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ZDNet Proclaims "Windows: It's Over"
plastick writes "You can think Windows 8 will evolve into something better, but the numbers show that Windows is coming to a dead end. ZDNet is known to take the side of Microsoft in the past. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols explains: 'The very day the debate came to an end, this headline appeared: IDC: Global PC shipments plunge in worst drop in a generation. Sure, a lot of that was due to the growth of tablets and smartphones and the rise of the cloud, but Windows 8 gets to take a lot of the blame too. After all, the debate wasn't whether or not Windows 8 was any good. It's not. The debate was over whether it could be saved.'"
As a Microsoft partner and management consultant I don't understand:
Realistically Microsoft only has one chance at long term success, and that includes firing Ballmer, restaffing the board, and radically changing its staff evaluation processes away from Darwinian struggle to "what's best for Microsoft as a whole".
What I expect it will do instead is gradually fade into irrelevance:
So Microsoft's predicament is worse than a single product failure - at a CEO level Microsoft is simply not doing enough to change.
I'm not a windows guy. My laptop is a macbook pro and my day to day workstation is debian. However, I recently built a windows gaming computer and I like windows 8. Is it different? Yes. Does it have a learning curve? Yes. In the end it's stable, solid, easy to use, and looks nice.
The reason PC sales are down is because computing power has reached a point where we don't need a new computer every 2-3 years. My mac mini is 6 years old. I only need to replace it because apple won't support it any longer. Otherwise it's speed and power is fine. I expect my new desktop windows 8 PC will last me at least 6 or 7 years.
Gone is the day of the power computer. Desktop computing has reached the point where there is no leap in upgrading. It's incremental, people only do incremental upgrades when their old equipment dies.
While I agree with you here, you probably have overlooked the good ol' Microsoft arrogance. When MS have failed they it has been because of their own arrogance. While Windows 95 was mostly a win, people tend to forget that part of it was a failure: they were just SURE that MSN was going to win over this thing called the Internet. They tend to lose when they try to innovate because they're so damn sure they know what people want... then it turns out to be wrong.
I am guessing that Microsoft will beat the Windows horse until it is bits in pieces.
The 15% drop in PC-sales last quarter, that's the numbers they are talking about.
But the real numbers are of course that 92% of desktop users world wide are using Windows. Hell, they could lose almost half their users and they still wouldn't be over.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
There's a lot of comments floating around which say "when you install this this 3rd party start menu and make it boot straight to desktop, it's fine".
What they are saying is that if you undo all the big ideas that were added in Windows 8 it's fine. That's not good, you know.
To me 10.04 of Ubuntu was a perfect desktop. It had everything I needed, I had it set up so sweet and when people running windows saw it they were absolutely blown away. I don't know but I believe that eventually the UI, once it fits your needs, is done. Why change what works? Linux could certainly use more work but mostly under the hood. This madness with Unity I never have understood, it seems like Canonical decided to merge the desktop and tablet together and I can't deal with the mess. Maybe when they finish it but probably not even then. You know, at some point things are good enough but these companies still need to sell you something so now they are trying to creat a demand where there is no need.
Oh, they realize that alright. But the thing is, Microsoft has never been about finding the technically best solution. They are trying to find the best "business" solution.
They have utterly failed at taking over the mobile market. They have tried to buy off hardware companies (e.g., Nokia) to implement their crap, and that hasn't worked.
Windows 8 and it's shitty UI is obviously an attempt to leverage their Windows/PC monopoly to get mobile market share. The idea is that if PC users all become accustomed to the Windows 8 UI and apps, due to having it forced upon them, then they will prefer to use the same UI on mobile devices. This is true, but the problem is that they're foisting a technically inferior product on their core market to try to buy into the mobile market.
Why are they doing this? The PC market is huge, and much higher margin, and it is not going to go away any time soon. MS would probably be happy without mobile market if they could be assured of their PC market for the future. The problem is that things go both ways: if people are accustomed to using non-Microsoft UIs and apps, they would be more likely to move off the PC market. Companies are likely to make Android and iOS integration solutions for their home and business suites, so Microsoft's legendary lock-in strategies could crumble.
Android, Apple, on PCs in homes, schools, and businesses is what they're worried about.
Hell, anyone running XP now will most probably be doing so five years from now, regardless of whatever MS might say about its EOL. One way or another, it makes no difference to me: I've been running Linux (yes, on the desktop) since 1995.
> Knowing Microsoft, they'll probably release SP2 for Win7, which puts the "Modern" UI on top of it too,
> and then make SP2 a prerequisite for every security update that comes out after it.
And if they did, business school textbooks would have a new case study for corporate suicide, and a breathtaking example of how a company that managed to go from a dominant market share of the high-end mobile market to irrelevance within a matter of months was able to repeat it to throw away their desktop dominance as well (everyone had a major love-hate relationship with Windows Mobile, but if you wanted a pocket laptop with a useful browser that could be used for making voice calls in a pinch, WinMo was pretty much the best there WAS circa ~2007).
It would be the day I officially blew away Windows and promised God, Xenu, Thor, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I would never, EVER voluntarily run Windows as my real operating system again. And did my best to get everyone else whom I influence to do the same.
Put another way, for Microsoft to do something like that would constitute a full-frontal act of corporate warfare against its customers... and retribution from the consumers who matter would be swift, damning, and deadly. Look at the amount of hate Microsoft has taken from... well... everyone... over the past 6 months. Now imagine how much MORE hate they'd take if they loudly and proudly sank the lifeboat (Windows 7) that's keeping them alive right now. They'd have people burning computers on the sidewalk in front of their offices, hanging Ballmer in effigy, and Barnes & Noble would be filled with books about dumping Windows almost overnight.
A full frontal assault upon their customers would be the beginning of a rapid end for Microsoft. With their "influencer class" of users angrily gone, and thirdparty developers leaving in protest as well, Windows would degenerate into an inferior, second-rate OSX for consumers who buy a computer and use only the apps that were bundled with it.
That's just it.
I don't WANT to have to "learn to adapt".
Especially not for some imbecilic tweaks in the UI that remove functionality and stop me from working efficiently.
For me, time is money. And all the time I have to waste trying to dick around in the new UI, instead of getting work done, is money Microsoft is stealing from me.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
After using W8 for a few months (due to hardware support for a slide scanner) I don't see much basis for all the hate.
Followed by...
Yeah, the UI is retarded and flashy and gets in the way of getting things done , but I've learned to adapt.
What more reason do you need.
People don't hate Win 8 because it's UI is so crappy. they hate it because the previous version wasn't crappy and MS ruined it.
All Microsoft needed to do with the UI is *nothing*.
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