Windows 8 usage can't even keep up with Vista/s poor numbers. (Data from Net Applications)
Posted on 03/05/2013 8:24:48 AM PST by ShadowAce
Windows fans will whine, but Net Applications' desktop operating systems numbers don't lie. Windows 8's pathetic user adoption numbers can't even keep up with Vista's lousy numbers.
Windows 8 usage can't even keep up with Vista/s poor numbers. (Data from Net Applications)
The numbers speak for themselves. Vista, universally acknowledged as a failure, actually had significantly better adoption numbers than Windows 8. At similar points in their roll-outs, Vista had a desktop market share of 4.52% compared to Windows 8's share of 2.67%. Underlining just how poorly Windows 8's adoption has gone, Vista didn't even have the advantage of holiday season sales to boost its numbers. Tablets--and not Surface RT tablets--were what people bought last December, not Windows 8 PCs.
Windows 8, and its relatives Windows Phone 8 and RT, make no impression at all in the smartphone and tablet markets. (Credit: Net Applications)
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.
I predicted that Windows 8 would be dead on arrival last year, but it's flopping even more than I thought it would be. So, why has Windows 8 been such a failure? Here's my list:
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.
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.
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.
We saw this happen before with Vista and XP. Then, as now, the new operating system -- Vista -- was not better than the old operating system -- XP -- so very few people moved to it. We're seeing it again now.
In addition, in an economy that's still not moving forward quickly, who really wants to move from tried-and-true Windows 7 to new, expensive Windows 8 PCs? As Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu observed, the $500 to $1200 price tags slapped on Windows 8 hardware makes it "uncompetitive" in a world where people want iPads and Android tablets.
If you are going to buy a new computing device in 2013, chances are it's going to be an Apple iPad, an inexpensive Android tablet, or a Chromebook. The PC desktop isn't dead, but it's not very profitable either -- and Windows 8 isn't helping PC sales.
Microsoft has to know this. If Microsoft does indeed start selling, or rather renting, Microsoft Office for iPad, you'll know they've seen the light. Microsoft's future then will not lie in operating system and application sales, but in services.
And Windows 8? Like Vista before it, Microsoft will re-release an older version of Windows, Windows 7 this time instead of XP, and start talking about wonderful Windows Blue, the next version of Windows, will be.
Apple is going to start coming up against this as well.....The stuff they build now will be “good enough” for years....10 years ago, things changed so quickly and new value was indeed added with each upgrade....Now, not so much.
I can think of one reason: Steve Ballmer
Last night I saw a commercial where they actually had to explain how to use Win8. I knew then, it was over.
I don’t really have a dog in the fight, but I’ve been to a local mall twice in the last 3 months.
The Apple store looks like a Nike shoe riot, and the loneliest guy in town is the fellow running the Microsoft Surface kiosk.
When you starting airing commercials saying that Best Buy Blue Shirts like it, it’s gotta be awful
The power of marketing.
This entire idea that you can build an OS on a desktop, then port it to a mobile device, is a failure.
Whether they like it or not, a desktop computer and a mobile device serve different functions. Sure, some are the same, like email for instance.
But as far as powerful CPU speeds, memory, and high end display, a desktop is a desktop, a mobile device is a toy.
I decide to buy a new laptop recently before they all had secure boot, and it came with winblows 8, and boy does it suck big time. With Secure Boot turned off in bios, No matter what I tried it would not let me install Linux, or a different version of winblows. I Took it back and exchanged for one with Win7, formatted and installed Ubuntu. Screw Winblows.
How bad do you have it?
exactly...
And BTW, I love Windows 7..and I love having a desktop at home as well as my wife and I iPhones and a iPad..
I like using a mouse.. I like storing things to folders, extra hardrives ...etc... I find that quite easy on Windows 7 which was a godsend after Windows XP.
If we are sitting at the TV, we use a cellphone or an iPad to check headlines... but I still love going to the other room to sit at the computer... I suppose that’s old school.
Exactly.
Recently, I had to buy a new laptop. I was out of town and my Vaio died. At the store, I was confronted by a myriad of new laptops. The salesperson showed me Windows 8. It looked like my smart phone.
I already have a smart phone. I already have a tablet.
I want a computer.
I bought one of only two laptops left in the store with Windows 7, and haven’t regretted my decision.
Not only do I hate the new way of doing things in widows 8, but I can’t get firefox to work with it without crashing all the time. And I hate all the other browsers.
I think it’s too many new OSes too soon. Only serious tech dweebs upgrade the OS on a machine that’s already working, new OSes are for new machines. As the technology jumps slow down people hold onto PCs longer new OSes will take longer to get traction.
It's a liberal cesspool of pro-death, pro-fascism, pro-Obama maggots that believe they own your hardware.
If you have to use Windows 8 on a desktop, take a few minutes to learn some keyboard shortcuts like WIN+X, and you’ll need the old standby, ALT+F4 to close a window.
Just a few of these will help you maintain your sanity.
It’s okay if you run it on a tablet or phone, but it really sucks on a something without a touchscreen. XP is about as far as I go with windows, because the OS’s keep “obsolete-ing” the motion control and CAD/CAM software that I run.
Just took delivery of a new toshiba laptop a couple days ago, first new comp since early vista. My initial impression of W8 was, this really sux. After a few days my opinion hasnt changed
lol!
They never quit, don’t they?
Keep telling the same “it’s failed” story in hopes someone other than the loons buy it.
meanwhile, its usage keeps going up.
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