RE: Maybe it’s just me, but it seems Microsoft has lost their way. It just seems like everything they do is a mess, a flop, or both.
As I look at Microsoft’s Windows history, I’m not sure if this latest move from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 is anything different from what they’ve done before.
Their first attempt at Windows failed. They went from Windows 3.0 to Windows 3.1 and then to Windows 95.
Windows 98 received a less than enthusiastic response and Windows Millenium Edition (ME) was a flop.
Then came Windows XP that was a huge success. What followed was another disaster — Windows Vista. That was replaced by the superb Windows 7.
Who knows what the latest incarnation -— Windows 8 to 8.1 will be like....
My wife’s real nice Dell that is about four years old came with Vista. It is a locking-up bogged down, POS that can’t load its upgrades, can’t take its proper browser and now I am stuck with having to change her to 8 and 8.1 which will be a disgusting culture shock. She will hate it.
I needed a new home laptop of my own. I use 7 at work and its fine but my old at-home machine was a five year old $340 net book using XP. It had a hard drive crash after five years and I decided I would go over to the dark side.
Bought a new 13” Mac Air. In a weekend, I figured out most of the change over issues although the amount of items on the screen versis small buttons and icons is hard on us old timers that are nominally far-sighted. I think I can get my wife to use one as well and never look back at MS for home use. They keep having trouble with browsers and changes to OS GUI that are so extensive that they PO customers that have used their product for a decade.
Windows 8 is SO bad no one with software products even bothered to write them for this crap of an OS.
I do bookkeeping work and got a client that put Quickbooks Pro onto a computer with Windows 8. It’s not supported by Intuit and can’t be used remotely. The same with VersaCheck.
Had to get a refund and reload it all to a PC using XP.
Hubby says every other OS is OK, you need the odd numbered ones.
I actually bought a lap top this year because i realized if I waited I’d be stuck with windows 8.
It won’t cause the fury Win8 did but the damage is done: this product cycle was a complete disaster for and by them.
And they’re on-track to make things worse: they’ve got some seriously pissed off IT staffs looking straight at them and they don’t look like they’re backing down from the push to make a Core/Powershell server install ‘Best Practice’.
All of the tech companies in the Seattle region are getting hit hard - but, Microsoft the hardest - by someone they don’t even compete with: Amazon.com.
They’ve become a talent black hole, sucking in everyone they can get their hands on and it’s causing pain everywhere....
You wouldn’t believe how much my view of South Lake Union has changed in the last two years. To give you an idea of how bad/awesome it is, I took a look at the Amazon career page a couple weeks ago, submitting a search for “Manager” in “WA - Seattle”.....
I got 72 pages with 20 hits per page. lol