ZDNet Proclaims "Windows: It's Over" 863
plastick writes "You can think Windows 8 will evolve into something better, but the numbers show that Windows is coming to a dead end. ZDNet is known to take the side of Microsoft in the past. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols explains: 'The very day the debate came to an end, this headline appeared: IDC: Global PC shipments plunge in worst drop in a generation. Sure, a lot of that was due to the growth of tablets and smartphones and the rise of the cloud, but Windows 8 gets to take a lot of the blame too. After all, the debate wasn't whether or not Windows 8 was any good. It's not. The debate was over whether it could be saved.'"
The baffling thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't clear that MS has anything coherent in the 'stop ipads and cellphones and stuff from eating our casual customers' column; but all they'd have to do to move Win8 from 'Windows Vista's Revenge' to 'worthy, if not groundbreaking, series of incremental improvements to various aspects of Windows 7' would be to flip the switch and have non-touch devices default to 'desktop' and touch devices default to 'the UI formerly known as Metro'.
Pretty much everything is still present in Win8; but they seem content to just stick their fingers in their ears and ignore the problem, even as OEMs have started shipping ghastly craplets designed to vaguely resemble a start menu. I just don't get it.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but MS cannot sustain an 'every other version is a flub' business model. People may stick with 7 like they stuck with XP, but MS will need to fix the UI and quickly.
Hopefully they'll soon realize that the desktop and mobile platforms need different UI models, and start supporting the separate primary interface models...
UI in general is getting worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh look! (Score:5, Insightful)
ZDNet is proclaiming the death of the PC / Windows...
again...
Just more clickbait fodder.
Microsoft's future (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Microsoft partner and management consultant I don't understand:
Realistically Microsoft only has one chance at long term success, and that includes firing Ballmer, restaffing the board, and radically changing its staff evaluation processes away from Darwinian struggle to "what's best for Microsoft as a whole".
What I expect it will do instead is gradually fade into irrelevance:
So Microsoft's predicament is worse than a single product failure - at a CEO level Microsoft is simply not doing enough to change.
Blame the Board (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget Sinofsky. He was one guy and W8 has been coming down the tracks for what, four years now?
The blame here lies with Microsoft board of Directors. Windows 8 wasn't some backroom project, hardware spinoff, or specialised division. It was the company's flagship product, its core product, whose success literally makes or brakes the company.
And the board has fubbed it; Bigtime. The whole project was a disaster since its inception, and despite the recession it's very clear that the entire iDink paradigm Windows 8 attempted to hoist on users is so bad, so awful, that ordinary users are literally giving on on buying PCs full stop. A competent board would have been on top of this, foreseen the problems, and had them resolved before launch. We are now 8 months into launch and Windows 8 is a beached whale leading the whole PC industry pod onshore in its wake.
The first thing that needed to turn this around -- before any resigns, Service Packs, interface revamps, or marketing campaigns -- the very first things is that a swathe of the board needs to go. There's a cohort of bankers and industrialist there who probably have no idea how to run their own industries, let alone a computer software company. If my experience with Ireland is any indication, I imagine these directors are serial board hoppers anyway, so they won't be missed.
Microsoft is a software company. It needs software people on the board. Engineers, programmers, computer scientists, etc; with management experience, but who actually know what software actually is, and how it is developed, sold, and used. If MS puts qualified people in charge they can begin to turn the boat around; but they stick with the current shower of corporate BSers at the helm, this whale will stay dying on the beach for a very long time.
I don't buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not a windows guy. My laptop is a macbook pro and my day to day workstation is debian. However, I recently built a windows gaming computer and I like windows 8. Is it different? Yes. Does it have a learning curve? Yes. In the end it's stable, solid, easy to use, and looks nice.
The reason PC sales are down is because computing power has reached a point where we don't need a new computer every 2-3 years. My mac mini is 6 years old. I only need to replace it because apple won't support it any longer. Otherwise it's speed and power is fine. I expect my new desktop windows 8 PC will last me at least 6 or 7 years.
Gone is the day of the power computer. Desktop computing has reached the point where there is no leap in upgrading. It's incremental, people only do incremental upgrades when their old equipment dies.
Microsoft is like "Biff" from Back to the Future (Score:4, Insightful)
Like Biff, Microsoft used to be so easy to hate (being the bully and all), but now, at the end of the story, they've become so reduced from their former self and are nothing more than a pathetic, blithering idiot, you almost feel sorry for them. Almost.
Anyway, I wonder if all of this negative news is enough to get Balmer tossed out.... Isn't that what is supposed to happen to CEOs when things go this wrong this fast?
Re:And... no big loss (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree with you here, you probably have overlooked the good ol' Microsoft arrogance. When MS have failed they it has been because of their own arrogance. While Windows 95 was mostly a win, people tend to forget that part of it was a failure: they were just SURE that MSN was going to win over this thing called the Internet. They tend to lose when they try to innovate because they're so damn sure they know what people want... then it turns out to be wrong.
I am guessing that Microsoft will beat the Windows horse until it is bits in pieces.
Re:What numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
The 15% drop in PC-sales last quarter, that's the numbers they are talking about.
But the real numbers are of course that 92% of desktop users world wide are using Windows. Hell, they could lose almost half their users and they still wouldn't be over.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are people going to switch to Mac OS? Linux? Or stay on Windows 7 until a "spiritual successor" to Windows comes?
Haven't you heard? We're all going to be using tablets from now on!
I just can't seem to figure out how to get Photoshop and Premiere to work on this thing.
Third party hacks (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a lot of comments floating around which say "when you install this this 3rd party start menu and make it boot straight to desktop, it's fine".
What they are saying is that if you undo all the big ideas that were added in Windows 8 it's fine. That's not good, you know.
Re:Windows has been "over" for me for years (Score:5, Insightful)
To me 10.04 of Ubuntu was a perfect desktop. It had everything I needed, I had it set up so sweet and when people running windows saw it they were absolutely blown away. I don't know but I believe that eventually the UI, once it fits your needs, is done. Why change what works? Linux could certainly use more work but mostly under the hood. This madness with Unity I never have understood, it seems like Canonical decided to merge the desktop and tablet together and I can't deal with the mess. Maybe when they finish it but probably not even then. You know, at some point things are good enough but these companies still need to sell you something so now they are trying to creat a demand where there is no need.
No way to save it?? (Score:5, Insightful)
All it would take is a service pack. Let users decide if they want Metro or not. Let users decide if they want the start menu taking over their entire screen. I can't see how this would be complicated. The biggest hurdle is getting a marketing department to admit they made a mistake. The only time I can remember that ever happening was with New Coke. Coca-Cola sucked it up, gave the consumers what they wanted, and saved their brand. The ball is in Microsoft's court.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Windows 8 filled that need, we wouldn't be posting in this thread, now would we?
There are no "distro wars" going on.
I take it you have never been a system administrator in a Windows environment before. You certainly haven't a clue about Linux.
Death of MS is probably exaggerated. (Score:5, Insightful)
But, again this report under estimates the staying power of PC in the corporate world. Very systematically they MS neutralized Unix and usurped all the corporate intranet. Exchange server has become the de-facto authentication server even for companies that use Google Apps to reduce their MS-Office/Outlook/SharePoint costs. It is well entrenched in the corporations. Home users and younger generation have stopped buying PCs/Laptops and are increasingly using pads, tablets and smartphones. Having to interoperate with all these devices have cut the traditional advantage MS had with its monoculture.
MS is on its way of becoming the son of IBM. Lots of well funded research projects, and stranglehold on some sectors, mostly staying in business world and staying away from personal and entertainment world. It will sell X-Box someday to concentrate on its "core mission".
Apple is NOT the new Microsoft. Apple is probably the new Sony. Google is probably the new Microsoft. Let us see if it can avoid following the same path as IBM and Microsoft.
Cursed brand (Score:5, Insightful)
People look at those new phones and tablets, see the Windows logo and think about the antivirus running on their PC at home and at work. Some of them even remember editing the register. They feel a shiver down their spine and move to the next shelf. That's the number 1 problem, IMHO.
Number 2, the UI issue the article is about.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, they realize that alright. But the thing is, Microsoft has never been about finding the technically best solution. They are trying to find the best "business" solution.
They have utterly failed at taking over the mobile market. They have tried to buy off hardware companies (e.g., Nokia) to implement their crap, and that hasn't worked.
Windows 8 and it's shitty UI is obviously an attempt to leverage their Windows/PC monopoly to get mobile market share. The idea is that if PC users all become accustomed to the Windows 8 UI and apps, due to having it forced upon them, then they will prefer to use the same UI on mobile devices. This is true, but the problem is that they're foisting a technically inferior product on their core market to try to buy into the mobile market.
Why are they doing this? The PC market is huge, and much higher margin, and it is not going to go away any time soon. MS would probably be happy without mobile market if they could be assured of their PC market for the future. The problem is that things go both ways: if people are accustomed to using non-Microsoft UIs and apps, they would be more likely to move off the PC market. Companies are likely to make Android and iOS integration solutions for their home and business suites, so Microsoft's legendary lock-in strategies could crumble.
Android, Apple, on PCs in homes, schools, and businesses is what they're worried about.
Re:Blame the Board (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed. But do you extend that to the point where the majority of the board members of the world's largest computer software company cannot actually read, write or understand software?
If I was offered a board position in a company called MicroSoft, "Microprocesser Software", and I didn't know anything about software, I would decline the position on the principal that I was unqualified to represent the shareholder's interests. At least I would; I'm not naive enough to believe that such concerns apply in contemporary boardrooms.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Knowing Microsoft, they'll probably release SP2 for Win7, which puts the "Modern" UI on top of it too, and then make SP2 a prerequisite for every security update that comes out after it.
They don't easily admit defeat, and are not a believer in quitting while they're behind.
Re:What numbers? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's completely true. But that actually is more of a problem with the entire model around selling and developing software than a problem specific to Microsoft. Photoshop for example has been "complete" for years. I hope for Adobe they have a list of "killer features" in a drawer somewhere so they can include one in every new release and hope to sell some copies, but in reality the software is simply finished. Which makes a lot of sense after 20+ years of development.
Software-as-a-service is where the money is in the long term. But unluckily for Microsoft that mostly means web applications right now. And they don't care if you run them on Windows or not. Microsoft doesn't want to do business in that world, so they simply try to keep the "sell a new version of the same old stuff every X years"-boat afloat for as long as they can.
Re:It's Just Fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, there's a Grand Canyon worth of a gap between "it works great on my one laptop" and "it works great on 60,000 supported corporate PCs."
This is why Windows 8 will fail until Microsoft gives everyone back the Start menu they are used to.
Re:The baffling thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm running Windows 8 on an HP tx2500 that I bought in 2008 (except with 16 GB RAM) and it kicks tail!
I upgraded from Vista because of the low introductory price.
I just don't like the START UI and apps and its schizophrenia, and the fact that I have to provide my own toolbar menu to replace the Start menu. The desktop experience otherwise is fantastic.
If they'd get rid of the Start screen (a complete example of !user- friendly), it'd be pretty good. I suppose mostly I hate having to scroll over to get to the program that I want, and the programs are not sorted in useful categories by default. I prefer a heirarchal system.
I wonder if Microsoft considers long-term use in their usability studies, or if they only use dumb users who use their products for less than 24 hrs. There's a significant difference in use between entry-level and advanced users, and initial ("Gee whiz!) use and long-term ("I JUST WANT TO GET WORK DONE!!!") use.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope the "distro wars" never end, that's when Linux will be dead.
have you tried it? (Score:4, Insightful)
After using W8 for a few months (due to hardware support for a slide scanner) I don't see much basis for all the hate. Yeah, the UI is retarded and flashy and gets in the way of getting things done , but I've learned to adapt.
What I don't get is why people aren't all raging about how broken window focus management has been since Windows 7. It used to be you could <alt>+<tab> and cycle through windows in a predictable manner, so you weren't required to remove your hands from the freakin' keyboard when you're working at 90 miles an hour. Or is this just a dual-monitor fsckup?
Re:And... no big loss (Score:4, Insightful)
They are trying to be clever, edgy and push the envelope... but doing so in a manner that copies Apple, and tries to go one step further. So they not only lose the 'clever' appearance, for a copycat appearance, but they are copying some of the worst changes for the desktop environment, that Apple is making.
You make it sound like copying something is inherently bad. It's not. Things that work SHOULD be copied (legal stupidity aside.) I don't care if windows is doing something first as long as it's useful and works well. Originality is not an issue with me when it comes to software. Why would it?
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Knowing Microsoft, they'll probably release SP2 for Win7, which puts the "Modern" UI on top of it too,
> and then make SP2 a prerequisite for every security update that comes out after it.
And if they did, business school textbooks would have a new case study for corporate suicide, and a breathtaking example of how a company that managed to go from a dominant market share of the high-end mobile market to irrelevance within a matter of months was able to repeat it to throw away their desktop dominance as well (everyone had a major love-hate relationship with Windows Mobile, but if you wanted a pocket laptop with a useful browser that could be used for making voice calls in a pinch, WinMo was pretty much the best there WAS circa ~2007).
It would be the day I officially blew away Windows and promised God, Xenu, Thor, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that I would never, EVER voluntarily run Windows as my real operating system again. And did my best to get everyone else whom I influence to do the same.
Put another way, for Microsoft to do something like that would constitute a full-frontal act of corporate warfare against its customers... and retribution from the consumers who matter would be swift, damning, and deadly. Look at the amount of hate Microsoft has taken from... well... everyone... over the past 6 months. Now imagine how much MORE hate they'd take if they loudly and proudly sank the lifeboat (Windows 7) that's keeping them alive right now. They'd have people burning computers on the sidewalk in front of their offices, hanging Ballmer in effigy, and Barnes & Noble would be filled with books about dumping Windows almost overnight.
A full frontal assault upon their customers would be the beginning of a rapid end for Microsoft. With their "influencer class" of users angrily gone, and thirdparty developers leaving in protest as well, Windows would degenerate into an inferior, second-rate OSX for consumers who buy a computer and use only the apps that were bundled with it.
, but I've learned to adapt. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just it.
I don't WANT to have to "learn to adapt".
Especially not for some imbecilic tweaks in the UI that remove functionality and stop me from working efficiently.
For me, time is money. And all the time I have to waste trying to dick around in the new UI, instead of getting work done, is money Microsoft is stealing from me.
Re:have you tried it? (Score:5, Insightful)
After using W8 for a few months (due to hardware support for a slide scanner) I don't see much basis for all the hate.
Followed by...
Yeah, the UI is retarded and flashy and gets in the way of getting things done , but I've learned to adapt.
What more reason do you need.
People don't hate Win 8 because it's UI is so crappy. they hate it because the previous version wasn't crappy and MS ruined it.
All Microsoft needed to do with the UI is *nothing*.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget: also get rid of those retarded "charms" mouseovers and all the gaudy Metro infestations into the desktop interface (WinKey+TAB, network connection management, etc.)
Honestly, their best move at this point would be to fork 8 and call it Windows Tablet, then build SP2 for 7 and call it 9.
Re:have you tried it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not true. M$ needed to do something to remain vaguely relevant in an tablet/iOS/Android world. They are trying to use their enormous inertia to re-educate you in the new interface, which they intend that you will be able find everywhere, and will choose because you have brand recognition of it. You can't seriously tell me that having a boot to desktop or boot to Metro mode was a technical challenge. The decision was a marketing one, to sacrifice something of the Windows brand (and userbase) in order to leap onto the Tablet/Mobile device bandwagon.
As usual, M$ are playing catch up, and throwing people under the bus "for the greater good".
But Windows is crumbling. The only reason that it has not yet nosedived is that most people don't know they are buying it. They think that Windows is the computer, and have never heard of alternatives.
Re:Whats the alternative? (none for business) (Score:4, Insightful)
I was having some authentication issues and didn't have the permissions to remove and readd my computer to the domain (pretty sure the machine password was out of sync). The tech that came to my computer didn't know how to run a command in DOS, but she did know how to remove my computer from the domain, rename it, and re-add it. Is this a good thing for the computing environment? Definitely not. But it's definitely good for companies' bottom line because they don't have to pay people who really know what they're doing and are highly educated.
This is not good, it's extremely short sighted...
Yes, you can hire low paid and low competence techs, but the end result will be flakey and insecure... You could hire incompetent techs to run linux too and the result would be almost as bad.
Windows is inherently unreliable, and will require more of the low paid techs to constantly fix stupid problems.
Trivial problems often get dealt with in inefficient ways by incompetent techs who don't understand what's really going on, they end up just rebooting and hoping the problem goes away rather than trying to work out what actually happened and fix it.
Incompetent techs may be cheaper than competent ones, but you will usually need a lot more of them.
How much does a major security breach cost? Your risk of having one goes up significantly if you hire cheap incompetent staff.
Re:, but I've learned to adapt. (Score:4, Insightful)
It took me 30s to adapt. The barrier to entry is extremely low. I'd never hire someone who had such a massive resistance to change and learning.
I'd never work for someone who would hand me a hammer when I need a screwdriver and tell me to adapt.
You're supposed to use the right tools for the job, not learn to use crappy tools.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I would like to see in windows is having a distinct zone to click on it instead of having to find the magic spot or hitting the windows key
Like maybe if they put a button down on the taskbar that you could click to open up a menu with all of the the start page functionality? They could label it "Start!"
In more seriousness - my problem with the start/metro page is it takes my entire screen for no purpose. If I'm working on something, I don't want to lose sight of it just to open a new program. Add to that the mouse-over "hot zones" and half-assed adoption of a touch-screen interface and you've got a frustrating environment for regular desktop users.
I've only used Windows 8 on my HTPC and Metro will eventually be pretty decent for that - but I still found it frustrating as hell to set up the first time and have zero interest in using it on my desktop.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because "pinning" things to the taskbar in Win7 is an atrocity: when an application is not running it looks like an icon, when it's running it's much bigger (normal taskbar entry). So applications don't stay in the same place, depending on other applications that may or may not be started. Plus it just looks terrible, having a taskbar with running applications and then there seem to be icons stuck in the middle. Saw it once, went like "is that a bug? Wait, it is actually designed to behave like that?" and put it firmly in "Do. Not. Want." territory. So re-adding the taskbar is one of the first things to do, right up with disabling grouping on the taskbar and resetting Alt-Tab to behave sensibly and without all the massively distracting animations.
The win7 start menu is a huge improvement over XP however. So I guess it's obvious it had to be taken out for Windows 8.
Re:Whats the alternative? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because taskbar-pinning sucks. The taskbar is for minimized windows (and quicklaunch shortcuts for things like the command prompt), not ambiguously-running-not-running applications. When I close my applications, I want them to die and be metaphorically incinerated immediately by the garbage collector, not linger around as undead zombies consuming resources until the next time I reboot.
It utterly blows my mind that some people leave programs with embedded browsers churning away client-side Ajax running nonstop in the background, then wonder why their computer stutters and at least one of their cores is pegged. Or leave something like Word running, with 400 megs of cut & pasted bitmap data clogging the clipboard. Or Photoshop. Or Eclipse and the Android Emulator (shudder). Or 12 Firefox windows, half of which have more client-side Ajax churning away nonstop in the background, updating ads you aren't even looking at, leaking megabytes of allocated ram per hour, and pegging one or two more of your CPU cores for no good reason?
Taskbar-pinning was the *worst* part of Windows 7... but at least Microsoft had the decency to allow users to disable it without having to throw the baby out with the bathwater and give up Aero Glass, the start menu, and everything else, too.