Microsoft what are you doing? Every other operating system….
Windows 8 has been out for a while now as a tablet platform and a laptop / desktop platform, and yet it isn’t gaining very much traction or getting great user experience. So the question comes up of why is Microsoft doing this? Let us look at some history first…..
If you look back over time, Microsoft has a very up and down history on it’s OS (operating system) releases. It’s just about every other release people seem to like. Windows 95 good, Windows 98 not so much, Windows 98 second edition good, Windows Millennium very bad, Windows 2000 good, Windows XP only good after first service pack, Windows Vista bad, Windows 7 good, and finally Windows 8 not so good yet. If you look at consumer buy in and usage over time you will see this trend as shown in this recent Cnet article.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft keeps releasing OS’s that are either not completed or need substantial improvements due to trying to stay relevant. They are also pushing the public in directions that some are not yet ready to go. Windows 8 is both of these things in one. Microsoft has already done some very big updates to core Apps for Windows 8 and is planning a really big update called Windows Blue to come out this summer. All of these improvements are sure to make the product much better, but why weren’t they there to begin with? For the price point of the upgrade, you would think you are getting these improvements already or that they would have waited on the main release so that these improvements were already there.
Windows 8 has also pushed people away from their standard desktop environment to a touch style one and toward online storage with Skydrive with the newer version of Microsoft Office. Via third party vendors, it has been shown that it would have been easy for Microsoft to have given the users a choice on having the new environment (what they are now calling Modern UI, was being called Metro at one time) or having the older style start menu. This could have been as easy as a check mark choice to the user, but they have chosen to- date, not to give us that option. There is a rumor that due to pressure that this option may be coming (I wouldn’t hold your breath). Not giving a user these choices have positives and negatives. On the positive side Microsoft is forcing those users that don’t want to move forward to move forward (trust me, we won’t be going back), and on the negative side they are alienating some users into keeping older machines running well past their life cycle or to look at alternative systems.
Other companies have made very similar changes, but are taking a less aggressive approach. Some are releasing smaller amounts of changes at lower upgrade costs (Apple) while trying to maintain computer resource compatibility, others are giving options on what parts you want to change or which changes you want to use (Linux). Microsoft is just making such big changes and with such a big price point, not to mention the big market share they hold, that the impact is overwhelming for some. I totally believe that it’s this market share that is allowing them to get away with this type of release schedule (if it’s not good enough, we will fix it later because people can’t or won’t switch). I’m hoping that these upcoming improvements to Windows 8 will be much like the updates done to Windows 98 second edition, and that it will make Windows 8 a system worth using. I am also hoping that they switch to a more regular update and release schedule that adds improvements as you go, for a smaller price point. See Zdnet article
Jason Thomas
J&J Computers
