Does Anyone Really Care About the Start Menu?

[mitchellvii]

I said MS tablets only make up 2.5% of the total Windows 8 market.

You guys keep saying "Modern UI is the future!". Well, electric cars are the future too. Ask Fisker and Volt dealerships how that's working out? Whatever the future may be you need to sell something NOW. And although touch or gesture computing obviously has a place in the future, you are making the assumption that Windows 8 does a brilliant job of it. Windows 8 is merely Windows Phone on steroids. We have had touch tiles on Windows Phone for years - how's that going?

Microsoft made the same mistake with their Windows 8 rollout that Obama made with healthcare. They tried to do too much at once. Change is hard and you need to boil the frog slowly or he'll jump from the pot. If Microsoft was more smart and less arrogant, they would have marketed Windows 8 as a Windows 7 Touch. Present Modern UI as a new and exciting layer but not the whole show. Making Modern UI the main act was too much too fast. The terrible sales (to actual users) makes that obvious. How else are you to evaluate the success of an OS other than sales to end users?

Lol, let's see Tom Cruise do all that fancy gesture work with a spreadsheet. There will always be need for the precision of a mouse. When the average company has those gesture enabled screens handy then I'll admit you have a point.

From a December Study from IT Pro Pulse, within in the next 12 months 64% of Enterprise Organizations will deploying Tablets to at least 40% of their workforce, it seems that is a good market cap.

And you think those companies want their employees using Modern UI on their tablets? Last time I checked, Office 2013 is not a Modern UI product. It's a desktop product. For these companies Modern UI will be an annoyance, not a benefit.

Modern UI is a consumer based product for those looking to use their tablet as entertainment devices, not for serious business people. As a matter of fact, I would not be surprised to see companies turn Modern UI off altogether on their tablets they give to their employees as they want their people working not playing.

 

[J515OP]

When the average company has those gesture enabled screens handy then I'll admit you have a point.

Fair enough. I will admit it when that day comes.

If Microsoft was more smart and less arrogant, they would have marketed Windows 8 as a Windows 7 Touch. Present Modern UI as a new and exciting layer but not the whole show.

Are you ready to admit this is exactly what Windows 8 is? If it makes you feel better I'm sure nobody will mind if you call it Windows 7 Touch with Live Tile Enabled Start Screen (taking a page out of the phone naming convention there only missing the "LTE" and really this all comes down to marketing). How about admitting Windows 8 is a step in the right direction given market forces and trends? Admitting that MS is the leader in developing a unified OS with capabilities of both a traditional PC and a mobile one?

:wink: JP

 

[Nuspieds]

Oh, my! All these charts and graphs! Did Ross Perot drop by?! :LOL:

Anyway, we must not forget that Microsoft is not new to the Tablet OS or Mobile OS game. A big reason they never originally succeeded was that they took the Desktop Windows and basically made an equivalent version for the respective device. That is--and was--a recipe for disaster because Desktop Windows is certainly not functional and efficient on a Tablet or Phone.

Fast forward and so they have now created an OS specifically for Phones and another OS specifically for Tablet/touch devices. Obviously they cannot kick their current bread and butter legacy Desktop environment to the curb because that's what most of us are currently using. So what was the next best thing? Incorporate the legacy Desktop mode into the new OS.

To me, they did a fantastic job they way the implemented the legacy Desktop support. Moreover, legacy Desktop support is, to me, no different than the Command Prompt app. When we migrated to the Windows GUI, most apps were still DOS apps and, again, obviously Microsoft could not kick that bread and butter to the curb, either. So what was the next best thing? Incorporate legacy DOS mode via a Command Prompt window.

So the same thing is happening today. Legacy support has been enabled, but the future direction has already been established and, like the move from DOS to Windows GUI, it is just a matter of time as most apps are upgraded to take advantage of this new Modern UI paradigm.

Enterprises are justifiably cautious when upgrading/implementing new technologies; however, the fact the remains that even in the enterprise, there is a demand for mobility. Legacy Windows running on a desktop cannot fill that gap/need; iOS, Android and the Modern UI on Tablets and similar devices, can.

 

[J515OP]

Nice summary

Heard my name. Just stopping by.



Thought you might want to see the latest PC sales charts.



And for comparison the latest tablet sales charts.




You see Modern UI is a chicken and egg problem. We must have Modern UI and a legacy desktop.

 

[Nuspieds]

Completely hilarious!

:LOL:

 

[Sin]

If animated tiles were the answer Windows Phone have been a hit. Is Windows Phone a hit? I don't think Sprint is even carrying any new Windows phones.

You might want to take a look at how Windows Phone is actually doing.
Windows Phone Strengthens*Third-Place*Position Against iPhone, Android - Forbes

Also you can't seriously base anything on what Sprint does or does not carry?

 

[mitchellvii]

Windows 8 = New Coke. Old Coke was never broken, Coca-Cola just wanted to compete with Pepsi. Turns out people liked the taste of Old Coke just fine. So Coca-Cola got smart. Instead of making Coke different, they added flavors of Coke. Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Caffeine Free Coke.

Consumers didn't want New Windows. They liked Old Windows fine like it was. MS should have presented Modern UI as a new flavor of Windows, not as a replacement. They went the New Coke approach and it has worked just about as well.

Don't step on Superman's cape.

 

[mitchellvii]

You might want to take a look at how Windows Phone is actually doing.
Windows Phone Strengthens*Third-Place*Position Against iPhone, Android - Forbes

Also you can't seriously base anything on what Sprint does or does not carry?

So after being out for years you are bragging on an incredibly weak 3rd place finish for Windows Phone? Dude we are talking about 5.6% of the market! For you that is win? 5.6% Lol, sorry. Your headline was a lot more persuasive than the article. Hey well at least it is up from 3.7%. I guess they went from COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to just UTTER DRECK. Hurrah!

ROFLMAO. 5.6%.

Well at least Surface has captured 7.5% of the tablet market - looks like we are really onto something!

** Quick real world example. I am a technologist. I know how to make Windows 8 work for me, albeit not without difficulty. My girlfriend is a brilliant College Professor. Although very bright, she doesn't get technology at all. In that way she is representative of 90% of the computer users out there.

I gave her my SP to play with and said, "Try out the Modern UI interface and tell me what you think." I didn't explain how to use it to her at all. She has been using Windows 7 for years. For the next 30 minutes I heard a series of, "WTF!?" and "Hey, I'm stuck!" and finally "I don't get this at all...".

And there you have it. Non-technologists don't get Modern UI without a steep learning curve and they don't want to invest the time to learn because they simply do not care. Windows 7 was easy. You clicked the Start button and went from there. Every button lead to another button and so on. It made sense to non-technologists.

 

[pallentx]

So, we had a meeting today. We are looking at rolling out Dell Windows 8 tablets. It seems a lot of folks (executives, doctors, etc) have been wanting a portable tablet (mostly iPads) to take around to meetings to go with their desktop or laptop. We are considering some higher end Windows 8 tablets instead - like a Surface Pro or Dell (don't remember the model). The theory being they can have one device that is a tablet, then dock it at their desk connected to a mouse and keyboard and monitor and have a desktop. ONE device, ONE OS, works both ways. THAT is what Windows 8 is about. Oh, we have 5000 employees. This isn't for all of them, but we aren't exactly small-time either.

 

[Sin]

So after being out for years you are bragging on an incredibly weak 3rd place finish for Windows Phone? Dude we are talking about 5.6% of the market! For you that is win? 5.6% Lol, sorry. Your headline was a lot more persuasive than the article. Hey well at least it is up from 3.7%. I guess they went from COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to just UTTER DRECK. Hurrah!

ROFLMAO. 5.6%.

Well at least Surface has captured 7.5% of the tablet market - looks like we are really onto something!

Bragging? Not at all. Has Microsoft completely miss-handled the mobile market? Absolutely! They followed right after Palm who also completely blew it. They had the dominate position and squandered it. But that doesn't change the fact that Microsoft is actually doing pretty well for completely starting over. Not sure what sort of market share numbers are you looking for when your starting off with nothing? Honestly I can care less what their market share is as long as the make devices I want and have a positive grow needed to attach developers.

 

[graye]

I dislike being told to use a new feature... I think that any new feature should stand on its own merit, and if it suits my needs, then I will decide to use it. I don't appreciate being forced to use the new feature because they took away the old version.

It's the old "carrot or the stick" scenario... if Microsoft doesn't think that users will see that the new way is better (the carrot), then they take away the old way (the stick)

When you think about it... it kinda suggests that Microsoft knew darn well that the new features wouldn't stand on their own merit... and that we'd not voluntarily migrate to the new features without a stick. That doesn't speak well of their confidence of their changes.

 

[J515OP]

I dislike being told to use a new feature... I think that any new feature should stand on its own merit, and if it suits my needs, then I will decide to use it. I don't appreciate being forced to use the new feature because they took away the old version.

It's the old "carrot or the stick" scenario... if Microsoft doesn't think that users will see that the new way is better (the carrot), then they take away the old way (the stick)

When you think about it... it kinda suggests that Microsoft knew darn well that the new features wouldn't stand on their own merit... and that we'd not voluntarily migrate to the new features without a stick. That doesn't speak well of their confidence of their changes.

In my opinion, not really. It isn't the addition or removal of a feature it is an interface design change. Your logic doesn't make much sense to me and if anything it probably suggests the opposite of what you say about MS's confidence. You are not told or forced to live without the start button. There are built-in options, free downloads and purchase options to recreate the start button functionality. You can decide to bring it back (taking the stick option away) or not.

It isn't really even the carrot or stick scenario at all. It is just a change, a transition from one thing to a different thing. It may require adaptation but does not automatically mean that behaviors are being conditioned under a reward/punishment scenario.

MS saw a different way to do things and they decided that was the way they wanted to go. They have openly acknowledged they are making a big bet on the changes in Windows 8. That shows confidence in the changes since they are betting their future on it. They maybe wrong but it doesn't really say anything about their confidence.

When you think about it what is really the more likely suggestion? That MS actually said:

"We know these features wont stand on their own so we will just force everybody to use them. We aren't confident people will voluntarily make this move but by taking away the old features we will sell many more copies of the new OS and thereby ensure our future success despite the contraction in the PC market."

OR

"We know that people are using PCs less and mobile touch devices more. If we redesign our OS in a way that can be used both on PCs and on mobile touch devices we may be able to sell many more copies of the new OS and thereby ensure our future success despite the contraction in the PC market."

The stick only works if the donkey is tied to the cart. If the donkey is free to runaway then the stick is meaningless.