Windows 8 review: Is it a failure or success

December 10, 2012 | Filed under: Business | Posted by:

Windows 8 reviews are all divided. Some reviewers say that it is a failure while others call it a great success

Windows 8 is inventive. Microsoft has brought up many new features to the firmware. Windows 8 has been specially made to fight the cutthroat rivals likes Android and OS X. But, one and half months after its release, some people say it is a failure and Microsoft is doomed. Here we check major reasons why analysts address Windows 8 as a failure.

Criticism from Long-time Windows Users
In the early days of Windows 8, the software received huge criticism from long-time Windows users. People questioned Microsoft for confusing them with many uneasy features. The lack of Start menu, in place of the novel and much-admired new start screen, is a major point. It may have a new Metro-style UI and many of you would love it. But, what it lacks is the legacy that would define the real Windows experience to many others.

Negative Survey Results
Recent survey results bring not much good news for Windows 8. An Avast survey, which polled 350,000 users of its antivirus software, reveals that only 7 percent of U.S. users wanted to buy Windows 8. Over 70 percent said they would continue with what they had, mostly Windows 7. As per George Otte, CEO of Geeks on Site, a repair service, “Windows 7 works just fine [and] it’s not a major priority to make a change” (courtesy of U.S.A Today).

Surface RT’s Decline in Fame
Surface RT, Windows RT’s signature model, came up with huge fanfare. The Redmond software giant has been hyping up the product for a long time. But, the hype-up doesn’t seem to help and give impetus for the gadget in sales. DigiTimes recently reported that Microsoft cut orders for Surface RT from OEMs to half. It is found as an action taken by Microsoft in retaliation to the weak market performance of the machine.

Delay in Tablets
Acer has openly said that it would delay its Windows 8 tablets. The firm has a reason. Acer is the only Microsoft partner that publicly questioned Microsoft for rolling out own Surface tablets. The company, as a result, wanted to release its tablets for Windows RT and Pro after reading the responses to other machines, especially the Surfaces.

The issue doesn’t seem to be that of Acer only. Samsung, Asus and many other firms have also delayed their products. Samsung and Asus have already announced their products; however, for a long time they have been silent over the release of their products.

“That’s surely disappointing for Microsoft and its partners, but the operating system’s relative merits are only one part of the story. The fact is, many of the most promising Windows 8 systems haven’t made it to market yet. Some have been delayed until next year,” comments Paul McDougall of Information Week Hardware.

Big Prices
Microsoft sells its Surface RT for a price that starts at $499. The premium 64GB version is priced at $599. If you want the Touch Cover, you need to pay an extra of $100 to the basic price. The thing is that there are many alternatives for Surface RT for the same or lower prices. They are not some run-of-the-mill gadgets, but the high-end machines like Samsung Nexus 10, Amazon Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 and so on. So competition is hard for Microsoft and its space in market will diminish as a result.

Conclusion
Many analysts are of the view that Windows 8 doesn’t have a bright future. Some analysts have even gone on to conclude that Microsoft would soon go for Windows 9 that would get back to the old look. Well, let us wait and see what is going to take place. Anyway, there is a report that the company has cut orders for Surface RT only to focus on Surface Pro. The tablet/Ultrabook combo may come early next year with a less press that it was expected to get previously.

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Posted by on December 10, 2012. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
  • Ram chandra sharma

    I also don’t like windows 8

  • RAKESH

    WINDOWS 8 HAS BEEN A SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT COMPARED TO ITS PREDECESSOR WINDOWS 7. FOR STARTS ITS FIREWALL IS ACTUALLY AN INTIGRATED ANTIVIRUS, SO WHEN ONE INSTALLS WINDOWS 8 ,YOU WILL NOT BE ASKED FOR INSTALLING AN ANTI-VIRUS.SECONDLY THE SYSTEM RUNS BETTER THAN WINDOWS 7 IN A SENSE THAT IT IS MUCH LESS SUCCEPTABLE TO PROBLEMS LIKE “WINDOWS IS NOT RESPONDING” , THE SYSTEM TEMPORARILY CRASHING. THE METRO SCREEN IS REALLY VISUALLY PLEASING .WHAT WINDOWS 8 IS BETTER OFF IN TERMS OF USEFULNESS , IS NEGETED BY ITS RIGIDITY AND COMPLEXITY.IN TERMS OF RIGIDNESS, THE SETTINGS IN METRO SCREEN APPS LIKE STOCKS,NEWS,ETC CANNOT BE CHANGED.IF A PERSON BUYS WINDOWS 8 FROM THE US, AND IS A EUROPEAN NATIONAL , HE OR SHE CANNOT CHANGE SETTINGS FOR WHAT STOCK MARKETS VALUES IS TO BE DISPLAYED FIRST UP TO EUROPEAN MARKETS ,AND WILL HAVE TO CONTENT IN GETTING UPDATES ON US MARKETS.THE NEWS DISPLAYED WILL ALSO BE FROM THE US.AND THE MEDIA RELATED SOFTWARES FOR MUSIC,PHOTOS AND VIEDOS WILL ONLY DISPLAY FILES STORED IN THE C DRIVE USERS FOLDER.IT WILL NOT SEARCH THE ENTIRE COMPUTER FOR FILES TO OPEN WITH ,LIKE THE CASE OF WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER THAT SCANS THE ENTIRE COMPUTER FOR PLAYABLE FILES.AND LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST IS THE EXCLUSION OF THE START BUTTON . THE VERY FUNDAMENTALS OF WINDOWS RESTS IN THAT ONE BUTTON WHICH HAS BEEN TO MY ASTONISHMENT , BEEN EXCLUDED.
    SO AS A CONCLUSION , WINDOWS 8 IS A PRETTY GOOD OPERATING SYSTEM THAT IS UNNECESSARILY COMPLICATED . TO RUN IT EFFICINTLY WOULD REQUIRE TOUCH SCREEN LAPTOPS AND MONITORS WHICH ARE QUITE EXPENSIVE.SO IF PEOPLE OUT THERE ARE USING WINDOWS 7 AND ARE HAPPY WITH ,PLEASE STAY WITH IT.

  • Yao

    Windows 8 is a trash. Waste money and time.

  • bob

    I use windows 8 and it was a little getting used to but after using it I find it to be a very nice OS. I like the fact that you can use programs and Apps. You could not do this with win7 and my computer is not touch but people have already made a start button you can install for free that is quit nice. So what is the big complant, I dont get it. As touch screens keep rolling out the people saying all these bad things about win 8 will go to the silant background as has been the case with other windows products. I do not know why it seems people love to trash Bill Gates and Windows. its an OS that by and far people gravitate to. To me it is better then Apple in that they dont try to control every aspect and charge maga prices for there product as Apple does. I like windows. Is it the best no, but nither is Apple or Android its all about choice. Be glad windows is out there or Apple would be owning you and beleave it or not that is just what they want to do, Own you. Microsoft Keep Going dont stop if your good to us we will buy, and thats why windows is the No.1 selling OS.

  • philmurray

    Window 8 (only 1 window so Windows 8 is plain wrong) is trying to be two types of system, a tablet one and a desktop top. When you first start it is assumed that you want to be a tablet system even if you are a desktop user. There is no easy way to switch this round so that desktop stuff takes precedence. This one factor alone is going to kill Window 8 for desktop users (which all Windows users are after all).

    All MS had to do was include a configurable option to allow you choose what type of system you wished to use. To just force you to act like a tablet user when you most obviously are not is arrogant and users will just sit on their hands until Windows 9 (or perhaps an interim upgrade if we are lucky).

  • i’m

    Your Desktop now has APPS Now! Do you people not see that? Apps that run in full screen without a browser window and can even run in off-line mode, and can be downloaded & purchased quickly for app prices ($10 or less). And you don’t even have to worry about catching malware because it’s a guarded APP STORE! If you don’t like it, download a start menu and shut up! Every person with a brain knows that if windows doesn’t have an option for you, you can download an option. FOR FREEEEEE!

  • Z Hasan

    Windows 8 is a marketing junk. Machine to work cannot be combined effectively with machine to play. I have been a long time windows user and need windows more to work and less to play. I am getting fedup with windows nowdays. Windows machines have become complecated, power & resources hungry. If at all a operating software is needed to play the content, it must be designed separately for simple hardwares, but things are going in otherway. The fall of Intel and Microsoft is expected in time to come if easy technologies are not made by them to help day to day life rather than earning profit at the cost of customers. So i have started shifting to linux to work and android to play. Simple, easy, cheap and effective solution. A dual core light weight 17W Intel processor on 13 to 15 inches laptop with battery backup of 7 to 9 hours, and a heavy weight AMD 65W processor on 18.5 to 20 inches desktop are sufficient to work for most person. An extra monitor of 27 inches is very much useful for play that could be contected with the machine whenever required including android devices.

  • John Parker

    To the person that said “Every person with a brain knows that if windows doesn’t have an option for you, you can download an option. FOR FREEEEEE!” WHY?

    Why should people need to download something when Microsoft could have so easily included it as an option? Most business users like myself will not use Apps. We have iphones, ipads or android devices for that. We simply want to use the stabdard packages we need to run our businesses. Microsoft went out of their way to modify the code to remove the Start Button. For a user without a touch screen the whole process of using the PC is so much more time consuming. We have 12 new PCs with Windows 8 (this was not through choice – It was all we could get in a hurry) and ALL of the users have asked the IT department to restore the Start button. Not ONE liked the standard method.

    Cleary, the majority don’t like it. If Microsoft continue to be so arrogant as to INSIST users do things the Microsoft way, others will take the opportunity to fill the gap. They did a similar thing in a smaller way with Office 2007. We changed 56 of our computers over to Open Office and never looked back.

    If Microsoft continues to shoot itself in the foot it will gradually lose market share and the likes of Google, Apple etc. will fill the void.

  • Doc Maynord

    From a professional standpoint, Microsoft has unleashed a new version of Windows without thinking about where their real money is at. Businesses rely on Windows, however that will quickly changes if to many changes are implemented at once. Windows 8 loses the largest end user, that being businesses. The product is stable, the user interface nicely designed; but that does not change the fact that people do not like it, and that time is involved in training end users.

    Since most of these posts are posted by Microsoft employees – yes I know who you are as I have worked with many of you – most post do not reflect the overall opinion of the end user and the enterprise user. Windows 8 is a flop from the standpoint that most professional users will not be bothered to take on the change.

    The best advice for Microsoft is this:

    Stop trying to be Apple, they will not gain the business market for they do not support the business environment worthy of note. Until Apple makes a decent Server OS, supporting server side software, and client support for it they will flounder in the cool tool world.

    Linux is not worthy of any great note either, open source creates to much instability and code vulnerability. Purchased version are as pricey if not more so than Windows Server software.

    Google is cool and has many great gadgets on the most unstable OS ever invented, with kids playing with the OS every day creating a professional developers nightmare.

    MS should do what they do best – write the best code in the world, realize that what they already have is very impressive, and work to make it better. Not make it Apple-like, google-like, or linux-like.