Windows 8′s Greatest Sin

http://techpinions.com/windows-8s-greatest-sin/11907

by jeffreyfox • 14 years ago

25 27 14 years ago

nextstep• 14 years ago

Exactly. Most Windows users remained Windows users for so long because they lacked a good alternative. That has only changed, and now many market segments are no longer hostages to Microsoft's OS.

xradionut• 14 years ago

Most people use OSes to run apps and contain data/media. The fact that most of the applications used are on Windows is a huge reason folks haven't gone elsewhere. This is more true in the business realm than the consumer realm that has the major growth in alternatives.

macspoofing• 14 years ago

This was all inevitable. The market has changed. There wasn't much Microsoft could do. Given a typical lifecycle of a Windows OS is about 2 years, in 2012 they had to build an operating system that was truly touch-enabled, compatible with ARM architectures and could compete with iPads and Macs. This way they have their bases covered until Windows 9.

uxwtf• 14 years ago

Windows8 comes up with brutal UI changes, pushing current Windows users to learn how to use it. This might scare off some current Windows users, and they will consider buying Mac instead, but don't forget that Apple is raising its prices, that might bring people back to Windows.

MichaelGG• 14 years ago

So the logic here is "Wow, the new start screen is different, so I might as well go learn a different OS, with a different set of apps, and different hardware"?

Not to mention if the person has more than a single PC, they're now using two totally separate systems? It also ignores the folks upgrading to Windows 8.

s_henry_paulson• 14 years ago

Terrible article.

Interviewing companies about their plans to move to Windows 8 less than a month after it's released?

Of course the numbers are going to be low. I would be surprised if 1/3 of the people interviewed had ever even seen the product.

Companies are known for keeping old software as long as humanly possible, not turning on a dime to adopt something that just hit the marketplace.

The author then follows with a bunch of conjecture focused on how individuals make decisions, but corporations are not individuals, and don't make decisions like "maybe I should just buy a mac" on a whim.

There are lots of things to consider like your current system architecture, your employee's skillsets, corporate software, the cost of purchasing hundreds or thousands of new machines, etc. etc.

So what are you trying to analyze, individual decision making or corporate decision making? Because the two are completely different.

This article is literally the bottom of the barrel when it comes to tech news, and I hate that I took time out of my day to read it.

captainchaos• 14 years ago

I agree. I think the bad assumption is

"If I’m Going To Have To Buy New Computer Hardware Anyway…"

You don't. I don't think most people running Windows 8 think they need to buy a touchscreen.

PS: People seem to disregard that 4M people upgraded to Windows 8 within a few days of release. That's about the same number of new Macs purchased in an entire quarter. Microsoft made the upgrade path to Windows 8 far simpler than any prior release.

gizzlon2• 14 years ago

Also, I believe a lot of companies and people skipped Vista and was eager to upgrade to Windows 7.

But I still think his overall point holds: "force" people to choose and they might choose something else.

HelloMcFly• 14 years ago

I agree. I was surprised that many people planned to switch to Windows 8 already.

maskedinvader• 14 years ago

agree with you on this, the article was awful, seemed like the author could conclude based on survey results less than a month from the release of the new operating system whether companies would switch to it, well guess what I work at a large bank where hundreds of thousands of computers still use windows xp and it just works, saying they will upgrade next to alternative OS is just ridiculous, yes some mainstream non corporate users might look at something like Mac OS but to say that the change is windows 8's cardinal sin is rubbish, also comparing it to netflix's pricing debacle, I don't see how that is same as microsoft releasing new version of windows.Is the author suggesting that Microsoft should have just upgraded windows 7 and kept the ui alike ? the same author I bet would have gone on to write another article with the same title outlining how not changing has given users the choice to switch.. seems like Microsoft can never win !

smacktoward• 14 years ago

Under most circumstances, I would agree with this analysis. Pushing the customer into doing what I think it was Joel Spolsky called "the dreaded market survey" is a terrible idea, because, as the article says, once you disrupt their normal workflow they're as likely to go with someone else's new alternative as with yours.

The problem with applying this line of thinking to Windows 8 is that these days, for Windows, are not "most circumstances." Customers' routines have already been disrupted, they are already looking at other peoples' alternatives, and many are choosing them. So for Microsoft the issue isn't whether or not to let the gravy train roll on undisturbed, it's to do something to keep at least some of the gravy from spilling out.

The cause of this disruption is two-fold -- first, the beginnings of a massive platform shift from PCs to mobile devices, and second, the feeling among most Windows users ever since XP or so that the Windows they already have is "good enough." This puts Microsoft in the awkward position of competing against both competitors with superior offerings for those customers who want something radically different, and themselves for those customers who are change-averse.

All of which is why, in this particular case, just quietly sitting pat would have been a bad idea. It's debatable whether Windows 8 is the product that will square this circle -- that will make Microsoft relevant again to both those who want massive change, and those who want none at all -- but what I don't think is debatable is that they needed to at least try to create such a product if they wanted to defend their position in the marketplace.

(Whether that product should have been called "Windows" is another story, but that's a subject for a separate rant.)

corin_• 14 years ago

Really poor article. Here's what I think is probably its lowest point:

> "This forced Netflix’ customers to re-evaluate their subscription plans. And when they chose, many of them chose to cancel their subscriptions altogether."

Not sure how you can attribute the cancellations to "forcing customers to re-evaluate" and completely brush over the fact that the price went up 60%.

sixothree• 14 years ago

I would be more interested in knowing how many companies plan to adopt Server 2012.

meaty2• 14 years ago

Anecdotal but we're not. We have 240 windows 2008 r2 machines and are waiting for a good reason to upgrade.

benjarrell2• 14 years ago

For me, one reason is the new server manager, it makes it so so much easier to manage multiple servers at once. (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/s... click the plus on Server Manager)

macavity23• 14 years ago

I think the key (single-sentence) paragraph is:

Windows 8 is designed for a touchscreen.

This seems to be the TL;DR of many reviews. If this becomes 'common wisdom', which looks likely, then I think MS are going to lose a lot of people on the upgrade train as this guy suggests.

hackinthebochs• 14 years ago

Lose them to who? Is Linux or a Mac really a viable upgrade path for most corporations? How much Windows expertise has been built up over the years/decades? How many interoperating windows products are they already running? Legacy software? All of these are major barriers to switching.

And this is the key to Microsoft's strategy with Windows 8. Roll out their next generation paradigm while piggy-backing on the momentum of their current generation software and infrastructure. If they had waited too long to transition, it would have been a situation of "well if I have to relearn everything anyways...". Forcing this paradigm on their desktop and server customers now was key to keeping the majority of their userbase in the transition.

gizzlon2• 14 years ago

Lose them to who?

Bet he was thinking about Windows 7, Vista and XP

gregd2• 14 years ago

Lose them to who?

Themselves. On the desktop, there may not be a compelling reason to upgrade to Windows 8...with the exception of IE10. As a former enterprise IT manager, I would seriously consider staying with Windows 7 and switching my users wholesale to Chrome or Firefox...despite the lack of GPO options with either of those.

jiggy2011• 14 years ago

The article seems to suggest that businesses will re-evaluate their options and many will choose to go from Windows to Mac.

Whilst this may happen more often that it used to, Windows still has some important advantages.

Apple stuff is expensive, in the UK a Mac Mini will cost you at least £500 whereas a cheap dell powerful enough to run Office and other apps can be had for less than £200.

Microsoft also has an complete eco-system with Windows Server & Exchange etc as well as client OSs and has an army of professionals who are highly trained in these specific tools.

One of the big reasons IT depts love Windows Server is the amount of fine-grained control it can give over permissions on Windows clients as well as IE etc, there is also extensive third party tooling built around this.

As far as I am aware there isn't really an out of the box solution that provides this sort of thing in the Mac world.

There may be a lot of small businesses who can swap a Windows Server for a bunch of Mac (or even Ubuntu) boxes and a dropbox account + web apps. On the other hand I'm not sure Fortune 500s are exactly dying to put all of their data at the mercy of google etc.

crag• 14 years ago

Apple isn't even going after the "enterprise" market. The Mac works very well in a Windows server based network, with Exchange. So in other words, it's perfectly fine having Server 2012 (or 2008) with Exchange, SQL Server, Sharepoint (and all the rest), with PC's and Mac as clients.

And frankly, I don't think MS is even going after the PC anymore. It already owns it. It wants what it doesn't own: mobile. IOS and Android are kings in mobile. MS isn't even on the field.

That's what Windows 8 is all about. It's about leveraging Windows 8 (on the PC) into users buying Windows based phones and tablets.

And that leveraging is a big risk. and I don't know. I mean, it's clear to me Metro is not aimed at enterprise. Time will tell if it's a good bet or not. I hope so. Cause if not MS will become irrelevant - sort of like what CA or Novell are right now.

account_taken• 14 years ago

MS had to do this. As many point out there already are alternatives and it's clear mobile devices are the future. MS made the tough choice. Will it hurt them in the near term? YUP. It's an unpopular, bold move but I think the correct one. Kudos to Balmer for having the gonads to push the company in this direction. We're looking at maybe 2 years before Win8 takes hold.

For what it's worth, I think Win 8 acceptance will be molasses slow. Win 8 will affect Android's share not Apple's. I have a newer ICS tablet and I still prefer my IPad Gen 1. ICS feels slow despite having a much faster processor.

rlu• 14 years ago

I don't really agree with this article at all. For one thing, as people have already pointed out here, making coclusins based on companies' plans just does not make much sense.

1. Do people really and honestly think that companies will abandon Windows for iPads or macs? I find that extremely unlikely for reasons that I think we already know (iPads are not good for productivity, I doubt companies will shell extra $$$ for Macs). Companies being wary of a brand new Windows release is nothing new. Remember when Windows XP came out? People and companies hated it initially. The article's comparison to Windows 7 is funny because it failed to say how most of these companies who looked forward to upgrading were running an OS that was 8 years old! (XP - the same one they initially claimed they would not use)

2. I don't buy the fact that most people think that they can get away wit just having an iPad. Most people that I know use an iPad as a SECONDARY device. It is more fun than a laptop for consuming content. Sure. But what if you have to actually, you know, do some work? This is basically Windows 8 / Surface's entire value proposition. One device to work AND play.

3. Why is the article ignoring the fact that most people won't feel comfortable spending ~$1,300 on an Apple computer when they could get an HP or something for $600 or even less? Let us not forget the fact that not everyone can shell out the money for a Mac.

My 2 (3?) cents :)

Windows 8′s Greatest Sin

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