“Two of the people who saved Windows — Jon DeVaan and Grant George, who delivered Windows 7 from the jaws of Windows infamy — left the company earlier this week,” Woody Leonhard reports for InfoWorld. “Two more — Julie Larson-Green and Jensen Harris — whom many blame, er, ‘credit’ with the Office ribbon and Windows tinker toy tiles, have found new homes buried deep in corporate nowhere land. Former Windows chief Steve Sinofsky jumped ship more than a year ago, probably because he was denied Ballmer’s CEO brass ring. And Antoine Leblond of the original Office 95-2007/Windows 7-8 inner circle remains missing in action.”
“These departures/transfers not only solidify a complete housecleaning of the Windows effort, they mark the end of a ‘monolithic Windows’ era,” Leonhard reports. “It’s becoming clear that future versions of the Win7 desktop may get a nip here and a tuck there, but massive improvements aren’t likely. More important, the breakup of the old crew sends as clear a sign as any that the powers-that-be at Microsoft realize Windows 8 screwed up big time: The whole management team responsible for Windows 8 has just hung out the ‘gone fishing’ sign.”
Leonard concludes, “The wholesale dismemberment of the Windows 8/8.1 management team says in no uncertain terms that the higher-ups at Microsoft, whomever they may be, are extremely disappointed with Windows 8.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good riddance!
The Dark Ages of Personal Computing are over! Viva la Renaissance!
Oh, yeah: We told ya so way back MacDailyNews on June 1, 2011, ont he very day Microsoft Windows 8ista’s new “user interface” to the world. If only Microsoft’s somnambulant BoD were smart enough to read MacDailyNews and take it to heart, they could have saved untold man-hours and billions of dollars:
Microsoft, in trying to cram everything into Windows 8 in an attempt to be all things to all devices, will end up with an OS that’s a jack of all trades and a master of none (which, after all, ought to be Microsoft’s company motto)… We simply do not see the world clamoring for the UI of an iPod also-ran now ported to an iPhone wannabe that nobody’s buying to be blown up onto a PC display.
From what we’ve seen so far, Windows 8 strikes us as an unsavory combination of Windows Weight plus Windows Wait.
Not to mention that probably no one on earth knows how much or what kinds of residual legacy spaghetti code roils underneath it all (shudder)… If Microsoft’s going to ask Windows sufferers to “learn a whole new computer” (and that’s exactly how they’ll look at it, regardless of how Microsoft pitches it), millions will simply say, “Time to get a Mac to match my iPod, iPhone, and iPad!”
As if they needed it: More good news for Apple.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Turns out, nobody wants to touch Windows 8 (and Microsoft is screwed) – August 20, 2013
Windows 8 continues to flop hard – June 3, 2013
Microsoft offers no apology for Windows 8, promises better with Windows Blue (Screen of Death) – May 7, 2013
Windows 8ista: Microsoft admits failure – May 7, 2013
Microsoft partners say Windows 8 caused ‘millions of customers’ to switch to Apple – April 18, 2013
Stick a fork in Microsoft’s Windows, it’s done – April 17, 2013
Apple Macintosh owns 45% of PC market profits – April 16, 2013
Steve Jobs’ revenge – April 12, 2013
Microsoft’s stock takes beating after putrid Windows PC shipment reports – April 11, 2013
Apple Macintosh on the rise as Windows PC market plummets – April 11, 2013
Gartner: PC Market posts 11.2 percent decline in Q113; Apple Mac sales up 7.4 percent in U.S. – April 10, 2013
More good news for Apple: Microsoft previews Windows 8 (with video) – June 1, 2011
They’re under a pile of Ballmer’s chairs.
So it looks like Microsoft truly and honestly is going down. But…without MS, who will cater to the “low-end” demographic? There is Google, with their Chromebooks, but those are too limited. I hope Canonical and their Ubuntu OS will rule the post-MS scene. I’ve used it a little bit, and so far, it is far better than anything MS has created. The other demographic deserves better, and if they can’t afford Apple for whatever reason, at least Ubuntu is there for them. Now if they can just finish Ubuntu Touch…
Perhaps now the Intel producers of the world will form an industry alliance and collectively seek an agreement with Apple to produce hardware that can run OS X.
True, but Apple is very serious about keeping Macintosh on Apple-produced products. If there is going to be a MS replacement, it had better be a good replacement, because many of these Windows sufferers deserve better. Some of them may not have enough to buy a Mac because of after effects of the Obama Administrations handling of blue collar jobs in the Midwest, particularly the Detroit/Flint areas, and most of these people can only afford MS/Android. If a company can come out with Apple quality products, but at MS/Android prices, then that would be a perfect company, but we obviously don’t live in a perfect world.
Was mentioning whatever blue-collar jobs that were lost over in Flyover Country really necessary? And you blamed it on Obama too! You really need to see the real world…
Apollonia, let’s put it this way, regardless of party, the US Federal Government & states in the past 40 years have become the domineering force in limiting US citizens’ lives.
The Feds have done this by an ever expanding government that limits take home pay & job growth as a result of an accelerating level of taxes, fees, filings, inspections, regulations & the cost of meeting all those requirements.
In one century, all forms of government in the US have expanded the money they remove from the private sector (by all their means and methods) by a factor of 5, from 10% of GDP to virtually 50% of GDP today.
The large scale effects of this can be seen in wage & job stagnation, higher unemployment & welfare and exporting of US jobs outside the US to foreign countries.
The total US level of taxation and fees in the US is now higher than that of Medieval Monarchs on the serfs.
Obama saved the Midwest by supporting a sensible restructuring of the auto industry. Had any of the auto manufacturers been forced into bankruptcy, as was advocated by Romney and other Republicans, unemployment would be several times what it is today.
Wow, nice liberal revisionism. Obama raped the taxpayer to pay off Union thugs and cronies. He saved nothing. Bankruptcy would have been the sensible and honorable way out, and would not have stolen taxpayer money to pay ridiculous and unsustainable union contracts.
Obama has saved nothing except people who are unfairly and corruptly benefitting from the most corrupt and dishonest administration in US history. Romney wasn’t perfect but he was a real businessman with real world experience and would have been orders of magnitude better for this idiotic country which re-elected the worst president in history.
In short you are a clueless liberal hack. And wrong about just about everything. Stick to gardening tomatoes (if you are capable of that).
Anyone who has Obama on the mind in a forum like this is severely obsessed and mentally disturbed, not to mention ill-informed and brainwashed. Your judgement is clouded with hate, and you’ve lost all credibility. It’s a big, big world out there. The past is gone. Get over it, and think different. As if Obama is the Puppet Master of the entire planet!….
Sorry, but everything that happens in American business over the next several years if not decade will have deep roots in what a mess Obama has made of the country. Maybe you love what a disaster he created in what was before he became president unarguably the greatest country in the entire history of mankind, but I do not share your love for him.
I take you liked the Bush era, huh? The same era that caused 9/11, Iraq War, and a new wave of Anti-Americanism? I may have had my best years of college in that decade, but I just cannot forgive how the 2000s decade ruined our reputation on a world scale.
As I recall the Bush chickens were coming home to roost just before Obama came into office. Poor baby Bush, the house of cards was falling before he could make his getaway and leave the mess for Obama to clean up.
How about we all shut the fuck up and move back to the topic at hand?
I really don’t get the Ubuntu fascination…
What is it about ubuntu that seems to draw people.
Canonical just took one of the better (free) linux distr.’s (Debian linux) and added a bunch of semi worthless gingerbread on colored it brown and called to a “world OS”
I could understand if it if this was years ago when debian was difficult to install configure (and you had to be very comfortable with the CL) but in recent years debian is a breeze to install, is faster, doesn’t have all the crap installed (unless you want to install it) and doesn’t have any of the “privacy issues” that Canonical has come under fire for recently.
Can you explain it to me? (and yes I am serious)
My memories are kind of fuzzy, because the last time I used it was 2010, and since then, I focused my attention on Apple because of iPad. I did not know Canonical causes controversy with how they treated recent releases. I just mentioned Ubuntu because it was the only other OS that I used that I actually enjoyed. I did not use Debian, but I have heard good things about it. What I was trying to get at, though, is why isn’t there another company that is trying to bring out a new OS, and at an agreeable price too, because an Apple product is still too expensive for many people, and some of them are the same type of people who hate MS, and there has to be an inexpensive, but also quality alternative, right?
I’d say Debian is the best of the (linux) bunch, I use it for our render farm (basically a rack of “distributed task” servers) however it (and every other Linux distro) has several large downsides for desktop use.
One is drivers (and peripherals that require drivers) can be maddening, difficult to install and often poor performing. Things you take for granted (graphics card hardware accelerations, drawing tablet (ex wacom) pressure sensitivity, etc)) can be extremely difficult to install, many not work at all or work poorly.
In addition because of the way (most) software is developed on Linux (using common dependent libraries) you can have huge web of dependencies that create a “catch 22” that can prevent you from (hypothetically) from getting the new version of program X (which does something new, that you really need) but because it requires an updated of library Y , and that version (of library Y) isn’t supported by another program you have (which also uses that library) you can’t update.
So I guess the answer to your question is: No there isn’t anything I know of that is nice, easy and inexpensive (and runs all generic hardware).
However, used (& refurb) Macs are available and while used macs aren’t cheap, that means they will also be worth something when you sell it (to upgrade to a better model)
Also if you are a hardware hacker (i.e. fixit kind of person) they are many opportunities in broken hardware (which is very inexpensive, but worth $$$ if you can fix it)
A friend’s son just bought a damaged Macbook pro on ebay for $125, put a new keyboard & power controller in it (for ~$100) and now has a laptop easily worth >$500
Time for that demographic to raise the bar.
You know no one is happy with the product when they wont even mention it by name in advertising. All adds for the last few months just call Windows 8, “The New Windows” hoping to pull in a few uneducated buyers.
Where were the quality control guys during the testing phase? No one noticed that Win8 was hard to navigate? Surely SOMEBODY shouted across the room “so just where did you put the shutdown control?” Nobody had the guts to stand up and say this is just so much crap or was everyone just playing follow my leader like so many lemmings?
There were many more people involved than these few maybe they should all just turn the lights out and go home…maybe keep “worked on Win8” off their cv…
I work in software testing. Usability issues like those with Win8 are usually rejected by the developers with the tired excuse of Working as Designed. Yes, it was designed poorly, but that is how it is supposed to by as determined by the all mighty developers. No one wants to hear or address usability issues. They WANT it this way.
>Steve Sinofsky jumped ship more than a year ago because he was denied Ballmer’s CEO ass ring
He was sacked for royally cocking up the surface RT keynote.
I almost feel sorry for the guy doing that presentation. And then I remember that it’s MS and I laugh.
There can be many reasons why people leave companies. Microsoft is far from losing in the Windows edge. It has a huge market share and user base — even if its share were to experience a 30% decline, its share would still be larger than Apple’s equivalent OS user base. Mind you, MS will fight to not lose any market share, as that would send a bad signal — it has been spoiled with being the monopoly. MS staff leaving or being transferred, is overall, irrelevant.
“Has a huge marketshare and user base”
Nokia had that in cell phone handsets, I believe they even sold more cell phones at their peak that MS sells copies of Windows. Look where Nokia is today.
Having an existing marketshare and user base does nothing to ensure that you will have it in the future.
What is market share? More computers that do not run MS products sold last month than those that do.
Dude you are living in the past. Only when you look at installed base does windows still look alive.
Windows 8 has barely hit 10% CMS (not that much higher than Mavericks and less than Mavericks and iOS7 (IE “current apple OS’s”) combined) and XP share is tanking, big time.
Explorer share (a key metric because it excludes POP & PLC)) is down to something like 30% (of total traffic)
Now instead of placing legacy apps in a window on top of Win 8.2 (like MacOS X/classic), you will be able to run a Metro app in a window over the legacy Windows! Talk about the wrong way around if Metro is your future…
The strange thing is Apple’s approach is pointing in a direction that works. But if MS copies Apple, they will have to set themselves up as a major hardware design/mfg shop.
Bill Gates and Ballmer have resisted this. Google, however, is enterring the hardware frey in mobile.
How long before Microsoft becomes a maker of PCs?
Oh noooo! Who will support and provide the gazillions of POS, no that kind of POS, well if its MS POS, then yes it’s both kinds of POS! Am I making sense?
When rats leave a sinking ship, that’s one thing. But when the first mate jumps ship, you either join him or settle in for an inevitable death.
And oh what a joy it would be to rid the world of Microsoft’s stupidity, in all its forms!
I think it’s an insult to refer to Windows 8 tiles as “tinker toy”.
Tinker Toys are way better than that.
One of the unknown destroyers of Windows 8 is the NSA. Microsoft had the monopolist attitude to their products: let the people eat crap. And it let its programing code have more holes than Swiss cheese — great for spies terrible for people, corporations and other governments.
The Germans are already looking not to go with Windows 8 and other states will follow suit. So from now on there’s jockeying for new OS’s and Intel could be on the ropes too. Great for Google, Unix, Apple and ARM.