"short-sighted consumers"
You lost me here.
If Msofts strategic trajectory needs to be explained to consumers to justify Windows 8's existence, they fucked up.
Windows 8 should have been a pleasure to use straight out of the box.
You lost me here.
If Msofts strategic trajectory needs to be explained to consumers to justify Windows 8's existence, they fucked up.
Windows 8 should have been a pleasure to use straight out of the box.
Apple "rushes" things, they push hard on an aggressive schedule. They make mistakes, but they correct them more quickly because they iterate faster. Remember Apple releases new versions of iOS annually and OS X is on an 18-24 month release cycle as well.
Microsoft tends to release a new version of Windows every three to five years, and omitting the duds that nobody wants (e.g. Vista, Windows ME) the cycle is even longer.
What Microsoft rushes is not their development cycle, but their design process. Where Apple would try 100 things and throw out 99 of them, Microsoft in comparison would try 10 and throw out 8. They are getting better, but this Windows 8 serves as an example of how they're prisoner to compromises.
Anyway, the key point is, as you say, they are (or seem to be) getting better. That is why I am optimistic.
This should be a law of failed software. You know a product has completely failed when something like this is said. Blaming the users is the last refuge of failed software developers.
What I am arguing instead (which you seem to have missed) is that consumer distaste for Windows 8 is an incredibly poor measure for the long-term rationality of Microsoft's business and product strategy. Because consumers are short-sighted and only care about whether a product is good today, not whether it is a transitional release laying the foundation to a competitive 201X ecosystem blah blah blah.