John Dvorak's Second Opinion
Jan. 11, 2013, 3:25 p.m. EST
BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Microsoft Corp. has released a new
version of its Windows software. It’s a situation we’ve seen before with
Windows Vista, an operating system that only its mother could love, except
Windows 8 is worse.
Windows 8 is a scaled-up OS for mobile devices. It’s not really comfortable
running on a desktop computer, and now we learn that for the first time in
five years PC sales are below the previous year’s levels, and falling.
While much of this is because people are turning to tablets that do indeed
benefit from an OS like Windows 8, we have to conclude that the new Windows
itself has contributed to the downturn.
I have written about this before, but cannot emphasize it enough: Windows 8
is not suited for the desktop. For one thing, it is designed for a touch
screen, which almost nobody uses on a desktop setup.
What’s worse, it emphasizes full-screen applications with no “windowing”
capability. That is, if you have a couple of 27-inch monitors with plenty of
screen real estate to play with, an application will fill up one of the
monitors completely with no way to scale it down.
This is awkward, to say the least. But it is not only the loony OS that’s
the problem for Microsoft MSFT +1.40% . It’s the decision-making prowess (
or lack thereof) at the company itself that should concern investors.
How many people greenlighted Windows 8 when it was apparent to everyone that
it was not a good follow-on to the successful Windows 7?
Microsoft persists on using the dreadful and often-discussed stacked ranking
system to evaluate employees and supervisors. Is this what influenced these
decisions? Probably.
This has to be a genuine concern for anyone following the company. While
Microsoft is capable of brilliance, its management structure can as easily
drive off the cliff with something like putting Windows 8 on the desktop.
The larger point is that it hurts the entire industry. Hard-drive sales,
components, upgrades of all sorts also lose out when sales fall like this.
Microsoft should apologize for this fiasco.
Unfortunately, and this is another sour note for the software giant, it
never apologizes and doggedly says whatever it just did is great and
innovative, always hoping to convince itself.
So what can Microsoft do to save the day and save face?
The OS has the same underlying kernel as Windows 7. While you can easily get
to a Windows 7-like, old-fashioned desktop, the product wants you to go to
the huge tiles of its ersatz Start page. This was originally called the “
Metro” interface.
Microsoft has to patch Windows to disable this tiled interface. Just have it
boot to a normal desktop rather than what amounts to a useless splash page.
The company should immediately plan on a point upgrade, as in Windows 8.1.
We have not seen these point upgrades for years, and now is the time to
reintroduce the idea.
Windows 8.1 would get rid of any touch capability and the Metro interface
altogether. It also would kill any of those apps that run full-screen only.
Did Microsoft think it was on the right track when it veered so far from
Windows 7? Why did the engineers do it? This was a slap in the face to
established customers who all praised Windows 7.
There is still time to fix this. Microsoft needs to take action right away.
