Windows 8 Killing PC Sales 1010
yl-roller writes "IDC says Windows 8 is partly to blame for PC sales suffering the largest percentage drop ever. 'As if that news wasn't' troubling enough, it appears that a pivotal makeover of Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating system seems to have done more harm than good since the software was released last October.' According to a ZDNet article, IDC originally expected a drop, but only half the size."
My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
There hasn't been a damn thing in the last several years worth upgrading for. Gamers and developers aside, there has been nothing at all interesting happening in the PC world.
I'm still on a 2.0ghz C2D laptop and had no intention of upgrading anytime soon.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Wasn't Microsoft blaming the actual manufacturers for low sales at the start? Are they aware that it's actually their own fault yet?
Too bad for MS (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do companies make the same mistake (Score:3, Insightful)
Over and over again? It's the same as what IBM did with the PS/2 MicroChannel in the '80s and Intel with Itanium in the early 2000's.
Just because you have majority market share doesn't mean you can treat your customer base like a cattle drive. They have to be coaxed, not ordered to move. Show them the mountaintop, but also show them how they can migrate with minimal disruption to their applications, data and working style.
Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
Tablets can do it better (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: My theory (Score:3, Insightful)
They will not go back up. People don't want, or need, a new computer.
The biggest problem is lack of options (Score:5, Insightful)
If I buy a new PC (I did buy one instead of build last year before windows 8 came out- for a quick gift to a friend in need) I would not hesitate to buy one with Windows 8 on it. I know how to install a program that'll make it friendlier for every day use. Or if I want I can put 7 back on it or a linux distro if I want. But for the average person, I see nothing but frustration from people.
PC makers need to give options. 7 or 8 should be available. People will say that Linux should be available too, and I won't disagree, but I don't think it will give an overall good user experience from most PC makers. But that's not what this is about.
This is about MS forcing vendors to force their customers to be guinea pigs for windows 8's new paradigm that totally sucks. Sales are down? GOOD. Maybe they'll get the message:
THE NEW WINDOWS 8 GUI SUCKS.
Microsoft removed the biggest anti-Linux argument (Score:5, Insightful)
"People won't switch to Linux/Android/whatever because they don't want to have to learn a new system."
Microsoft: "I know, let's make everybody learn a new system!"
Suddenly they've given their core customers a reason to look at their competition that they didn't have before.
Re: Mobile computing replacing regular computing? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yawn. Get back to me when 90% of the PC using public even knows what TF2 is. Games are outliners, even more-so now than a few years ago.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
- much faster random access
- improved battery life
- zero noise
- no mechanical failure
Re:My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Starting abou 2009-2010 the lowest end computer could play Youtube/Facebook/Netflix out of the box without any upgrades. Those are the killer apps of the home PC experience... and also things that a $150 android Tablet excells at. Your kid can still type up their book report on the old family Pentium 4 from 2002, but a $150 tablet outclasses it in every other way in both features, connectivity and speed for consumer use.
PCs hit a price floor at around $350 due to the size and cost to ship, along with the various modular components. The $80 tablet (not sale price, the MSRP price) is a thing now, in five years the $50 tablet will exist, and people will look at you like you're crazy if you buy a $150 tablet. Google is about to announce their new $149 Nexus 7.
Re:Mobile computing replacing regular computing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry bub, nobody's gonna call. You're not the mass market, you're a niche. Funny how things change over time. Tablets are becoming the mass market Internet device. Professionals will still buy PCs but everyone else, all those people who bought a PC to get 'online' in the 90s and upgraded to play games in 2000, they just don't need a PC anymore (they never did but it was the only good option).
It's just the way it is. The PC industry is going to consolidate soon. Hardware makers will still make servers and workstations and some will make tablets but the general purpose home PC is going away.
Re: Why do companies make the same mistake (Score:0, Insightful)
Nothing has really changed in windows 8.
If you go to the desktop it is largely the same. I have always hated windows 7's default grouping behavior as well as the "pinning". It's annoying and counterintuitive to the past decade and a half of computing. Any user on win 7 should have no problem with 8.
Oh, you're complaining about Metro. Want to know the secret to Metro? Don't fucking click it. We've had a windows key since the 90's and the only use it had was maybe win m, minimize all windows. (The "I totally wasn't looking at porn" keyboard maneuver), and windows 8 gives that windows key a lot of power. You can switch windows, search, launch different menus. Hop between metro and the desktop.
Personally, all this whining about the loss of a start menu is because you kids grew up in a point and click world.
Get windows 8, throw your mouse out the window and work that keyboard like a badass. It's a UI change. Man the hell up, people.
Re:Bull (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect smart phones and the like are doing more than anything else to kill the market for PCs. You don't need a PC to be a dog on the internet anymore.
Re:Windows8 can be tamed, but why should you have (Score:3, Insightful)
My laptop has win8, I only use it in desktop mode and works just like win7 did. All win7 programs work the same way. In fact it's nice to have the extra space from removing the start button on the taskbar. The only difference is that you get a full screen "start menu" when you hit the windows key. You can still type the name of the app or document just like in the star menu in win7. When it comes up, just hit enter to launch it. Same as win7.
I read reviews and scare mongering like your post, and was scared of win8 when when it arrived with my new laptop. But it's all unfounded sillyness. Win8 looks better and is faster than win7 and works in desktop mode just like win7 did.
Re:My theory (Score:4, Insightful)
The things that are good about windows 8 (modularity of features and some options for speedy lightweight installs, for example) are not at all apparent to most end users.
The things that are absolute fails about windows 8 are the things that are completely in your face for most users.
Features from the first group won't successfully justify the antifeatures in the second group.
All M$ has to do is fix their UI and sales will go back up.
Well, there are two large factors in the decline of Win 8 sales. One being people dislike Windows 8, as too different. The other thing is people aren't all buying a PC to replace their old PC. Mac sales are up as are tablets and smart phones. People who only needed their PC to keep in touch or exchange photos no longer need a PC, so they aren't going to buy one.
Re: My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you no respect for tradition?
I agree. I remember this from back on Compu$erve even.
Sincerely,
90125,423
(or some such number)
Re:Apple sales as well (Score:4, Insightful)
Bloatware, mobile, and good enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically everyone who buys a nice machine from wherever boots it up and is presented with a pile of icons and popups that confuse/scare/annoy the crap out of them. Usually the browser is infested with "helpful" toolbars. The search engine has been redirected this way or that. And some crap like Norton pops up and tells them that they are going to die if they don't give them money. The Apple PC market is doing OK and I think that people are willing to pay the huge bucks because they turn the damn thing on and it works, no threats, no weirdness. I am not saying that the Mac is way better but that people would basically be just as happy turning on their Windows machine and being greeted with a default one icon for connecting to the internet unimpeded, no Asus Game world, Trial this or trial that.
Then there is the fact that most people are consumers not generators of content. Thus a tablet or larger screened smart phone will get them all the cat videos they can eat. These smartphones aren't cheap and thus will eat up many people's technology budget.
And lastly there is the point that many people who have a PC of some sort can keep it running and running. If they have a laptop their mobile phone might have reduced their porting it around and increased its lifespan even to the point where they don't care that the battery has 5 minutes of life when unplugged. If they have a desktop then the lifespan is even better seeing that most repairs (if any) should cost less than $100. My mother is using a desktop running Linux that is about 8 years old. She has a nice keyboard, nice mouse, nice B&W laser printer, and a nice monitor so she is quite happy. It runs gmail and can play youtube videos at full screen; an upgrade would be a foolish waste of money.
In the past people upgraded their computers because they had some application that really wouldn't run on their old computer. Now about the only non professional (Photoshop, IDE, etc) application that demands an upgrade is the OS itself. So if you need an OS that can run a browser and some sort of Office Suite then why would you upgrade your OS.
In the past I can remember getting Windows 95 and bouncing around when it booted up for the first time. It was such a vast improvement over 3.1.1. Then when I finally had a machine that could handle 2000 I was happy again. XP waited for a long time until some application or another wouldn't run and then I left the Microsoft embrace so got to largely avoid Vista on. Even with the Mac about the only reason I have upgraded my OS is that the latest versions of XCode wouldn't run on the slightly older versions of the Mac OS.
As for games I just about lost my mind when I finally got a 3DFX card. But if anything gaming is probably the last thing keeping people buying the latest and greatest in the PC market. Personally I have long given up making my PC game friendly. I have an XBox for that.
Personally if I were running MS beyond looking past a world where the OS and office suite drive the bus I would have a super research project where you create the killer app that requires that you have a PC with 100GB of ram and a crazy new processor.
But maybe this whole PC dying thing is missing the point. Way in the past an IBM PC "killed" my commodore 64. And apple seems to be racing, with other, to a smart watch goal. This will mean that your average person will have a computer on their wrist, a computer in their pocket, computers in their car, computers in their work, multiple computers hooked up to their TV, and maybe(or maybe not) a computer on a desk at home. Yet if we scroll back say 13 years to the dot com boom most people had at most 1 computer that they paid well over $1000 for and a home network was exotic.
Re:Windows8 can be tamed, but why should you have (Score:0, Insightful)
a 2 million+ id user gushing about MS?
what a fucking surprise!
come back when you're not a teenager and/or shill
Re:Windows8 can be tamed, but why should you have (Score:4, Insightful)
My laptop has win8, I only use it in desktop mode and works just like win7 did.
I'm sorry, my /. interpreter may be broken .. are you saying that you wish you hadn't upgraded?
Re:My theory (Score:4, Insightful)
No, this is Microsoft's doing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, PC sales are on the decline. This we all know. So MS decided to tackle tablets in a big, audacious way in order to increase their relevance in the post-PC era. And it might have worked...
HAD THEY NOT BEEN SO ARROGANT AS TO REMOVE THE GODDAMNED START MENU AND FORCED OLD PC HARDWARE TO USE THEIR TOUCHSCREEN UI!
Seriously, how difficult would it have been to do a quick hardware check upon install and say "hmmm, it looks like you have a keyboard, mouse and non-touchscreen monitor. Let's make Metro an icon on the classic desktop and boot to explorer.exe with a mouse-friendly start menu by default."
Personally, I think Windows 8 offers several welcome improvements over Win7. I installed the OS, downloaded and configured Classic Shell, and haven't so much as whiffed a Metro screen in at least 2 months on my PC. It's great for me, but I'm not your average Windows user! The masses are clueless and if you give them enough reason to dislike your product, you're doomed.
MS, you successfully borrowed Steve Jobs' arrogant decision-making skills, but failed to deliver on the other half of the equation: an overall better user experience.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
you also need stickers of all the things you add, they add an additional 10 hp per sticker.
Doesn't mention Mac sales declining too (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Windows8 can be tamed, but why should you have (Score:5, Insightful)
wait, you don't like the start menu button because it takes up space, yet you tolerate the full screen metro bullshit? In fact, the start menu itself takes almost no space at all unless it's accessed.
Having search boxes on menus and windows is just a crutch that demonstrates the design sucks. The point is to see what you're looking for and interact with it in a graphically intuitive way. Switching back and forth from keyboard and mouse (or touch) is clunky, slow, and stupid.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
I often wonder what will happen first: Microsoft/Apple realising the error of their ways and making a useful UI, or users collectively sighing and sucking up the crap they are given.
Put it this way, how many corporations have dumped their awful flash-sites? How many websites have you seen give up those hateful JS pop-ups, slide-outs, rolling banners, jiggly follow-me sidebars...? Or the "HEY WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY READING THE PAGE YOU CLICKED ON?!!! [Yes] [No but please ask me every fucking time]" pop-overs? Or "links" that are JS triggers that don't work like links, even though there's perfectly standard coding for JS pseudo-links? Or...
How many websites of major newspapers don't use third-party ad-hosting because they have an entire fucking in-house marketing department for their print edition, thus solving 95% of the problem with people using ad-blocking software?
How many major game companies stop requiring always-on net connections, or other obnoxious DRM, after having yet another first-week horrorshow on the authentication servers, which didn't stop pirates anyway, and instead decide to stop treating gamers who actually paid for the software as criminals?
How many....
Well, you get the idea. There's something about the corporate mindset that tends to just double-down on stupidity.
And a turbo button! (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers just aren't as fast without the turbo button.
You can't argue with success (Score:5, Insightful)
One could argue that Apple didn't deliver a better user experience either.
Not against anyone that has used an iPad.
But they packaged it in such a shiny package with rounded corners that the user simply didn't care.
If that were true the far cheaper (and equally rounded) tablets would have vastly surpassed the iPad. But instead the iPad maintains a huge lead.
Quite a few of the ipod/phone/pad "interface" things, while different, are absolutely not functional
Just what exactly are you thinking of? Most of the conventions are quite functional. A number are superior to desktops (I far prefer pan/zoom and things like drawing on an iPad).
Desktops are better at some things, yes. But to pretend the iPad is not good at anything is to ignore a world of real-world experience that contradicts.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
The key as always is what you are using the hardware for determines what type of hardware is best for you.
Re:My theory (Score:3, Insightful)
I was waiting for laptops with a decent screen resolution.
This and not being forced to buy Windows.
My 8 year old laptop died a few days ago. I spent last night trying to find a replacement. I had no idea how hard it would be. My requirements were, I thought, simple: 13" non-glossy non-touch, SSD 64~128Gb (without HDD), no optical drive, Qwerty keyboard, Linux or no OS, SDXC reader.
From the get go it's impossible to match half those specs. They 'give' you a HDD in addition to the SDD. It's almost impossible to get a matte screen at 13". Most models are now 'touch'. Linux? Yeah we support it with a special developer edition that cost 50% extra for the same specs. Be happy we made a lighter keyboard by removing the arrow keys and the Home/End/PgUp/PageDn/Delete keys.
I had to settle for 13" glossy non-touch, 128Gb SSD, no SDXC. And pay the fucking illegal MS tax.
Re: My theory (Score:2, Insightful)
Win7 was a huge step up in stability and speed compared to Vista.
Its not all bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just add the start button back.
http://stardock.com/products/start8/ [stardock.com] is my fav but does cost $5, http://www.classicshell.net/ [classicshell.net] is free.
5 more dollars to put all those "apps" back in a window with an icon on the taskbar http://stardock.com/products/modernmix/ [stardock.com]
And here is a great article for switching default apps back, getting rid of the swipe screen, etc.http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/software-and-web-apps/how-to-make-windows-8-look-like-windows-7-50009546/ [cnet.co.uk]
Tell people you are a Consultant and you can charge them to do this stuff for them.
And just when you think you've charged everyone money for fixing what Microsoft broke, Microsoft will do you a solid and sell them all something else they hate and will pay you to "make work like it used to."
Oh and if you think Microsoft is desperate and just burning money to be like Apple, you're right. They are offering a $100 an app for up to 15 apps for college students to write pretty much anything and fill their apps store with crap for Win8. Google for one of their App Camps and make yourself some quick cash.
Re:My theory (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt Win8 is the sole cause for the decline in PC sales. Quite a few manufacturers still offer Win7 by default (I just bought a brand new custom built Laptop, Win8 was an optional upgrade). I think it has to do more with the fact that hardware really is outpacing software these days and the only reason I even bought a new laptop was to play games when I travel. My old one works just fine still for the purpose I bought it for and my older ones are still quite usable and are now dedicated Linux machines.
The upgrade every 6 months or die cycle has long been toast.
Re:Windows8 can be tamed, but why should you have (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple started this nonsense
Except that on OS X the hot corners are fully optional. I don't use them myself, for example. I know where to configure them if I ever want to, but like you I just don't see the point and so I don't, and everything works just fine without.
That's the difference. Giving a user options is fine. Forcing the user unto something that you think is great just sucks, because users are different from each other and definitely from the developers.
Re:Like a refrigerator (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot car analogy time.
The PC will be like a truck, mobile like a car. There are people that need trucks, there are people that don't need trucks and want one anyway, but most people use a car.
A/V work is for trucks. But most people are in cars just running little errands or driving for fun.
Re:My theory (Score:3, Insightful)
"It boots in 7seconds rather than 40 seconds. "
Nice, but I never boot my machine, it reboots only automatically when I'm in bed and updates are done.
It's like buying a Ferrari, something that's OK in theory but you can never really get any real use out of it.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
The tablet space is an attractive market for now, but that fad will pass in 2 years when the general public realizes that touch UIs suck.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that touch UIs in general suck. They do suck on desktop/laptop machines where you're reaching up from the keyboard to touch the screen. They also suck for applications which involve significant typing, so are not good for programming, or writing that company report, or your next novel, or where you make significant use of other input devices with precision control, such as in photo editing, 3D modelling etc.
But that still leaves a LOT of the stuff that people spend a lot of time doing. They're really good for browsing and reading (or watching video, or pretty much any content consumption). They're fine for applications which require only small amounts of input, so all that tweeting, updating facebook, Skype etc. I now find that I'm spending more of my screen time at home in front of a tablet or large screen phone than I am at laptop or desktop computer. Partly, that's because I don't currently have time/energy for any out of work programming projects. The only things I really do sat at a computer is email where a keyboard is more efficient, banking/sorting finances (which with the right software would be fine on a touch screen tablet I just currently have it set up on desktop) and photo editing.
It's not just home use either. Every single work colleague I know who spends time involved in management committee meetings either has or wants a tablet. It's not just to look cool; flicking through minutes and meeting documents on a tablet is easier and more efficient than using a laptop, and it does save on the volume of printed paper.
The win8 interface is horrible and confusing on a computer. The 70 yr old woman who's in the process of buying my house came round a few days ago apologizing for not responding to emails; her computer had broken and she'd been all round town looking for a shop which would sell her a new laptop with win7. Failing to find one she was waiting to get her old machine fixed instead. Seeing behaviour like that, I am not at all surprised that new PC sales are hurting. Win8 is becoming as toxic a brand for MS as Vista.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Insightful)
1920x1080 isn't high resolution. I mean, it is, but not where it counts. I'm typing this on a 1920x1080 13", and the DPI is certainly high enough. But the problem is the lack of vertical screen real estate.
See, a high-end laptop from a few years ago would be 1600x1200, and when calling up a print dialogue from Adobe Reader, you would actually SEE the buttons at the bottom. And you could work on more than half a page at a time.
Now you get higher DPI, so pick your choice of either too small to read or not enough space. And no matter what you pick, you don't get more than 1080 pixels height, which isn't much more than the old 1280x1024, just much much smaller pixels.
What's going on.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, Microsoft screwed up. They had a big job to do: integrate tablet functionality and desktop use; instead they made 2 separate interfaces instead of one. Looking closer they did not even do that; they tacked on Windows 7 Phone, onto Windows 7, then they took off the command bar, the one familiar thing the happened to get right, and no one is happy--and they wonder why people are still asking for Windows 7.
Secondly, AMD is weak; Intel is sleeping. Neither has much to show us.
Thirdly, Apple is asleep on the desktop because they are making more money people shinny toys.
Fourth, too many companies are copying Apple's designs, many of which are not as practical in the real world. Sharp corners, downgraded keyboards: flash over function.
Fifth, Linux has indeed been hurt by Gnome having partially failed to come up with a tablet-desktop interface. Linux has been hurt by UEFI. The US Federal Trade must stop Microsoft's UEFI, because it is a monopolistic action, or is someone taking money from Microsoft? Yes, I am again questioning the integrity of the FTC; there is no need to read between the lines.
Six, As a distro Ubuntu is untrustworthy, spyware, and corrupt. Unity did divide the Linux community, but perhaps that is what it was supposed to do. Mint is coming up, but they still have a weak presence. I applaud Mint for putting pressure on Gnome, but I wish instead that Gnome would listen to their users. The Gnome's leadership needs to be changed.
Seven, Sales people sell what they want to sell, regardless if it is practical. Slim phone with no battery life: no problem. Tablet with no keyboard: they will sell it. Shinny screen to look at and not into: they will sell it. Slim, shinny, and minimalistic is the emperor's new clothes in computers.
~
Having finished this I am reminded that I cannot even buy they computer I want. I just wanted a 13" computer with a decent video chip and processor, and space for a full-sized SSD, a good keyboard, matte screen, enough battery to run it for a while, and made so it won't break if I look at it the wrong way.
On it, I would rather have Windows 7 than Windows 8, and rather have the interface be more like Windows 2000 and XP, because after that, Microsoft fucked up and bloated their operating system.
Microsoft, Apple, and Gnome, ehem, when you are done playing around, we need to work and do useful things on our computers.
Microsoft: You screwed up. 1+1-1 does not equal anything anyone wants to use.
Dell, why not try stop making flimsy cased crap loaded with annoying bloatware.
HP, stop reinventing the wheel and making strange cased computers just for the sake of differentiation. It would be cool to do a computer with the brown and gold calculator look.
AMD: Add one more FPU to the bulldozer/piledriver unit, and work on the darn integer bottle necks. The bobcat was good, but not updated fast enough. Power efficiency will take time and effort. Show off your GPU compute scores. A chip person had theorized you were might virturalize the whole FPU scenero with GPU cores. It seems like a interesting idea, and I have seen powerpoint slides which show a further GPU+CPU integration than what you have with the APU. If you are going to do something, do it fast--and well.
Nvidia: You crippled your gaming chips for GPU computing so much that GPU computing was weakened as an initiative. Thanks for shortchanging gamers--even after we paid for all the technology you are selling as Quadro cards.
Intel: For a single quad, my one-year-old 2600k is almost as fast as what you are selling, Wake up, and wake me up when you have something better.
Apple round those damn corners, yes Johnny, I am talking to you! Shinny screens are useless in a coffee shop. You are right,: if your customers drop it, they will just buy another. Hire more QA people, and stop making OSX venders rev everything all the time, for each 10.8.4.6.6.2.1.x release, where x is an update to the system that break your vendor's program.
Adobe: You are not g
Re:My theory (Score:4, Insightful)
What are you doing to these things?
I have all my computers in my home using SSDs and so far the failure rates match my spinning disk rates. In the server room I see spinning disks fail far more often.
SSDs that fail from too many writes will still be readable. This morning the helpdesk folks, next office over, are dealing with another dead drive in a laptop, no laptop should come with spinning disks they are simply too shock sensitive.