Is Windows 8 the end of Microsoft?

Metro UI - live tiles in 'action'


Live tiles? Not so lively

So the as whole array of various new iterations of MS Windows hit your screens, be it your desktop, cell phone, or laptop you may be wondering what live tiles are.

Essentially, live tiles are just graphically simplified widgets. There sn nothing ‘live’ about them; the fact that different tiles display a number of newly arrived text messages, emails, and missed calls is nothing new, better looking widgets on iOS or Android do the same thing. The so-called ‘People’ tile keeps flipping pictures of your contacts incessantly without a single purpose; no relevant information is being displayed. Microsoft wants you to think that picture flipping is somehow ‘live’ whatever that may mean. The weather hub on HTC Windows phones does not update the weather information so the ‘live’ status here is a mute one. In Windows phone 8 you can resize the tiles and move them around anyway you wish which results in your screen becoming cluttered with closely positioned flat and monochromatic boxes. The whole screen peppered with various size tiles is hard on the eyes and is difficult to find the exact tile you’re looking for or to glance at the newly arrived information. Any desire to change a theme or the wallpaper is impossible in Windows Phone 8.


10 sweet and scary things about Windows 8




I understand that after years of unsuccessful presence in the mobile market Microsoft desperately needed to come up with the new and unique OS, the one which is radically different not just from Apple’s and Google’s offerings but also from its own and antiquated Windows Mobile. The result looks radically different at a first glance but in essence what Microsoft offered were redesigned widgets. What it did however, was to ditch the entire WinMo community of users and developers, which prior to the appearance of WP7 held 12%, market share. WP7 took care of that chunk by shrinking it to a mere 3% after only two years of market presence. In a desperate and bold move, MS has decided to repeat the same mistake once again, hence Windows Phone 8, a ‘new and profoundly’ different platform which essentially locks any previous Windows Phone user from upgrading. Not to mention developers who need to redesign the already poultry app market.

It is not just mobile market that Microsoft has lost to Apple and Google, the new Chromebooks and the slew of tablets and smart phones are shaking the very foundation upon which the Microsoft empire was built; the PC market. It has become crucial for Microsoft to comes up with a system which will not only be competitive but which will also rise above the competition. For the past 30 years or so Microsoft has enjoyed an almost exclusive monopoly in the PC arena. In order to rule the market and to maintain its position Microsoft has embarked upon many lawsuits and illegal activities in order to thwart the competition. Remember Netscape? But times have changed.


Microsoft Windows 8 review


With many PC makers barely surviving the onslaught of tablets and smartphones Microsoft is finally finding itself in an arena in which it doesn’t know how to play. It has become set in its monopolistic ways and any chance of real change simply becomes impossible; their products have stagnated and do not offer real customer value. In the past Microsoft has successfully thwarted any attempts by others to compete with Windows. This worked well for its coffers, heck at one point of time it was one of the biggest companies in the world, but it also created a long line of enemies who are waiting for something better and more profitable should the whole Windows 8 (in all its iterations) fail.

But back to live tiles or the Metro UI as it is known on Windows 8 desktops. They are Microsoft’s answers to Android and iOS, two mobile operating systems. The key word here is mobile. Upon closer analysis this can only be viewed as a desperate move by a software giant which is fast losing its ground. It attempts to combine mobile and desktop user experiences into one, a move that it deems will be its ‘phoenix’ a bold move into an arena where the competition is not present or is too weak. But this could also be its final mistake.

How are the sales going?

Steve Ballmer said that they moved 40 million licenses in the first month. However, he did not specify how many of them they actually sold to end users which leads us to believe that the number of sold Windows 8 licenses are far below the 40 million mark. Same thing with Windows Phone 8. You remember the headlines in 2010 when Windows phone 7 first hit the market? It was the proverbial third ecosystem that everybody was looking for and that everybody wanted. It was predicted to overtake iOS by 2014. Two years later it did not even come close to Apple clocking a mere 3% of the market share!

And to make matters worse the developers are not all too keen on dedicating their work hours to developing apps for Windows 8 tablets and Windows 7 phones to buttress the paltry Windows Store. IDC conducted a survey where 33 percent of developers who replied said they were very interested in writing applications for Windows 8 tablets and 21 percent for Windows Phone 7 software. That's compared with 85 percent of developers who were interested in writing programs for the iPhone (83 percent for iPad) and 76 percent for Android phones (66 percent for Android tablets). IDC confirms that, "Mobile platforms that fail to crack the 50 percent barrier of developers who are 'very interested' in developing apps for them will be on a gradual track to demise."
One of the developers who was at New York City's Windows 8 launch had this to say: "They pretty much just showed their apps and when we met with them, they just didn't provide any real monetary incentives for us to develop apps for them. At this point, it's hard to justify putting the resources forward to develop for their smartphones and tablets. We can't make any money."

The history repeats itself. Once again we are witnessing the screaming headlines reminding us of how great both the Windows Phone 8 and the Windows 8 are; the all-in-one nirvana computing experience. Metro ‘dead’ tiles nonetheless.

Despite what Microsoft wants you to believe, Windows Phone 8 is NOT radically different from its previous iteration. What it doesn’t want to remind you of is the fact that Windows Phone 7 utterly failed in the market, I dare to say due to its ‘live’ tiles among other things. Rather than fixing what they launched 2 years ago MS is scraping the entire platform once again in a premise that WP8 is a different and much improved OS. It is not.

Besides changing the kernel and the size of live tiles there is not much to Windows phone 8 which would warrant lashing out a few hundred bucks once again to get the latest WP device. But that’s not all folks! In order to revive its failing mobile division Microsoft is forcing the Metro live tiles upon every desktop user, all 1 billion and plus of them.

What baffles me though is that there was no serious market research done in the last two years which would prove or disprove the popularity of so-called live tiles and the new UI. I suspect that if Microsoft has done so it would learn some valuable lessons, perhaps the fact that people get bored with it almost monochromatic UI, no themes available, no wallpapers, nothing which could personalize users experience and look of their devices. Instead, in its bullying fashion to which it has gotten used in the past three decades, Microsoft has decided to push this lackluster UI onto every single Windows users should they wish to fork out $40 for an upgrade.

Not since Windows Vista has there been an OS so widely derided as Windows 8. At first it may seem like a fun experience but that effect wears off fast. It is optimized for touch but a lot of designers of this new OS have chosen to ignore the fact that touch works in lean back motion not be lean forward (over your keyboard and mouse). Steve Jobs knew this, so instead of forcing Mac users to smudge their desktops with fingers it decided to redesign the trackpad instead and make it more touch friendly. Anybody who ever used MacBook Pro or MacBook Air knows what I am talking about. So unless you’re using a tablet this quickly becomes an exercise in frustration and arm pain. How fun pulling your hand off the keyboard to touch the screen every time you want to pick a menu in Word is?

                     Windows 8 review: The thing blows                  

What are your thoughts about Windows 8 UI? Do you like them or do you think they spell Microsoft’s doom?

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Comments

  1. Where's your research about Microsoft not doing any serious market research for their product?

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1042741-the-nokia-lumia-sellout-most-likely-a-marketing-strategy

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't like windows 8 but that is mostly due to the fascism of the APP store shit that Microsoft made for that shitty OS, I mean fascism once almost killed IBM the biggest player in computer industry. Get someone truly inventive back in the management of Microsoft or you will die and lay off psycho Ballmer. XP was defo the best OS ever made by these Microsoft dickheads. So I'm thinking that in a few years Reactos will have overtaken whats left of the PC market while Google and Apple will dominate everything else. and the once so proud Microsoft will be bankrupt and so will Nokia.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "...poultry app market."

    Angry Birds?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Whatever happened to continuity and backwards compatibility as a virtue? I have no problem with adding new features but to force people to have to learn all over right in beginning is just being the bully of the playground. Why not give people the start menu if they want it? A computer is just tool for productivity. It's all about being productive. I didn't like the ribbon in Microsoft office because it was hard to find things; I was so happy to get my menu back (file, edit, etc)by a 3rd party. I just want to type a frickin paper for gods sakes. And as time went on, I did start to use the ribbon but I still like that my menu is still there as a backup. Grow up Microsoft and quit being a bully.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh you are so intelligent. How comes I did not get accross any of the OSes you have designed?
    Just go on complaining ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Microsoft can never compete in tablets and phones, period, and this is not a qualified statement, it is an inherent property of the choices the company made over the last 3 decades. Microsoft has no chance in mobile no matter what they do, their very business model precludes sucess in a world they still fail to understand.

      Delete
  7. hi there the piture shows 120 live tiles and i cheackec microsoft website for live tiles they have about 510 live tiles thats 25% live tiles or 1/4

    ReplyDelete

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