Windows: Not Doomed Yet

Nerval's Lobster writes "Earlier this week, ZDNet columnist Steven Vaughan-Nichols wrote an article, 'Windows: It's over,' that sparked a lot of passionate online debate. His thesis was simple: Microsoft's dominance of the computing market is coming to an end, accelerated by the incipient failure of Windows 8. Make no mistake about it: there's no way to fudge the numbers in a way that suggests Windows 8 is proving a blockbuster. But maybe it's not doomsday for Windows or Microsoft. After all, the company still has a lot of really smart developers and engineers, a whole ton of cash, and the ability to let its projects play out over years. So here's the question, Slashdotters: Is Windows really doomed? And, if not, what can be done to turn things around? (No originality points awarded for a 'Fire Steve Ballmer' response.)"

Comments

Shrug...

[MightyMartian]

Of course Microsoft isn't doomed, and neither is Windows. In the enterprise world, Exchange-Office will still dominate for many years to come.

The problem is on the consumer end, where Windows is heading quickly to irrelevance.

Re:Shrug...

[_Shad0w_]

I wouldn't mind fading in to a business which made $16 billion profit last year and still employs over half-a-million people.

Re:Shrug...

[postbigbang]

This is all the result of some pageview whores looking to stir up some hits in an otherwise pretty dull period. Yeah, people are buying tablets and smartphones. No doubt about it. Not buying Windows 8 because they're not strongly compelled.

So, they do the death watch, change the CEO trick, pile on the the horrible histories, bring up the traditional rivalries, and rake the muck.

That's you, ZDNet. You listening? Gonna put on the fishnet stockings and red lipstick again? You can do the same thing on Slashdot just by dissing all or any of the Sacred Cows here. The Google Ad revenues must have been stupendous.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Re:Shrug...

[phantomfive]

As long as Microsoft has the strongest commitment to backwards compatibility, they'll retain their market position.

Most people don't care about the operating system, they just use it to launch their apps. Businesses don't want to rewrite all their custom software just because they are upgrading to a new OS. Microsoft revenue is still going up.

nope

[iggymanz]

the only reason they became accepted into the enterprise is because that is what consumers were familiar with, But now that model is going to rot from the ground up, at least three other major players have good inroads to eat Microsoft's lunch. Windows 8 marks the beginning of the fall of Microsoft.

Re:nope

[Anonymous Coward]

the only reason they became accepted into the enterprise is because that is what consumers were familiar with
 
Sorry but you're talking out of your ass. If a "consumer" owned a PC at all at the time that Windows started to make inroads to the enterprise it was either Apple, Atari or Commodore. Windows made inroads because MS-DOS was the defacto standard thanks to IBM and when the GUI was ready for primetime Microsoft was already embedded in the culture. Whoever modded you up doesn't know jack about computing in the enterprise. It's kind of pathetic when you stop to think of it.
 
  But now that model is going to rot from the ground up, at least three other major players have good inroads to eat Microsoft's lunch.
 
It's going to rot? Really? Show me where MS's domination on a production platform is threated. Do you honestly think that people using Android phones and iPads are a threat to full functioning computers that aren't just running a bunch of small apps? Please. And Windows will still be the largest marketshare (by far) for the home user who still decides to support a PC into the next decade.
 
  Windows 8 marks the beginning of the fall of Microsoft.
 
I seem to recall hearing the same thing around here when Windows ME was about a year old too. Lo and behold, the next release from MS made Microsoft more money and embedded them further into the end user culture more than any other product ever has.

Re:nope

[The Grim Reefer]

I suspect it was Vista that marked the beginning of the fall.

Actually wasn't what is being said about Win8 identical to what was said about Vista? And before that XP was a failure until sp1 was released, ME before that and 95 before that. I think Bob and Clippy were also the death knell for Microsoft too. Oh, and the ribbon in Office, can't forget that one. Granted, they can't keep screwing over their customer base with every other release continually. But they still hold a lot of market share. They just don't have absolute dominance like they once seemed to (not that that was necessarily ever true).

Re:nope

[s.petry]

While well thought out, there is a very important aspect that you neglect. It was hinted at, but not bluntly called out. That aspect is that a huge part of the reason Windows went into the workplace was because people were familiar with it at home. Marketing played it's part too mind you, but not as much as an exec being able to do everything at work he did at home in the same way.

The same can be said of applications. MS gave Word away. It was horrible compared to competitive products, but it was free. Everyone became familiar with it. Word Perfect required extra knowledge that a home user didn't have. The same exact statement can be said about Excel compared to Lotus 1-2-3.

When MS loses dominance on home devices, people lose that familiarity. It will certainly impact the approach businesses take to OSes and Devices. In fact I'll state it already has, since most large companies are trying to develop any-device anywhere platforms.

Re:nope

[roc97007]

> How does replacing a pop-up start menu with a full page start menu, but otherwise make the OS faster in every way (boot, sleep/resume, use) and fully backwards compatible "hamper the hell out of work".

Well, because it doesn't do that at all. Basic things work radically differently, the visual cues that help non-geeks navigate computers are gone, the fullscreen paradigm doesn't fit well on large dense monitors, and touch gestures don't work well with a mouse. And even if all of these things were surmountable, the training issues alone are nightmarish.

When we (just recently) rolled out Win7, we did some pilot programs and app testing as part of due diligence, but we did not have to do user training or amp up the helpdesk because 7 behaved as people have been led to expect. 8 .... well, geeks can eventually figure out anything, so I'm sure there are alpha nerds out there that have put in the time necessary to learn to make 8 dance, but regular users don't want a GUI challenge, they want to run their apps and get their work done. It ain't gonna happen. We'll wait until something reasonable becomes available. Because 8 hampers the hell out of getting work done, for regular people.

Simply adjust Metro vs Desktop to remove pain

[Anonymous Coward]

No big move required, but they need to do a few things
- Allow the return of the Start Button for those who prefer it.
- Allow start to desktop
- In multi monitor setup, allow one sreen to be locked to Start Screen and/or metro applications
- Make it easy for developper to target Metro and Desktop within the same .exe
- Make apps that with great value in metro, but they need to still show a status icon when in desktop
    - ex: if in desktop mode, the skype app need to show the alert if there is an unread message, particulary when we get back from a game

Same old song, second verse same as the first

[davmoo]

Yeah, Windows is dying. Just like this is the year that Linux takes over on the desktop. Or is this the year that Apple takes over? Or CP/M makes it comeback? OS/2? I forget, I've heard them all so often.

The PC isn't dying

[RobinH]

Anyone who thinks the PC is in any sense dying hasn't worked in an office that does business with other companies. There is a *huge* amount of work that consists of physically typing stuff into databases (purchase orders anyone?) and retrieving stuff from databases, and all of this work is done with a keyboard and mouse. Spreadsheets. Forms. Stuff still gets printed out and filed! Nobody wants a tablet to do this. I think there might be room for tablets out in the warehouse, but even those are likely to be Windows based. Mac? Sorry, businesses look at the price difference and can't stomach paying nearly twice as much for the hardware. I'm certain that home PC sales are diving, and that's probably a good thing, but in our office we're expanding the number of PCs because we want access to information everywhere, and more data entry everywhere, and they're cheap! PCs are the work-horse of enterprise data. So what if we're buying them with Windows 7 Pro on them instead of Windows 8? MS still makes money.

Not any more than HP

[MickLinux]

Gotta remember when Carly came to HP. It didn't doom HP. What it did do, was turn HP into a typical fortune-500 company: that is, the compost heap of companies failed.

HP is still around, and will still continue to take over failed companies, and compost them, losing value the whole way. Moreover, they will still be the "standard" for government agencies and colleges, regardless of value.

And yes, they will continue to have bright people, and waste their prime years in irrelevance.

Microsoft will be the same. Shoot, I expect Google to become that, too. After a certain size, good management is highly improbable; bad management is highly probable.

But that doesn't mean they won't have occasional blockbusters again, and won't be a "force to be reckoned with". They are, and will be. They'll just be of marginal value to anyone who deals with them.

forgetting something, are we?

[sribe]

After all, the company still has a lot of really smart developers and engineers, a whole ton of cash, and the ability to let its projects play out over years.

And really bad management, clinging to stupendously dysfunctional and wasteful project management practices.

Lets finish that statement, shall we?

[JustAnotherIdiot]

After all, the company still has a lot of really smart developers and engineers, a whole ton of cash

...and an idiot management team directing it all.
If I've learned anything working for big companies, it's that it doesn't matter how great your grunt workers are, or how great your budget is.
If you have shitty management/leads, you will fail.

Re:How relevant is the PC, still?

[DL117]

I'll do all my gaming on my PC. I listen to music on my PC. I watch TV and movies on my PC. My friends do the same. I'm 19. The PC isn't dead in anyone's eyes but those of marketers who want to sell to cheap to build tablets for the price of a fully functional PC.

Re:Lack of necessity

[pnutjam]

The stability and real multi-user support of win7 is head and shoulders above XP. Win7 was a definite improvement.

I think the Biz PC drove Home PC sales

[MasterOfGoingFaster]

I think you are on the right track, but I see it flipped. Most people did not have PCs at home. This was a device they had at work. They were trained to use it because it was a function of their job.

Then one day this Internet "thing" arrived and they wanted a device to surf the web. The only device they knew was the PC - by now it was Windows-based. So Wintel PCs spiked in sales. But if we are honest, they really weren't ready for your average person - far too complex. But it was almost the only tool available, so that's what they got.

But now tablets and smart phones let them surf and get email - without a lot of the problems. So consumers are slowly changing to that device. I say "slowly" because the sales curve continues to accelerate.

I believe the end result will be the PC will return to being a mostly-business device. We'll look back on the last 15 years as an odd spike between the Internet land rush and the arrival of the Internet Terminal.

Microsoft's mistake? Users have a tough time with change, and MS upset them greatly by creating a confusing interface. Users are much more willing to learn new controls for something totally different (airplane, boat, tablet) but get mad as hell if you change something they are already comfortable with (car, Windows).

Re:What trend?

[dbIII]

In an office environment it's poison though. I don't know about where you are but I've still got a pile of people that never got used to the "start" menu and if they don't have an icon for something they don't think it is on their computer (sucks with new staff - having to set up a pile of icons for the new user login). Win8 is such a massive change in UI from the XP/win2k mode that they are used to that I'm not going to bother trying to force it on them until they've got used to it at home.