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Comment by acturbo | Hacker News Reader

too late.

I agree. They might as well add the start button back in and start calling it an early release of windows 9.

We've had exactly zero requests for Win8 on our product. The largest customers that we asked (and who get all the attention, frankly) told us they are sticking to the every-other-windows-release plan. And god help MS if they screw up on Win9.

The big problem going forward is what to do about the metro/desktop app dichotomy. They work in totally different ways and essentially require two different interfaces in a single platform. Now that they created this they will essentially have to support both for the foreseeable future.

I can't believe Microsoft didn't think through how they were going to improve windows incrementally instead of making a hail mary pass that essentially bet Windows(the brand not just the desktop OS) on a vision that touch screens would be everywhere for laptop/desktop users.

I don't now how to interpret this comment from the article: "Reller admitted Microsoft hadn’t focused “all of its financial incentives behind the touch screen PCs that show off Windows 8 to best advantage,” the FT said." First of all, you can't force consumers to buy your products just using financial incentives for system builders. Second, this looks like classic microsoft of throwing money at the market and hoping to succeed eventually.

It would have been a lot more flexible just to adapt windows phone to touch screens instead of going the other way and shoehorning windows into mobile devices with a totally different interface that now has to be supported on the desktop as well and dramatically increases the complexity for microsoft, its developers and users.

People keep talking about how the start screen replaces the start menu and it is actually an improvement(even Microsoft claimed this); I think this is a rather strange argument as no one was clamoring for a new program launcher in every version of windows since 95! And even if it is an improvement in a very narrow aspect the weirdness of using a component designed for touch screens as the main launcher for a desktop environment can't be overcome.

And worse, Windows 8 itself will remain completely unchanged. Any fixes will be in the next os release.

Too late? Windows 8 already sold 100 million licenses despite the slowdown in PC sales because of tablets, on par with Windows 7 at release.

Meanwhile, Google does not release Chromebook numbers and web share stats show sales are much worse than even WindowsRT, yet we don't seem to hear how ChromeOS is a total failure.

While Windows 8 total sales might be on-par with Windows 7 sales, the total number of devices is not. This essentially suggests a decline in overall (total) market share for Windows.

Do you have industry data that shows the difference between sales and total number of devices? Would like to see it if you have it.

Reference? StatCounter data seems to show the opposite of what you're stating.

"While Windows 8 total sales might be on-par with Windows 7 sales, the total number of devices is not. This essentially suggests a decline in overall (total) market share for Windows."

Or a shift away from desktop PCs, perhaps?

Yes, too late for Windows 8. I worked at Microsoft, i know something about release cycles and sales cycles and basically, i can spot the BS and back peddling in the MS press releases because i sat in on enough meetings that drafted that nonsense. And actually, if Google Chromebook is a failure, that fact (i have no idea if it is or isn't a failure) does nothing to support your red herring comment. In case you can't follow that, I'll spell it out for you, accepting your alleged claim that a competing OS is failing (in this case, Chromebook) should, in fact, help sell more units of competing offers, including Windows 8. Yet, the Windows 8 numbers are still way, way off. Windows 8 is a complete and total mess on the desktop. Yes, i bought the upgrade (MS alumni discount), installed it, fought it for 2 frustrating weeks, and eventually flattened my drive back to Windows 7. You think i'm jumping to 8.1 anytime soon? Uh, no. I'm a developer and overall power user, so please spare me the "you were using it wrong" comments.

Also, selling 100 million units of Windows 8 is considered a failure at MS.

>can spot the BS and back peddling in the MS press releases

Perhaps you mean backpedaling?

>Uh, no. I'm a developer and overall power user, so please spare me the "you were using it wrong" comments.

Speak for yourself, I am a power user too and it took all of ten minutes to get used to Windows 8.

Even a 3 year old kid doesn't seem to have trouble. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d...

For me it is not that difficult, but I am not saying that it is a better desktop interface than in Win7, and I can see how people with large monitors may find it a bit jarring.

yes, that's just part of the problem, and it is a big issue seeing as i have a 24" monitor. The crux of the problem is that there is no way to fully disengage from Metro. Yes, you can get to your old desktop and fine, there is no Start button (not ideal, but not the end of the world). This is fine until you use some of the built-in Windows apps/features that jolt you back into Metro mode. If i can run Windows 8 -exactly- like Windows 7, then there would be no issues. Side note, i actually like the Metro UI, it looks refreshing and interesting. However, it's simply unusable to people that are used to having 3-7 windows open/apps running at any given time. Power users, developers, designers, engineers, etc. ... people that use various apps to "produce" content will struggle with Windows 8. Now, if you're primarily a consumer of content, that's a different story and i can't speak to that on a desktop. Personally, I use my iPad to consume content and that's been a pleasant surprise.

Thanks for correcting my grammar. As for a 3 year old using Windows 8, well, thanks for giving me yet another reason not to use Windows 8. Good to hear that you and the 3 year old are having success with it.

"As for a 3 year old using Windows 8, well, thanks for giving me yet another reason not to use Windows 8."

This doesn't make the rest of your opinions sound more sincere.

unfortunately yes, when i have to interact with someone posting nonsense, the result is sometimes ugly. On another note, it would be good to see the same level of scrutiny shown towards my rebuttal, be applied to the original reply of my post about "Google Chromebook", which is right up there with the price of tea in China.

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