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Microsoft pats self on back over Windows 8 sales
user123456789
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Analysis Think Windows 8 isn't performing as well as Microsoft expected? Think again! The software giant says sales of its new OS are chugging along quite nicely, thank you very much, in much the same fashion as Windows 7 before it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/09/microsoft_windows_8_sales_up/
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for the most part the sales of windows are entirely driven by the sales of new PCs.
What matters is the Software I use and the hardware works, that is it.
I don't care what geeks say about any OS.
What's more, as Microsoft's announcement explains, that 60 million figure "represents the cumulative sales of Windows 8 including both upgrades and sales to OEMs for new devices."
In other words, some of those Windows licenses are upgrades that are running on real-world machines, right now, but a great many of them aren't. In fact, the machines that many of those copies of Windows 8 will eventually run on haven't even been built yet.
Here at El Reg, we suspect that Microsoft's 60 million number also includes many licenses that have been sold to enterprise customers through Redmond's Volume Licensing program. Such customers often stockpile Windows licenses for use at some later date; so, again, a license sold by Microsoft doesn't necessarily mean a computer that's booting to Windows 8 today."
It's the usual large corporate spin. Massaged or misleading figures.
And sales bear little relation to overall user satisfaction after it's bought - though many of these licences clearly haven't even been bought or brought into use by consumers yet... if they ever will! We are none the wiser now than we were before Microsoft spoke.
I've seen very few enthusiastic reviews of Win8 from ordinary consumers, most say they are just muddling along and wishing they could go back to 7, XP, or even Vista.
If it's so different, and so user-unfriendly, it does make me wonder if I should finally take the leap to Apple and get an iMac. I wonder if other people are thinking the same ?
In addition, a fair number of people are saying that Win8 is just about tolerable for them provided one of the user interface utilities such as Classic Shell or Start8 is used - unless they run into a hardware or software incompatibility issue.
Windows 8 forces you to use the new Start screen unless you use third party software to bypass it.
Microsoft are going to shift licences because PC manufacturers don't have much choice but to use Windows 8 on new machines. But with each new version there is less compelling reasons to upgrade.
Since this is the first OS to include Metro (or whatever it is called these days) it would have made logical sense to have a transition rather than push people off the deep end and hope they sort themselves out. The cynic in me feels that the reason for this is because the Metro App store/platform would be almost guaranteed to fail otherwise.
Windows 8 is driven by Microsoft's obsession with Apple's App Store and the iPad and, I guess wisely from a business perspective, they want part of the action. They have to shove Modern/Metro/whatever in your face because frankly most people wouldn't give a shit about it otherwise.
Btw, on the sales, 60 million sales != 60 million active users. It would be interesting to know how many of these sales are actually in use.
Dave
Several computer manfacturers including Acer and Asus are publically saying that Windows 8 has been at least in part the cause of depressed sales in the period leading up to Christmas 2012.
Better way to look at how wells it doing is to look at things like OS Market share stats.
I used to use the classic Start menu when I was using Windows XP. I hated the new style one. I think the dreaded Vista and Windows 7 removed the classic option though? I was talking to a friend yesterday who was using Windows 8 and I told her to install Classic Shell to be able to get the Start menu back.
The main problem as I see it is that when a new OS comes out microsoft insist that the OEM manufacturers include it by default. If the consumer is in the market for a new machine and wants to transfer his old o/s he is not allowed to. thus his programs and software may not run on the new system or cost too much make them work, then there is the retraining aspect, for large corporate companies all of this negates against change.Microsoft also uses new adopters as guinea pigs !!! I could just about stomach 8 if it did not have the stupid interface and all the associated baggage that it includes, but it is not worth buying in preference to 7 for the hassle and the sheer bloody unfriendlieness and non intuitiveness of it all. My perfect machine would a high specced modern machine with an updated and tweaked XP aint gonna happen i know but if micsoft went down that route it would please many many people. Many people only left XP because the machines died of old age and would like to replace like for like. I would like the OEM's to grow a pair and say to microsoft this is rubbish its not selling people want this (whatever this is) please provide it instead of rolling over as they do at present
Yes, and those using Metro need to be separated out from those who are using a third party 'classic' start menu add-on (if that's even possible).
The Microsoft figures are massaged and/or misleading and are therefore, meaningless.
Yes, I'm using it and cannot see why people complain about it so much, most of my programs are desktop apps so I don't see MUI that much but when I'm in the MUI I love it
http://wallpaper.abcde.co.uk/
Herd behaviour.
I've heard about that
I think you'll find that I was one of the first to complain about the unfortunate absence of an option to use the classic Start Menu method. I had W8 many weeks before its general release, and I tried Metro for quite a while before looking for alternatives (add-ons).
My views are unchanged: whether you like Metro or not, you (and everyone) should have had an officially supported choice. For clarity, choice means that if you like Metro you can use it happily, and if not, you don't need to. I still think Microsoft will in time bring out their own version of Classic Shell etc. via service pack or separate download.
But, I hope the add-on companies are doing very well out of it, they deserve to.
2012-01 = 49,288 --> W8 consumer preview
2012-02 = 39,518
2012-03 = 42,051
2012-04 = 82,797
2012-05 = 41,379
2012-06 = 54,642 --> W8 public release preview
2012-07 = 99,720
2012-08 = 186,961 --> W8 RTM
2012-09 = 105,521
2012-10 = 252,876 --> W8 general release
2012-11 = 441,834
2012-12 = 703,411
and 229,769 for Jan 1st to 7th (rate of 1.0 million for this month).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/files/stats/map?dates=2013-01-01+to+2013-01-07
Interesting, eh?
W8 is cool - even on desktops when Metro is buried.