Don’t call Windows 8 ‘largely irrelevant’ until you actually use it

December 6, 2011 By Jeffrey Van Camp

Analysts from IDC, Forrester, and Gartner are predicting that Windows 8 will be "irrelevant" because it's too late to the tablet game and businesses might not want to upgrade, but the real success of Microsoft's new OS will depend on how intuitive and easy to use it is.

We haven’t yet seen a beta version of Windows 8, but analysts are already claiming it is doomed. Analysts from IDC, Gartner, and Forrester are predicting that the new OS will face an uphill battle in the PC and tablet markets for a number of reasons, but none of those reasons seem particularly relevant to the OS itself or the experience of using it. Microsoft has released an extremely limited Developer Preview of Windows 8, but the OS is still a ways from completion.

IDC’s predicts Windows 8 will be “largely irrelevant”

Yesterday, the IDC released a 17-page paper for $3,500 that gives its top 10 predictions for 2012. The 10th prediction: “Windows 8 will launch with split success.”

According to IDC, “Windows 8 will be largely irrelevant to the users of traditional PCs, and we expect effectively no upgrade activity from Windows 7 to Windows 8 in that form factor.”

In an interview with Computerworld Monday, Al Gillen, an IDC research vice president, elaborated on what that means: ”Customers will be asking ‘What value does Windows 8 bring to my desktops and laptops?’ and the only real benefit I can see is that it provides access to the Windows app store,” said Gillen, who also cited application compatibility issues as a big problem. ”Windows 2000 Pro required developers to upgrade their applications, but they didn’t do it. So Microsoft was forced to release Windows XP, with better application compatibility. Then Vista came along, and ditto, it was short on application compatibility. Windows 7 improved [application compatibility] because Microsoft had to.”

This isn’t true

Windows 8 on Intel will be fully compatible with Windows 7 apps and be fully capable of running x86 applications (older software for XP and before), according to Microsoft. Developers will likely want to upgrade their apps to the Metro-style UI, because it will better fit with the look of Windows 8 and better take advantage of the new operating system’s strengths, but older apps will be able to run on a classic desktop. There is no mandate to update. Microsoft has been going out of its way to include backward compatibility in Windows 8. So much so that it was our number one complaint when we tested the developer preview.

Windows 8 machines running on ARM processors (mostly tablets) will not be compatible with older software, according to recent reports, but the ball is in Microsoft’s court to explain the difference between the tablet ARM version of Windows 8 and the Intel version, which has years of compatibility and history baked into it. Windows Weekly co-host Mary Jo Foley addressed some of these issues in a recent piece on ZDNet.

From everything we’ve heard about Windows 8, the IDC’s predictions are not true for the mass market. Maybe businesses won’t upgrade at first, but like every version of Windows, it will be fueled by new PC adoption. As people buy new PCs, they’ll get the new OS. Business Insider reports that with Windows 7, 75 percent of its launch sales came from new PCs, and that number has only risen. This happened even with Vista, despite its clunky launch. If Windows 8 isn’t a total bomb on usability, it will be adopted by users. It’s only challenge may be Android, but that OS is only beginning to gear up for its expansion into PCs. It will be a year or two (or longer) before Android is a credible threat as a full PC replacement.

More half-baked predictions

Other research companies have come out with similar conclusions. Representatives from Gartner claim that many businesses will suffer from “migration fatigue” after recently upgrading to Windows 7, hampering the potential success of Windows 8.

Last week, Forrester Research predicted on its blog that the OS would have a tough time in the tablet market: “For tablets, though, Windows really isn’t a fast follower,” said JP Gownder of Forrester. “Rather it’s (at best) a fifth-mover after iPad, Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, HP’s now-defunct webOS tablet, and the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. While Windows’ product strategists can learn from these products, other players have come a long way in executing and refining their products — Apple, Samsung, and others have already launched second-generation products and will likely be into their third generation by the time Windows 8 launches.”

Earlier this year, IDC also predicted that Windows Phone 7 would become the number two smartphone OS by 2015 with a “20.9″ percent market share. The company’s reasoning seems to be almost entirely fueled by confidence in the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft. While anything is possible, and we are fans of Windows Phone, the OS has a long way to go to become the second most-popular smartphone operating system. Since March, WP7 market share has actually dropped to about five percent (or less) of the market. We expect it will rise, but currently it sits as a distant fourth, with no signs of upward movement.

Windows 8 success depends on how well it works

Strangely, these Windows 8 predictions don’t seem to take into account anything Microsoft has control over. They claim that the OS may be too late to enter the tablet race, or that businesses won’t be ready to upgrade, or falsely accuse the OS of having poor backward compatibility, but none of them seem to address what will actually make or break Windows 8: how well it works.

Microsoft does not appear to be aiming at the business market with Windows 8. Yes, it wants to make sure that market remains happy, but the major visual and structural upgrades made to Windows were to make it a lot more touch friendly and improve its usability on lower-end machines and consumer-oriented devices like tablets and netbooks. It has big fonts, big Live Tile icon widgets, and a colorful new interface. A business-oriented product would not emphasize these sorts of features and design elements. Windows 8 is deliberately aiming to win back the mindshare of users who are beginning to warm to the idea of moving to iOS, Mac OS X Lion, and Android because they’re easier to use. Most of the innovations in Windows 8 come from Windows Phone 7, which is a part of the smartphone revolution that has been fueled almost entirely by regular people, not businesses. If businesses were still in control of the smartphone market, RIM wouldn’t be struggling so much with its BlackBerry brand. Times are changing.

Windows 8 will have its fair share of obstacles, but almost every version of Windows has had a rough or slow start. The key to its success will be how well Microsoft makes this new interface work. The number one priority in Redmond should be figuring out how to integrate old apps into the new Windows 8 experience more fluidly and consistently. If people really like using Windows 8 and for once, non-techie people can figure out how to use it as easily as they are picking up and using iPads, then Microsoft will have a damn good shot at success.

Until we actually see a beta version of Windows 8 (rumored to be coming in February), take what these analysts say with a grain of salt.

Update: Augmented article to add a link to an interesting Business Insider article and ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley.

Showing 21 comments

rrathbun at 6:48pm 13th December 2011 You can install it yourself and take a test drive. You can freely download the OS and install it on a PC if you have some basic IT skills.Their plan seems fairly sound and a bit obvious. Their tying together the OS eco system which is much needed. I believe phones enough processing power to soon take over the role a PC or MAC performs today. Making the applications run across those platforms is key to making that vision a reality.I can envision my phone being docked into my car and becoming my radio, digital maps, and satelite radio one day. Those in this market that fail to dream usually fail.
Cryo at 12:13pm 7th December 2011 I saw, and used a very early Windows 8 on PC earlier in the year - and I see no reason why it won't be a success. It has a really good feel to it. Yes, it was clunky with the mouse as it was a very early edition, but on a tablet, and the new generation PC's just over the horizon, I believe it will be awesome. PC's are going to be pretty much replaced in the next few years as new display mechanisms make a tablet hybrid type PC the norm. Backed by Microsoft compatibility, it will make the migration to tablets easier. This from someone who uses a 10.1" samsung tablet daily, an apple iPhone as well as a Galaxy S II. We'll just have to see how Microsoft handle the final product. I have high hopes for it though.
AS147 at 3:54am 7th December 2011 I think the MS challenge is in the retail world as this is where most change happens quickly. Whilst they should not lose sight of the corporate world that isn't going to change overnight and most of the change there si drivfen by the retail market anyway.Windows 8 Metro looks like it will attract retail customers and MS had to do something because they are losing customers to the sexier GUI's out there.The challenge they face is to not cause confusion and lose customers because they think it is so radically different it will be no more difficult to adopt a differnt desktop OS. So in short theyt have to play the familiarity card and at the same time play the new "its fresh" card.It will be interesting to see if they succeed. IMHO they are overcomplicating the tablet market and most average punters will just walk away. However I admit my understanding of their strategy in the tablet market may not be clear but that is the point.So for those of you out there with a better understanding why is ARM so important if Intel's Sandybridge processor is already out there providing similar battery run times and cpu grunt?If they didn't have to support ARM the tablet stuff would be a whole lot simpler. Simple = large adoption. Complicated = fail.
1. TechFreak at 9:14am 7th December 2011 "The challenge they face is to not cause confusion and lose customers because they think it is so radically different it will be no more difficult to adopt a differnt desktop OS. So in short theyt have to play the familiarity card and at the same time play the new "its fresh" card."Well said. It's hard to launch a new GUI and OS when you have so many users that are already using your software. Sure being the new kid on the block is always nice, but you can't kill off your existing userbase.
techlvr11 at 7:29pm 6th December 2011 Since I work in marketing myself, I know how companies pay to get "objective" views published through 3rd parties. As someone who has used windows since 1995 on desktops, laptops, mobile phones and even tablets, I can say that Microsoft lost the war 3 years ago. Windows 8 is another half-assed effort, too little and too late - largely Irrelevant to the market.
1. TechFreak at 7:54pm 6th December 2011 And yet, Windows 7 has sold more copies than any other previous Windows OS. So it looks like you are wrong....
  1. techlvr11 at 9:53pm 6th December 2011 I understand your loyalty towards Windows but this article was only about Windows on tablets. 3-4 years ago, Windows mobile was the dominant player. Since then they have been all but wiped out from the market. BTW, I live in Silicon Valley. Friends working at Microsoft's Mtn View campus have a running joke - "How many subscribers does WP7 has?" "100,000 unfortunate Microsoft employees!".
    TechFreak at 11:15pm 6th December 2011 Sorry, but this article is about Windows 8 the OS, not solely Windows on tablets.
Robert W. Burnham at 3:08am 7th December 2011 It's bold and awkward, but I only used it for ten minutes.
Christian Dillon at 9:38pm 6th December 2011 Yeah right....
Okay Altinisik at 7:22pm 6th December 2011 largely irrelevant
TechFreak at 11:21am 6th December 2011 Gartner needs to do some research on their research. Most businesses (large anyways) don't quickly upgrade their OSes with every new release. They typically wait a year or two, and then migrate over once the kinks and compatibility issues are worked out. Even when Windows 7 first came out, there are still businesses that decided to stick with Windows XP for legacy compatibilities.Windows 7 is huge and Microsoft's bestselling OS to date from my understanding. Why wouldn’t Windows 8 be huge too?I can see Windows 8 having a tough time on the tablet side. The hardware manufacturers Microsoft partners with have produced bland tablets in general. I think MS will really need to get HTC and Samsung to think out of the box and create something truly unique.Windows 8's success in my opinion will be based on how well Microsoft can migrate it to other platforms like mobile/tablets and their Xbox 360. They need to tie all 4 of these ecosystems together seamlessly to succeed. That's what Apple has done a fantastic job of doing.The Zune was a failure because it failed to be compatible with Windows Media Player, the Xbox 360 and other partnerships. Hopefully Microsoft has learned from their mistake there.
1. AS147 at 3:41am 7th December 2011 Zune was a failure because it was up against the best selling media player in the market. Lets not forget it wasn't just MS who failed to win that war. There were many established orgs who got blown away by Apple and couldn't make it back. I don't think I have seen anything make such a dramatic impact and have nobody be able to recover - even 1 little bit!
  1. TechFreak at 9:12am 7th December 2011 Perhaps that was part of it, but Apple's ecosystem is mainly responsible for making the iPod/iPhone line successful. No one wants to buy an MP3 player where there is no music store attached. The Zune marketplace was a joke. I mean really, using credits to buy songs? That's just stupid. Even the music databases used for Windows Media Player and the Zune Marketplace were different. MS needs their departments to work together!
  2. rrathbun at 6:58pm 13th December 2011 Wrong...Microsoft failed to do a number of things to include market the damn thing. You can't just put a product on the shelf and expect it to sell itself. What your missing about Microsoft is they have a bad track record with marketing flops. Some of their advertising people need to be taken out back and shot IMHO.If you want to see some good marketing, take a look at the Nokia Windows Phone video filmed in the UK. Nokia setup a free concert and used an entire building as a video wall. People act like the U.S. is the only market for Microsoft, but that's way wrong.Nokia has actually been very successful according to recent data with Windows Phone sales in Europe. Keep in mind the Lumia line has not been released in the U.S. yet. The big push will come Q1 2012 after CES.Search on YouTube for: Nokia Lumia Live
James Tibbles at 7:14pm 6th December 2011 I've used it. It's largely irrelevant.
1. Jeffrey Van Camp at 1:34pm 6th December 2011 The Developer Preview has issues, but the Beta is when we'll start learning what the actual product will look like.
  1. TechFreak at 11:16pm 6th December 2011 What issues does the developer preview have?
    Jeffrey Van Camp at 9:27am 7th December 2011 I linked to my impressions of it in this article, but I found the way Microsoft was switching between classic OS and the new one to be somewhat clunky. Microsoft needs to make the old Desktop better mimic the visual style of the new and it needs to be separate enough so that you don't need to use it for things like Task manager and other stuff. It's fine to have a classic desktop in there, but it should be a bonus, not an integral part of running the OS. I don't really want to HAVE to flip between new and old on a minute-by-minute basis. All core functionality needs to be in Metro-style, so that new users, like my parents, will be able to learn 1 way to do things. I hate to say it, but as used to Windows 7 as we all are, classic Windows has always been too complicated for a lot of people to understand.
Chris Johnson at 7:09pm 6th December 2011 Having used Windows 8 in an active lab at work, I can tell you that it is hardly irrelevant and I'll be loading a RTM version on my personal machine on as soon as I can.
1. rrathbun at 7:01pm 13th December 2011 Long way from RTM since the beta has yet to go public. But perhaps your just special... ;)