Tuesday 19 March 2013

windows 8 adoption failed?

Windows 8 Adoption Failed?
Microsoft made some massive improvements and we don't need a start menu as much if we use the dock or just type what program we want

Windows 8's failure is actually greater than it appears. The tablet and phone markets in 2007 were next to non-existent. Now, in a market where NPD expects tablets to out sell notebooks by year's end, neither Windows 8 nor its cousins Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 even appear on NetApplication's mobile and tablet reports for February 2013. How bad is that? Android 1.6, with is tiny 0.02% of the market, does make the list.
Windows 8 now up to 2.79% market share as Windows 7 stabilizes after its first decline

Two months into 2013, and Windows 8 continues its slow but steady growth. Windows 7 posted growth after suffering its first depreciation in market share since its launch in 2009.
The latest market share data from Net Applications shows that February 2013 was a decent one for Windows 8, which gained 0.43 percentage points (from 2.36 percent to 2.79 percent) while Windows 7 regained 0.07 percentage points (from 44.48 percent to 44.55 percent) after losing a sizeable 0.63 percentage points the previous month.
In January, Windows 7 lost market share for the first time since its release, just a month after passing the 45 percent mark. It looks like it may never reach that point again.

Vista Vs. Windows 8 Adoption
(Vista was rightfully considered an huge disaster with a first months market share growth ranging in the 1% to 2%, sourse Netapplications.)


Why has Windows 8 been such a failure?

1. Metro, aka Modern: An ugly, useless interface.

I said it before, I'll say it again: Metro, or whatever you want to call it, may make an OK tablet interface, but it's ugly and useless on the desktop. It requires users to forget everything they ever learned about Windows and learn an entirely new way of doing things for no real reason. To quote a popularly held opinion, Metro is "awful." 
True, you can use a more traditional Windows interface, but you know what would have been a lot better? If Microsoft had just kept  the Windows 7 Aero interface for the desktop version of Windows 8 and give up this idea that the Metro touch-friendly interface is for every device.

2. Windows 8 brought nothing innovative to the desktop.

Can you tell me one new thing that Windows 8 brought to the desktop that was truly innovative? Exciting? Engaging? I can't. Windows 8 is faster than Windows 7, but that's about it -- and that dual interface mess makes it slower for practical purposes.

3. Developers hate it.

I said all along programmers wouldn't like throwing out their hard-won .NET, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) expertise to work natively on Windows 8. I was right. Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director of video game company Valve, said it best: "Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space." He then started moving his Steam game empire to Linux.