Infographic: Who's making the move to Windows 8?

[SIW2]

We shall see.

I am not sure the entire 1.3 billion desktop users will be rushing out to buy a tablet to replace it.

Those with simple needs might.

That still leaves a gigantic number who need a desktop os - for their desktop/laptop.

Linux is not a viable alternative for most people - for a number of reasons which should be obvious. I wish it was - but sadly, it isn't.

The cheapest macbook here is $1200 - not viable for most people either.

That is why MS can do what they like.

 

[badtux]

I see the assumption here that Microsoft did what they did out of arrogance or spite. But what I see is that the Microsofties truly believe that Windows 8 is great and that the Metro err Modern interface is the cat's meow. They're geeks and nerds and it is intuitive to them. They're like the guy with a PhD in computational physics that I once assigned the task of designing a UI for one of our products, the end result was simple and intuitive to him, but to anybody without a PhD in computational physics it was utterly incomprehensible. He got assigned a different task and someone else took on that task and designed a much better UI, but that's because I wasn't working for Microsoft -- he would have been applauded at Microsoft. It's sort of like the Linux guys who believe Gnome 2 was great because it could be customized in all sort of gee-whiz ways, and Gnome 3 sucks because it can't be customized in gee-whiz ways. Uhm, excuse me. Normal people don't customize their desktop, other than perhaps to put a photo of their kids as the desktop background. But that's just how geeks and nerds think -- it's all about gee-whiz for them, not about getting a job done in the quickest and simplest way possible.

The annoying thing about Metro is that it has all the right bits and pieces to be great, if they'd had someone with taste to veto some of the more outrageous gestures, but they seem to have designed it with the Texas philosophy of "more is better" when it comes to gestures. Uhm, no. More is just more. That's all.

Meanwhile Win7's UI still has the same problems it's always had. The population is getting older and us old folks no longer have the eyesight and eye-hand coordination to go deep-diving through menus full of tiny print. My Windows 7 Start menu has achieved a depth that nuclear submarines would envy, finding anything in that mess is a hopeless task. The Microsofties were right that the Windows 95 UI has reached end of life, rendered hopeless by the aging population and by the sheer size of today's hard drives, which allows installing so many programs that the Start menu becomes unusable. Unfortunately, they could have done a *much* better job with the replacement than they actually did... some parts are needlessly complex, while others are missing critical functionality (no icon folders like IOS or Android? What were they thinking?!). So it goes. Maybe Windows 9 will get it right...

 

[SIW2]

There is no suggestion MS did anything out of spite.

It is a marketing move.

Marketing is a very large field. Nowadays much of it is subtle and complex. Often it is important the customer does not realise they are being influenced - if they do, it is less effective.

It is a profession, people spend many years getting the qualifications and learning in the field. The average person cannot know what it about, or how it works.

That does not mean those people are stupid - there is no reason they would know.

Just like most of us do not know how to perform surgery.

 

[spddemun]

Once I find out where all my non-Windows programs, uh, apps, went, I'll probably stick with 8 on one laptop. You can still have a Desktop that looks like old Win, so people in a work environment should not have much of a problem with it, seeing as how most will not be needing to go to CP or System/Admin files?

There is a START button area in the lower left corner via mouse-over that takes you to 8's Start screen and mostly-used apps/programs can be pinned there. I'm sure the IT folks can make it workable for employees, but it sounds like a real nightmare for the back-end with server implementation and incompatible programs?

And swipe-enabled mice will probably be required to not go bonkers while using a desktop or older laptop! My 2.5 YO laptop has no 8 drivers for the touchpad, so no scrolling/chira is a big pain!

The biggest loser I had was ME, and I skipped Vista.

 

[badtux]

There is no suggestion MS did anything out of spite. It is a marketing move.

Yes and no. I work in the field. I know some of the personalities involved. I can tell you that while Microsoft's marketing department was s***ing bricks about the tablets taking market share away from Microsoft, their directive to Engineering was more along the lines of "We need a tablet OS that also works on the desktop!", i.e., something vague and general. They had no input into the actual design of Windows 8, and the Metro interface is comprised of ideas that have been floating around inside Microsoft's Engineering department for quite some time but never used because of the success of the Cairo interface when it was adopted as the UI for Windows 95 and then, later, Windows NT. At best Microsoft's marketing department enabled Engineering to do what they wanted to do all along, i.e., re-imagine the desktop. At worst Marketing's input rushed the effort and as a result Windows 8 is somewhat half-baked. Which one is the case? I have no way of knowing. I suspect it's a combination of the two, in the end.

The frustrating part is that Microsoft has good engineers and they have a lot of great ideas. They just need someone with the taste and power to impose order on the mess that is their UI, sort of a Sergei Korolev (Chief Designer of the Soyuz spacecraft) to strip out the fat and leave the lean. You'll notice that Soyuz is still flying today, almost 50 years after it first flew, because it embodies what makes a great design -- simple, robust, reliable, easy to use.

 

[SIW2]

They need a decent product manager.

Maybe they already have but didn't give him/her free reign .

Who knows what goes on there?

The reason Apple have done so well is their brilliant product management.

 

[badtux]

They need a decent product manager.
...
The reason Apple have done so well is their brilliant product management.

I have to agree. Unfortunately good product managers, people who have good taste, insight into the market, and the technical chops to know what's doable and not doable within a given time frame, are hard to find and you need someone like a Steve Jobs to find them in the first place. If your company is run by an accounting type and your engineering department is run by dweebs and geeks, forget it. I've worked under a couple of good product managers in my 15+ year career in the industry, but most of'em are more useless than a fish bicycle because the people hiring them are completely clueless about what it takes to make a great product. So it goes.

 

[SIW2]

Can't argue with that.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...Meanwhile Win7's UI still has the same problems it's always had. The population is getting older and us old folks no longer have the eyesight and eye-hand coordination to go deep-diving through menus full of tiny print...

I'm also one of those old folks with failing eyesight and eye-hand coordination. Heck, I wear trifocals and have dedicated readers for the computer and for watching TV. Still, I have no trouble reading and clicking accurately on a menu list on XP and Win 7. And when it gets to the point I do, it will be a simple matter to increase the size of the on screen characters so I'll still be able to easily see them and still have more menu data on-screen that Win 8 ever will.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...

What will companies do when XP support ceases?

Those companies using XP will continue to use XP! The fact that MS doesn't supports XP means NOTHING for the user. The already installed system will continue to run exactly the same as before, a crashed system can be reinstalled from the CD in the very same way and programs will continue to work in exactly the same way as before. Frankly, other than buying a new XP licence, I don't care at all of the MS support for anything...

That isn't totally true. Once M$ stops supporting XP, any newly discovered security holes will remain unplugged (and I'm sure hackers know that). Also, security software manufacturers are not likely to continue support of XP once M$ ceases support. This means any XP machine and/or network that has any link to the internet will become increasingly vulnerable to attack once M$ ceases to support XP. Very few business networks are completely isolated from the internet. As far as hardware goes, all hardware will eventually die. Newer hardware will become increasingly less able to run on XP. An upgrade to a new OS and hardware will become mandatory.

However, I don't see most companies upgrading to Win 8. I suspect they will switch over to Win 7 instead. Not all hardware will need to be upgraded. Monitors, for example, will still work just fine on Win 7 since touch screens aren't needed for most applications other than cash registers.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Coles & Woolworths

However, I don't see most companies upgrading to Win 8. I suspect they will switch over to Win 7 instead. Not all hardware will need to be upgraded. Monitors, for example, will still work just fine on Win 7 since touch screens aren't needed for most applications other than cash registers.

Coles Supermarkets use XP-based scanners on their checkouts.

Woolworths probably use exactly the same scanners (I haven't seen the boot screen on their checkout scanners).

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Circle K was using XP for all its systems, including registers, when I Johnny Paychecked them 3 1/2 years ago. considering that they were still using 9 pin printers four years prior to that, I doubt they have upgraded.

 

[badtux]

There's a difference between an embedded application like a grocery store scanner, and a general purpose computing environment. Heck, my brother (who works in SCADA) still has some *DOS* systems out in the field. Well, almost. DOS of course won't run on modern hardware, so when hardware fails, they run their DOS SCADA application that has been happily burbling info about voltages and pressures for decades in a virtual machine on said modern hardware.

But I doubt anybody is going to deploy a DOS system as a general-purpose computing environment. People currently running XP for non-embedded applications need to be planning their migration to Windows 7 or above right now, because once security fixes stop, all your XP systems that are hooked to the Internet will start spewing penis and breast augmentation spam non-stop 24/7 as well as be jumping-off points for hackers to explore the internals of your network. Maybe you figure retraining your employees to run Windows 7 would be more expensive than being a spambot farm and having all your corporate secrets shared with the Internet, but I suspect most people don't feel that way :sarc:.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Retraining employees from XP to Win 7 will be easier, faster, and cheaper than going to Win 8. Even as computer ignorant as I am, I had no trouble being pretty much fully productive with a Win 7 machine right out of the box.

 

[BeginnerInC]

This new OS in my opinion was not maybe for laptops nor desktops, it was made for touchscreen devices.. I just hope that they will release something more of Windows 7 stylish.

Windows 9 anyone?

 

[SIW2]

A huge number of people hope the same.

Hoping won't do any good.

Unless MS get the message it is to their advantage - they will not do it.

Unfortunately, If win8 sells ok - or rather if the devices sell ok ( win8 just happens to be on them ) - then MS will continue turning everything into a phone for those with simple needs.

The danger is people will actually buy a reasonable number of win8 devices.

It would be better for everybody if they didn't.

Sadly, the buyers do not understand that.

 

[Borg 386]

Rejected: 74% of organizations have no plans to deploy Windows 8

TechRepublic’s Windows 8 Business Intentions study reveals that 74% of businesses have no plans to deploy Windows 8, and the new, touch-centric user interface is a driving factor in the decision.

Rejected: 74% of organizations have no plans to deploy Windows 8 | TechRepublic

 

[Layback Bear]

What I don't understand is Microsoft's one road policy. Make a operating system for toys and abandon a great 3 year old Windows 7 and it's users. There are two roads. One road for a toy operating system ie. Window 8 for toys and another road for PC's. ie. Windows 7 or a Windows 9. They can go down both roads at the same time. They seem to think they can only go down one road at a time. Microsoft has the people and money to use both roads at the same time. When did giving the consumers a choice become a bad thing?

 

[Dave76]

They haven't abandoned W7.
Windows 8 has a fully functional desktop just like W7.

W7 End of extended support January 14, 2020

 

[Layback Bear]

I guess what I mean is two Windows 8.
One for toys like phones, touch pads, tablets like they have now and one Windows 8 for PC users that don't want to add 3rd party programs to make it work like a PC. Doing that would entice Windows 7 PC users to a Windows 8 operating system designed for PC's not toys. Two markets, two roads, two Windows 8. That way both market places are happy using Windows 8.