Microsoft, PC makers begin taking preorders for Windows 8 software & devices - Page 2

If only there was a way one could use the freely downloadable beta that has been out for months, watch videos of it on YouTube, or read reviews from around the world¡

 

I'm using the RC and have been using prerelease Windows 8 for months before that. 

It's terrible, and consumer PC users will absolutely hate it. Businesses will, too.

MIcrosoft is facing the same problem that Apple has for at least 3 or 4 years.

For MacOS X, the OS has been stable and mature for quite a while. There really isn't any need to upgrade and there aren't all that many new features that need to be added. It just works well for most people most of the time. Windows has only recently gotten to the point that it works pretty well for most users. Windows 7 isn't that bad. Granted, it's clumsier and far more awkward than OS X, but most users have become familiar enough with it that they've learned to live with its idiosyncrasies. So, as an OS vendor, what do you do?

Apple chose to make it very cheap and as painless as possible. The enormous upgrade numbers show that this is a successful strategy. Mac users simply expect that they can painlessly upgrade their OS in just a few minutes and get the security updates and maybe a few minor features for just a few bucks. Microsoft has chosen to go with more than 3 times the upgrade price and a lot less flexibility. In addition, some previous versions of Apple software updates allowed you to install onto multiple computers in your home, although I don't know if that applies for Mountain Lion).

So, right off the bat, Microsoft WIndows 8 has a couple of strikes against it. It's more than 3 times the cost of Mountain Lion upgrade. The price is for a limited time only. And it requires the user to learn a new interface (or find someone who can turn of 'metro' or whatever they're calling it these days. In addition, there is a long history of problems with upgrading Windows computers - these problems were common enough that I know a lot of people (even experience IT people) who never upgraded their Windows computers. They just left them with whatever OS they came with until it was time to buy a new computer.

In the short term, I don't see an easy way around these problems. They could always cut the price, but they depend so heavily on OS revenues that it might have a significant impact on their business. As for the 'ease of upgrading' issue, that will only be solved over time. If they are able to demonstrate that WIndows 8 upgrades perform flawlessly most of the time, that might make it easier for people to buy upgrades in the future. However, it would probably take a couple of cycles of nearly flawless upgrades before people are comfortable with it. Back in the 90s, people had the same concerns about Mac upgrades and it took a while before they learned that these concerns were unfounded.

 

if its terrible then perhaps windows find way to improve it

 

Windows 8 is their attempt to improve Windows. This is the best they can do, and it's worse than before.

Windows users, for the most part, are not cutting edge people, and a touch based OS is something that these ancient mouse using people are not used to, and I don't think that Windows 8 will do too well.

Everything that needs to be said is that it's still windows. That's all.

 

 

Indeed. From a software company perspective, it is a crazy decision from Microsoft not to be present yet on the IOS platform (e.g. with some version of Office), which represents a significant part of the market. I am not a fan of Bill Gates, but he was more pragmatic in his time, in developing fro the Mac platform. Also, as said by other comments, such presence on mobile platforms would probably have developed at Microsoft an expertise which they obviously lack, now.

I tried to use it for a couple weeks at work (I'm in IT so it's my job to test these things out.) Not 100% of the time, just too much stuff to reinstall to get me fully up and running. But I'd say maybe 30% of my day was on Win8.

If you stick to the handful of bulitin Metro native apps, it's OK. I can see Metro working on a touch screen but on a laptop, it doesn't make much sense to me. The problem is Metro apps are all full screen so multitasking is a pain. Then you get to non-native apps. It just pops you over to the "normal" desktop. It's a bit jarring to say the least. And if I want to open another app, the new start menu takes the whole screen. It's very awkward and still has the feel of beta. And before you say 3rd parties just need to release Metro apps, Office 2013 is not Metro native. Sure there's a tile on the start menu, but it just opens in a regular window on the classic desktop.

Other than anything related to Metro, it seems snappy and just as good as Win7. But seeing as Metro is the central UI piece, it's hard to overlook. Imagine Apple replaced the dock in OSX with the Home screen of IOS. Fine for a tablet or handheld, but awkward at the least for a desktop. especially in a work environment.

Maybe I'm just used to the old way. Maybe I need to adapt to Metro. Maybe my experience is not like the rest of the world. Maybe average home users will like the slick new design and I'm not in their target audience. Or maybe Win8 is just plain dumb. Only time will tell.

People like to liken Win8 to Vista. I didn't really have any huge issues with Vista. Incompatibilities with really old hardware and software, sure... but that's to be expected. Still an improvement over XP. But Win8 doesn't seem to add anything over Win7. That's my opinion anyways.

(geez, that became a long post.)

Edit: forgot to mention that I was using the final version of Win8 downloaded via Volume licensing a month ago. Not beta or RC.

 

yes.

 

although Vista is my least favourite Windows version, once I increased memory of the computer to 4GB and disabled UAC, Vista ran well for the years I've been using it.  with respect to Windows 8, my stance is neutral so far.  i've never had an issue learning the UI of a consumer or enterprise-level OS, and there's nothing i've seen nor read that will indicate I'll have difficulty using Windows 8.

Ha ha ha ...let's put it this way champ ... Apple itself does't believe that its user base is intelligent .. don't believe me .. check this out

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXTzzxiCfPw

 

Not sure you could be more wrong.

Personally I like windows 8, been using it for quite a while now and don't have any complaints.

What's interesting is when people talk about removing the start menu being a bad idea, you have to compare that with microsofts stats about how often the start menu is actually used in Win7, and the answer is not a lot. The average user launches program's form the task bar and start is used for little more than search.

So will users really care that the start they didn't use has gone? I doubt it. They may or may not use the new start for opening program's, but I'm sure they will like the fact search is now a lot bigger than the tiny start menu it used to be on.
I guess it's a post tablet device?

 

I don't think Apple wants to compete in the server space, nor do I think they can...  Linux already has the infrastructure market wrapped up, with players such as IBM, Oracle, Red Hat specializing in infrastructure...  

 

The server/infrastructure market is too different from the consumer market Apple competes in.  Things Apple specializes in like industrial design and UI design doesn't really translate to a cluster of servers...

 

 

 

Well let's hope for the best.

 

 

Huh?

Another clown-baloon interface from major crap where you can't find anything. And yet does it really do anything different or is it just another wrapper on a plie of manure?

I found your post to be excellent, and just wished others would follow you in the quoted part where you get humble and not opinionated as so many other do.

It just reminded me of negative posts about Apple going down because new XYZ product is not good enough, hasn't got enough new features, looks too much like previous generation, yara-yara-yara... to which some smartass usually responds with good old "Apple is doomed (tm)".

So I guess it was my turn to be a smartass. Very indulging experience.

But seriously; every year can hinder everyone. Every release of new product carry some risk that, for whatever (un)forseen reason, product will not be well received. Be it a Start Screen, Maps or anything else. Or everything else.

MS bread & butter is volume licensing. I don't think anything relevant will change there. Regardless of how many customers will opt to use downgrade rights (and keep Windows 7), MS will be selling Windows 8 licenses as any other desktop licenses before. On server side, their products are less risky and have some great benefits (like Hyper-V's availability of GUI), so I don't think business will change there at all. All of our big customers (though most of them would be considered small or, on a shiny day, mid-size somewhere else in the world) have volume licensing agreements with software assurance, which gives MS great peace of mind regardless of how many of these users actually decide to upgrade to Win 8 or not. In addition, most of them replace their hardware based on SLA's they have, and based on support/maintenance they have from hardware vendors. Be it on 3, 4 or 5 year hardware refresh plan, it happens regardless of MS (but they do get new hardware with MS OEM licenses, regardless of having VL for desktop OS or not).

And no, I don't think people - companies, at least - can just get a Mac. Because companies still depend on their software, much of which is legacy or does not exist outside of Windows ecosystem. And then, companies would have to replace their hardware, their IT support departments (or outsourced support companies), likely change your central management system (like Kaseya) - and still get to train their staff not only to use new OS and new hardware, but also all the apps that are not the same as those they would just carry over from old to new Windows desktops. Replacing one component, like desktop OS, still isn't as logistically challenging as replacing pretty much everything, including desktop OS.

On consumer side, I can see possibility of bigger fluctuations, but I'm not expecting them. People seem to buy new PC when they need one, not when MS releases new OS I don't think that this trend would change in any meaningful way regardless of how well new Windows is received or not. Enthusiasts might opt to upgrade (or not), but they are minority to corporate and more casual users. They will have to balance their (dis)liking of new GUI with improvements related to DirectX and other things important to them, from case to case. Yes, some consumers might decide to move to Mac, but again - they are facing same problem of having to learn new OS anyway, plus replace some of the software they already might have (and can keep using without extra investment).

Real question is, will MS manage to achieve any significant success with their mobile efforts or not. However, they don't have much to lose here, considering how irrelevant they currently are. Plus, their mobile effort doesn't look bad at all.

Based on all that - and yes, it is only my opinion, though reasonably well educated - MS will have financial 2013 comparable to their 2012, if they fail to break into smartphones and tablets. If they do, however, their 2013 might end up being better than 2012. Even if 2012 wasn't bad at all.

Every big change has potential to polarize users. I've stated a lot of times around here that I personally like changes and new approaches, and am personally not to happy that Apple plays safe with iOS - even if I am fully aware that majority of users, likely, don't want to re-learn everything from scratch too often, if at all. In that light, it is not surprising that I have no issues with start screen, but also that I understand that you or anyone else can have. It's all fine.

The way I see it, idea behind Win 8 is that it is not going to be used in both scenarios equally. Casual users will be sitting mostly on Metro, and much as I have used it, Mail, Calendar, People, Skydrive, Messaging, Metro IE... should cover for such needs just fine. I've set up my "personal life" in Metro and haven't find it lacking. I've added extra Metro apps (Wiki, NZ Herald, ToDos...) just to get some feel of it, and it's fine. True, multitasking is not as elegant as on classic desktop, but for modest needs, Metro split screen and previous apps list should do the trick for casual use, and I'm happy that start screen shows me existence of new emails, FB replies, messages, calendar inputs, todos, weather update, apps updates... without need to open any of above mentioned apps only to check. Integration of FB into people's hub is nice addition. Also, Metro on PC might be especially nice option for casual users who opt to go for Windows Phone or tablet, having reasonably standardised base GUI across devices.

My work sits on classic desktop. Since I'm working on two screens, my right screen shows classic desktop by default, and all my work related applications are taskbar-ed. Since all the work related programs are non-Metro, I can spend whole day sitting on desktop, long as I don't want to check on my personal stuff. Since I upgraded from Win 7, everything was where I left it originally. Win 8 desktop has small but nice improvement on classic desktop - taskbar exists on both screens, and is cloned (same icons on both), so you don't have to move mouse across both screens to click on icon sitting on left side of the taskbar. Also when you have Metro on left screen, you can access your desktop programs without changing Metro to desktop.

I don't have a problem with start screen taking over whole screen. Transition is fast and smooth both ways. Yes the style change might be jarring. I personally don't mind it, but I see your point. I guess that is also the point where MS thinks that people don't use start menu too often, and will end up having their classic apps pinned to desktop's taskbar (thus minimizing start screen popup), or use dominantly Metro, thus minimizing warping to desktop. I've read somewhere that this decision was based on some study MS performed, how reliable study was, well, time will tell.

End of the day, I agree there's not much reason for people to upgrade from Win 7 to Win 8. Knowing how successful Windows 7 is, I think MS is well aware of that. I wouldn't be surprised if simple fact that Win 7 is so successful wasn't one of the reasons MS decided to try something like Win 8 - knowing they have good and still current OS in Win 7, giving option for people who don't want to give Win 8 a go. If they tried something like this in Vista days, options for customers would be much worst.

very well said..