I guess it could also be just bad marketing.
Seing that they are said to spend about 1.5 Billion $ on it, that is somewhat hard to believe.
I have mixed feelings on this topic.
It's pretty obvious that MS is not going to bring back the old start menu.
According the the latest news, they are at least bringing back parts of it.... doubtless due to enormous pressure put onto them.
However.. I think people are doing themselves an injustice in relying on it. You aren't going to learn the new way if you have to rely on this method.
Are they? Or is rather Microsoft the guilty party? Who decided, for reasons unknown, that the desktop computer needs a phone like interface?
I am the customer.... it is
MY money.
And if you are incapable of delivering a product that I like - for whatever reason, you dont get my money.
The most basic law of our system.
And as such I find this attitude, that the customer HAVE to learn something new, downright insulting.
If you want me, to learn something new, because you changed something without visible need, well then you better give me some damm good reasons to do so. I had the Windows 8 Developer Preview Version and I disliked the new interface. So....
Why
should
I?
Either you create reasons that convince me/enough other people that your product is worthy of my money and effort.... or you dont.
In which case your sell less and less, until you go bankrupt.
And your competitors take your market share.
I will agree that the new features should have been rolled out in phases instead of all at once, but it is what it is. Learn it or move over before you get caught in a wider array of the learning curve.
As for 90 % of the computer using populace, the GUI is the operating sytem, that would have been a lot smarter indeed.
It might have also avoid the disaster Windows 8 has become. Because early feedback would have told them that people dont want a computer os work that way.
I still dont see why - although doubtless of - I should bother with said learning curve.
- and please... be realistic with the "move to Linux" stuff. It isn't going to happen.
Not soon and not quick, thats for sure.
On the other hand, not to many years ago, had you told anyone that Internet Explorer would have less than 90 % marketshare, people would have laughed you off..... but that was before the arrival of Firefox and the others.
And funnily enough... you know what was the reason for Firefox success? Not that it was better or not from MS, although that did of course help.
It was a success, because you could use it quite similar to Internet Explorer. Back then its interface was not much different, so even a novice computer user, did find his way arround. Even one who used IE all his life.
Dont undestand tabbed browsing? Doesnt matter, you can open new Windows with Firefox, too. And there are many such examples.
Linux breaktrough on the Desktop was and is hindered by certain factors:
- It took aeons for the Linux community to - grudgingly - accept that a command line is not something people want to see on a modern operating system, especially not for day to day business like installing new software or similar - mundane - stuff.
- The Linux desktop lagged behind the windows one in design and usability.
- Linux greatest strenght was at the same time it greatest weakness. The openness allowed for unrivaled customisation.... but at the same time caused a huge spread in distributions who are often not particularly compatible to each other, making devloping and installing software a major pain.
- With little demand, comes little reason for anyone to write software for it. I am not just speaking about paid software, I am also speaking about the ton of open source and freeware that is available for Windows. For example Virtual Dub.... a awesome video editing tool..... but windows only. No program in Linux can do similar stuff with similar ease.
- While Linux is free, Windows is easily pirated making it de facto free, too. This was even to some extent tolerated by MS, following the - not so wrong - idea that it is better for them in longterm if somebody runs Windows without paying (often) instead of running Linux and never ever return and worse, creating demand for software in that ecosystem.
- And last but not least games.... until the modern consoles showed up, serious gaming was mostly a PC only thing.
But many thing changed over the past few years. The Linux desktop is up to todays usuabilty standards and the breaktrough of smartphones and tablets have shifted a significant part of purchasing power into the mobile market... where Windows is nothing.
People expect that their computer works the same way as the last one.... people dont expect that their new smartphone acts like Windows. And so they have a lot higher tolerance for learning new ways, there.
BTW,
Android? It is linux.... with a marketshare of nearly 70 % on the smartphone market in 2012.
IOS? Based on OSX--- which is based on Linux, too.
Windows so far could hold its ground on the Desktop because there was little reason for the average user to make a switch.
Most computer users, leaving gamers aside, use their PC for writing, web browsing, music listening and the occasional movie.
That is all stuff, you can do easily on a cheap tablet with low end hardware. Or an aged desktop PC. Now you can of course install Linux on that old desktop machine, but why would you, as long Windows - who is installed already - gets the job done.
Linux might do the job, too, quite good actually nowadays, but that is not enough to convince people to switch.
It is not enough to easily convince them to upgrade, too.
Do you really think Microsoft increased support for XP to 2014 by free choice? I dont think so, but their install base was still so large that they could not afford to drop it earlier.
But now we have Windows 8... an OS with a significantly changed GUI.... a GUI so heavily changed, that it is now actually more difficult to learn Windows 8 then to learn the - Windows 7 based - Linux desktop of many distributions.
That leaves pretty much only the gamers as the remaining sole market share group of modern Windows.
But even there, Windows is not what is was a few years ago.
The modern consoles eat away a significantly amount of the market share and now Valve, yes those people who invented Steam, intends to bring a Desktop Linux based gaming console on the market, currently called Steam Box.
That means that the usual driver issues plagueing Linux are a non issue there while the open architecture and upgradability makes it an interesting platform to develop for.
As there are - for reasons well beyond my understanding - a ton of Steam Fans out there, that will likely be enough to ingnite initial interest in it.
However, when developers develop for the Steambox... a more or less modified desktop linux, it is probably very little effort to make that Steam Box Game run on the Linux Desktop itself.
And that has to be Microsofts darkest nightmare, the mobile market lost, and now an attack on the remaining high performance segment.
I think that Microsoft has seen the dark clouds approaching, and so they are desperatly trying to get a reasonable foothold in the mobile devices market, it certainly would explain Windows 8 GUI.
The cynic in me would argue that you are hurting the ecosystem more so than you are helping it, because you maintain status quo with the Start8 app. Now I fully understand the business aspect of it because $$$$. But it is only helping cement the old ways instead of making it easier for people to transition to the new way of using Windows. There's very little doubt that Windows 8 is going to change going forward, and I sincerely doubt MS is going to go back to the archaic Start Menu in future versions of Windows.
If Microsoft continues to allienate large percentages of its desktop user base, it ecosystem may face a significant shrink rather soon.
Which is not a problem... for anyone but Microsoft of course.
Software developers can move, not much of a trouble for them, they always go where the change of making money is highest.
