Will Windows 8 be the next ME/Vista?
Windows 8 is poised right in the spot that has been held by every other, not so successful Microsoft OS launch, namely Microsoft ME and Microsoft Vista most recently. Early reviews of Windows 8 have been positive, but traditionally, early adopters and beta testers have often praised the early releases.
Windows 8 brings a complete revamp of the OS from look, feel, interface, all the way through to social interaction. This is one of the main reasons I think it will not be as successful as expected. If you look at the past, each of the aforementioned products brought a new look and feel to the windows experience.
Businesses tend to be slow moving to new operating systems, especially complete OS redesigns. The reasons for this are numerous, but essentially it takes precious time to deploy, train, and implement new software. Time and productivity equates to money, which in a down economy or any economy for that matter, does not scream upgrade.
It is standard practice for many MSP (Managed Service Providers) or IT solution providers to not even consider an OS upgrade for business clients until at least Service Pack 1 has been released. Again looking to the past, providers have become smart about not deploying early software due to the impact that it may have on their business customers.
New OS’s mean new or incompatible drivers, Line of Business Software incompatibilities, Hardware issues, and massive employee training. Though it may be that Microsoft is setting Windows 8 up to be a consumer launch, even consumers tend to have a hard time with OS redesigns. This holds true to even Windows 7 and other products such as Office, where I know I still have to search Google, to figure out how to do something I did all the time in the last version.
Windows 8, from all of the hype, seems that it will revolutionize the future of the OS. For this reason I think it will be a flop. The most recent successful OS’s XP, and Windows 7, came only after introductions of redesigns through not so successful launches, and Windows 8 sits right in line with these, to be cast aside to the “Island of Misfit Toys”.
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While I do agree with Frank about statistically MS not have successful adaption rates every other OS since WIn98, for me it’s more financial. Last month while attending a presentation on Windows Server 8, the presenter explained that moving forward Win8 does require that your always connected. This is normally not a big deal, however if you like many “geeks” we do like our time to be off-line. I recently posted a comment to a MS I know on Facebook and explained that while it’s nice to be always “connected” I’m more concern how much data is going to get vacuumed up. I’m not sure about other regional markets however in the Carolina’s I’ve noticed that some ISP’s are placing a cap on their bandwidth to residential users and even starting to fine users if they go over. So in order for me to use Win8 I need to buy a license and pay $?? to my ISP just for the privilege to use my OS that I’ve already purchase a license for. My friend on Facebook told of course tried to put a MS spin on this and explain that ISP’s will give in and stop that practice. Yeah just like the banks stopped imposing more fee’s on their account holders. I guess time will tell who’s stronger the User and their willingness to pay for additional bandwidth, or ISP’s realizing that it’s just not worth alienating their users and stop placing limits on bandwidth that are un-reasonable.
Hi Scott thanks for the comment! MS licensing has always been an interesting (insert any word you feel fits) game! Not sure if you have ever called MS with licensing questions? I have and you can literally call, hang up, call talk to someone else, hang up, call and talk to another and get a different answer from each. Virtualization, web, and connectivity have really thrown a monkey wrench into the whole licensing issue. It will be interesting
to see how it goes down with Win8…