We now know what
we've suspected for months: Windows 8 isn't selling very
well. We've seen the pattern since Microsoft's big launch event in late October
— the mixed reviews, the cautionary words from hardware
manufacturers, the desperate fast-tracking of plans to expand the retail
availability of the Surface — but now we've got numbers.
According to the researchers at NPD, sales
of Windows PCs dropped 13% year-over-year for the period between October and
the first week December, a statistic first reported by the New
York Times. Considering that's the exact time Windows 8 devices arrived on
the market, it's pretty damning evidence the new operating system isn't
catching on.
Certainly, some people are downloading
Windows 8 for upgrades without buying new hardware, but let's get real: Windows
8 is all about the hardware.
The new OS is tailor-made for touch screens, and touch-screen PCs — the multi-finger kind that Windows 8 was designed to work with — have only been available since Oct. 26. As we all know, Microsoft went so far as to build its own tablet to showcase the platform.
The new OS is tailor-made for touch screens, and touch-screen PCs — the multi-finger kind that Windows 8 was designed to work with — have only been available since Oct. 26. As we all know, Microsoft went so far as to build its own tablet to showcase the platform.
No one has to ask: Should it have bothered?
For all its promise, Windows 8 doesn't seem to be winning over many buyers. To
be sure, one report doesn't a failure make, but Microsoft worked meticulously
to craft the OS to work with touch, the cloud and social networks — the very
needs of today's connected consumers and businesses. It's fair to ask why they
didn't respond, especially since Windows 8 was marketed like crazy.
Windows 8's Stumbling Blocks
Windows 8 is a powerful operating system,
but it's also perplexing to new users. The built-in tutorial is very brief,
amounting to a few instructions on how to perform some basic actions with a
mouse or finger. If you want to engage snap mode or scroll through apps running
in the background, good luck figuring them out without someone holding your
hand. Even finding the restart button is a little challenging. It all amounts
to a pretty steep learning curve, even for longtime Windows users.
And in the end, what's the benefit? For all
of the hype from Microsoft on launch day, there are scant few Windows 8
apps. The limited selection is holding back some of the OS's potentially
groundbreaking features — such as the hard-wired Share button — since they're
only as powerful as the apps on board the device.
Moreover, for what people tend to use PCs
for — which is to say, productivity-skewed tasks such as document creation,
task management and email — Windows 7 suits them fine. The big thing Windows 8
adds to the equation is "consumption" activities because now the same
device can be your PC and your tablet.
However, tablets have gotten so cheap that
it's hard to make a case that spending $500+ on a new Windows 8 machine is
better than just keeping what you have and spending $200 on a cheap tablet.
That goes double when the cheap tablet in question has hundreds of thousands
more apps. Throw in an unfamiliar user interface, and you're basically telling
people to please leave the Microsoft Store.
The iPad in the Room
Contrast the launch of Windows 8 with the
initial iPad debut. When Apple first rolled out its tablet, there was
a lot of skepticism, and probably even fewer apps. However, the iPad wasn't
entirely unfamiliar — the OS worked almost exactly like the iPhone's, so there
was no learning curve.
At the same time, the iPad delivered on its
promise of a better overall experience for some key tasks: reading, watching
video, browsing photos and casual messaging. Have you tried to use a Windows 8
device such as the Lenovo Yogaor Dell XPS 12 as a tablet? Trust
me, they're not iPads.
To be fair, those machines were designed to
be laptops first and tablets as a supplementary function, but then we're back
to: Why make the jump to Windows 8 when Windows 7 provides a good enough
experience on that score? You can save money by just sticking with your current
PC (or buying an ultra-cheap one) and buying, say, a $199 Google Nexus
7 if you want a tablet experience.
There's at least one Windows 8 product that
provides an experience on par with the iPad's, and that's the Microsoft
Surface. However, for what the Surface can do for you today, it's overpriced.
Not only does it have far fewer apps than both the iPad and Android, but
won't even run older Windows apps, negating a big reason for longtime PC owners
to get one. With the Surface, you really do need a separate
device for productivity, and you will for a long time.
Chairs Are Like Windows 8
Microsoft has a couple of aces up its
sleeve to help boost Windows 8, but they're far from trump
cards. Microsoft Office, the ultimate productivity app suite for many,
comes free with the Surface (or any Windows RT device). However, as
many have discovered over the past few years, there are many alternatives (such
as QuickOffice) to Office on tablets. Far from making the Surface (and
tablets like it) a "gateway drug" for business use, the presence of
Office on Windows RT devices will only ensure enterprise customers don't
completely ignore them.
There's also the Xbox 360, a bona fide
Microsoft hardware success story if there ever was one. The Xbox is a great
platform, but its ability to help goose Windows 8 penetration is limited.
Gamers are only a subset of the larger Windows customer base and those who
aren't a part of it generally have little interest. And the worst thing Xbox
could do is wall itself in by tying itself more directly to Windows — indeed,
its recent moves with SmartGlass apps have taken the opposite
approach, introducing apps for iOS and Android. That's good for Xbox, but it
won't help Windows 8.
So where does that leave Windows 8?
Inadvertently making Microsoft's "sophomore jinx" a reality — that
every other version of Windows is a success (95, XP and 7) and the others, not
so much (98, Vista and now 8) — though for different reasons.
Before anyone declares Windows 8 a flop,
however, let's pause for a second to remember the tale of the Aeron chair.
Yes, different industry, different time, different everything, but the analogy
is apt: Company launches product that doesn't sell well at first but goes on to
redefine an entire category because there was nothing else like it. People
didn't "get" the Aeron when it first debuted, but it was too good
to not be influential.
Is Windows 8 the Aeron chair of a new
digital age? Perhaps. But consider that the Aeron was an eventual success
because the product was exceptional — it met the needs of
office workers far better than anything that came before. Windows 8 has some
powerful features, but will they ever win over the buying public?
No comments:
Post a Comment