of their browsing, emails etc on the tablets I have given them. Windows 8, while a good idea was poorly implemented. There isn't any reason to upgrade to a new Laptop/Desktop for it and its rubbish as a tablet Operating system. After using it for 12 months its a jarring experience to use on the desktop, and using the Win 8 pro tab at work, having to drop back to desktop mode to do most of the tasks makes the tablet just seem pointless if you need keyboard/mouse to do most of your work. I'm not surprised Windows 8/Desktops/Laptops are failing because when it comes down to it, Microsoft and the OEM's are unable to give us compelling reasons on why we actually should buy one, or how they will make our lives better.
If I buy a new PC (I did buy one instead of build last year before windows 8 came out- for a quick gift to a friend in need) I would not hesitate to buy one with Windows 8 on it. I know how to install a program that'll make it friendlier for every day use. Or if I want I can put 7 back on it or a linux distro if I want. But for the average person, I see nothing but frustration from people.
PC makers need to give options. 7 or 8 should be available. People will say that Linux should be available too, and I won't disagree, but I don't think it will give an overall good user experience from most PC makers. But that's not what this is about.
This is about MS forcing vendors to force their customers to be guinea pigs for windows 8's new paradigm that totally sucks. Sales are down? GOOD. Maybe they'll get the message:
THE NEW WINDOWS 8 GUI SUCKS.
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
"People won't switch to Linux/Android/whatever because they don't want to have to learn a new system."
Microsoft: "I know, let's make everybody learn a new system!"
Suddenly they've given their core customers a reason to look at their competition that they didn't have before.
Yawn. Get back to me when 90% of the PC using public even knows what TF2 is. Games are outliners, even more-so now than a few years ago.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Sorry bub, nobody's gonna call. You're not the mass market, you're a niche. Funny how things change over time. Tablets are becoming the mass market Internet device. Professionals will still buy PCs but everyone else, all those people who bought a PC to get 'online' in the 90s and upgraded to play games in 2000, they just don't need a PC anymore (they never did but it was the only good option).
It's just the way it is. The PC industry is going to consolidate soon. Hardware makers will still make servers and workstations and some will make tablets but the general purpose home PC is going away.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Stop this please. You don't need any addons to make win8 work in desktop mode. You don't need to use any of the metro apps either.
My laptop has win8, I only use it in desktop mode and works just like win7 did. All win7 programs work the same way. In fact it's nice to have the extra space from removing the start button on the taskbar. The only difference is that you get a full screen "start menu" when you hit the windows key. You can still type the name of the app or document just like in the star menu in win7. When it comes up, just hit enter to launch it. Same as win7.
I read reviews and scare mongering like your post, and was scared of win8 when when it arrived with my new laptop. But it's all unfounded sillyness. Win8 looks better and is faster than win7 and works in desktop mode just like win7 did.
Gross and obscene, huh? Needed a Windows rig, bought a macbook pro as it was the fastest laptop in the store (2.2GHz, 2.9 (or 3) in turbo), Slapped windows 7 on it as soon as I got it home. Have no need for MacOS. None.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
It is the one two punch of abusive bloatware, and people having many needs met through mobile that have knocked the PC to the ground and then the kick to the face that a 5 year old machine is fine for most people's needs.
Basically everyone who buys a nice machine from wherever boots it up and is presented with a pile of icons and popups that confuse/scare/annoy the crap out of them. Usually the browser is infested with "helpful" toolbars. The search engine has been redirected this way or that. And some crap like Norton pops up and tells them that they are going to die if they don't give them money. The Apple PC market is doing OK and I think that people are willing to pay the huge bucks because they turn the damn thing on and it works, no threats, no weirdness. I am not saying that the Mac is way better but that people would basically be just as happy turning on their Windows machine and being greeted with a default one icon for connecting to the internet unimpeded, no Asus Game world, Trial this or trial that.
Then there is the fact that most people are consumers not generators of content. Thus a tablet or larger screened smart phone will get them all the cat videos they can eat. These smartphones aren't cheap and thus will eat up many people's technology budget.
And lastly there is the point that many people who have a PC of some sort can keep it running and running. If they have a laptop their mobile phone might have reduced their porting it around and increased its lifespan even to the point where they don't care that the battery has 5 minutes of life when unplugged. If they have a desktop then the lifespan is even better seeing that most repairs (if any) should cost less than $100. My mother is using a desktop running Linux that is about 8 years old. She has a nice keyboard, nice mouse, nice B&W laser printer, and a nice monitor so she is quite happy. It runs gmail and can play youtube videos at full screen; an upgrade would be a foolish waste of money.
In the past people upgraded their computers because they had some application that really wouldn't run on their old computer. Now about the only non professional (Photoshop, IDE, etc) application that demands an upgrade is the OS itself. So if you need an OS that can run a browser and some sort of Office Suite then why would you upgrade your OS.
In the past I can remember getting Windows 95 and bouncing around when it booted up for the first time. It was such a vast improvement over 3.1.1. Then when I finally had a machine that could handle 2000 I was happy again. XP waited for a long time until some application or another wouldn't run and then I left the Microsoft embrace so got to largely avoid Vista on. Even with the Mac about the only reason I have upgraded my OS is that the latest versions of XCode wouldn't run on the slightly older versions of the Mac OS.
As for games I just about lost my mind when I finally got a 3DFX card. But if anything gaming is probably the last thing keeping people buying the latest and greatest in the PC market. Personally I have long given up making my PC game friendly. I have an XBox for that.
Personally if I were running MS beyond looking past a world where the OS and office suite drive the bus I would have a super research project where you create the killer app that requires that you have a PC with 100GB of ram and a crazy new processor.
But maybe this whole PC dying thing is missing the point. Way in the past an IBM PC "killed" my commodore 64. And apple seems to be racing, with other, to a smart watch goal. This will mean that your average person will have a computer on their wrist, a computer in their pocket, computers in their car, computers in their work, multiple computers hooked up to their TV, and maybe(or maybe not) a computer on a desk at home. Yet if we scroll back say 13 years to the dot com boom most people had at most 1 computer that they paid well over $1000 for and a home network was exotic.
a 2 million+ id user gushing about MS?
what a fucking surprise!
come back when you're not a teenager and/or shill
My laptop has win8, I only use it in desktop mode and works just like win7 did.
I'm sorry, my /. interpreter may be broken .. are you saying that you wish you hadn't upgraded?
Look, PC sales are on the decline. This we all know. So MS decided to tackle tablets in a big, audacious way in order to increase their relevance in the post-PC era. And it might have worked...
HAD THEY NOT BEEN SO ARROGANT AS TO REMOVE THE GODDAMNED START MENU AND FORCED OLD PC HARDWARE TO USE THEIR TOUCHSCREEN UI!
Seriously, how difficult would it have been to do a quick hardware check upon install and say "hmmm, it looks like you have a keyboard, mouse and non-touchscreen monitor. Let's make Metro an icon on the classic desktop and boot to explorer.exe with a mouse-friendly start menu by default."
Personally, I think Windows 8 offers several welcome improvements over Win7. I installed the OS, downloaded and configured Classic Shell, and haven't so much as whiffed a Metro screen in at least 2 months on my PC. It's great for me, but I'm not your average Windows user! The masses are clueless and if you give them enough reason to dislike your product, you're doomed.
MS, you successfully borrowed Steve Jobs' arrogant decision-making skills, but failed to deliver on the other half of the equation: an overall better user experience.
Apple's Mac shipments were down 7.5% in this same study, Lenovo was up 13%...Dell and HP were the blunt of the fall. Sure Windows 8 is not loved by consumers, but with time it will improve...but that's not the culprit here. The culprit the massive slow down that is currently plaguing China. Microsoft has some ground to make up, but this analysis is heavily flawed when you look at the broad picture.
wait, you don't like the start menu button because it takes up space, yet you tolerate the full screen metro bullshit? In fact, the start menu itself takes almost no space at all unless it's accessed.
Having search boxes on menus and windows is just a crutch that demonstrates the design sucks. The point is to see what you're looking for and interact with it in a graphically intuitive way. Switching back and forth from keyboard and mouse (or touch) is clunky, slow, and stupid.
Computers just aren't as fast without the turbo button.
One could argue that Apple didn't deliver a better user experience either.
Not against anyone that has used an iPad.
But they packaged it in such a shiny package with rounded corners that the user simply didn't care.
If that were true the far cheaper (and equally rounded) tablets would have vastly surpassed the iPad. But instead the iPad maintains a huge lead.
Quite a few of the ipod/phone/pad "interface" things, while different, are absolutely not functional
Just what exactly are you thinking of? Most of the conventions are quite functional. A number are superior to desktops (I far prefer pan/zoom and things like drawing on an iPad).
Desktops are better at some things, yes. But to pretend the iPad is not good at anything is to ignore a world of real-world experience that contradicts.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Windows 8 isn't that bad.
Just add the start button back.
http://stardock.com/products/start8/ is my fav but does cost $5, http://www.classicshell.net/ is free.
5 more dollars to put all those "apps" back in a window with an icon on the taskbar http://stardock.com/products/modernmix/
And here is a great article for switching default apps back, getting rid of the swipe screen, etc.http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/software-and-web-apps/how-to-make-windows-8-look-like-windows-7-50009546/
Tell people you are a Consultant and you can charge them to do this stuff for them.
And just when you think you've charged everyone money for fixing what Microsoft broke, Microsoft will do you a solid and sell them all something else they hate and will pay you to "make work like it used to."
Oh and if you think Microsoft is desperate and just burning money to be like Apple, you're right. They are offering a $100 an app for up to 15 apps for college students to write pretty much anything and fill their apps store with crap for Win8. Google for one of their App Camps and make yourself some quick cash.
Apple started this nonsense
Except that on OS X the hot corners are fully optional. I don't use them myself, for example. I know where to configure them if I ever want to, but like you I just don't see the point and so I don't, and everything works just fine without.
That's the difference. Giving a user options is fine. Forcing the user unto something that you think is great just sucks, because users are different from each other and definitely from the developers.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Slashdot car analogy time.
The PC will be like a truck, mobile like a car. There are people that need trucks, there are people that don't need trucks and want one anyway, but most people use a car.
A/V work is for trucks. But most people are in cars just running little errands or driving for fun.
Firstly, Microsoft screwed up. They had a big job to do: integrate tablet functionality and desktop use; instead they made 2 separate interfaces instead of one. Looking closer they did not even do that; they tacked on Windows 7 Phone, onto Windows 7, then they took off the command bar, the one familiar thing the happened to get right, and no one is happy--and they wonder why people are still asking for Windows 7.
Secondly, AMD is weak; Intel is sleeping. Neither has much to show us.
Thirdly, Apple is asleep on the desktop because they are making more money people shinny toys.
Fourth, too many companies are copying Apple's designs, many of which are not as practical in the real world. Sharp corners, downgraded keyboards: flash over function.
Fifth, Linux has indeed been hurt by Gnome having partially failed to come up with a tablet-desktop interface. Linux has been hurt by UEFI. The US Federal Trade must stop Microsoft's UEFI, because it is a monopolistic action, or is someone taking money from Microsoft? Yes, I am again questioning the integrity of the FTC; there is no need to read between the lines.
Six, As a distro Ubuntu is untrustworthy, spyware, and corrupt. Unity did divide the Linux community, but perhaps that is what it was supposed to do. Mint is coming up, but they still have a weak presence. I applaud Mint for putting pressure on Gnome, but I wish instead that Gnome would listen to their users. The Gnome's leadership needs to be changed.
Seven, Sales people sell what they want to sell, regardless if it is practical. Slim phone with no battery life: no problem. Tablet with no keyboard: they will sell it. Shinny screen to look at and not into: they will sell it. Slim, shinny, and minimalistic is the emperor's new clothes in computers.
~
Having finished this I am reminded that I cannot even buy they computer I want. I just wanted a 13" computer with a decent video chip and processor, and space for a full-sized SSD, a good keyboard, matte screen, enough battery to run it for a while, and made so it won't break if I look at it the wrong way.
On it, I would rather have Windows 7 than Windows 8, and rather have the interface be more like Windows 2000 and XP, because after that, Microsoft fucked up and bloated their operating system.
Microsoft, Apple, and Gnome, ehem, when you are done playing around, we need to work and do useful things on our computers.
Microsoft: You screwed up. 1+1-1 does not equal anything anyone wants to use.
Dell, why not try stop making flimsy cased crap loaded with annoying bloatware.
HP, stop reinventing the wheel and making strange cased computers just for the sake of differentiation. It would be cool to do a computer with the brown and gold calculator look.
AMD: Add one more FPU to the bulldozer/piledriver unit, and work on the darn integer bottle necks. The bobcat was good, but not updated fast enough. Power efficiency will take time and effort. Show off your GPU compute scores. A chip person had theorized you were might virturalize the whole FPU scenero with GPU cores. It seems like a interesting idea, and I have seen powerpoint slides which show a further GPU+CPU integration than what you have with the APU. If you are going to do something, do it fast--and well.
Nvidia: You crippled your gaming chips for GPU computing so much that GPU computing was weakened as an initiative. Thanks for shortchanging gamers--even after we paid for all the technology you are selling as Quadro cards.
Intel: For a single quad, my one-year-old 2600k is almost as fast as what you are selling, Wake up, and wake me up when you have something better.
Apple round those damn corners, yes Johnny, I am talking to you! Shinny screens are useless in a coffee shop. You are right,: if your customers drop it, they will just buy another. Hire more QA people, and stop making OSX venders rev everything all the time, for each 10.8.4.6.6.2.1.x release, where x is an update to the system that break your vendor's program.
Adobe: You are not g
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