NPD Group Analysts Say Windows 8 Sales Sluggish 269
Nerval's Lobster writes "While Microsoft claims it's sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses in the month since launch—a more rapid pace than Windows 7—new data from research firm The NPD Group suggests that isn't helping sales of actual Windows devices, which, in its estimation, are down 21 percent from last year. Desktops dropped 9 percent year-over-year, while notebooks fell 24 percent. 'After just four weeks on the market, it's still early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market,' Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at The NPD Group, wrote in a Nov. 29 statement attached to the data. 'We still have the whole holiday selling season ahead of us, but clearly Windows 8 did not prove to be the impetus for a sales turnaround some had hoped for.'" That seems to match the public grumbling of Acer and Asus about early sales. And though these figures exclude Surface sales, the newly announced prices on for new Windows 8 Pro-equipped Surface tablets might not endear them to anyone. Have you (or has your business?) moved to Windows 8?
It isn't Windows 8 I find to be the barrier... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the secure boot technology. I don't want to buy a laptop or desktop that does not easily let me use the Operating System of my own build and choice.
As usual with even-numbered Windows releases... (Score:5, Insightful)
... my business is treating it as a minor, avoidable catastrophe and reacting accordingly.
Go figure.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the commercials show a Apple knock off that relies on technology people generally don't have yet. The surface side of it may be interesting, but how many of us have touch displays at home? My guess is, not that many. So if I'm going to be looking at Windows 8 and it's price, I'm also going to be looking for new hardware to make use of some of the features. It prices me to an Apple system pretty quickly and what do I gain? Immature applications? Still the hassle of viruses and security? More lock in to a company that is shit? No thanks.
Windows 8 is having the same problems as Windows Phone. It's like an Apple device with the same price. Consumers may generally be stupid, but they are not that stupid.
Ballmer's last stand (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of this sales failure, Ballmer is about receive "boot" technology...
Re:It isn't Windows 8 I find to be the barrier... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it prevent pulling the drive and hooking it up via usb ?
Are they also encrypting the entire volume?
Ignore NPD reports (Score:4, Insightful)
While The PA Report post [penny-arcade.com]deals specifically with games and how they are just not tracked properly by NPD, the same principle applies to any software: the retail store aspect of sales is small and getting smaller every day. Ignore NPD, they really don't matter anymore.
Re:businesses? (Score:5, Insightful)
We skipped Vista and only started using Win7 in March of this year. Similarly, we started using XP in 2004. If we follow the pattern, we might be using Win 9 about 3 years after it becomes available - assuming we stay with MS Windows.
Re:Why would we switch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you (or has your business?) moved to Windows 8?
At our company, which has well over 30,000 PCs deployed, >90% of our systems are still on Windows XP. Who are you kidding? Who is Microsoft kidding? If it ain't broke, don't upgrade it
And before the bleeding edge fanboys... hell, before the slightly-bruised-edge fanboys get up in arms about whatever technical features there are that makes Win 7 a superior OS than XP (and I'm sure there are numerous examples), most organizations of our size suffer from the "Battlestar 78" problem. Our IT environment can only move forward as fast as the slowest mission-critical legacy app. When your biz ops/reg compliance/contractual obligs depend on a niche application that is not yet certified for IE 8, then the revenue-creating side of the company doesn't want to hear squat about group policy optimizations, memory management, or whatever.
Re:Say What You Like About Win8 (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't give a damn how fast IE's render engine can spit out a page - when the whole affair is decked in usability handicaps. I am reminded of the Vonnegut story, Harrison Bergeron [wikipedia.org].
When you eliminate the 3 pop-ups and the blocking warning (1 click each) that interfere with you actually loading the element or even whole URL that you actually wanted.
There's no way this is a good experience. "Are You Sure" dialogue boxes are good for deleting files. Their use in IE10/Win8 feels like someone from preventing you from making a left turn in your automobile. "Are you sure you want to turn left?"
Yes, but that's now 3 blocks behind me!
When it comes down to it, this is just another damning indictment of Microsoft's Windows 8 travesty. Windows is now a barrier to the effective delivery of applications - that one formerly bought Windows to deliver.
Easiest interface is the one you already know... (Score:4, Insightful)
The MacOS UI peaked in like '86 and hasn't changed since. Because they had sense enough to leave well enough alone. At a certain point, there's not much you can do to improve a mouse-screen-keyboard interface. The easiest interface to use is THE ONE YOU ALREADY KNOW.
Re:Our Experience (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of that is the expectation that going forward devices will all have touch screens from the phone to the desktop.
And that they expect desktop systems to be touchscreen-centric is where they've completely lost their minds. Touchscreens can only work as a main input system in situations where you aren't holding your arm away from your body.
Problem is it's their new design philosophy is completely different from what people have come to expect.
I disagree. The problem is that core elements (not all) of their new design philosophy are unpleasant to use in common use cases. Touchscreen on desktops is the big example.
Most people get into their routine and don't want change.
True to an extent. And really, why should they? Change for change's sake is just as bad as failing to change when it's beneficial to do so. But people will change when there is a very clear benefit to doing so. Win 8 has two problems in this regard: it's a huge change, and (on the desktop) there is no readily perceivable benefit to making it -- at least not one that is big enough to counterbalance the pain of the change.
Re:tanking (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think this is quite correct. Win8 isn't single-handedly tanking the entire PC market; it's helping keep it depressed, sure, but it's not the only factor. There's two more factors:
1) mobile devices, including iPads. Lots of people just want to read and write vapid comments on Facebook all day long, and iPads are much smaller and more convenient than laptops (or desktops) for doing this.
2) the lack of progress in hardware and software overall. PCs really aren't significantly faster now than they were 5 or more years ago. It's not like the late 90s when everything was doubling in speed or size every 12-18 months; everything's hit a wall. Mfgrs are more worried now about energy efficiency than speed. A brand-new computer will not seem any faster, running a web browser, spreadsheet, etc. than a 5-year-old PC. As a result, people just aren't upgrading any more, unless their software requires it. Of course, this might not apply to certain applications (namely high-end games), but those are a small fraction of the market. There's tons of people now chugging along just fine with 10-year-old PCs running XP.
and of course 3) the economy sucks and tons of people are out of work.
Re:It isn't Windows 8 I find to be the barrier... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lol wat?
The iOS interface was derided on slashdot, probably by people like you, for being too tonka toy. It's got to be the easiest interface to use ever developed. 1 year old kids can figure out how to use it in minutes. On the other hand, no one seems capable of figuring out Windows 8 without significant confusion, and preferably someone telling them how to use it. Ignoring the relative merits of each interface once you are an expert at them, it's one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard to say that the learning curve for Windows 8 is the same as that for iOS.
Re:It isn't Windows 8 I find to be the barrier... (Score:3, Insightful)
Joe Shmoe doesn't think that far ahead.
Neither do you apparently. At some point in the near future, secureboot will be a requirement everywhere.