Will Windows 8 emphasis on Tablet features drive users to iPad?
getwired.com
getwired.com
I wasn't willing to risk my teams precious development time on a store that is unproven and a product that looks confused and misguided. Several other developers agreed at the conference.
I really don't know what Microsoft was thinking blending the tablet/desktop and separating out the phone. It seems they think this will allow them to claim a larger install base for 'apps' as their phone has dismal sales performance. The evangelists kept repeating over and over that I'll have 500 million user audience as soon as it rolls out.
But the experience is a mess. Everyone in my office from seasoned techs to low level non-techy interns has made a terrible face at windows 8, constantly clicking around wondering what is going on.
For the record, I thought Vista was alright and Windows 7 was nice. But 8's bifurcated touch/desktop strategy is good at neither and heading in a worse and worse direction with each successive release.
Regardless, it looks like ass and iOS is smooth like butter. I'm really not sure tablet is someplace Microsoft can actually compete.
What's sad though is that Windows 7 is a rock solid OS and people absolutely love it. Why throw all of that away for something hideous and grotesque. I just don't get it.
My exposure started with Windows 2000. It was fantastic. It made me ditch Mac OS 8.x full-time instead of just maintaining a 9x box for games. XP wasn't horrible either. Sure, after that things stagnated for a long time—and that led me to dally again with Macs and eventually switch back to OS X for my main machine—but after the initial kinks were worked out Vista and 7 added some much-needed things (especially 7, UI-wise).
But I agree that the "death of Microsoft" stuff is tiring. Personally, I'm pretty excited to see how this goes, since I like what MS is doing to bring touch-centered concepts to the desktop, and really don't like the direction Apple is going with Lion/Mountain Lion. I just wonder if MS will iterate quickly enough—Apple's release cycles may put a lot of pressure on them to get an "8.1" out the door very quickly with the kinks worked out.
And even in the consumer space, how long do you have to go back before ME to find a dud? Windows 2?
That being said, I agree that the pattern doesn't go back beyond ME. Which does make me wonder: what changed?
Windows 95 was a big jump, but Windows 98 just refined it some. Windows ME came next, which didn't really add anything big either and is remembered poorly. XP (see below) came out about 1 year later, making ME easy to forget.
By the time ME was out, Windows 2000 (which was not a consumer OS) was out and was fantastic. It was an amazing OS. Since it was from the NT line, it was amazingly stable. NTFS was much more resillant than FAT32. It was much better at handling memory than the 9x series. By the time I started using it gaming worked great even though it was the business OS.
Windows XP was really Windows 2000 for consumers. If you were already on 2000, it was a very minor improvement. Many power users stayed with 2000 for years. Since they were so similar, drivers and software was usually available for both. I only went to XP when I got a new computer.
However, if you were used to the 9x line, Windows XP was a total revolution. The NT based OSes were clearly head-and-shoulders above the 9x line. Between this improvement and 6+ years familiarity, Windows XP has become the gold standard Windows version in many people's minds.
XP was the last version of Windows I used. I've used Vista for a grand total of about 10 minutes, and maybe 30 on Windows 7. Since I no longer use a Windows machine at work, I just don't run into it. I've read that Vista really wasn't so bad, but the problem was it was too little substance way too late. Windows 7 is supposed to be quite nice.
I've been very interested in watching Windows 8. I don't think MS can afford another Windows Vista style rejection. There are very serious threats to their dominance. OS X continues to gain, the iPad has shows many people just how little they need a "real" computer, and many users do so much online that a Chromebook would probably cover them.
From where I sit, it looks like MS over-reached, pushing metro too hard on the desktop where it does't fit. If they pull out enough great apps by launch, they may be able to show the skeptics. Normal consumers ("Aunt Tillie", if you will) may end up loving it.
It's also possible that this may be their OS X 10.0. It shows some promise and starts something, but isn't really ready. Maybe we'll get Windows 8.1 next year with some of the kinks worked out and it will sell like hotcakes.
Whatever happens, this is far more interesting to watch than going from Vista to 7 or Leopard to Snow Leopard. We don't get to see big changes like this very often.
Every time they release a bad OS there are at least a few obvious problems (and probably others):
1. Microsoft misses out on plenty of upgrade revenue they might have gotten if the bad OS had been worth upgrading to.
2. The previous good OS lives longer than intended, support headaches and other complexity.
3. Some people decide not to deal with the hassle and switch from Windows to another platform (primarily Mac OS X, but there are more options this time around).