The disastrous result of Microsoft
This is it. Today, Microsoft will release Windows 8, the fat fruit of more than three years of last gasp labor to produce an operating system that can ensure Microsoft continued relevancy in a touch oriented world. With PC sales stalled, and smartphones and tablets on target to outsell PCs in the next few years, Windows 8 must succeed.
Microsoft knows this, of course, but that doesn mitigate the conundrum that it faces: The entire Microsoft empire is built upon the desktop upon Office and yet here the behemoth is, backed into a corner and forced to develop a touch based operating system that confounds billions of users, and spits in the face of millions of developers and specialists whose livelihoods have been built on desktop Windows.
Faced with this dilemma, Microsoft chose the easy way out: It developed a fantastic touch first interface the Metro Start screen, WinRT and slapped it on top of an updated version of Windows 7. You can see the Microsoft boardroom now: can have the best of both worlds! says Steven Sinofsky. desktop UI to keep our current customers and stockholders happy, and a tablet UI that will crush Apple and Google.
As consumers who actually have to interact with this crazy, cross paradigm hodgepodge of an interface, the utter ludicrousness of this decision is plain to see. For developers and specialists, though, the problem is far worse. For these experts, who are the actual lifeblood of the Windows ecosystem, Windows 8 comes across as confused. If you baffled by Windows 8, then I assure you that developers, sysadmins, and other businessy types are looking at Windows 8 with the same agape, aghast scrutiny that one gives a circus freak.
Identity crisisYou see, in business, the absolute worst thing is uncertainty. The last 30 years of Windows might have had its ups and downs, but at the end of the day Microsoft has provided a very stable platform that millions of commercial entities have used to create trillions of dollars in profits. The Windows ecosystem, if we were to tally up all first party and third party profits over the last 30 years, is probably one of the richest veins the world has ever seen. It is this stability (and eventual monopoly) that catapulted Microsoft to the top of the stock market in the and has kept it in the top 10 ever since.
In short, Windows (and Microsoft to a major degree) is only as valuable as its ecosystem. Take that stability away, and instead of an obsidian, unassailable bulwark you are left with a precarious pyramid of cards that just waiting to be pushed over by Apple or Google or Mozilla or, well, just about any tech company that has spent its life in the shadow of the Microsoft monolith.
With the release of Windows 8, no one in the software industry really knows what to expect. Microsoft, with assurances that it the Next Big Cash Cow, has tried to lead third party developers to the promised land of Metro apps but as evinced by the severe lack of Metro apps, developers clearly aren taking the bait.
Likewise, it still isn clear how the IT industry is meant to cope with Windows 8. Are enterprises meant to create Metro versions of their in house, bespoke apps? Should support departments brush up on their Metro skills, or is it wiser to just ban Metro from the workplace? Oh, but wait: Banning Metro isn possible, because Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, hasn even included a group policy to disable Metro.
Perhaps most worryingly, though, consumers don seem to be on board with Windows 8. Windows 7 flew off the shelves when it was released in 2009, and went on to become the fastest selling operating system of all time. With two billion non touch enabled PCs in the world, and only small, mostly cosmetic changes to the Desktop side of things, can you really see Windows 8 following in its predecessor footsteps? The inability to configure or disable Metro all but nullifies Windows 8 chances of success in an enterprise setting, too.
When giants fallWith Windows 8, everyone can see that Microsoft is uncertain about the future of PCs and uncertainty coming from one of the world largest companies is cripplingly contagious. By keeping the Desktop around even on Windows RT, which can only run four desktop apps! Microsoft is signalling to consumers, developers, specialists, stockholders, and employees that it hasn a clue what the future holds. Compare this to Apple, which always exalts its operating systems and devices as the best thing since sliced bread, even if it isn might have sounded like a good idea in the boardroom, but by shipping an operating system with an identity crisis Microsoft has put itself in an almost untenable position. Barring a miraculous intervention by third party app developers, Windows 8 looks like it will be a jack of all trades, but master of none. On mobile, iOS and Android ecosystems will prevail; on desktop, Windows 7 will be hard to supplant.
Instead of hedging its bets, Microsoft should have risked it all on an honest to God tablet operating system. Sure, it might failed, but at least it wouldn poisoned the incredibly lucrative Windows well. Instead of equivocating and vacillating and hopping from one foot to the other in something resembling an awkward rain dance, Microsoft should shown the world that it serious about mobile computing. In one fell swoop, Microsoft was praying that it could stitch up the mobile and desktop platforms into one neat little package; instead, I fear that Microsoft may have blown it all.
Now read: Windows 8 may drive me to Linux, or hit up our Windows 8 category for more coverage
Tagged InIs there even a need to answer this? Here two
1. All the hardware out there for Windows 8 You can see the financial numbers for yourself, people have been waiting to buy new pc to wait for 8.
2. Surface and other tablets A tablet that you can work and play on. I can tell you how many times I put down my iPad to do actual work. I don even use it anymore, the kids have it now. It a toy. It a shame and I tried really hard to make it work. I love tech!
I could go on and on. There is a real love for Windows 8 out there. It is going to be huge for MS, Apps Dev and hardware manufacturers. It will also be so much better for IT guys like myself. It a dream to work on, rebuild, gen up, and all those things that make a supporting it so much easier.
There is only two very minor things wrong with 8
1. Apps need to have access to the Volume mixer. I hope they will or do have this option, no one is doing it yet though. I want to listen to Slacker or X box music and maybe play a game or listen to voiceail at two different volume levels. Love the volume mixer.
2. Power options should have been in the user drop down menu as well as log off. This never made sense to me that it wasn It kind of a non issue, People have already started making power apps. You seriously believe that people love Metro and have been waiting to buy Windows 8 ?
You seriously think that people will be in a rush buying expensive Windows8 smartphone and tablets ? Really?
Only a fool would waste money on Metro equipped devices. They are atrocious, unusable.
And it just insane that Microsoft is forcing Metro/ModernUI on Windows8 desktop and WindowsServer2012 too. And their plan is to phase out Win32 windowed applications because they want all Metro single window full screen touch apps. Just beyond stupid.
Where the heck are all those Windows8 lovers that will be in a rush buying this atrocious mess of a lazy childish OS ?
Microsoft with Ballmer screwed it up big time with the whole Metro/ModernUI mess. And they only deserve to be fired and go bankrupt for this.
I believe I read in a couple articles where Windows 8 tablets have reached close to 10% of tablet market share. That pretty good for a new product that doesn have hyped up factor that a device like iPad had when it came out. I still think both Win8 and Chrome/Andriod are going to cut into the iPad market share. WP8 doesn really have a lot of good devices, but if Samsung and HTC can make a few,http://ediccentralmalta.eu/events.html, WP8 will sale even more. I actually read various articles that say the growth of WP is outpacting both the growth of iPhone and the rate at which some iPhone users are switching to Android. Now it still only has about half the market share of iOs, but it is slowly gaining. A lot of people are mistaken in the thinking that the iPhone has the market cornered. In actually Android and Samsung phones no watter Android or WP actually have twice the market share of everyone else combinded.