Windows Everywhere-ish
Windows 8 adoption frankly sucks:
The percentage of PCs in use worldwide running Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system inched up to 2.7% in February, from 2.3% in January, according to Net Applications. Microsoft launched Windows 8 with a massive advertising campaign on Oct. 26.
Now four months after its launch, Windows 8 barely beats Apple’s Mac OS X 10.8 operating system, called Mountain Lion, which had 2.6% usage market share in February.
By comparison, its predecessor, Windows 7, had 9.1% global market share four months after its release, says Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of marketing and strategic alliances for Net Applications.
When Windows 8 first rolled out last year, I was willing to cut the lousy adoption rate some slack. As I wrote back in October:
Windows Vista was so awful and Windows XP was so long in the tooth, that pent-up demand [may have] caused Windows 7 early installs to skyrocket. There’s no such pressure on people to upgrade early to Windows 8, because they’re pretty happy with 7 — which has only been around a couple of years.
That was my best of three guesses as to why early adopters were shunning the new OS, but months later that excuse is wearing a little thin. After all, new Windows computers drive a huge fraction of new OS installs, and Win8 was supposed to drive new computer sales.
But the sales never materialized. Not for Win8 desktops and laptops, not for Win8 semi-”Pro” tablets, and not for Windows RT tablets. I wouldn’t be surprised to read that the craptaculent Windows ME was adopted at a faster rate.
So what’s going on here?
First of all, the PC market is flat. Well, the Windows PC market is flat — Mac is still enjoying nice growth again, now that iMac supply constraints have been (mostly) fixed. But the explosive growth is all in mobile, where Microsoft is practically a no-show. Windows Phone 8 is good-but-ignored. Windows RT is a redheaded stepchild with a hairlip and a nasty disposition, and Win8 seems to be the semi-touch answer to the mouse-and-keyboard question nobody is asking.
Steve Ballmer has got to go.
That's not to mention that -except for the MS Surface- there's darn few new systems being offered that feature a touchscreen.
There are a lot of ways to get around the annoyances of Windows 8 (shutdown/log off shortcuts, make metro one screen to avoid horizontal scrolling, use the task bar more etc.) but once you get around all those annoyances, it becomes a slightly better version of Windows 7 and that's it. No one's going to pay even $40 for what is almost what they already have.
The optimisation is probably the best feature in the entire thing but that would be better suited to a service pack. Service Packs are free. If someone got Windows 8 without charge, they would, as long as they got around the annoyances, most likely use it over Windows 7, but very few would actually pay for it, especially for a desktop.
There are zero win8 PC's where I work, and probably won't be for a looooong time, if ever.
Win8 isn't a compelling upgrade, mostly because 7 was such a huge improvement, there wasn't far to go. Remember, Vista was so bad that MS didn't dare release 7 until it had been beta'd nigh unto death. Anybody could get free 7 upgrades to run until release, and MS listened very, very closely for problems. And fixed them. I seem to recall it was a freely downloadable beta for at least a year. Remember, most businesses upgraded from XP only because MS support was shutting off.
The intro of 8 is great, as the prices of 7's flavors have gone down as well. MS will be supporting 7 for a long, long time.
Now there is some good stuff in 8, especially the new storage setup, but it just isn't compelling enough.
Win8 is this this decade's "Windows ME". ME was an improvement over XP, but, like XPx64, just isn't well enough liked to get support, particularly when Win98 OSR2's equivalant, 7 is still going strong.
The Ubuntu geeks can think of 7 as a Long Term Release, and 8 as an intermediate point release. It isn't like any Fortune 500's are going to roll out 8 on existing boxes.
MS would sell a lot more OS bundled PC's if all licenses for 8 included "downgrade" rights to 7, like the Pro versions of Vista did. Meanwhile, the various Linuxes are having a bumper year, and competition is good for everybody. Even MS in the long run.
Unlike Steve, I'm a die-hard Linux fan who is coming around to MS's way of thinking, and scream at the gilded prison which is all things Apple. If it's any help, I'm getting the impression that Bill Gates is getting a bit unhappy with MS's decisions and becoming more active in managing MS again.
Most IT shops I've worked spend a bit of time testing before deciding to support a new OS. Then it's usually even longer before it makes an appearance.
Usually, that's with equipment refresh. And due to the crappy economy, refreshes are few and far between. So if we had a refresh, I guarantee the image they use on all the PCs would be that of Win 7.
Simple calculation: if Win8 won't work with vital business processes (and whatever apps are necessary) then it won't see deployment.
To watch what has become of MS under Ballmer is sickening.
I figured they jumped the shark when Ray Ozzie left. They now have no "vision guy" of the Jobs/Gates/McNealy caliber.