Is Microsoft about to make the biggest mistake ever with windows8?

[mothermachine]

Innovate? How is this innovating in any way at all? What they're doing is playing catchup with current mobile/tablet UI schemes.

The smart thing to do would be to release a tablet version alongside a regular desktop version. Why not? Then everyone's happy.

People forget that there are hundreds of thousands of businesses and individuals out there that rely on Windows to simply "work" and to let them get on with whatever they need to do. "User Experience" simply means reliability and speed, not how pretty the UI is or how "intuitive" it is. Most of us spend our time inside the programs we use in our work, not in Windows itself messing around with apps and other gimmicks.

Yes, the gaming/casual/grandma market is large but it's microscopic compared to business use and those people/corporations simply want something fast, reliable and functional. Gimmics are always, always a failure when it comes to OSs. Look at Windows ME for a clear example... This is why so many, many businesses are still on XP. Because it just works. At least for now, it does.

Yes, MS need to keep innovating but in my opinion it's just common sense to branch OUT rather than to replace your current packages. Everyone praised 7 for it's simplicity and reliability and speed - BUILD ON THAT!

I can see graphics geeks and gamers and casual users and families/kids digging 8. I can see developers enjoying it because it's another bubble to hop inside and squeeze some cash out of until the next fad comes in. I can see everyone else hating it and either sticking with 7 or finding some hacky way to get 8 to behave like 7.

There's a reason people keep skipping a generation of Windows. MS like to experiment. They will take the best bits of 8 and hopefully put those into 9, like they did with XP>Vista>7.

 

[theheyes]

Innovate? How is this innovating in any way at all? What they're doing is playing catchup with current mobile/tablet UI schemes.

They have caught up and in many ways exceeded what is available today. Windows is just better than iOS and Android at a lot of things.

The smart thing to do would be to release a tablet version alongside a regular desktop version. Why not? Then everyone's happy.

Time and time alone will be the judge of what the right strategy is. You start off by saying they haven't innovated, yet your proposed solution is to copy the Apple system by developing two operating systems in parallel? Do we really need another iOS clone?

The only people who would be happy are Apple who would just blow them away with their marketing and Android who could do the same thing only cheaper.

People forget that there are hundreds of thousands of businesses and individuals out there that rely on Windows to simply "work" and to let them get on with whatever they need to do. "User Experience" simply means reliability and speed, not how pretty the UI is or how "intuitive" it is. Most of us spend our time inside the programs we use in our work, not in Windows itself messing around with apps and other gimmicks.

They've pretty much nailed reliability and speed. And in many ways you nullified your own point with the last sentence - of course people spend most of their time in applications and this is no less true for Windows 8.

Yes, the gaming/casual/grandma market is large but it's microscopic compared to business use and those people/corporations simply want something fast, reliable and functional. Gimmics are always, always a failure when it comes to OSs. Look at Windows ME for a clear example... This is why so many, many businesses are still on XP. Because it just works. At least for now, it does.

You're implying that Windows 8 is not fast, reliable and functional. Could you give us an idea of what sort of performance, reliability and missing features you're having issues with?

And there are lots of reasons why business are still on Windows XP. You can't simply infer that a superseding operating system is any less fast, reliable or functional just because the business world hasn't adopted it. It's vastly more complicated than that.

 

[DeathStorm]

Innovate? How is this innovating in any way at all? What they're doing is playing catchup with current mobile/tablet UI schemes.

Compare the live tile system to the other alternatives, it may not be the most amazing thing ever but it's fairly innovative. Personal views on it don't really change that.

The smart thing to do would be to release a tablet version alongside a regular desktop version. Why not? Then everyone's happy.

This is what they've done in the past and it's not ended well.

People forget that there are hundreds of thousands of businesses and individuals out there that rely on Windows to simply "work" and to let them get on with whatever they need to do. "User Experience" simply means reliability and speed, not how pretty the UI is or how "intuitive" it is. Most of us spend our time inside the programs we use in our work, not in Windows itself messing around with apps and other gimmicks.

They've replaced a menu with a screen and you're making it sound like it chops off your leg if you look at it the wrong way. It's really not that big of a deal.

There's a reason people keep skipping a generation of Windows. MS like to experiment. They will take the best bits of 8 and hopefully put those into 9, like they did with XP>Vista>7.

Outside of Me and Vista newer versions of Windows have usually been an improvement. I don't mind 8, not certain if I like the start screen yet but it will be a shame if Microsoft is damned for trying to innovate.

 

[anything I don't mind]

As someone who works in IT and has rolled out windows 7 to 100s of users and designed the image etc. I will not advocate windows 8 and hopefully by the time windows 8 is in the cross hairs of big organisations i will be in back end unix support or floating on my boat off the coast of the maldives. Because i will refuse to have anything to do with it at any level.

But you will find people who will advocate anything new form MS just the same as some people will advocate anything new from apple.

 

[Macro]

But you will find people who will advocate anything new form MS just the same as some people will advocate anything new from apple.

What a ridiculous ad hominem inference...

 

[theheyes]

As someone who works in IT and has rolled out windows 7 to 100s of users and designed the image etc. I will not advocate windows 8 and hopefully by the time windows 8 is in the cross hairs of big organisations i will be in back end unix support or floating on my boat off the coast of the maldives. Because i will refuse to have anything to do with it at any level.

But you will find people who will advocate anything new form MS just the same as some people will advocate anything new from apple.

If you had to roll out tablet PCs to 100 users, would you go with Apple, Android or Windows 8 devices?

 

[anything I don't mind]

None of the firms that I work at are even considering tablets for all their users, this sort of luxury is reserved for the public sector. Private firms do not even purchase laptops for all their users. Some of the partners at the firms i work at have purchased ipads (at their own expense) and IT has helped get citrix xenapp connectivity on them, but that is as far as we support them. IF we had to roll out 100 windows 8 tablets to users that would seriously increase training and support costs for the firm. If a firm wanted windows 8 tablets then we would do it far easier (we would not recommend against it) than we would apple ipads.

I think personally i would recommend going with android, probably the new google tablets because they are low cost and high functionality. But all the corporate windows applications that they run internally would not work on the tablet directly but i generally people just want access to their emails and be able to read and create documents which we can usually set up through citrix anyway. I can't see someone with a windows 8 tablet not connecting through citrix or similar as corporate applications require that sorts of centralised nature. Plus i would be surprised if any of the corporate applications apart from office works on windows 8. We had enough trouble getting them to work on windows 7, at least for a few years after release.

 

[anything I don't mind]

What a ridiculous ad hominem inference...

What ? it is true, Microsoft could bring out a pile a of crap and SOME people would still be saying it is good.

Personally i hate html5 and the new ui is pathetic imo.

 

[yashiro]

Just what exactly constitutes 'training' when it comes to IT?

What I am getting at is how stupid does your workforce have to be that that they require training to use a desktop computer?

 

[anything I don't mind]

That is just how IT works these days, especially if it is out sourced, they see 100 tablet order as opportunity to push training at high charge out rates and obviously more devices means more support overheads and thus increases in support costs.

If the users don't get training then they will call support too much and this will negatively effect support because instead of dealing with usual support calls they have to help someone log in to their tablet because they don't know how to get passed the welcome screen etc.

 

[theheyes]

Just what exactly constitutes 'training' when it comes to IT?

What I am getting at is how stupid does your workforce have to be that that they require training to use a desktop computer?

There definitely is a learning curve to using the new UI, but it really isn't rocket science.

 

[Pigeon_Killer]

A lot of people on sites like these don't like the interface and find it harder to use, most reviews say the interface is a ball ache to learn, even the positive ones, so the general public who aren't interested in technology and just want to spend their time using a PC for work or pleasure are going to struggle.

The only group of people that might prefer it are those that have never used an MS O/S and buy a tablet before using it on a PC or laptop.

As for businesses, I expect the majority will use downgrade rights for as long as they can until something more user friendly and easier to support comes along.

 

[JGStonedRaider]

That's fine if everything had live tiles. Quite why most programs would need a live tile I don't know, and for those that don't, it isn't an efficient use of space at all.

all that space and they still can't fit entire program names in the tiles. And no, it doesn't let you move the InfoPath tile to below MS Access

Daddy..................?

I meant Triv in BF3?

 

[anything I don't mind]

Yes the lack of full names on the titles was one of the first things i noticed on the new ui. I thought it just looks untidy and the lack of customization is just terrible. You can't customize anything realy. You can only move existing blocks around put them in to groups. You can't change colours or font sizes/types, change the shape of blocks, make any type of different ui element, you can't even add a background image, unless this has changed now?

To be honest when i first saw the new ui, i was kind of interested to check it out, i thought wow MS made a rainmeter style interface that is built in to windows, how cool is that. But on trying it out, it had zero customization and was a bad implementation of a rainmeter type idea in my opinion.

if they added an api that was easily accessible to tweak the new start screen so that no start screen ever had to look the same anywhere. Then i think it could have been good. But instead they went for the close ui model most likely in order to push their own applications, sorry apps.

 

[DeathStorm]

Yes the lack of full names on the titles was one of the first things i noticed on the new ui. I thought it just looks untidy and the lack of customization is just terrible. You can't customize anything realy. You can only move existing blocks around put them in to groups. You can't change colours or font sizes/types, change the shape of blocks, make any type of different ui element, you can't even add a background image, unless this has changed now?

I'm not seeing what customization features you're losing out from earlier version of Windows.

if they added an api that was easily accessible to tweak the new start screen so that no start screen ever had to look the same anywhere. Then i think it could have been good. But instead they went for the close ui model most likely in order to push their own applications, sorry apps.

Why exactly is a standardized UI a problem all of a sudden? You were complaining it'll be harder to use across organisations earlier but here you appear to be asking for more fragmentation and implying this ties into an agenda of pushing their own apps.

 

[_Jimlad_]

from my testing, soooooooo many things scroll the wrong way, take ages to get to settings and tweaks we all like.... and much more clicks, sure over time you would adapt, and yeah this will rock on a tablet/large screen mobile, but boy its shocking on a desktop. this is not gonna be well received on launch and when the reviews come.

 

[Woden]

A lot of people on sites like these don't like the interface and find it harder to use, most reviews say the interface is a ball ache to learn, even the positive ones, so the general public who aren't interested in technology and just want to spend their time using a PC for work or pleasure are going to struggle.

The only group of people that might prefer it are those that have never used an MS O/S and buy a tablet before using it on a PC or laptop.

As for businesses, I expect the majority will use downgrade rights for as long as they can until something more user friendly and easier to support comes along.

I find Metro... sorry, the new UI to be a lot easier to use to be honest. Yes it took some getting used to, but no more than a new phone and I can see it being easier for the less tech savvy to use.

My only issue is that now normal desktop applications seem a bit clunky as we are using two very different UI's. That will change over time though as more developers start to fit in with the new standards.

 

[theheyes]

from my testing, soooooooo many things scroll the wrong way, take ages to get to settings and tweaks we all like.... and much more clicks, sure over time you would adapt, and yeah this will rock on a tablet/large screen mobile, but boy its shocking on a desktop. this is not gonna be well received on launch and when the reviews come.

IMO the scroll to move left/right should be mandatory in Metro apps. That IS jarring when you come across an app that doesn't.

 

[Macro]

But instead they went for the close ui model most likely in order to push their own applications, sorry apps.

Which Microsoft own apps is it that they are pushing?

Damn Microsoft to hell with their evil "closed" C#, C++, HTML5, JavaScript languages and expensive free Visual Studio tools.... oh... wait!!!!

 

[Azuse05]

This love/hate circle that has been going on for the past year really is never going to end, so repeat threads are inevitable, because the hate part is firmly rooted in the unfamiliar. Curious, since evolution for efficiency is the cornerstone for survival.

For most people on w7 the start menu has largely become the place you go to find programs you don't use much (since the most common things are pinned to the taskbar), in which case w8 is a vast improvement. More so once you organise it and have everything literally at the touch of a button. You get far more out of it than the start menu ever did but is very much a work in progress.

For others on xp, who've had a decade of start menu it will be painful. Their workspace is inefficiently organised but familiar. They skipped vista because it was a "hog" and w7 because it was too different.

The group that's most interesting is the business/education one. Most admins have tweaked the start menu, some pinned programs to the taskbar, largely though you log into a desktop covered in shortcuts. Alternately you receive a clean desktop but have to navigate through 6 folders in the start menu to get anything done. Admins finally have something they can effectively customize to put the most common things in one place without needing to provide instruction and everything else a simple mouse scroll away. Shame really, as the two most common stumbling blocks are a. incompetent IT departments and b. excellent IT departments, stifled by incompetent management.