Windows: Not Doomed Yet 737
Nerval's Lobster writes "Earlier this week, ZDNet columnist Steven Vaughan-Nichols wrote an article, 'Windows: It's over,' that sparked a lot of passionate online debate. His thesis was simple: Microsoft's dominance of the computing market is coming to an end, accelerated by the incipient failure of Windows 8. Make no mistake about it: there's no way to fudge the numbers in a way that suggests Windows 8 is proving a blockbuster. But maybe it's not doomsday for Windows or Microsoft. After all, the company still has a lot of really smart developers and engineers, a whole ton of cash, and the ability to let its projects play out over years. So here's the question, Slashdotters: Is Windows really doomed? And, if not, what can be done to turn things around? (No originality points awarded for a 'Fire Steve Ballmer' response.)"
Lack of necessity (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing that could doom Microsoft (not Windows) is the lack of necessity for a new operating system. Microsoft makes money selling Windows, so they NEED to release new versions every few years. The need for a new operating system might not be a pressing issue for the end user and this will slow down the demand for new versions of Windows, not Windows itself.
How relevant is the PC, still? (Score:5, Interesting)
The regular desktop PC, and even notebooks, are becoming more and more irrelevant. Yes, there is still a long way to go, but we are seeing more and more of a convergence between platforms, what with cell phones, tablets and whatnot becoming more prevalent and main business tools.
Heck, I'm an IT geek, and I rarely carry my notebook around anyway. I do most of my work from my cell phone (hardware qwerty keyboard).
I keep seeing more and more people ditching their notebooks for tablets.
And I sincerely don't think Windows can survive outside the PC market.
Re:nope (Score:5, Interesting)
This, right here.
The original rationale for Windows in the enterprise began when companies wanted cheap "personal" computers in the workplace. They wanted those computers with a drop-stupid UI and a cheap OS on them. Windows was perfectly poised to fill that need (Apples cost too much, GEM had issues, and Amiga was too much like an appliance to be flexible.)
Nowadays, if W8/Metro is what Microsoft expects the planet to use, they may be in for a shock. No serious enterprise will touch it (outside of certain "Platinum Partners" who drink Redmond-flavored koolaid by the tanker-truck), since it (currently) hampers the hell out of work. When home users buy a PC, they want a frickin' PC - and not some over-spec'd tablet with a keyboard lashed onto it.
While I won't say that Microsoft is dead meat, I will say that they're making one hell of a potentially fatal mistake here. They don't have room to bork things up like they used to (see also Steam's decision), and Apple is smart enough to stay expensive enough to make a serious profit, but just barely cheap enough to be within reach of anyone who could be considered a decision-maker.
but who are they competing with? (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows might be in trouble, but who is going to replace them? Android and iOS are pretty limited platforms and not exactly fun to program. OS X is getting very long in the tooth, has very limited hardware offerings, and Objective-C is less pleasant to develop for than C#. And just as Gnome/X11 looked like it was going to provide a fairly stable desktop platform, the Gnome, Wayland, and Ubuntu developers have screwed things up big time again. Much as I loathe Windows 8, I think it's still going to win by default on the desktop.
Re:nope (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:nope (Score:1, Interesting)
Exactly this! They were nowhere near enterprise at that time, it had something to do with home users, how those were forced to use Windows is a different story. They were into those not-too-fair business practices long before Slashdot appeared, but younger folk doesn't remember that and exaggerate the current matter of things we have now.
Windows XP was not welcome in enterprise, in fact it was a failure when it came out, it had a well known UP'n'P exploit, which allowed you to execute anything remotely as a privileged user. And UP'n'P was enabled by default. Now it looks like XP was the best OS ever. Come on, it never was. and the fact that it was so outdated made many people use outdated ways of doing things.
I've used Red Hat at home, there wasn't even RHEL/Fedora/whatever-else-it-is-nowadays then I switched to Mac OS X, which had it's share of issues, but was pretty good until Apple came up with 10.5, which was crap IMHO. Now MS comes up with an OS which is pretty stable, which has an UI which actually is somewhat intuitive to me, the one who has no Windows habits, it actually is usable on olde Thinkpad T43 I have for basic stuff, and now everyone bashes it because there is no Start button. WTF? Start button was an ugly idea when it appeared in Windows 95 and now it's finally gone and everyone complains. This makes me a sad panda.
Maybe people did deserve that ugly UI and unusable OS?
A poor workman blames his tools (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been thinking about the saying "A poor workman blames his tools" a lot lately.
My conclusion after a lot of thinking is that it isn't that the workman who doesn't like his tools isn't skilled, or doesn't take care of his tools Maybe his set of tools is just worn out and it's the workman's duty to acquire a new tool set. The tools change over time.
I'm a SQL Server DBA. SQL Server as a product is great. The tools, however, suck. Random crashes. Random issues. Inconsistent UI. Example 1: Mouse wheel doesn't work in a combo box. Why? Who decided that was "OK"? Lots of other piddly issues that just tick me off all day long. I hate my tools. It's probably time to try something else. This really came to roost when we put Windows Server 2012 on a box so we could do cross-subnet clustering. Love the cross-subnet clustering. The UI, however, is Metro. "Go hover over an invisible spot on the upper-right-hand corner of the UI to get to something sorta-like a start menu so you can run SQL Server Configuration Manager". Why? Why?
The user interfaces, now "improved" through the use of Visual Studio integration, are absolute crap.
I'm getting tired of being stressed on poor tools when I'm stressed on a ton of other things that actually I should be stressed on, like data integrity, performance, and efficiency. Instead I get to spend a ton of time figuring out how to start applications? Every single day I start working and I find something new that makes me go "Why do these guys think they can make good user interfaces that work consistently? Who allows them to do this?"
Re:nope (Score:3, Interesting)
It depends on who you ask. When IBM introduced the PC with MS-DOS on it, it was for businesses. My parents, astute enough to see this (amazingly, they were computer illiterate) switched me from a Commodore to a PC Clone with MS-DOS because .... businesses used it. It would help me prepare for my future. This was in 1990. This is simply an anecdote, but I'm certain the logic was applied to more kids than me, and is still applied today.
Don't get me wrong, I love, love, love Macs, but they are a niche market, as is the iPhone when you consider the entire breadth of software development. When you consider the entire breadth of business computing in general (business users, analysts, etc), and it's even smaller. It's a trend, it's popular, it can make some people some money, but it's small when considered with everything else out there.
Microsoft dominates this arena, it's just dominating less. This was bound to happen due to the internet, and it's amazing it took this long for Microsoft to relinquish some of it's stranglehold, but it's still a stranglehold.
Re:nope (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:nope (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be false. The enterprise embraced OS/2 and Windows NT while the consumers were using Windows 95/98. Likewise, consumers were not using Exchange. One could reasonable argue that what made them accepted was not Microsoft at all, but IBM which introduced their enterprise customers to relatively low priced desktop computers compared to their offering of mini and mainframe computing back in the 1980s.
Once Intel PCs were established in the enterprise, when the GUI was becoming standard, the question became which one Mac OS (not OS X), OS/2 and Windows NT. OS/2 was the favorite until Microsoft and IBM had a major falling out and Windows NT and OS/2 went their separate ways. Since Windows NT worked on IBM hardware plus all of the clones and IBM OS/2 mainly worked on IBM hardware (meaning the PS/2 line), Windows NT won out. Then NT became Windows 2000 and after that Microsoft merged their business and consumer products into Windows XP.
Along the way, there were numerous failings - Windows 3.0, Windows 95 (while successful, was buggy) Windows ME, Windows Vista. Each time it was supposed to be the end of Microsoft, but that never happened. Why not? Because Microsoft also is exchange server which many businesses depend on. It is also SQL server and Office and a whole lot more than simply Windows. That is only the tip of Microsoft's iceberg.
Does that mean that MIcrosoft will continue to reign supreme, no of course not. Neither will Apple. Both of them will succumb, like IBM did before them to somebody else. The problem is that when you are at the top of the heap, there is nowhere else to go but down. But even if they are no longer the dominate force, that doesn't mean they still aren't a force. Again, look at IBM as an example. Of course, IBM did have to take a hard look at the role they wanted to play in the industry. Whether Microsoft is willing to do that or not is yet to be seen.
As for Windows 8 failure to launch, there are two reasons, at least in the corporate world. 1st, it is different and being different means money spent on retraining workers and increased tech support costs. Different is fine if it leads to productivity gains or something along those lines, but that gives us point 2 - Windows 7 is good enough. Windows 8 doesn't increase productivity and in a typical business setting often decreases it. Some argue that Windows 8 was a tablet design forced on a desktop. Maybe, maybe not. However, there is no doubt that it is a consumer design that corporations aren't pleased with as it doesn't fit their needs. Corporations don't buy into the consumer marketing hype. They have bean counters that look at the bottom line and things like ROI. In that scenario, Windows 8 doesn't cut it.
The irony is that Windows 8 contains some great technology. The reason it has failed is not because of the technology or the engineering. The reason it failed is because Microsoft misread its market and produced a product that it's largest customer base (corporations) didn't want or need. If they get it right with their corporate customers with Windows 9, then Windows 8 is just a good product that nobody wanted. Maybe Microsoft should follow Canonical and have LTS versions that favor corporate use and use the intervening years to experiment with the interface. Those things that work and are accepted make it into the next LTS those that don't, well, don't.
IF Windows wants back in .. in strength on PCs (Score:3, Interesting)
With Ubuntu and other OS out there which are FREE, the only way for Microsoft to stay relevant on the PC front is to stop gouging people for money, however, no money, no support, no liabilities, nada, zilch. Use at your own risk.
Also, considering the typical keyboard, mouse, monitor desktop PC configuration, the last thing Windows needs is a new revamp which would make it behave like a tablet or a phone.
The START button IS windows, and that should be back in force.
At the very least, do like Windows 7 and other previous versions and offer the 98 style GUI when you remove all the glitz and bells and whistles.
For now, until desktops and mobile devices are equal in processing powers, they are better off with different types of OS, than trying to do a 'one fits all' OS, which clearly isn't being look well upon.
Here's the awful truth.
Windows 7 will become the new XP. Nobody will want to migrate from it and I can't blame them, because I'm in the same boat!
Those who will get new PCs and Laptops, more than likely, will force their suppliers to put on Windows 7. Reason? "My work uses Win 7 and our apps aren't compatible to Win 8, or something like that.
Microsoft's expectation of people wanting to upgrade their OS every 2 or 3 yrs, is simply ludicrous. Consider the amount of time it takes them to 'get it right', meaning the amount of service packs and updates one goes through, eventually, when you have a stable OS, you stick to it.
Let's not forget the old engineer's motto: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Re:What trend? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:nope (Score:5, Interesting)
95, ME, and Vista were failures.
98, XP, and 7 have been decent.