Microsoft can't even shift Windows 8 slabs in the middle of a tablet frenzy
Microsoft can't tap into the fast-growing tablet market, according to new figures that reveal lacklustre sales of Surface RT and other Windows 8 slabs. Canalys figures for Q4 show a 12 per cent growth in the worldwide PC market, fuelled by a 75 per cent rise in tab shipments to 46.2 million units. Notebooks sales were flat (58 …
Why would anyone buy a Windows Restricted Tablet? oh yeah restricted apple.
Instant reaction
Bwahahhahhhaha
Snork!
Burn, baby, burn. A year of commentators and journalists and tech writers telling them it would not fly, but they knew best.
Bwa hahahha snerk ha ha
Re: Instant reaction
Good news... your life is obviously so empty that I'm glad a story like this comes along to make it a bit more worthwhile.
Re: Instant reaction
@JDK - you criticise the parent poster about having an empty life, but your are a Microsoft APOLOGIST! How sad and lonely is your life? You lead a life devoid of any point! MS cheerleaders slagging off MS critics for not having a worthwhile life is hysterical!
AD HOM FAIL!
Re: Instant reaction
I'm not an apologist, I don't really give a crap beyond having a personal preference. I certainly don't get all frothy-mouthed and punch the air based on how a giant multinational corporation is doing.
You bunch of losers. All those stereotypes Linux users are so extreme, it's hard to believe they're basically true but you guys exemplify them.
Re: Instant reaction
Yep everyone said the UI was a confusing mess and now people are voting with their wallets by keeping them firmly in the pocket.
Re: Instant reaction
Not so much keeping them in their pockets as pulling them out for Apple or Samsung.
The only reason I can think of wanting a Windows tablet is to run my old programs, none of which are tablet oriented (ha!) so I'll need that keyboard and mouse (whoops, now it's not really a tablet anymore!)
Many people bought a PC to do email, social, read, play, without any genuine need for Windows, just the brower or software which ran in it. Now apps abount for tablets along with all new games, etc. Why by Windows brand if you never really needed it and have nothing tying you to it now?
Tough sledding for Microsoft, they do not understand their users after decades of telling them they knew what was good for them.
Humble pie a la mode for Microsoft.
Re: Instant reaction
JDX has a vested interest. He is praying Microsoft stay relevant long enough for his locked in skill set to last until he retires. Point and click, point and click.
Re: Instant reaction
@jdx
I am not a linux person - in fact, as an ex MCT my skillset is MS. But even I find it funny. Not because I hate MS, not because I love everything non-MS, either, but because I hate the arrogance of corporations who fail to listen to the customers and the industry - regardless of them being MS , apple or whoever. And I love it when they get fail afterwards. MS did not learn from the ribbon (they knew best) and here is another example.
It's not just anti-ms perople laughing - i'm laughing too. The question really is, why aren't you?
Re: Instant reaction
"! MS cheerleaders slagging off MS critics"
..... coming from the biggest Linux cheerleader who slags off Linux critics...
Re: Instant reaction
Actually, most MicroTrolls these days are being PAID to insult Microsoft's customers. I wonder how THAT marketing strategy is working out for Microsoft? Probably about as good as the 1.5 billion U.S. they spent marketing Windows 8/Windows RT/Surface RT.
Re: I hate the arrogance
I expect few Penguinistas hate MS's arrogance as much as those of us who use MS products when they do a generally good job. They may make more frothing and foaming noises, but if you aren't using the product, it just isn't the same.
Re: Instant reaction
How sad and lonely is your life? You lead a life devoid of any point! MS cheerleaders slagging off MS critics for not having a worthwhile life is hysterical!
They were warned.
I'm an MS guy, but I have never forgiven them for the Ribbon, so I sure as hell was never, never, never going to buy an operating system with the same problems in the UI.
It was said a million times, "We hate stupid little icons." "We multitask." etc.
Microsoft's response? Contempt.
Re: They were warned.
Couldnt agree more!
MS's UI design teams lost the plot long ago and have been getting it wrong ever since. Infact its almost like they've had a chip on their shoulder about usability since MS Bob. The list of errors is long, but Ribbon is top of the list, followed by Metro on the desktop / server OS, black and white visual studio.
Re: They were warned.
To be fair, windows 8 works well on a tablet. It is unbearable on a desktop loaded with apps and complete hell on earth with a trackpad. The main problem with RT (or surface when it arrives) is sheer cost. A tablet is a tool for a job (in my eyes) and there are far cheaper alternatives.
Re: They were warned.
Unbearable? Maybe I have my fortitude than you.
Re: MS's UI design teams
I'm not sure exactly who (I suspect the executives, not the drones), but somebody at MS is spending too much time reading the Apple PR and not reading enough of their customer responses.
Contempt!
Our chief weapon is contempt!
Contempt, and an inability to listen to the customer!
Er, our two chief weapons are contempt, an inability to listen to the customer, and knowing best!
Er, our three chief weapons are contempt, an inability to listen to the customer, knowing best, and refusing to sell the OS the customer wants!
MS hurries out and comes in again.
Among our chief weapons are...
Re: Contempt!
That sounds more like Apple than MS. ASking customers what they want and then making it generally leads to a horrible product. Companies SHOULD take bold moves in designing their answer to a problem... but they need to be right.
Re: Contempt!
If you do not admit your love for Windows 8 we will bring out ....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Microsoft Clippy.
[du Du DURRRRR!!!]
Re: Contempt!
It's true that one should not design based on the findings of focus groups. But you do need to take on board criticisms. If you design a product that people do not like, then you are taking a huge risk. That's fine for concept cars and the like, but not if you are trying to take down the market leaders, or keep powerful competitors at bay.
Microsoft are designign software (and now hardware) that no one wants to use. In a world where cheap and free alternatives exist that are, simply, excellent and loved.
Microsoft is self destructing, it is in denial of its own impotence right now. It is a staggering, panting, huffing and puffing unfashionable dinosaur, and the vultures (or precursors of said species) are circling overhead!
Re: Contempt!
@JDX - by all means offer new products; but to bet the company on it? A little tick box on the web page when you buy a new computer offering the choice of what the user is used to or something new will tell them whether people want it or not... restricting new computers to only this choice that it seems few want is not the way to make friends and influence people.
Bold moves, yes; only bold moves, no. As you said - it has to be *right*.
Re: Contempt!
We used to have a Comfy Chair, but Ballmer broke it.
Sorry.
Re: Contempt!
Jobs rebuilt Apple based deciding what people should have, listening to nobody even other Apple people.
But of course, he also pretty much ran it into the ground by deciding what people wanted.
I'd rather MS made bold moves and got it wrong.. we can always leave MS products... than that everyone sat there doing nothing.
Re: Contempt! @JDX and Jobs
Jobs rebuilt Apple deciding for users, but he actually knew that what he was pushing would be accepted. And he had his Reality Distortion Field to pull it off.
MS is copying Apple yet again, but this time they're pushing something that they KNOW nobody wants, their market studies point elsewhere but still they push it trying to pull a Jobs sans RDF. This is what happens.
At this point, defending MS is as bad as Eadon's MS trashing, if not worse.
Re: Contempt!
Agreed, it's the Ford Edsel of the Tablet world...
Re: Contempt! @JDX and Jobs
@Daniel B - I'm not trashing Microsoft, I'm telling the truth. The truth just *happens* to be disfavourable to MS. Nothing in any of my comments is untrue (give or take the odd nit pick), if you think it is, then please pick me up on it. I'm nice to people who are polite to me, which is seldom :-)
Re: Contempt! @JDX and Jobs
Before Jobs returned to Apple, the head of Sony's design house (back when they were good) had already stated that listening to focus groups was a waste of time. "We're designing things they haven't seen before. The sentiments actually go back to Henry Ford - "If I asked people what they wan't, they would have asked for a faster horse". Sony, and Japan at large, got a head start with transistor devices because the US had a lot invested in manufacturing vacuum tubes... decades later, Sony lose out because they were too slow to abandon their investment in (very good) CRT televisions and removable-media audio devices.
A designer (in the sense of "form engineer") is increasingly called upon to design for people other than him or herself - populations are getting older "could I still use this with arthritis?". You should study people, perhaps observe them with a stopwatch and notepad- but not necessarily implement what they ask for.
I really can't understand why MS introduced the Ribbon Interface without a hand-over period from menus. I have software that allows me to use a ribbon-like command manager, menus, customisable toolbars, context menus and pie menus - the choice is completely mine.
Since MS didn't get to tablets first people didn't expect or want tablets to be Windows compatible. Unfortunately MS butchered their desktop OS so they could sell expensive tablets aimed at a non-existent market just because they carry the Windows name, but the funny thing is that Windows RT tablets aren't Windows compatible either so aren't worth the extra.
I think I'd prefer WinRT tablets if the desktop was not present at all... Metro is a perfectly good touch UI but desktop is just ugly on a 10" screen with no keyboard.
Actually...
Actually MS -did- get to tablets first, just a long time before the public wanted them...
Re: Actually...
@Alexander Hanff 1
The public did want tablets - Apple proved that. However, the public didn't want tablets running Windows, which require the use of a stylus.
Remember this point, the public now want computers (mobile and even desktop) that do not run MS operating systems.
Re: Actually...
They just crowbarred Windows into other formats. A laptop running XP without a keyboard and with a resistive touchscreen does not make what people consider today to be a tablet. Same goes for mobile phones.
MS can't win
MS did actually make quite a number of early attempts at tablets - stylus based, keyboardless PCs & the like. They were of course too heavy, too restricted in what they could do, and the keyboard/mouse oriented user interface didn't really work too well without either.
Now in the Surface they have made a device that's light and portable, has a decent touch-screen user interface, and people won't buy it because it's largely incompatible with the non-tablet Microsoft systems that they have become habituated to.
They are essentially victims of their own earlier successes, having themselves sown and nurtured the seeds of their eventual destruction. I don't say any of this out of sympathy - I have none for them, and I hope the company continues to decline.
Re: MS can't win
indeed, there were loads of CE devices too. Loads of EPOS systems ran on CE "tablets".
Re: Actually...
>>Remember this point, the public now want computers (mobile and even desktop) that do not run MS operating systems.
The public don't know what an operating system is. They just want something they have heard of, and in the phone/tablet market that isn't something MS is able to achieve.
Re: Actually...
@JDX - you claim, "The public ... just want something they have heard of, and in the phone/tablet market that isn't something MS is able to achieve."
The public have heard of Windows: Windows Phone. The public have heard of that. The public demands Android and is avoiding Windows. It's not what the public have heard of, it's what they like.
@JDX your attempts at apologising for microsoft are highly amusing! MS has spent billions on marketing and everyone has heard of Windows.
MS is failing to sell because it has a bad product that is badly positioned in the market.
Re: Actually...
Yes, I remember i pic with this well dressed woman from HP (not Meg) who tried to hide the thing.
Third it and throw in the cover-keyboard (should come with it on all models) and then maybe.
Windows 8 problems are many
But the fact it dumbs your PC down from a all singing all dancing productivity tool into a simple media consumption device is the biggest.
Windows Phone problems are many, but the biggest problem is lack of apps, and the fact it's Microsoft.
Windows Surface problems are many, but to try and single one out, "It's not Apple or Android", and has no apps.
neither was its lack of tab devices.
You mean the lack of non-Windows tabs? Dell have both RT and Pro tabs.
Re: neither was its lack of tab devices.
To reply to my own message...
Just received some Dell junk mail. They have the Latitude 10 Tablet (Windows 8 Pro) on sale for $699 (claim $323 off). Guess no one wanted to pay a grand for a netbook with a touch screen.
Re: neither was its lack of tab devices.
@Tom 35 "Guess no one wanted to pay a grand for a netbook with a touch screen."
Here's another wild guess - they won't want to spend $699 for a netbook with a touch screen either.
Same strategy?
The analyst is clueless if he thinks that access to the app store is a big issue for Surface Pro, which DOESN'T NEED special apps.
Re: Same strategy?
Doesn't need special apps?
So all those mouse and keyboard designed apps don't need any changes to make them usable let alone pleasant on a touch UI?
You're living in a dream world :-)
If you can't own the market..
..then buy it! a 60% cut for a windows rt tablet looks like a good price point to compete with Android.. worked for HP
Re: If you can't own the market..
@stephen channell - good point, and MS do buy markets, they did that with the XBox - cost them 11 billion dollars but they did it. To buy the mobile market, however, will cost them at least ten times that. The money they poured into destroying Nokia to turn it into a Windows Phone factory has created null results.
MS are trying to copy Apple: High end, high profit, prestige devices with an App Store that makes gigabucks. The low end does not interest them, they just assassinated the netbook market due to it having low margins. (Watch Google Chrome take over that space this year - another Eadon prediction! And no I do not like the idea of Google Chrome, but it will be a fun battle to watch).
So MS can't afford to go for low margins in the mobile market. Windows is a cash cow and without mobile, windows will whither on the vine, as it is already doing, on the desktop/laptop and in servers. MS must win in mobile or it will sink like a stone. However if doing so means it loses money year in year out, then it will sink anyway, because it needs to subsidise its wilting Windows and Office cash cows and fast!
MS has massive operating costs, and it cannot afford to play in race-to-the-bottom markets.
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