I feel defensive for Microsoft. Weird right? Big fat Microsoft. I feel like they are getting shit on for the overall slump of the PC market, and not getting nearly enough credit for the fact that not only do they understand that the PC is going away, but that Windows 8, Surface tablets, and Windows phone were specifically built to as a way of embracing this trend. These devices are coming out as a direct means of accelerating the move away from PC’s, and defining the mobile, ubiquitous OS of today.
Just step back for a second and think about what an operating system is. It is no longer just a series of programs we use to operate a digital machine which sits on the desk. It is, more and more, the medium through which we see and interact with the world around us, people we love, and have one on one contact with strangers across the globe. I do all of this, plus engage in professional collaborations on my phone. I also do all of this on my tablet. I also do all of this on my laptop. I am completely platform agnostic.
So Microsoft designed a kernel that would serve as the common basis for a new generation of phones, tablets, and personal computers, so that the user experience across all those devices would be seamless. This is a major development and one which heretofore has not been accomplished in the history of the OS. Apple has come close in that when you pick up an Ipad it feels vaguely OSX-ish. And much of your pc data is there. But it’s not the same operating system. And the programs I run on my ipad won’t run on my laptop. Microsoft’s vision is changing that, and I just feel like no one is giving them enough credit for this.
Here are some positive notices for Surface: Tim Stevens on Engadget calls Surface an “impeccably engineered tablet upon which you can do some serious work, a device that doesn’t look, feel or act like a toy” and Zach Epstein from Boy Genius Report writes, after a month of using a Surface tablet “I still firmly believe that Microsoft has built the best tablet on the planet in terms of hardware. Seriously.”
So that’s what people are saying who have actually USED this new platform. But then a couple days ago there were a slew of new negative articles about early pc sales for Windows 8, the source of which can all be traced back to a single press release by a consulting company called NPD Group, which states that Windows 8 is “off to a slow start”. This press release truly went viral, and this was only days after Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses in 1 month. So who is NPD Group and why are they releasing this press release? Even if they are right, why put it out? Is this something they are doing for a competing client? I’m only asking because figures in their data do not include sales from Microsoft’s own retail stores and Web sites, sales of the company’s Surface tablet computer or Windows Phone. So why is everyone glomming into the idea that Windows is missing the mark, when it’s designed to sail past that mark and make a new one?
I’m writing about this because I think Surface looks cool, and the fact that Windows 8, Surface, and Windows Phone all share the same DNA means that when the apps finally come, it’s going to be even cooler. Of course PC sales are sluggish, because PC sales have been sluggish for a long time. The data shows that Windows 8 has not made PC sales more sluggish, it just didn’t reverse the trend. But it wasn’t designed to. And FYI, one nugget buried in there is that touchscreen PC’s, which Windows 8 was designed for, now account for 6% of the PC market. So there is evidence that Windows 8 is creating a new segment entirely.
Let’s hold off judging the success of Windows 8 until we see how this family of computers, most of which will go in people’s pockets, does over the course of the next year. I never thought I’d be aligning myself with Microsoft as as the “misunderstood underdog”.
UPDATE: News came out today about Surface Pro, and again everyone is totally shitting on it because it gets 4 hours of battery life. But that’s about the same battery life as the Macbook Air, and Surface Pro has everything the Air has, plus a touchscreen. So technically it’s better, and yet everyone is saying that the Surface Pro battery life is a “fatal flaw”. I’ve got my dander up over this.
