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."
Apple sales as well (Score:5, Interesting)
Definition of Insanity (Score:5, Interesting)
If Windows isn't working, how about trying something else guys?
The answer is staring them in the face: Set up a foundation, share the expenses of development of a Linux desktop (Ubuntu or Mint).
Ubuntu/Mint is fine, it's just making sure the manufacturers are using all compatible hardware (or writing a driver for the odd device).
Prerelease only to consortium members.
It's either that, or sink on the M$ ship.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Jumped the shark (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows is bad enough, but Windows + Ballmer is a disaster. MS could save itself with some new management.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Only thing I would suggest as an upgrade to that computer is an SSD. But that's about it. It really is amazing what an SSD can do to an older computer.
It depends on the spinning disk I suppose. I upgraded from striped 15K RPM SCSI drives. The SSD was noticeably faster, but not anything on the scale I was hearing.
Win8 Experience (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
I was waiting for laptops with a decent screen resolution.
Completely Agree... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why own a large device pretending to be a smartphone, when you can just use a smart phone?
I mean, if it were set up out of the box to be used for business and, well, PC gaming out of the box, then I'd be interested in a system with Windows 8... but instead, it's an OS that is very ashamed of being a PC, and every time I access it's configuration, I'm going to see whole-screen interfaces, and other throwbacks to pre-3.1 Windows concepts that phones need to use, and for some reason are pushed everywhere in Windows 8.
Why would I use a system that is reluctant at best, to serve as an OS the way I'd like to use it? I'll stick to Windows 7 for my PC games, and I can't imaging any of the businesses I've ever worked at wanting to switch to 8 either.
But I'm sure there's some folks that like Metro. I mean, Microsoft had to be focus testing with someone - I just can't imagine who'd select that interface as the better to use.
Ryan Fenton
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
MIcrosoft doesn't want to fix their UI. They want to train users in their touch UI.
The tablet space is an attractive market, and Microsoft wants to use their power on the desktop to win the tablet war.
This won't win them any friends in corporate IT, but corporate IT is so tied to Microsoft that they could release the next version with MS Bob as the interface, and businesses would still be forced to buy it when they upgrade. The only reason corporate IT is slow to upgrade now is that XP (and now Windows 7) is good enough, and corporate upgrade cycles are slow. Businesses skipped Vista, and went with 7. They'll skip 8 no matter what. When they are ready to upgrade again, Microsoft can just release a "Pro" version which enables a "classic" interface, and leave regular consumers with an interface that trains them to use MS tablets.
The Era of Endless Upgrades is Over (Score:3, Interesting)
Tell me why I need a PC again? And while you're at it, tell me also why in hell I would need Windows 8? Or even Office 2010?
The PC is the wagon wheel of the computing world. It did it's job, but save for niche markets the average non-gamer doesn't need or want one and so it very naturally is fading into history. That's how it goes.
Win 8 so bad you're going Linux with Win in a VM? (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't run Win 8 and lots of folksI know haven't either. We aren't MS haters - we're pragmatists and pretty much comprise a group of users who have used every MS OS (OK Nobody ran ME) since DOS. If a company can produce a product so crappy that it does that it really makes you wonder what the hell is wrong with management.
The $64000 question is what does MS do now? The best I can think of is make the Win 8 'Aqua' style interface better - hell throw the Windows 7 UI in there. That way they could keep working on the tile based stuff but not alienate everyone.
Unfortunately they've pretty much managed to alienate a huge number of users.
I use Linux entirely for work, and Win 7 on my machines at home when I'm not running Linux. I'm thinking about a new laptop for home but don't want Windows 8. I think I'm actually going to just do Linux on that laptop now steam is available for Linux. If I need Windows I'll run it in a VM. I'm curious who else has come to the same conclusion. Windows in a VM and Linux as your main OS because Win 8 seems so crappy.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Except memory.
I settled on Win 7 Pro so I could cram 32GB of RAM onto my mother board. Life with Photoshop and some other hungry apps is quite a lot easier when you aren't paging like a paging fiend on national paging day.
As for the interface, I wanted to stick with familiar, not revolutionary. Win 8 reviews worried me. Generally Windows releases have departed from the previous one with less emphasis on keeping the system familiar. First things I do is turn off the Mac imitation peek, which I find extremely irritating. Gone also is the Aero/Glass look for the Classic look. I bought this to do work on, not bother me and try to look futuristic.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
You had 15k rpm scsi striped drives in a laptop? Even if you did, you should have noticed these benefits: - much faster random access - improved battery life - zero noise - no mechanical failure
No, not in a laptop. Video editing is mostly why I like having the speed. So there's not a lot of random access. I'm working with 12 GB files. Noise is definitely better. Not that I found them too loud. I used to have some Micropolis Tomahawk drives years ago. Those sounded like jet engines spinning up. You still have flash wear out on SSD drives. Most spinning disks can last a very long time too. I have a few older drives that have been spinning for close to 15 years now.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
I then built two desktops with the same SSD drive. All the same parts except one AMD and the other Intel. They are wicked fast because of SSD.
I used to tell folks that adding RAM would be their best speed upgrade, but now I tell them that an SSD is the best speed upgrade.
Re:Definition of Insanity (Score:5, Interesting)
The "definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result" quote is only applicable if you "did the same thing" more than once and got poor results.
Windows 7 was working. People would have upgraded eventually. It wouldn't have been a blowout, but this is a mature industry now. You can't expect blowouts unless you really innovate. In other words, Microsoft was getting good results, "did something different" and got poor results. The saner course of action is to go back to what they were doing, namely working on making their desktop robust, working to make it more secure, maintaining as much backward compatability as possible, and maintaining their Office suite and other products that have solid traction at corporations.
If they wanted to get into mobile the "sane" way, they should have parallel tracked it like the X-box. When they introduced the X-box, they didn't turn the desktop experience into a console experience. That was their fundamental error--deciding that a mobile UI with lots of eye candy was the future, and imposing that on the rest of us.
As for going OSS/FS, it's like telling Apple to release their OS separately. The response to that is "Apple is a hardware company", likewise, "Microsoft is a software company". Of course neither company is "pure" hardware or software; but they both get their "bread and butter" from one or the other.
Definition of insanity? Doing something different just for the sake of it, especially when that something is contrary to your historicly successful business model and you are sitting on more than enough cash to help you make much better plans.
My company decided to NOT purchase any laptop (Score:2, Interesting)
Last year (2012) my company purchased over 2,000 laptops for our sales force
Every year my company purchases about 1,500 to 2,500 laptops
This year my company decides to NOT purchase any laptop, simply because the laptop companies (Acer, Asus, Lenovo, HP, Dell( insist on putting Win 8 in laptops with i7 CPU
Due to the software that our sales force uses we need to run Windows on the laptop - but when we were looking for i7 powered laptops with Win 7, all the laptop manufacturers told us that they have to put Win 8 on their products because Microsoft says so
So, we decided to not purchase any laptop this year
I know, 2,000 laptop is not much, in the whole scheme of things, but I also know that my company is *NOT* the only company which decides against buying computers with Win 8 inside
Re:Why do companies make the same mistake (Score:4, Interesting)
So true.
The Windows "8" team needs to set aside their inner city, dorm room 620p -1080p console for 5 to 10 year loving colleagues and sell "this" years and "next" years improvements - every year.
Intel has amazing CPU power on offer.
Nvidia and AMD have generations of medium and top end GPU ability to sell.
Solid-state drive (SSD) are reqady, RAM is cheap.
Show the world what Windows 8 with DX 11.1 can do. Get fans, developers and consumers dreaming of games beyond 1080p junk.
MS was always good at this, pushing colourful images/vids onto friendly fan and review sites, getting game dev code/help out to developers, making the PC an easy place to dev for vs Apple or Linux or Sony or
Amazing 2k quality at a reasonable price should be so easy to sell vs what? ios? PS3? a Mac Pro? Porting a game studio to opengl on Linux
Clean up the code base, forget making life so easy for PC and console developers. Run with quality over 5-10 years of code and art stagnation.
Make sure this never happens with the Win 8 team:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/04/sony-indies/ [wired.com]
Note how Sony tries to be helpful, reach out to the next gen, guide them with the best free win 8 code tools, massive amounts of free online code help.
Make writing games, artwork, sound and releasing on Windows 8 easy, profitable and fun.
If a developer does not have to worry about the drama of the OS they are selling on they will put that effort into making a great game.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
I have friends that ask me if I can put window XP on their new windows 8 computers. No one seems to really like it.
Like a refrigerator (Score:5, Interesting)
PCs are now like refrigerators. They are not obsolete, they are (for most people) essential household appliances. Just like your refrigerator, you don't need to replace your PC every year. Your PC may not last 10-15 years like your 'fridge, but 5 years is perfectly reasonable. Just like your 'fridge, you only need to replace your PC if it breaks, or goes out of style.
The "death of the PC" has been overhyped. The PC isn't dead, it's just mature. Sales will stabilize at a sustainable level, barring some radical innovation. I'm a little afraid that people are really going to screw up the refrigerator trying to make it into something it isn't, trying to solve a problem that is unsolvable.
OBTW, this will happen with mobile devices also. Mobile devices get beat up a little more, so they will tend not to last as long, but in the not two distant future the only legit reason to upgrade your phone/tablet will because the old one broke. I know several people still using the iPhone 3GS (4 years old).
Re:Microsoft removed the biggest anti-Linux argume (Score:5, Interesting)
I find that most people I switch to Linux love it. I do make sure before I switch them that they don't have any windows specific programs that they need or play games. If people just web browse and facebook then really they hardly notice anything except that the computer runs much better and faster and it doesn't require a re-install every couple of months. I'm talking computer illiterates here too. I have advised some to stay on windows though, mostly gamers.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Fortunately, in the *nix world, we have a choice.
Re: My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
People do not want or need a new OS. That's pretty much it. Hell, Win7 wasn't that big a step up, there wasn't even any compelling "must have" thing in 7 that justified going out and tossing the old crate.
You'll notice that Windows (and also the entailing hardware) sales numbers are a matter of necessity. Nobody really upgrades just 'cause MS creates a new OS. But sometimes, the new OS comes along with critical support that makes the change viable, if not necessary.
Win95 was just the big leap from CLI to GUI. Yeah, there was Win3.11 before, but it was little more than a frontend. Win95 was the big step ahead and people went and bought it because it really WAS a big step up.
Win98 was pretty much Win95 "done right". It had everything you wanted, like a working Winsock implementation. The internet became a big thing and 98 made TCP/IP connections easy.
Win2k was a bit of a hybrid of NT and 98, bringing the compatibility of 98 and the stability of NT together, so it was another big seller. And yes, I'm deliberately omitting ME. Notice how it didn't sell? Not just 'cause it was crap, but even if it had been halfway as good as 98, it didn't bring anything new that you needed. 2k also brought USB support (or at least, usable USB support...), so even if people didn't care about stability wanted to get it.
XP was a "what for?" for long for me, but it does have its advantages over 2k. Better WiFi support was one thing. A lot of other goodies, not only the improved DirectX support, was certainly part of its appeal. Security became an issue eventually, and XP saw the beginning of an attempt to secure Windows.
Vista and 7... well, they don't really bring any "must have" things to the user. Yes, the security is way superior to XP, but users don't care about such petty crap. It's not a selling point. Everything you'd want to plug into your computer already works with XP. Why upgrade?
8 has even worse problems in this area. There is no really compelling reason to step up, get a new system and a new computer (since the average user gets both at the same time). There is no "must have" feature that users want in those systems, nothing they need or at least want.
Re: My theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Took me a week or two to get used to Win7. There's still a few stupid decisions, but overall it stays out of my way and lets me get work done.
We're upgrading all our XP desktops to Win7 this year and hoping that we won't have to upgrade the O/S again until 2016-2019. That is, assuming that the existing hardware (dual-core CPUs, with 4-8GB RAM and SSDs) isn't overly slow by then. Maybe by that point, MS will have released another "good" operating system - or they'll have cratered and release MS Office for Linux.
Companies shouldn't' like where this is going (Score:4, Interesting)
Soon Microsoft is going to point and say that that Desktop PCs are failing because CONSUMERS don't want desktops any more, they want "phones" and tablets instead. When the fact is that nobody happens to want desktops WITH WINDOWS 8.
Go back to the beginning of what made the IBM PC great. It was spreadsheets, databases, word processing, and boring financial programs. These were, and still are very much critical to businesses. These needs are not going away!
An operating system package that is only optimized for looking at LOLCats and clips of Family Guy, is not going to go over well with any business that has a clue. And Windows Blue shows Microsoft has no intention of backing down on this.
So what happens when you need to do a desktop oriented tasks and there are no desktops left because Microsoft killed all desktops?
Re:Apple sales as well (Score:2, Interesting)
You should have kept a small OS X partition to apply firmware bugfixes from Apple (they're rare, but they do happen).
Re:Are tablet PCs counted as PCs or tablets? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you sincerely think that, you're so deluded by Microsoft-hate that there's really no hope for you. Are you unaware that the entire Windows team (from developers to designers) is required to "dogfood" Windows versions in development, and that the entire company is encouraged to switch to new versions well before they hit release? Here's another tip: Microsoft employees develop on desktop computers, using desktop applications, and the vast majority of them don't have touchscreens. Trust me, Microsoft employees knew what Win8 was going to be like, and made damn sure it was usable for their work; they had to, because it's what they use for work.
If you'd actually try using it much you might have noticed that Win8 actually has a large number of productivity enhancers for desktop use. Improved multi-monitor support is irrelevant on tablets, as is Client Hyper-V. The Start search is still present, which is obviously not a tablet-oriented feature (but, since its introduction in Vista, has been a far quicker way to launch programs on a desktop than either the old Start menu or the new Start screen). Task Manager was greatly improved, despite being very much a tool for desktops, not tablets. The new Win+X menu (also reachable by right-clicking the Start button) is very handy as well, especially if you customize it. That's purely a desktop/laptop feature; it's almost inaccessible on most tablets!
The user-facing ads are full of Metro and tablets, yes... but it is nonetheless extremely useful and usable on the desktop as well (I've been using it on mine). I pretty much completely avoid Metro, aside from occasionally pinning Skype to the side of the screen while on a call. Visual Studio, EVE Online and all my other games, VMs with Linux and FreeBSD, VLC for media, Office and Foxit for productivity, Pidgin for chat... what do I need Metro for? The OS works fine without it. Install one of the classic Start menu utilities if the new Start screen offends you too badly...
The "lightweight" person that you mention (Score:5, Interesting)
is now the vast majority of non-business computing users.
They want:
(1) Web (95% of needs)
(2) Office (5% of needs, and even then, only at a very rudimentary level)
Didn't you notice when all of the big-box stores shut down and the software aisles at the Wal-Marts and Costcos got emptied out? Yes, there was a time when people had a shelf full of CDs and DVDs that they wanted to install on their "next computer."
Those days are long gone.
The baby boomers in my extended family are happy to be free of the complexity. They tell "remember when" stories about how hard computing used to be, and how confusing computers were before you could just do everything that you needed to do online, in Firefox (most of them switched to Firefox during its heyday and are now solidly married to it, even if other options have become competitive). Most of the things that used to be standalone applications they now do online:
- Email (Google replaces Outlook)
- To-do (Todoist, Toodledo, etc. replace Outlook)
- Calendaring (Google replaces Outlook)
- Contacts management (Google replaces Outlook)
- Personal data management (Evernote replaces the file system)
- Reference (Wikipedia replaces endless varieties of CD-ROM encyclopedias)
- Entertainment (Social Gaming and YouTube replace CD-ROM gaming and multimedia)
- Document editing (Google replaces Office)
- Digital photos (Flickr/Facebook+Smartphone replace assorted "old" consumer digital photo apps+USB digital camera)
- Music (Pandora replaces MP3 collections on hard drives)
I teach a bunch of college kids at local U, and have done now in two states over the better part of a decade. In 2006, kids showed up with Thinkpads. Now they show up with iPads.
In 2006, departmental policies often still required hardcopies of submitted work and installs of university-site-licensed educational software. These days, assignments are required to be submitted through online portals (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.) in digital form and devices like iPads are the *suggested* college study equipment. The Real Serious students get a bluetooth keyboard and the Pages app, but most of them type onscreen into Google Drive to do their work.
Seriously, the applications argument is dead—just like the PC. Specialized fields and roles will still require it, but I suspect that over time even those will go the way of the dodo as mobile devices get more and more processing power and more and more users move to them—which will tend to produce as web apps or mobile apps those things that used to be PC apps.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Windows8 can be tamed, but why should you have (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop this please. You don't need any addons to make win8 work in desktop mode. You don't need to use any of the metro apps either.
Agreed almost 100%.
The only difference is that you get a full screen "start menu" when you hit the windows key.
Exactly. But...
a) The default start menu out-of-box is a cluttered mess of live-tile garbage. It only takes a few minutes to turn off the live tiles and/or remove most of them from the start menu outright, and after you do this the start menu is perfectly fine. It might make some sense on a tablet, it might be reasonable on touch capable laptop, but its just silly on a full on desktop.
b) Its annoying to HAVE to hit the windows KEY. A lot of people are used to there being a button. And there is really no good reason whatsoever for there NOT to be a "start" button on the desktop taskbar. If you are using the desktop, then you are using a mouse. If you are using a mouse then there should be a button for an important function like this. So all I want is a button to launch the full on start screen. I know I don't actually NEED it, I know I can use the key or I can even use the hot corners, but a lot of the win8 grief would be alleviated if they'd just given people a button to push.
c) Hot corners -- just SUCK. They are ok on a touch device, but not on a desktop. They aren't intuitive when using a mouse.
And worse, they are a royal PITA to operate when the desktop isn't "full screen" such as when running in a Virtual Machine, or a Remote Desktop window, or when there are multiple monitors and the "corners" aren't necessarily the corners. Apple started this nonsense and OS X is my LEAST favorite OS to remote into by far -- seems a large number of people have the dock set to autohide and getting it to show up remotely can be a pain, not to mention the window min/max animations are always horridly laggy... but i digress.
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
People keep claiming the tablet market is drying up but every where I go they're becoming more common. I was at an annual job fair last week and I was amazed to see most of the people at the booths had tablets. Maybe one in four had a notebook. The penetration in the business world is picking up pace so far as I can tell. Touch may suck, but then again so does the QWERTY keyboard.
Re:No, this is Microsoft's doing. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Corporate IT is happy with ThinPC, aka Windows Embedded Standard.
Almost.
In reality, the elephant in the room is not much bigger than your thumb.
MK809 II Android 4.1 Mini PC HDMI Dual core 1GB RAM 8GB Bluetooth MK809II 3D + Fly air mouse RC11, US$34.47 / piece
Plenty of SMEs in Asia are replacing their Windows desktops with these little gadgets plugged into a screen and USB hub with mouse and keyboard attached. They do the same job as a Windows box for a little over $35, and with far less fuss and effort to maintain.
Microsoft isn't dumb - they have more than enough clever people to see the writing on the wall for their 85% OS profit margins, in fact I doubt MS could even afford to support Windows on their share of a $35 computer. W8 is indeed a lame duck product, intended for a market that's in a race to the bottom, as will be their next PC Office product.
Microsoft HAS to migrate their customers away from Windows to survive.
I bought a computer to avoid Windows 8 (Score:4, Interesting)
Worry that Windows 7 installed machines would become unavailable, and worry about UEFI or whatever the booting is, got me to replace my pretty old desktop which only ran Linux because Windows stopped booting for some reason, with a $425 ASUS. I violated the warranty to put a cheap nVidia graphics card in and to repartition the disk to run Ubuntu as well (the new Unit stuff, unfortunately similar to Windows 8), and ran decrapifier on Windows. Only problem is that the sound is very quiet (in both systems) which is probably a hardware problem, and stupid Windows does not recognize my serial keyboard unless I also leave a USB keyboard plugged in (the serial keyboard works for the BIOS and for Ubuntu), and Ubuntu has an equally stupid bug where it swaps my monitors until the first time I move the mouse between them.
Any case, I wanted to say that Windows 8 actually *caused* a sale recently. I wonder if people like me, trying to upgrade to the best thing available that did not run Windows 8, caused any increase in desktop sales, slightly offsetting the overall reduction.
Re: My theory (Score:4, Interesting)
While I don't disagree with what you wrote, GP AC is essentially correct.
Not 100% of the people who buy PCs want or need to do everything a PC can do. For many people the browser is the Internet, Facebook their home page, and that is all their PC has ever given them. For them, "the network is the computer". They have no want or need to do spreadsheets, PC games, or CAD. As the power, utility and grace of these new mobile platforms allows these people to to have this utility the PC gave them in a portable format they can take with them the less they need or want a PC - that the mobile device is also a media player and ereader, has all-day battery is bonus because those are features they want. As the mobile platforms become more facile, the larger this group grows and it has become a considerable fraction of former PC buyers - particularly in emerging markets. That the mobile platforms are less expensive is bonus.
Then there is the emerging markets thing. In many of these places a dollar goes a lot further than it does in the US, their power might not be as reliable, for many other reasons for a considerable portion of the public the $1000 PC and its voracious power needs never would have been appropriate. They can start with cheap phones with compute features in them, migrate to an inexpensive tablet, and stop. This market was a huge part of the PC's growth story the last few years, and that tale has come to an end.
Additionally as many other here have said the PC has been overkill for several years for the tasks most people put it to, so they don't need a new one. The cheap upgrade to Windows 8 tempted many Vista sufferers and doubtless they found the improved performance and responsiveness as good as buying a new PC as machines from that era were quite good, software notwithstanding. Those "upgrade" purchases are lost to PC sellers for a long, long time. SSDs come with software to migrate your OS and data to the SSD now, making an easy swap that makes an existing PC better than one you can get at retail, for a minor price less than swapping out the whole machine. This further delays the time when people might need to buy a new PC. For some, whose needs never will extend to more than a C2D or whatever they have with SSD, this is the End. Many of us have bought our last pc ever - or at least until this one dies. No more is needed. The failure rate is insufficient to sustain the PC market.
All these things have been true for a while and affecting the numbers a bit in small, deniable ways that could be written off as impacts from "economic downturn" but now people are finding out all over the world that their PC buying habit may no longer be necessary, that buying a PC is not required to join the technology revolution.
The PC is not required any more. You could plant a whiz-kid in a shack in Belize with nothing but a Transformer Infinity, a nice monitor and keyboard and mouse, solar power with battery, wi-fi Internet, a freezer full of hot-pockets and a credit card and through the magic of the Cloud he could still invent the Next Big Thing and run it for a year. He does not need a PC. Not at all. The magic is once again between his ears, not under his desk.
For these reasons and many others mentioned here even if Microsoft released a Windows Blue today with W8 features and a classic W7 user interface PC sales would remain in decline at least 7% in units against the year-ago quarter pretty much indefinitely. The era of unit growth in PCs is over, forever - or at least until we adjust to the fact that these new mobile things actually are personal computers and adjust the terminology accordingly.
The good news is that the tech economy is booming like never before. More units of smart connected devices are being sold than ever before, with unheard-of 50% quarter over year ago growth. They are being used more as well, people interacting with them more hours each day and more frequently, and almost always online - in more and more interconnected an
Re:My theory (Score:5, Interesting)
The government is deeply into free software. NSA developed Security Enhanced Linux in 2003. NASA pretty much invented cloud, with Linux. Open-source recently got recognized as "commercial product" for procurement. Of course no government supercomputer runs Windows.
Yeah, you can brag that Microsoft's plants have put in procurement provisions for Office, but the government is quickly slipping off your chains.
win 8 as an appliance. (Score:2, Interesting)
imagine a refrigerator company put out a model with just one shelf and priced it 10% less than their previous model.
sure, users could make shelves out of the bits and pieces that came with the refrigerator with some glue the expert users say.. and it uses less energy than the previous model. but your average user is still going to see that all you get is one big hole where your shelves used to be and to fill that one big hole you have to buy food from the refrigerator companies post delivery store. that's what win8 is - nobody wants it in their kitchen, but for a small bedside refrigerator it's not so bad.
MS really fucked up their main market because they perceive it as something they have already locked up - and pursued the "future" of small refrigerators in every room with food they get to rubber stamp on. fucking idiots.
Re:My theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. About the only place you will find Windows in the government is for standard office machines, where the expectation is that is what the user is familiar with. Everything else (serious business) is some variant of Unix (for older systems) or Linux.