“Windows 8 will roll out with a marketing campaign estimated at $1.5 to $1.8 billion. That’s the biggest product launch in the history of the industry; it dwarfs the $200 million Microsoft spent to market Windows 95.” - Forbes
Is the party over before it even began?
Although Microsoft has already spent well over a billion dollars to market their latest Windows 8 software (and associated products), neither corporate nor common consumer interest have seemed to match Microsoft’s investment.
In late October, just prior to the official launch of Windows 8, an Avast AV Software polled nearly 1 ½ million users of their popular free & premium AV software and found that a 60% of those that chose to respond said they knew about the Windows 8 release. Of that 60%, nearly 70% said they intended to keep their current OS. While even less than 10% said they were considering purchasing Windows 8 immediately. Equally as surprising as the extremely low number of Windows 8 adopters and migrators is the fact that according to the same Avira report, 1/3 of the Windows users said they have even considered to switch an Apple product.
The pre-Windows 8 launch report seems to be consistent with current Windows 8 movement. It can be said that the world has taken tepid steps toward Microsoft’s latest release, and rightfully so due to much of the latest reports. The changes in the latest Windows 8 OS seem to be just a bit to extreme for most, even with the interface itself. A couple of problematic differences for some have been reported to be that users are unable to open multiple windows of the same application (making the GUI almost counter-productive) and with Live Tiles so active at times, it can be difficult to see which application actually has focus.
In addition to a new design that has extreme learning curves, application trouble reports have emerged as well. According to George Otte, CEO of repair service Geeks on Site, legacy software, even software designed for Windows 7, is having trouble working well on Windows 8.
Then you have Widows 8 mobile devices issues. HTC Windows Phone 8X, as well as the Nokia Lumia 920 are both companies betting heavily on Windows 8 success, but users of both devices have reported of their mobile devices randomly rebooting in what is seemingly not a device issue from two separate manufacturers, but a global Windows 8 problem.
In nutshell, although Microsoft has spent $1 billion on advertising, Gartner forecasts that less than 4 million Windows 8 devices will be sold by end of 2012. A possible 20 million plus units could be sold by the end of 2013 though. Although no one is certain of those forecasts what is certain is the present. A present which says that Windows XP and Windows Vista are currently in extended support phases until April 2014 and April respectively, and Windows 7 is still in the mainstream then extended support phases until January of 2020. Which means that no one, not event corporate customers have much reason to rush over to Microsoft’s latest crossover operating system, Windows 8.
As of last Monday, due to questions about Windows 8 design flaws or even personality conflicts, Steve Sinofsky, previous head of the Windows division, is no longer with Microsoft.