5 questions that should be asked about Microsoft's alleged update – Windows Blue

December 28, 2012
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bullsh.. rumors state that this update will not bring back the Start Menu and will make tweaks to the Windows 8 desktop and taskbar making the UI appear more flattened. This round of rumors are entertaining but at the same time profoundly disturbing because they raise the following questions.

Is it an OS or Service Pack(s)?

That’s the most obvious question. What the heck is blue? If it’s a new OS that would be disastrous and an admission that consumers were right to stay away from Windows 8. If it’s a service pack, then why all the drama and why doesn’t Microsoft just squash all this noise?

Why the name?

Why the whole naming convention? Why not just Windows 8 SP1? This whole Blue thing has taken the focus away from Windows 8 and has caused a lot of unnecessary confusion.

What’s with the timing?

8 months after you release a radical new OS, you want to make radical new changes to it. Really?

Developer Impact

As a developer, why would you rush toward an OS that seemed to be heading for RADICAL architectural changes? The whole Windows Phone 7.5/8/7.8 debacle comes to mind.

Business Impact

As a business, why would you even look at Windows 8 if there is speculation that there are (non) trivial changes coming? You would be irresponsible to do so. Once again, all this is rumor (at this point). I want to go on record again as saying that I pray this is just a series of updates and service packs that are a normal part of the OS refresh cycle. If that is the case, Microsoft need to go ahead and clarify that so we can avoid this speculation. Somewhere in Redmond, they may be thinking that all buzz is good buzz. Not so. To be honest, I simply don’t think consumers have it in them for another round of marketing for a new OS update barely 8 to 9 months after the release of Windows 8. That might just be the straw that breaks the camels back. What do you think about all this Windows Blue stuff? Use the comments below…]]>

Article Categories:
Microsoft · Windows 9 · Windows Blue

Mike Johnson is a writer for The Redmond Cloud - the most comprehensive source of news and information about Microsoft Azure and the Microsoft Cloud. He enjoys writing about Azure Security, IOT and the Blockchain.

All Comments

  • 1. what if it is neither an OS or a service pack but rather a collection of new feature, improvements?
    2. Something new should have a new name, wouldn’t you think?
    3. A rapid improvement cycle is advantages for a new product, like 8.
    4. If 1 & 2 above are true, it is all developer goodness, I can do more!
    5. Most wait anyway so, I don’t see it as a concern.
    My point is if you are going to speculate, without the facts, please keep an open mind. All this doom and gloom BS is getting old.

    Mike Greenway December 28, 2012 9:47 am Reply
    • 1. Depends on what those are and how radical they are.
      2. Not for a Service Pack – maybe SP?
      3. Can be accomplished with more frequent SP’s to the existing product.
      4. Developers like stability. It often involves making career choices.
      5. Now they wait longer.
      My mind is wide open.
      🙂

      Onuora Amobi December 28, 2012 11:39 am Reply
      • I never got the impression that Blue was going to be anything more than just a service pack. I kind of got the impression that it was to include some features that MS didn’t think were ready for primetime at the initial OS release. I honestly can’t imagine them releasing a new OS in 8 months.

        John Groft December 30, 2012 7:22 am Reply
    • As a small business owner, who just purchased a new Dell that has WIN 8….. And after upgrading all of mr related software to work w WIN8…ALL I care about that “azure” does not jack my system all up. I am about 5 minutes from taking my whole company MAC. Just keep business owners and current WIN8 users in mind. P.S. WTF w IE 10? It FREEZES all the time. I guess, that is kind of my continuing example. MS CAN’T SEEM TO GET IE IT WORK PROPERLY, AND NOW OU ARE GOING TO JACK W MY NEW OS. Frustrated MS Small Business USER.

      Mtraynor December 29, 2012 9:04 am Reply
      • All Mac? Good luck with the cost AND support issues. Just do it, go Mac, then when you regret it you won’t be the first here posting about going back to Windows.
        P.s. There is no issue with IE10… Stop surfing porn

        Endgadget December 29, 2012 10:33 am Reply
      • I’ve had no issues with IE 10 whatsoever – in either Metro or desktop mode. Not sure exactly what your problem is.

        John Groft December 30, 2012 7:18 am Reply
      • Get somebody that reads and writes English to help you. This isn’t some rap corner.

        BigJohnL January 9, 2013 1:31 pm Reply
  • Microsoft thinks they can be Apple. But, sadly that’s not the case

    Pratyush Nalam December 28, 2012 9:48 am Reply
    • if you’re comments aren’t objective, DON’T comment

      iteevision December 28, 2012 11:19 am Reply
      • comments are actually for expressing personal opinions so they don’t Need to be objective.

        123321 December 28, 2012 2:58 pm Reply
    • i cannot agree with that. Microsoft should not be apple in some cases and in some other cases the should be more like apple. for example luckily Microsoft isn’t like apple when it’s coming to patents and patentwars. luckily Microsoft’s Software is more opened than apples (e.g. skydrive app is ‘available’ on nearly every OS) and you can integrate Microsoft products in other ecosystems easier than the other way round. maybe they should be more like apple when it comes to some aspects like professional marketing or stuff like that and they should built some Microsoft stores in europe! 😉

      123321 December 28, 2012 3:03 pm Reply
      • I meant in the sense that if they think they can get away with releasing yearly paid upgrades like Apple, consumers will just move away

        Pratyush Nalam December 28, 2012 8:04 pm Reply
        • okay.
          but maybe they won’t do paid Upgrades like apple, … we don’t know anything official yet… 😉 … anyway i would pay 10€ or sth like that for getting a yearly upgrade with new functions and other improvements. i think this strategy is more reasonable than the 3 year cycle. if they will do it that way we have to talk about the Price again. paying 30€ each year would be way too much. maybe they will call it Windows 8 blue and it is sth like a service- or a featurepack and will be for free? who knows?…
          looking Forward to hearing sth official by Microsoft…

          123321 December 29, 2012 9:38 am Reply
        • Who mentioned paid updates? They will NEVER do that

          Endgadget December 29, 2012 10:34 am Reply
          • I read somewhere it could be cheap paid upgrades. That’s why I’m scared

            Pratyush Nalam December 30, 2012 12:39 am
    • I don’t think they ll suck that much.

      Adie Bhatt December 29, 2012 1:13 am Reply
  • Most likely its not even anything yet. Think about it:
    Its not windows 9, we should not even be speculating on that.
    1. Its a work in progress that if pulled up could bring great improvements and welcomed changes based on customer feedback.
    2. Or it can be a minimal set of changes and fixes like a service pack.
    They won’t say anything yet if it has not been developed, tried and tested first. It would not make sense to say “Hey we are going to bring all these great new features to windows 8” if they are not sure if it can be accomplished.
    I for one hope it bring a great deal of awsome changes and maybe even converge both the windows 8 and windows phone 8 platforms a little more.

    Arnold December 28, 2012 10:46 am Reply
    • True but there’s no harm in saying
      “we plan to continuously improve Windows 8 as we did with XP, Vista, 7 in the form of frequent Service Packs and upgrades. There are no plans at this point for a NEW version of Windows”.
      That was simple enough?

      Onuora Amobi December 28, 2012 11:41 am Reply
      • Please, they kept the same level of secrecy regarding the fate of WPF and Silverlight in Windows 8. They could have said “Silverlight isn’t going anywhere, but we’re making this new thing (called WinRT) that is even better and uses all the same skills,” but they made us 7? months before they said anything at all. Even with the entire community slamming them and Mary Jo Foley telling them they should say something ‘NOW’, they didn’t. Why would this be any different?

        John Groft December 30, 2012 7:40 am Reply
    • True. They’re probably afraid to bring out info in case something doesn’t pan out. Look at what happened with Longhorn, WinFS was suppose to be the big new thing, it didn’t work well so they had to scrap it. Bloggers and techies thrashed Microsoft telling about a new thing that would never come to light. Same with Courier, they made the video and people cheered and when they didn’t make it people gave them flack. They might want to make sure what they’re doing is set in stone before they tell people what it is. Are they going to far? Maybe. They could have a wishlist of things they’d like to add the ones that are easy and for sure they put on top, then they could have “what we’d like to put but we’re not sure how its going to pan out” list.

      Robert Kegel December 28, 2012 12:44 pm Reply
      • Exactly!

        Arnold December 28, 2012 1:46 pm Reply
  • but still it’s nothing more than rumors …
    and btw blue is just a codename not a product name, so we should wait until it’s clear to discuss this point.
    looking forward to hearing sth official by microsoft

    123321 December 28, 2012 2:57 pm Reply
  • The entire article stinks of anti-MS! Stop it!
    “This whole Blue thing has taken the focus away from Windows 8 ” – Really? I can probably name one person who knew about ‘Blue’ before this article and that was me.

    Endgadget December 29, 2012 10:31 am Reply
    • I hadn’t heard of it. Don’t know of anyone else who has either.

      Superade January 7, 2013 2:14 am Reply
  • Windows 8 “Blue” is not going to cut it with me. I had the Windows 8 Release preview installed on my laptop. The hardware would not support the Tiles on their new desktop. (The resolution of my monitor was not high enough. When I tried to launch an app on the desktop, the app would not launch. I did some checking and it appears that a minimum of 1366 x 900 resolution is needed to run Windows 8) My bone to pick with “Blue” (and that is not Don Cherry’s dog by the way!) is that home pc users like myself will eventually need to shell out close to 1000 bucks or more for a new complete system. It appears adding the simplicity of a tile interface has increased the complexity of the hardware requirements. For example, a machine running Windows 8 should have a processor with at least 2 GHZ capacity. In other words, a processor of Second or Third Generation Intel grade. I invite you to checkout the prices for yourself. And the bottom line with me is that if this is a service pack, leaving the option for a Start Button and menu out of the service pack is not the way to go in my opinion. What about all the people like me who are as happy as a pig in crap with Windows 7? ” Well, pilgrim, if it aint broke, don’t fix it”

    Edward Allen December 29, 2012 12:53 pm Reply
    • I’d say in a case like yours, stay on Windows 7. If you have a laptop that doesn’t even support a minimum of 1366 x 900 (which is pretty low by the way), you obviously haven’t upgraded for a while. As long as Windows 7 works for you, stick with it. I love Windows 8, but what is Windows 8 going to give you that you don’t already have with Windows 7? Touch is great, but you need new hardware to use it. If you don’t want to upgrade that, then Windows 7 is your best bet.
      That said, you can’t use your old machine indefinitely. No computer lasts forever. When you do upgrade, get a new one running the latest OS.

      John Groft December 30, 2012 7:34 am Reply
  • I’m developing for the 3 plataforms, Android, iOS and Microsoft. This indefinition puts the Microsoft and the end of my priority development queue, so Android, iOS and then, if Microsoft has a stable business plan for windows store, the windows 8 and windows phone.
    Microsoft has to stop and wait, promote the developing for their plataforms, wait and make adjustments in his stratagetic enterprise plan.

    José Cruz December 29, 2012 1:40 pm Reply
  • I did not like Windoes 8 from the RC to now.

    tom L. December 30, 2012 2:06 am Reply
    • congratulations. but why are you telling us? 😀

      123321 January 3, 2013 10:31 am Reply
  • What the fuck? Why isn’t the site coming up with new content?

    Monu December 31, 2012 9:02 am Reply
  • #MSFT has just signed a $617 million deal with the DOD to supply Windows 8, Office 2013 and Sharepoint 2013 Enterprise. Surely that is more of an important issue.

    Matthew van Vuuren January 5, 2013 1:07 pm Reply

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