Windows 8.1 is an update of sorts that seeks to satisfy users and consumers with one device; but Microsoft seems to be missing some of the needs of each group, which are not alike
Lost amid the uproar of the strange interface changes in Windows 8 is an old Microsoft mantra that might easily explain the odd decision concerning on the loss of the “Start” button.
I first heard the mantra in Seattle in 1995, when Microsoft’s then-CEO Bill Gates, who had unwisely ignored the sudden arrival of the World Wide Web, announced his company’s plan to turn the company around completely and to “embrace and extend” competing technologies. Thus Microsoft introduced the forever-free Internet Explorer and a host of other products, vaulting the company to its dominant market position.
Embrace and extend was shorthand for begging the forgiveness of its users for having blundered about something (the Internet), saying that the company was accepting the new direction of technology and launching products that would lead the industry.
Jump forward 18 years or so, and you can see that mantra is still at work with Windows 8 and 8.1. Apple had disrupted the market with the iPad, and the device roared to a success so strong that unthinking pundits have started to declare we now live in the “post-PC” era, in which tablet computing is supposed to replace desktop and laptop computers. This idea is silly, of course, reflecting only the horizons of people who have their own concept of what computers are for.
With Windows 8, Microsoft is once again apologizing to the public for having missed out on tablet computing, and at the same time trying to vault past the iPad’s limitations.
From Microsoft’s point of view, it seemed only natural that the company would want to create its own iPad-like tablet, and develop an operating system that would run on both its own version of the iPad, called Surface, and desktop and laptop computers alike.
I can see how that idea could fly at Microsoft. It was, after all, the old embrace-and-extend philosophy. And I can see how it made perfect sense to the tall foreheads in Redmond.
I can also see what Microsoft and CEO Steve Ballmer missed this time around.
First, I think Ballmer misjudged how deeply his company’s products had sunk their roots in the minds of the market. Many software products were built on existing Windows-based computers and, more important, many corporate software manufacturers and their users had made the same commitment and were loath to change it. Next, Microsoft somehow missed the whole point of tablets, which — lest we forget — were quite seriously unlike Apple’s own computers, and did not sport the identical Mac IOS.
What Apple’s tablet did was to divide its market into two groups. The first group included the people who used computers for tasks that involved heavy lifting — crunching spreadsheets, connecting to corporate e-mail and other servers, editing videos and images. Next was the tablet group, which never used its desktop machines to do much more than consume online offerings — everything from cute cat videos on YouTube to the exploding e-book and online magazine markets, TV, games and casual e-mail.
This segment of the market saw the tablet (the iPad and its competition from Google’s Android) as a way to liberate itself from a cumbersome and awkward technology. I’m sure Apple CEO Steve Jobs knew this when he created the iPad, but it was not such a big deal from him to threaten the small market share of his Mac computers, which had not managed to recoup a market-leading position after the company’s disastrous non-Jobs interregnum from 1985 to 1996.
Microsoft, however, would be more vulnerable in trying to emulate the strategy. Its Windows operating system has been dominant in the market, and trying to muck with it would prove dangerous to a great number of people and supporting hardware manufacturers, many of whom had become deeply committed to how people used computers.
Yet Ballmer was determined to overturn all that.
Perhaps he thought that fusing a touch-screen interface with a desktop machine would be a natural evolution. Just touch the screen (in a certain way) and you’ll get a listing of all your applications.
What Microsoft didn’t count on was how deeply engrained Windows’ basic functions had become. The Start button — and it has been, at best, awkward and annoying — had become second nature to most users, who had accustomed themselves to using it to launch their heavy-duty apps, to access the control panel, to find things on their machines and so on. They didn’t want to have to change all these habits, no matter that Microsoft regarded them as frivolous or expendable. So if you asked anyone what their problems are with Windows 8, they would dismiss the entire operating system in three words: “No Start button.”
So Microsoft’s strategy to fuse the needs of the heavy-lifters with those of the consumers turned out to be a grave error.
For many of those people, the tablet is still a child’s toy, made for purposes like finger-painting and playing with blocks. Ask office workers who have Windows-based computers on their desks running custom-built enterprise software packages, and they would scratch their heads at the thought of moving their work to a tablet. Why would anyone want to use a touch screen when their entire lives depend on exact typed input, such as numbers and text?
For many of them, accuracy of input is of paramount importance. Their jobs likely depend on it. There are a lot of these people out there. Yet I know really intelligent people who adore touch-screen devices, especially iPads, but nevertheless send me e-mail so illiterate with typos and misspellings I wonder why I tolerate them. Yes, of course, they can buy a Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad, yet that’s like buying a car they can’t use until they buy wheels for it.
And that’s the area Microsoft ignored when it tried to re-educate its users to merge their regular computing habits (habits being a large area that includes the needs of enterprise-software users) with those of casual Web surfers and consumers.
I am not denigrating the appeal of the iPad. It’s a sleek, sexy machine and much lighter than even the MacBook Air. But it’s not a desktop replacement. It is by no means the device that will usher in what some unthinking people are calling the “post-PC era.”
With the iPad, Apple had essentially divided the market into two segments, the serious user (of Mac machines) and the consumer (the iPad). Neither of the two used exactly the same version of the operating system. With Windows 8, Microsoft erred in trying to ignore that division, seeking instead to see everything as a single market. It is now quite clear that the market is no longer monolithic.
Yes, one can download a number of free tools that bring back the Start button of old, but that’s just a Band-Aid measure. I’m no programmer, but I suspect independent software manufacturers for enterprise systems will have to waste a lot of time and effort to make Windows 8 work with their packages, which often cost well into the millions of dollars. And they will not want to upgrade to Windows 8 (or 8.1) with customers who rely on accuracy for their livelihoods. I just can’t see payroll departments or advertising copywriters or text writers of any stripe adapting their work habits to dragging icons around the screen with fingers greasy from the lunches they’re eating at their desks because they want to be more productive.
Technically, Microsoft didn’t really dump the Start button in Windows 8. It shoved it off-screen, reassigned it to the demeaning category of a “charm,” and users had to use their fingers to get at it. Of course, it wasn’t the complete Start button users had been familiar with since Windows 95, but the company felt it could argue otherwise persuasively.
And when Microsoft introduced Windows 8.1, it felt it could claim it was bringing back the Start button, but it wasn’t much easier to use, and still didn’t have all the features of the old Start-button system. Again, the company can argue that it is hearing customers’ problem with the Start button, but it’s not really. I bet Microsoft’s sense of pride is keeping it from repealing the change.
Still, the damage has been done. Windows 8 has definitely embraced the competition and extended it, but it has extended it in a direction that not all computer users want, and done it in such a way that there doesn’t seem to be much hope it will change back again. And so I suspect the company is re-living the nightmare of getting Windows XP users to adopt Windows Vista, which some corporate users are still resisting despite the upcoming expiry date of Windows XP.
Perhaps Microsoft is suffering from a belief that its dominant market position allows the company to dictate how users will work. I also suspect that Microsoft will soon realize just how reluctant its users are to Windows 8 when more reliable market-research results start rolling in.
How would I fix the problem? I’d do it in a simple change of interface. I’d restore the old Start button for laptops and desktops, and use the current version of Windows 8 (or 8.1) for the Surface and RT devices (though Surface sales are plummeting dangerously close to the “disaster” level). Perhaps Microsoft can either make the start-button interface optional during the windows loading process, or have the loading sequence automatically sense when it is intended to support a tablet. Makers of laptops with touch screens (I’m currently running Windows 8.1 on Sony VAIO), might want to have the option to go one way or another.
I liked Windows 8 when it came out in October. I no longer write on corporate Windows-based systems, and my earlier review was based on an end-user’s viewpoint, as is my current assessment. I had some criticisms of it, some of which have been addressed in windows 8.1.
Some things I welcome in Windows 8.1 include the new smart search and the way Windows 8.1 handles multiple windows. The Search pane no longer takes up the entire screen, instead opening a window that suggests apps to launch, settings to open and other searches. Bing combines results from the PC and SkyDrive, from the content inside the apps and from the Web. Smart search is designed to include e-mail messages and offer documents that match your search first. Bing will also try to find a person, place, band, album or whatever matches a search. (See how the business and consumer activities are blending?)
I wish I knew more about how Windows 8 works internally, though I doubt I could understand the geekery behind it. In essence, I like it because it’s fast, sleek and reliable. It can boot to the desktop. SkyDrive, which I have come to regard as a killer app, is now built in to synchronize files. The system offers new ways of laying out multiple apps side by side on screen — a great improvement over the past — and most of the configuration options from the control panel are turned into PC Settings.
Internet Explorer 11 has also been made speedier, loading pages with incredible speed. It will open up to 100 tabs at once, and it can load a second copy of the browser and have another 100 tabs in there as well. There’s a flip-ahead function that works out what the next page will be in a multi-page story, and preload up to two pages of it. This is wonderful at a time when so many online sites are breaking up their text over multiple pages.
There is a lock-screen function that protects the computer yet still allowing the user to unlock the camera or answer a Skype call without having to enter a password. The apps can be sorted into groups, creating a customized Start screen that can be synced across all a user’s PCs so they don't have to do it again.
Search now gives priority to Wikipedia for searches for a person or photos; if the search is for looking for a place, the function will offer directions and reviews and opening hours and links to where to book meals or calling them call them with Skype. If the search is for a band or album, the results favour videos and music tracks that can be played from Xbox Music.
Again, all these things are aimed at consumers, and are not central to the lives of people who use computers for different things. I might be looking for the politics of a place, but I will first have to sort through directions to get there or links to hotels; if I want to check up on a person’s reputation, I won’t want Wikipedia’s often self-serving entries; and often when I want to find out details of a band, I do not want to buy their albums or tracks. I am not, despite what Microsoft wants to think, merely a user who wants to shop till I drop.
What gives me hope is that with Windows 8.1 Microsoft is launching a strategy of updating the operating system periodically without having to clump together changes into service packages. This should give the company time to correct some of its misunderstandings of how many people use their computers.
