“Enterprises may see little need to buy a touchscreen enhanced OS like Windows 8 just yet, analysts told Computerworld Australia. The new Microsoft operating system, set to debut 26 October, has more touch-friendly features than any previous Windows, but analysts said enterprises are likely to limit adoption to tablets, at least for now,” Adam Bender reports for Computerworld Australia.
“Windows 8 with its Metro interface ‘represents the most significant interface change that we’ve seen from Microsoft in quite a long time,’ Telsyte analyst Rodney Gedda said. ‘It could be seen as a radical shift in user interfaces for many enterprises who might not want to have their staff using Metro with standard PCs,'” Bender reports. “‘The way that we operate the desktop and notebook is still relying on the keyboard and the mouse,’ Gartner analyst Tracy Tsai said. ‘The Metro interface wasn’t designed for the mouse and keyboard.'”
MacDailyNews Take: While Windows 8 is the wrong answer to a question nobody’s asking, that doesn’t excuse these Luddites.
“The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse.’ There is no evidence that people want to use these things.” – John C. Dvorak
Bender reports, “Ovum analyst Richard Edwards said he doesn’t ‘see mass adoption of touchscreens [by businesses] because I don’t see mass adoption in the enterprise of Windows 8.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Those who ignore iPad deserve to be steamrolled by it.
Bender reports, “[Defending Windows 8, Gedda said] if necessary, IT managers ‘can still use the older interface’ with the traditional desktop. But Edwards said there still is a ‘high learning curve’ for enterprises with Windows 8’s new interface. ‘We have to remember that 99 per cent of people aren’t interested in technology per se; they just want to get the job done.'”
MacDailyNews Take: If they really wanted to get the job done, they’d be using Macs.
Bender reports, “Greater touchscreen use is likely at the point of sale, for example in retail, he said. Aerospace, construction and engineering are other industries that may be quicker to adopt touch, he said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Not once in an article about touchscreen devices in the enterprise, was the word “iPad” mentioned. Not even once.
It’s like a bizarro world, where Steve Jobs was never born and everyone endures their miserable lives until they finally, blessedly stop breathing.
In fact, it reminds us of:
And here we sit surrounded by OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Macs, iPhones and iPads with Retina displays feeling more than a bit embarrassed by our riches. To those saddled with crap tech by IT doofuses worldwide, you have our utmost sympathy. What a nightmare to be forced to endure Windows PCs and BlackBerrys! (shudder.)
Anyway, as per touchscreen devices in the enterprise in the real world:
• Gartner: Apple Macs invading the Windows PC-dominated enterprise – June 6, 2012
• Apple not just revolutionizing markets, they’re disrupting IT and business itself – May 21, 2012
• Report: 6 of top 10 enterprise devices using Good Technology are iOS, 97% of tablets are iPad – April 26, 2012
• Apple iPad in the enterprise: A videoconferencing dream machine – April 10, 2012
• Demand for Apple’s new iPad has powerful impact on corporate market – March 13, 2012
• All Nippon Airways to deploy 6,000 Apple iPads to train stewards – September 22, 2011
• United Continental pilots get 11,000 Apple iPads – August 23, 2011
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James Wigg” for the heads up.]
> Enterprises may see little need to buy a touchscreen enhanced OS like Windows 8
Well, no. Not an “OS.” But they are already buying plenty of “touchscreen enhanced” DEVICES (iPads). This is not a “prediction”… It’s REALITY. Why do these “analysts” think Microsoft is so desperate to get into the tablet game?
By now, Microsoft clearly understands the clear and present danger of iPad in enterprise, so they are doing all they are able to mitigate that threat.
FUD had no effect; then, their OEMs tried to compete and failed; so like Intel they moved into the reference design space. A clever “PC+” branding campaign seeks to steal the rhetorical high ground from Apple’s “post-PC” trope.
The worm in their cocktail, the poisonous cloud settling over Redmond, is their insistence on the glorious “Windows everywhere” scheme.
Indentured as they are, they fail to understand that the phrase can never catch on—to their minds, goosing the market for one of the most successful products ever (Windows) can’t fail. But…
..the proletariat, forced to use this decrepit tool every day at the mines, sees through it. Success came through business tactics, not marketing. Microsoft sucks at marketing.
Their strong-arm tactics of the past won’t help them in a world where corporate consumers begin to see choices instead of dictates, and chunks of the Berlin Wall begin showing up on EBay as nostalgia trophies. Mr. Jobs, tear down that wall!
You are comparing Steve Jobs to M Gorbechev?? I think you need to learn your quotes better my friend.
Maybe Mr Balmer, year down this wall.
Right, just a slip. Ballmer I meant. : <
One thing that I expect Microsoft to do, is to peddle even more big ass table “surfaces” to the television stations, for free is necessary. This will give win 8 bigger exposer than it deserves.
One strange thing, however, is that I have seen MS’s big ass table used in TV news casts, but they don’t seem to continue using it…
I think the “Big Ass Table” is dead… The only thing that will survive is the name “Surface.” And I don’t think Microsoft wants customers associating that old mocked “Surface” with the new tablet product called “Surface.”
The brilliance and insightfulness of these “analysts” never ceases to amaze, delight and inspire.
“It’s like a bizarro world, where Steve Jobs was never born and everyone endures their miserable lives until they finally, blessedly stop breathing.”
So prfoundly and analogously true of everything in today’s state of di-vision
We are beta testing Windows 8 and there is no ” most significant interface change” there is a middle interface kind like a “OS X Dock” wannabe but with titles, but at the end, it is exactly the same as windows 7 but a lot less compatible and more confusing. Not sure why our head of department want us to keep using windows, I use Mac at home and I love it.
“To those saddled with crap tech by IT doofuses worldwide, you have our utmost sympathy. What a nightmare to be forced to endure Windows PCs and BlackBerrys! (shudder.)”
That sounds just like most government offices.
And corporate cubicles.
I’m doing an internship at a major medical device company. We use cheap, clunky Dell laptops running Windows 7 (or, in the case of my supervisor, Windows XP), in docks connected to cheap, jittery Dell screens. Most of the employee phones I’ve seen have been Blackberries. I’ve been told, however, that the CEO loves his iPad and takes it everywhere with him.
While I agree with the comments MDN made in regard to the article, I think they take things too far. Remember, hard liners are hard liners, no matter which side you are on. And yes, I am a long time Mac user (and iPad user).
i think even consumers will be slow to upgrade. a lot of the casual consumers do not even need a full blown desktop pc anymore, mobile decvices can do most of it now.
I have a MBP, but I like Windows 7. Not sure why I “can’t get my work done,” with it… however upside down and backwards it might be. And, oddly enough, it’s the only way I can use iCloud on my Mac.
enterprise adoption of W8 for workstation PC’s won’t be “slow” – it will be non-existant. the last thing any business – large or small – wants to do is re-train all its employees for basic computer work. it’s disruptive of work, costly, and bound to result in many everyday problems.
the world of business is finally adjusting to W7 as a standard OS. it will stay like that for at least 5 years.
and you won’t see MS stop PC sellers from loading W7 instead of W8 either.
Speaking of Enterprise…
There seriously needs to be a law against visionless idiots placed in any position of decision making. They are the ones keeping us in caves.
If we were to skip ahead a few centuries, do you think any of the techs on a Starship would say, “we see little need to use a touchscreen enhanced OS”? Really? Your keyboard and mouse is better than this… http://www.interactiondesign.at/okudagrams ?
Up to about 1990, the techs were the visionaries, making future miracles become real. Today, they’re just mindless drones dragging down progress.
The “mindless drones dragging down progress” started about 1987, in my experience.
Since then my life has been a battlefield.
Having recently won a few engagements, it’s beginning to look like the daleks are retreating.
…it’s beginning to look like the daleks are retreating.
That tends to happen, slowly, after decades of FAILure ending in a long term worldwide economic depression. It really does take a generation change to flush the delusional dolts down the drain and replace them with insightful ingenuity. It could happen.
Bless Apple for never giving into our era’s driving forces of desperation, parasitism and bad biznizz practices. Apple are a great model for the brave young turks who will toss the previous jerk off generation into the gutter where they belong. Hurray. 😀
From what I’ve seen iPads are making inroads into the enterprise as content consumption devices.
If you are in a role that requires retrieving data or just imputing data in a form (like checking inventory) then an iPad is perfect.
The people creating the systems and data (creating reports, writing documents) are better served by a full blown desktop.
A lot of people just need access to the data within an enterprise and the iPad is perfectly suited for 99% of those situations.
From what I’ve seen iPads are making inroads into the enterprise as content consumption devices.
Absolutely! The Enterprise tech rags all feature weekly headline articles about the invasion of the iPad and how Enterprise IT dweebs are adjusting to this strange but wonderful non-Microsoft device. 🙄
‘Metro Lash-Back’ has already begun.
Microsoft continues, over eleven years later, to instruct the world about how to do touch screens WRONG.
What’s hilarious is that IT dweebs can’t even imagine looking outside of Microsoft hell for other solutions. They live in a particularly bizarro dimension of The Twilight Zone. Apparently, everything is 2-D in their world. Going 3-D is beyond their comprehension. Have sympathy for the cartoon characters. 😉