Redmond yesterday announced its earnings for the first quarter of the year in a conference call. But interestingly, the software giant again stopped shy of providing any concrete Windows 8 sales numbers.
While Windows 8 is slowly increasing its market share, with more and more users upgrading to the new operating system, a fair number of analysts still consider the OS a controversial product — controversial in the sense that it split the user base in two because of the sweeping changes introduced in the UI.
The fact that Microsoft did not throw any numbers also gives them a reason to blast away.
Shaw Wu is one such analyst over at Sterne Agee, who believes that Microsoft played its cards all wrong as far as Windows 8 is concerned. The user interface changes would have been much more acceptable had there been a choice.
Talking to The New Zealand Herald, the analyst explained:
“We frankly believe [Microsoft’s] strategy of forcing user interface changes that nobody wants has proven to be a disaster.”
The point being that trying to force the users to adopt a brand new and refreshed interface (without providing a choice, a selection between the two) was, according to the analyst, a misadventure.
Add to this the fact that there were already a bunch of alternatives on the market, and Microsoft’s decision to go all out with the UI changes did not help things one bit.
Anyway, Microsoft seems to be pleased with the sales performance of Windows 8, labeling it in line with its previous operating systems. At the same time, the software giant is keen to release a major upgrade to the OS sometime this summer.
All Comments
Interesting that Microsoft profits were above what they expected, yet analysts are writing them off! Yet, at the SAME time, Apple shares were down….in fact their shares are down 44% since last September!!! WOW! Why isn’t anyone writing about this? Fahad, why not write about this rather than writing about every negative quote about Microsoft?
Because a lot of blog writers are actually biased toward Apple.
Regarding the article, I think only when MS is comfortable with the quality and quantity of apps, then MS will let users to choose between modern mode and desktop mode. Because they know the users will not totally ignore their app store even though they let them to have the choice.
It really doesn’t matter what others think, particularily the tech press. All that is of concern is that MSFT is “pleased with the sales performance of Windows 8.” Reading this last earnings report, they are singing all the way to the bank to deposit even more cash.
Bad, bad Microsoft and Windows 8…. how dare you giving that much of extra functionalities, fun and joy, social, cloud services embedding without asking, giving all those fun applications (metro), the speed and simplicity, uhhhhhh, arggghhh, how bad is that now!!
seriously, all that analysts’ bashing is getting ridiculous, they need a real job now.
Live long Windows 8, live…hmmmm…tiled!! LOL
;-))
Again, written from IE 10 Metro….
It appears from other commenters this article is a Disaster along with your now defunct windows8enterprise website as it is redirected back here. It is way past time this site is renamed to something other than windows8update since most of what you post here is slamming Microsoft and Windows 8 every chance you get and praise apple and the iCrap products at everytime.
I have Windows 8 on 6 computers and most of my friends at school have Windows 8 and we Love it. Not only is it Fast, Secure as well as Functional using it is a Dream. get over yourself and try it for more and a few hours, then write an article about it being bad and a Disaster.
It appears from other commenters this article is a Disaster along with your now defunct windows8enterprise website as it is redirected back here. It is way past time this site is renamed to something other than windows8update since most of what you post here is slamming Microsoft and Windows 8 every chance you get and praise apple and the iCrap products at everytime.
I have Windows 8 on 6 computers and most of my friends at school have Windows 8 and we Love it. Not only is it Fast, Secure as well as Functional using it is a Dream. get over yourself and try it for more and a few hours, then write an article about it being bad and a Disaster.
I absolutely hate window 8. It is a dismal failure and has reduced my productivity significantly.
In my opinion windows 8 was a great idea! People are just so close minded on their apple junk that they don’t see how much windows 8 has to offer
Thos who hate Windows 8, nurse your egos and go buy something else otherwise we don’t need the negative rants because some of us actually like Win 8 and it has made our lives more productive. At least regarding apps, the gap has narrowed or closed for apps i use frequently. Just be objective when commenting!
Disaster? The ability to have a tablet and full PC in 1 OS? Sold 100m copies? Absolutely not a failure. Soon it will have more market share than all MacOS, all on its own.