Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
Sales numbers of W8 are clearly behind that of Vista per month. Their hardware (RT especially) lies like bars of iron on the shelves. After untypically short time they needed to implement significant price cuts. And total numbers from W8 are further distorted by the intial smile price offensive, where W8 sold more, and with the regular price, sales suddenly collapsing.
I just checked the latest numbers from summer, from ZDnet and some other tech sites and blogs. They all agree in their interpretation of numbers. Wkndows 8 does damage to Microsoft - and probably greater damage than Vista did. Also, the OS is slammed even louder by many bloggers, commentators, writers, than Viksta was slammed back then.
Balmer was the driving voice behind not changing W8 when the first info was released and the public reacted hostile to it. And I think it is fair to say that it has exploded right into Microsoft's face. Since 12 months now W8 reaches only half or less of the total sale numbers of even Vista. Critics slam it for its "features" and design as well. It cannot become any clearer.
I also refuse to applaude any company thjat tightens the screws that hold the customers on short chains. Microsoft may have been forced to give some grounds over original plans, nevertheless they have boosted DRM even further, following the model of Apple, Steam and others there. That may be nice for the profit interests of investors, but what do I care for investors - I am customer, and from a customer's POV I hate companies taking away my freedoms from me and trying to lock me into a closed app store. That's why I refuse to go for Apple, am extremely hesitent over Steam, and do not tolerate Ballmers plans to impose the same schemes - originally just even tighter! - with Windows.
Where Ballmer may score a success indeed, is the X-Box branch of business, I give him that. But its the only point I give him without a fight. When reading between the lines of business reports from the past months and years, Ballmer's was disputed and lost support continously within MS. When Windows 8 failed to ignite and the - who was it, the chief designer I think?! had to leave short after release, I expected Ballmer to no longer standing the mounting opposition, and quitting within two years. Well, and here we are.
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I would argue with you regarding windows numbers.
The core problem was the pricing policy of windows 8 that damaged it potential.
Lets discuss the adoption problem. Previous versions of windows had faster adoption for 2 reasons. the first major one is the fact that upgrades are free. Traditionally, computers sold 3 quarters before the next version of windows came with free upgrades once the next version came out. This did not happen with windows 8, you had to pay to upgrade. what percentage of people actually pays for boxed copies of windows? 1%? 3%? Considering that PCs sold more than 300 million in 2012, 3 quarters worth is like 240 million devices.
Secondly, the whole PC industry is collapsing. Almost nobody actually buys boxed windows copies. Historically, PC sales kept going up, and thus, coupled with a small install base, adoption would go up.
I just made this example up, but follow along here. If at Vista's launch, there was 500 million PCs out there, and every year 150 million new PCs were sold, after one year, there would be 650 million PCs, 150 million running vista, with a small amount of upgrades and downgrades effecting the number, vista would get a 23% market share after one year.
With windows 8's launch, the number of PCs out there is HUGE. assume there was 1.2 billion PCs out there, and PC sales are 250 million this year, there will be 1.45 billion PCs after this year, and 250 million of them would be windows 8. Windows 8 would only take 17% of the market.
Regarding Sinofsky, the windows division head that left. He left after barely 2 week after the windows 8 launch. I would tend to disagree with the theory that he left because of poor sales, after all, 2 weeks is not enough time to see the numbers. I would actually argue that he was probably forced out because he sabotaged the other divisions, and was an arse to work with. The just forced him out after a major release in order to not damage the development (many Microsoft insiders agree with this).
Compared to the competition, Windows 8 is actually doing great. The PC industry declined 1.2% last year, compared to Apple, who declined 21%!