Windows 8 Has Failed

Microsoft Windows 8 lags predecessor in first-year sales

Microsoft had very high hopes for their brand new successor to the exceptionally popular Windows 7 operation system 15 months ago, but things have not turned out the way the company had envisioned.  The operating system has sold 200 million copies as opposed to Windows 7's 240 million in just 12 months.  Microsoft had high ambitions for Windows 8, but the user interface seems too confusing to many, and not well suited for business settings.  To put these low sales in perspective, it has been reported that a mere 11 percent of PC's are running Windows 8, whereas 48 percent are running the older Windows 7 and 29 percent are running the much older Windows XP.  These dismal numbers reflect just how poorly Microsoft's approach to combing the desktop and tablet experiences has been.  It is evident that the company must do something to turn these sales around or else they may have one of the biggest tech failures in history on their hands.

I think that Microsoft took a huge risk with Windows 8, attempting to combine the traditional desktop interface with their brand new "Modern UI", but this approach did not play very well with consumers.  I give Microsoft credit for taking this risk, but I do not believe the company's execution of this idea was well thought out.  I think Microsoft may have had too big of ambitions for an operation system that they really missed the boat on.  Microsoft missed the tablet trend and tried to over-correct themselves by overhauling their core desktop experience in a way consumers were not familiar.  Microsoft needs to leave tablet computing to Apple and Google, and focus on making a great desktop system that no one can compete with.