Slashdot Mirror
Windows 9 Already? Apparently, Yes.
Nerval's Lobster writes "A little over a year after Microsoft released Windows 8, and a mere three months after it pushed out a major update with Windows 8.1, rumors abound that Windows 9 is already on its way. According to Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows, Microsoft will begin discussing the next version of Windows (codenamed 'Threshold,' at least for the moment) at April's BUILD conference. 'Threshold is more important than any specific updates, he wrote. 'Windows 8 is tanking harder than Microsoft is comfortable discussing in public, and the latest release, Windows 8.1, which is a substantial and free upgrade with major improvements over the original release, is in use on less than 25 million PCs at the moment.' Microsoft intends Threshold to clean up at least a portion of Windows 8's mess. Development on the latest operating system will supposedly begin in late April, which means developers who attend BUILD won't have access to an early alpha release—in fact, it could be quite some time before Microsoft locks down any new features, although it might double down on Windows 8's controversial 'Modern' (previously known as 'Metro') design interface. Yet if Thurrott's reporting proves correct, Microsoft isn't abandoning the new Windows interface that earned such a lackluster response—it's betting that the format, once tweaked, will somehow revive the operating system's fortunes. With Ballmer leaving the company and a major reorganization underway, it'll be the next Microsoft CEO's task to make sure that Windows 9 is a hit; in fact, considering that rumored 2015 release date, shepherding the OS could become that executive's first major test."
They shouldn't have two GUI modes based on entirely different paradigms. It's absolute madness. Trying to make a desktop operating system behave like a smartphone operating system is just idiotic. I get the MS was trying to plant the psychological seeds to make the Surface and desktop offerings a unified target, but Surface and Surface RT just aren't selling and, in a time of shrinking PC sales, they've shot themselves in the foot. Whatever master plan they had with the Metro interface, it's been a failure on all fronts.
To show you how bad it is, I ordered some laptops from one of our main suppliers a few weeks ago. I didn't even have a chance to request downgrade rights to Windows 7 Pro when my rep simply said "And these come with Windows 7 Pro installed, but we can install the upgrade media if you want it." This is one of the biggest hardware and software providers for enterprise and government in Canada, and they're selling new hardware with Windows 7 out of the box simply because no one in enterprise or government wants anything to do with Windows 8.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So why is everyone acting so surprised when they keep following this trend?