Windows 8 adoption rate almost at a standstill, far behind Windows 7

[Churma]

To date, none of my clients like Windows 8, they all ask if I can install Windows 7 or if they can order a new computer with Windows 7. I deal with around 70 unique clients a month. I had a client today with a new Dell Ultra book who wanted to throw it out the window. Lets hope Windows Blue or Windows 9 will be better for the casual consumer.

[nekkidtruth]

Really? Funny, there was just one the other day... This is for all of those who claim to "need" a mouse for drawing...

Funny, nowhere in that article does it mention anything about the dethroning of the mouse. I also didn't see anything overly exciting and new. The tablet and the pen have been around a long time. I also don't recall anyone claiming a mouse was "needed" for drawing. I suppose when you make stupid statements like "zOMG all these new devices!!! They've dethroned the mouse!!!111", I can't really expect that you'd be honest enough to say "Yeah...that was my own little hyperbole".

I won't disagree that a lot of these devices, which again...have been around a long time (regardless if they're more effective or functional now as opposed to then), are certainly making their way into everyday lives. But your statement that they've completely taken over the desktop mouse, on the desktop was flat out silly.

[MorganX]

They're "new" in the fact that they're becoming more common in the consumer space. The Surface Pro takes that a step further. How long will it be before there's Wacom tech in the touch AiO's sold?

I suppose splitting hairs that's true, or will be with the Surface Pro sporting a stylus. Many Windows Phones and Blackberries have always had them. I'm sure they're available for iPads too. They are not replacing mice, they are accompanying mobile devices. I don't disagree with what's happening in the mobile space, only that it is in parallel to the desktop space. Obviously the tablet space is the emerging market but it will level off soon enough. That's why MS can't waste a whole lot of time establishing itself there.

[Dot Matrix]

Funny, nowhere in that article does it mention anything about the dethroning of the mouse. I also didn't see anything overly exciting and new. The tablet and the pen have been around a long time. I also don't recall anyone claiming a mouse was "needed" for drawing. I suppose when you make stupid statements like "zOMG all these new devices!!! They've dethroned the mouse!!!111", I can't really expect that you'd be honest enough to say "Yeah...that was my own little hyperbole".

I won't disagree that a lot of these devices, which again...have been around a long time (regardless if they're more effective or functional now as opposed to then), are certainly making their way into everyday lives. But your statement that they've completely taken over the desktop mouse, on the desktop was flat out silly.

You know, you sound like all the business owners in the 70's who laughed at the mouse when it first showed up... Just saying. The Mouse wasn't "welcomed" with open arms either. Businesses clung to punch cards and the CLI, but it was an exercise in futility. The adoption of household computers and Windows 3.1 systems forced businesses out of the world of terminals and into the world of workstations. Now we're going from workstations to mobility.

[Matthew S.]

As with Vista I have yet to have any issues with 8 and I adopted them both at launch...

[nekkidtruth]

You know, you sound like all the business owners in the 70's who laughed at the mouse when it first showed up... Just saying. The Mouse wasn't "welcomed" with open arms either.

Says the guy who made up a bunch of new technology (That wasn't new) and claims it's taken over the mouse. Which btw, is mainly used on desktops and laptops, not mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones. So your whole argument becomes even more silly because you're throwing all of them in the same category across the board.

Oh btw, I use a graphics tablet and pen to draw. Have for years. If you mean to say that these devices are becoming increasingly popular and more widely available, sure...I can agree with that. But that is far from what you said.

[Order_66]

There are no sources saying Windows 8 has "completely failed". That's just you saying that.

Vista has been consider by many to have been a failure on the desktop, the fact that windows 8 uptake is even less than Vista more than proves that windows 8 is a total failure even more than vista was.

[Nashy]

Lol. I have never wanted a product to fail so bad in my life. Sorry MS. But you've split your users too far on this one.

[Dot Matrix]

Says the guy who made up a bunch of new technology (That wasn't new) and claims it's taken over the mouse. Which btw, is mainly used on desktops and laptops, not mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones. So your whole argument becomes even more silly because you're throwing all of them in the same category across the board.

Oh btw, I use a graphics tablet and pen to draw. Have for years. If you mean to say that these devices are becoming increasingly popular and more widely available, sure...I can agree with that. But that is far from what you said.

Touch is "new" in the sense that we finally have "pure" technology to take advantage of it, such as smartphones, tablets, and now Windows 8, which at the earliest came about in 2007 after the iPhone explosion.

Motion is a completely new consumer piece with the introduction of Microsoft's Kinect 3 years ago.

Wacom tech is finding itself on more and more devices - go back 10 years, and you wouldn't find them in the average consumer's house. Today you can.

Voice control is now a new household name thanks to Apple's Siri, released just 2 years ago.

This isn't even touching the experimental technologies being developed this very second, such as augmented reality. Shall I go on?

[Motoko.]

I'm not surprised at all

Windows 7 does it all.

Windows 8 is just a tablet market OS, it can't be taken seriously for Desktops or Laptops.

[Order_66]

You've been quite openly hostile to the OS for some time now (yes, I'm calling you out on that), and won't even make a positive comment about it, even on front page news articles showcasing positive Windows 8 happenings.

Of course I have been pointing out the glaring and obvious flaws with windows 8 long before it was released just as countless others have also done, if you think that I am being "hostile" then that is just your opinion.

I generally stay away from most of the so-called "positive" articles on the frontpage because they simply don't interest me, the only "positive" thing that could happen to windows 8 would be if microsoft were to actually listen to the needs of their customers and fix this abomination of an OS called windows 8, I would certain comment on an article about that.

[nekkidtruth]

Touch is "new" in the sense that we finally have "pure" technology to take advantage of it, such as smartphones, tablets, and now Windows 8.

Motion is a completely new consumer piece with the introduction of Microsoft's Kinect 3 years ago.

Wacom tech is finding itself on more and more devices - go back 10 years, and you wouldn't find them in the average consumer's house. Today you can.

Voice control is now a new household name thanks to Apple's Siri, released just 2 years ago.

This isn't even touching the experimental technologies being developed this very second, such as augmented reality. Shall I go on?

None of those things are "new" (aside from Kinect, but even that isn't entirely new). Please stop saying "new", because they...are...not...new. These things have all been available for a long time. Some may not have been as widely available or even as functional as they are today, but they are not new. Shall I go on?

[Jim K Global Moderator]

This isn't even touching the experimental technologies being developed this very second, such as augmented reality. Shall I go on?

No...please stop. We get it...you like Windows 8 and like to touch it.

On the desktop ... I much rather use keyboard/mouse then smudging up my desktop monitor or constantly raising and lowering my arms touching the screen.

[Dot Matrix]

None of those things are "new" (aside from Kinect, but even that isn't entirely new). Please stop saying "new", because they...are...not...new. These things have all been available for a long time. Some may not have been as widely available or even as functional as they are today, but they are not new. Shall I go on?

Go back in time 10 years. I dare you to find a consumer with those technologies in their house, let alone seamlessly working with their computers at the time, as they do today.

They're "new" to the consumer.

[Churma]

Microsoft Voice Command was as far as I know the first consumer release voice control PPC's and Windows Mobile and was light years ahead of everyone else.

Google then came to the market and owned everyone else when it comes to voice control, if you ask me, they still do. Siri is trash and Apple's voice command was actually better.

However those are just my opinions when it comes to the voice tech.

Go back in time 10 years. I dare you to find a consumer with those technologies in their house, let alone working with their computers as they do today.

They're "new" to the consumer.

Here you go MSVC November 2003

http://en.wikipedia....t_Voice_Command

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2003/nov03/11-03voicecommandlaunch2003pr.aspx

[nekkidtruth]

Go back in time 10 years. I dare you to find a consumer with those technologies in their house.

They're "new" to the consumer.

http://www.pcworld.c...75/article.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon (I went all the way back to 1992 for this one, since you're insistent on being a jerk)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchpad (Went even FURTHER back 1982, to drill the point home)

I'll stop now, cause I think I've made my point. Or...shall I go on?

[MorganX]

Now you're just becoming offensive, lol.

>>You know, you sound like all the business owners in the 70's who laughed at the mouse when it first showed up... Just saying.<<

It showed up at Xerox/Parc when Gates and Jobs visited. It was a total paradigm shift from text-based computing to GUI. Totally non-analogous. And most of the resistance was because the Mac had no software that could do what WordPerfect and Lotus could do. So MS helped them out and made Word and Excel for the Mac. Not sure about Excel.

A more analogous comparison would be single mouse button (jobs) vs. two (gates). Gates won, but it appear in the end, MS is headed back to the future killing off the right click and in-place context menus. At least that the direction they're headed in so ultimately, Jobs will win. Two mouse buttons are too complex for most computer users ... :/ Decades, Billions of $$$ for MS and total desktop dominance for two mouse buttons later.

>>Businesses clung to punch cards and the CLI, but it was an exercise in futility.<<

Business dropped punch cards as soon as they could. Legacy apps stayed around until they could be moved off the mainframe. You do know that all file popular file systems are still based on the old mainframe? Only you had to specify how to save to DASD manually. Things NTFS and HFS do automatically now. Refrain from ethnocentrism.

>>The adoption of household computers and Windows 3.1 systems forced businesses out of the world of terminals and into the world of workstations. Now we're going from workstations to mobility.<<

Fix - The adoption of the Apple II and Mac for schools and households, then later on Windows NT. Windows 3.1 was never a workstation (It was a weak problematic client until 3.11/WfW) and was never that popular in homes. That didn't really happen until Windows 95 and went nuts with Windows XP. And businesses weren't really forced. When the technology was there and worked and made sense to deploy, they did. Some mainframe employees had to be forced though.

Anyway, all that, I'm sure I recall some of it wrong, I was mesmerized by technology back then, in jr. high, or was that elementary. Anyway, those were natural evolutions providing capabilities not available. Not replacing existing technology with something inferior (subjective).

Anyway, $$$ talks. And if enough people don't like it and don't buy it, it'll get changed/fixed (subjective). The tablet space, honestly, I think MS blew it in the consumer space and while there's a slim chance to turn it around, I don't think they have the corporate leadership to fix it.

[Dot Matrix]

http://www.pcworld.c...75/article.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon (I went all the way back to 1992 for this one, since you're insistent on being a jerk)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchpad (Went even FURTHER back 1982, to drill the point home)

I'll stop now, cause I think I've made my point. Or...shall I go on?

You failed to understand my dare. XP tablet edition PC's weren't pure touch devices, were they? XP wasn't made for a tablet device, and these devices didn't even break out into the consumer space. They were laughed at.

Maybe, just maybe, you could have gotten by had you mentioned pocket PC's, but even then, your average consumer didn't have those either.

[nekkidtruth]

You failed to understand my dare. XP tablet edition PC's weren't pure touch devices, were they? XP wasn't made for a tablet device, and these devices didn't even break out into the consumer space. Maybe, just maybe, you could have gotten by had you mentioned pocket PC's, but even then, your average consumer didn't have those either.

And you fail to understand when you're wrong and should stop. These devices were all available to the consumer. Contrary to what you believe. You'll also note I said "I'll stop now" since I had already wiped the floor with your silly retorts. Mentioning the PocketPC was unnecessary. You are incorrectly calling these technologies "new". If your intention is to express that these technologies are better than they were, you'd be hard pressed to find a single person here to disagree. But you are calling them new. They are not new.

Stop making a fool of yourself.

[Dot Matrix]

And you fail to understand when you're wrong and should stop. These devices were all available to the consumer. Contrary to what you believe. You'll also note I said "I'll stop now" since I had already wiped the floor with your silly retorts. Mentioning the PocketPC was unnecessary. You are incorrectly calling these technologies "new". If your intention is to express that these technologies are better than they were, you'd be hard pressed to find a single person here to disagree. But you are calling them new. They are not new.

Stop making a fool of yourself.

Yes. They're "new" to the consumer space. They're mainstream technologies that have now matured and broken free of the niche markets they once occupied.

[nekkidtruth]

Yes. They're "new" to the consumer space. They're mainstream technologies that have now matured and broken free of the niche markets they once occupied.

They are not new to the consumer space. Stop being ridiculous.

[tkaw220]

Let's face the reality. Unless buying new machine which may include the Windows 8, most consumers won't simply upgrade to the latest product when available. If I can work on Windows 7, why should I bother about 8? We won't go ahead and buy a new TV or car or handphone or backpack when new model is available isn't it?

[Ian W]

On the desktop ... I much rather use keyboard/mouse then smudging up my desktop monitor or constantly raising and lowering my arms touching the screen.

I think Nathan Lineback said it best when he wrote:

Now I hate to burst your bubble, but touch screens are NOT new. There were amber CRTs with touch screens back in the 1980s, and other similar forms of input even earlier than that. It has been proven over and over again that touch screens make make very poor input devices for destkop computers.

• Your arm will tire very, very quickly trying to use a touch interface on a normal vertical monitor for any length of time.
  
• Touch hardware adds to the cost of a monitor, which you ultimately can not use.
  
• Any person that gets their dirty, greasy finger prints on my monitor gets a FIST IN THEIR FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!
  

[Techno_Funky]

40 dollar deal is the only reason I upgraded, otherwise I would have stayed on win7.

+1, also the Laptop I got had Home Basic, the upgrade was giving me Win8 Pro.

[BajiRav]

In your opinion.

And here I was thinking he was writing your opinion in his post, thanks for the clarification.

http://www.pcworld.c...75/article.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Simon (I went all the way back to 1992 for this one, since you're insistent on being a jerk)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchpad (Went even FURTHER back 1982, to drill the point home)

I'll stop now, cause I think I've made my point. Or...shall I go on?

Touch computing as we know today mainly took off with iPhone. I think one of the reason was using fingers as input instead of earlier focus on stylus.