In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

My windows 8 cost me, well not me, but cost someone £25, windows 7 was a lot more than that.

According to a couple of people on The Register there was a £14.95 offer for a while.

The same thing they did with vista from Xp, if you got a newish laptop or pc with windows 7, you can upgrqade to wi9ndows 7 for £14.95.

I did that with my laptop a few years back, updated from Xp to vista for about £14, then after a month i went back to Xp, vista was awful.

I still got the vista disk and i suppose I could put it back ont he laptop if I want to, but to be honest, i prefer Linux on it, not that I use it that often.

I've seen the 40 million figure comprehensively trashed on the basis that the vast bulk of that was made up of OEM sales for machines that haven't been built yet or enterprise purchases where 8 is the default, but where the buyer has the right to (and almost certainly will) install Windows 7 instead.

Better guides are what has happened to the PC/Laptop market, where there were hopes that people were holding off buying hardware until 8 was released. Well, the numbers are in now for the US and PC sales there have actually declined 21% compared to the same period last year. Another measure is net penertation (the numbers of people actually using 8 online). At 1% that's less than a third of the penetration 7 had at the end of the month after its release.

I think that there is now little doubt that Windows 8 is a lemon. Moreover, with reports that Windows 8 tablet sales are 'non existent' and of Acer having now 'delayed' release of them indefinitely and even Microsoft halving their own orders for Surface it looks like RT is also an unmitigateable disaster.

Balmer having more time to spend with his family in 2013 is looking almost certain at this point.

Edited by Desmond (Sun 02-Dec-12 18:31:51)

In reply to a post by Desmond:

Better guides are what has happened to the PC/Laptop market, where there were hopes that people were holding off buying hardware until 8 was released. Well, the numbers are in now for the US and PC sales there have actually declined 21% compared to the same period last year. Another measure is net penertation (the numbers of people actually using 8 online). At 1% that's less than a third of the penetration 7 had at the end of the month after its release.

I think that there is now little doubt that Windows 8 is a lemon. Moreover, with reports that Windows 8 tablet sales are 'non existent' and of Acer having now 'delayed' release of them indefinitely and even Microsoft halving their own orders for Surface it looks like RT is also an unmitigateable disaster.

If sales are this bad then it could be the last operating system released by Microsoft or is this being too pessimistic and perhaps Windows 8 sales will improve over time ?

The last operating system released by Microsoft? You're joking, right!?

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

The last operating system released by Microsoft? You're joking, right!?

No.

I saw an article on Click saying that as so many people use androids, smartphones, etc for internet access that the PC and laptop market will just die making it not commercially viable for Microsoft to put in the R & D costs.

But how much does that personal sector account for compared to the massed corporate desktopiary?

The sales probably include gullible cheap upgrade customers, the upgrade cost like £25 from win7 to win8. Considering that win vista to 7 upgrades initially cost somewhere in the region of £100.

BBC Click? The program with nonsense facts and a bunch of prats as presenters? Next you'll be telling me Rory Cellan Jones claims he knows how to turn a computer on ;p

That sounds like The Gadget Show. Which is on Five.

I think 8 on PCs has now developed a well earned reputation for being pointlessly different, inefficient, confused, confusing and plain pig ugly. If the cosmetic and interface changes had actually made Windows easier to use or brought users substantial advantages over Windows 7 then I'm sure people would be busy buying it. The fact that 7 is familiar and thus easier to use is the prime reason people are sticking with it (and why many have stuck so long with XP). There may be huge under the hood advantages to 8, but that is not what people notice. They notice things like the fact they seem to have jost all their apps or that they have to learn a whole new set of conventions involving three, four or more clicks to do something they used to be able to do with two.

The problem for Microsoft is that they have painted themselves into a corner when it comes to PCs. They can't go backwards to something users might feel more familiar with without that being seen as a humiliating admission that they got it profoundly wrong. If they try to go forwards they will only be creating something even less familiar. It might be better, but that will be a hard sell for users who didn't buy 8 because it was too different.

Edited by Desmond (Mon 03-Dec-12 07:32:54)