Is Microsoft killing off a cash cow / golden goose?
-
In cruising around town it is remarkable how many businesses and government offices have not upgraded to Windows 10, even for free. Why we might ask is this the case? At a claimed 350 million installations in the wild is the glass 1/3 full, or 2/3 empty? Could it be corporate customers are leery of the privacy policy embedded in the new op system? Could it be they want control of how and when their computers are upgraded? Could it be they want to test patches in the context of their own organization to evaluate the impact? Could it be they have an investment in custom developed, in-house application systems which need to be checked out against op system fixes or upgrades? Could it be they do not want their employees distracted by pop-up adverts? Could it be they do not want their customer contacts, email documents, appointments co-opted? Could it be they need to develop and distribute their own company unique applications in-house? There is a big difference between the requirements of business and government organizations carrying out activities on a day to day basis, and that of individual consumers. Windows cannot be a one size fit all. So what can Microsoft to do in order to keep their investors hoppy? More Here And for gods sake get rid of this side loading crap, give your ISVs a break.
Legacy apps don't last forever, and microsoft has no real incentive to help out those companies who don't want to upgrade. After all, legacy companies already have their copies of windows and are attempting not to purchase and upgrade. In the modern world of web apps, it is easier to let desktops be dumb, concentrating attention on a relatively few servers to upgrade. Legacy apps are being flushed from the ecosystem gradually. Microsoft is just front-running this trend. Getting customers onto a subscription-based O/S will be a gold mine for microsoft. I hate to say it, but it looks like they know what they're doing.
-
That's a good analysis, (although I do think that some of the emerging touch-based UI idioms can teach the mouse-based UI state-of-the-art a thing or two). In my latest system purchase, 'can this hardware run an OS other than Windows if I need to?' was a leading criteria. And that's me who's been with Microsoft since DOS 3.1 through Windows 3.0, Win NT 4.0, Win2K, Win 7. I had a happy flirtation with Linux a few years either side of The Matrix (1999!) but I value binary-compatibilty on a week-to-week basis so very much when trying to do real work, that I put up with Windows for its relatively low admin-effort. (Yes, the Linux distros have now largely sorted this). But just knowing that somewhere along the line, Microsoft decided to pinch a few GB of my bandwidth and storage (precious, on my Win 7 Pro laptop) to prime its Win 10 installation files without my desire, consent, or invitation, really speaks loudly to me. The nag adverts for the Win 10 upgrades are insulting in both their frequency and their content. So the latest machine would have been 'Linux host OS', 'Windows guest OS', except I got scared off because of a photo-editing workflow and I wasn't sure how the monitor calibration (and graphics performance) would work out running the Adobe apps in a VM. (I briefly considered *nix-underneath MacOS/X, but that felt like it would be jumping into the fire from the frying pan *and* getting fleeced along the way). I'll have my calibration questions sorted out soon, so that I'm able to make the jump when they get too much for me. Because Win 10 in a sense 'requires' touch, and me purchasing a desktop, I'll be getting a Wacom tablet as well. Fortunately, this makes sense for the photo-editing workflow, and it's probably work out OK. However, one does feel forced into it.
DT Bullock wrote:
one does feel forced into it
And that is the third problem: Microsofts current marketing strategy forces you into a decision that you may not yet be comfortable to make: a one year period to upgrade for free, a one month period to revert to the previous OS installation. Those may be reasonably long periods, but it still imposes pressure on the users. And pressure invokes resistance! The irony is that it wouldn't be quite as bad if Microsoft would simply sell their 'upgrade' like they always did: at a price, with no pushing.
GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)