“Microsoft Corp will unveil a new name for its best-known product on Tuesday when it offers the first official glimpse of its latest Windows operating system,” Bill Rigby reports for Reuters. “The project, known for the past few years as ‘Threshold’ inside the software company and ‘Windows 9’ outside it, will likely get an entirely new brand, or just be called Windows, analysts said, ahead of its full release early next year.”
It “represents a desire to erase the ill will generated by Windows 8, an ambitious attempt to redesign Windows with tablet users in mind, which ended up annoying and confusing the core market of customers who use mice and keyboards. ‘Windows 8 was not a shining moment for Microsoft,’ said Michael Silver, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner. ‘Probably the biggest issue that lingers is the negative brand equity in the name,'” Rigby reports. “Judging by recent leaks online, which Microsoft has not tried to discredit, the start-button menu will come back in the next Windows, with an option of tacking on tiles if preferred. But the problem of users having to toggle between the modern interface and the old-style desktop – for instance to use the full version of Excel spreadsheet software – has yet to be solved.”
“The choice of wording and venue are key to a humbler, lower-profile Microsoft under Nadella, who is keen to rebuild respect in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley as it moves away from the PC and to play a bigger part in the mobile computing world fashioned by Apple Inc,” Rigby reports. “Nadella is resigned to the fact that sales of PCs have leveled off, and with it sales of Windows. With the explosion of smartphones and tablets, Windows now powers only 14 percent of computing devices sold last year, according to Gartner.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Sales of PCs, personal computing devices, have not leveled off. Sales of Windows-based PCs have declined. Apple is selling more OS X-powered Macs and iOS-powered iPhone and iPad computing devices than ever. With Apple+IBM, things are going to get much worse for Microsoft, regardless of what Microsoft calls their latest OS mess.
As we have always said, even as many short-sightedly waved (and continue to wave) the white flag, the war is not over. And, yes, we shall prevail… No company is invincible. Not even Microsoft. – MacDailyNews Take, January 10, 2005
Related articles:
NPD: Apple Mac grabs 26.8% U.S. consumer market share – September 24, 2014
Apple Macintosh continues to dominate in personal computer customer satisfaction – September 23, 2014
Wall Street Journal 2014 Laptop Guide: Get an Apple MacBook Air – August 6, 2014
OK now THIS is a story, a good break from the surfeit of “Apple this, Apple that” moralist overkill. Back to economics
Windows forced a tablet interface on a desktop machine. Dumbest product ever! If they took the time to actually make the interface adjustable to what machine it was running on they would have had a better outcome. But no they do what they always do, jam it down peoples throats whether they liked it or not. You know the Balmer way. DISASTER!
Windows forced a tablet interface on SERVERS, too. First time I saw it I said WTFITS!!!! I wanted throw a chair but we don’t have any near the racks!
WTF indeed. That must be one of the dumbest moments in computing history.
It was like MS suddenly required a game controller for some tasks on their servers.
You mean you don’t like the
Microsoft Enterprise Software Solution
??
M.E.S.S.
They will name it…
VISTA II
Or maybe “VISTA 8 ME”
ZUNE VISTA METRO DOS variant hybrid OS with POWERSHELL
Hasta la Vista
WinSurf ?
too cool for uncool
😉
Beware. I have seen two Surfaces in the wild in the last month. Must be gaining market share from .00001 to .00002 On the night of the iPhone release, I stopped into the MSFT sore across from the Apple store. 6 “customers” 3 of whom were kids playing on the Xbox. 7 PM last Friday. The Apple store was absolutely shoulder to shoulder with a few people lined up outside in the pickup line.
I’d be worried if that wasn’t the same Surface seen twice.
Threshold?
As in patience threshold!
Windows is so toast. How much are they expecting to charge for Vista III? Windows 8 isn’t even selling at 40 bucks a pop – that means Vista III will likely go for $9.99 or less. Try paying 100,000 employees salaries with that.
Here are the top 5 names MS is considering for Windows 8:
1. Windows Abyss
2. Windows 8.00001
3. Windows WTF
4. Windows 7 plus 2
5. Windows Edsel
Edsel. That is so good.
Hey! Not fair! The Edsel was ugly, but it ran
I remember that MDN take! I believed in it; however, it was hard to imagine Apple doing so well in only nine years.
two things:
1) I’m never spending another dime on any Microsoft product unless I’m forced to by my company. Then I’m turning in the receipt on expenses. I don’t care what they produce.
2) I work as a contractor to a major American company, one of the largest out there. Everyone knows them. We are just NOW making the transition from Windows XP to Windows 7. 7 not 8. You know what they are stumbling over? 32bit vs 64bit. I haven’t bought a 32 bit processor in a desktop or a laptop in more than 10 years. 10 years. (ps: some employees are stumbling over the slightly different appearance of Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer between XP and 7. Like where is the “history” in IE.*)
Do you really think the company I work under contract for will get excited over win 9 or win BS or whatever they’ll called it?
Microsoft should concern themselves with WHY THIS IS HAPPENING.
Enough said.
*in contrast with this: I’ve had an iphone, ipad and an ipod for a while but I never had a Mac until Dec 2012. Within an hour of the Mac arriving at my front door, I had it completely set up and had edited a excel spreadsheet with numbers and sent it back to my boss with a complement from him on how good it looked. It wasn’t a complicated spreadsheet but I used some basic features of numbers to make it look better even though I had never seen numbers before. Within two hours of having the Mac I had all my photos and music organized. Within three hours, I had parallels with win 7 installed. Windows then took 3 more hours to update itself. See what I’m talking about?
enough said about those fools.
Would you PLEASE keep your insights to yourself? With Ballmer gone, they might actually be listening for this kind of intelligence.
“Compliment”
This IS just like after Vista. Windows “Vista” was a good name. But it was forever ruined by the buggy rush job product. Windows 7 was a much better product, but now the version number naming scheme has been ruined by the kludge Window 8.
I think it should be named “Windows PC” to signify a commitment to FULLY support desktop and laptop users who use a keyboard and mouse (or equivalent) interface, who want nothing to do with touching the screen.
Then, the “tile” OS for smartphones and tablets can be unified under the name “Windows Mobile” (the old name).
Windows 9 is the exact same code as Windows 8 with a modification of the visual aspect of the interface.
…in other words, still a disaster.
Microsoft is unimportant…a dying company.
“The project, known for the past few years……..” Years? Years? Inept.
The IT guys will deny this 🙂
Not THIS IT guy. I loath Microsoft and how stupid it makes it’s enslaved users feel. Just DIE already MS, PLEASE!
Saw a demo last month presented by MS cronies…. It’s as bad as one can imagine….
I have it on good authority that they are copying Apple once again using California Place names instead of Windows. The first release will be Mojave followed by Death Valley.
With the explosion of smartphones and tablets, Windows now powers only 14 percent of computing devices sold last year
The end of The Stone Age Of Computing will soon be upon us. The air grows fresh, the iron forges grow hot. Good riddance Microsoft!