Happy To Be Blue

Lots of people this morning must have chuckled grimly reading—be it in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times—that the not-yet-one-year-old and “revolutionary” Windows 8 will soon be replaced by Windows Blue. When Windows 8 was launched last October, I compared it New Coke. Are you old enough to remember that fiasco? Coca-Cola introduced a new formula for Coke, named by the public the New Coke. This took place on April 23, 1985. Less than three months later, on July 10, 1985, the company made an about-turn. It went back to the old, traditional formula again—in the face of an absolutely massive public resistance.

Well, it looks like it will take Microsoft a little longer to correct its own error, but the change is already on the way. Windows Blue will return with the “traditional” interface, albeit, with a little nostalgia for its own errors, a few of the “tiles” so beloved by users of mini-devices will still clutter up part of the opening screen. And while they’re at it, Microsoft might well fix the big problem it heaped on unlucky owners of certain printers—by providing properly working printer drivers on its Blue.

To be “blue” means to be “sad.” Well, in this case, if all goes well, I’ll be happy to be Blue.

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Earlier posts on this subject: October 11, 2012, October 25, 2012, April 11, 2013.

Revisiting Windows 8

Without much pleasure I note, in a Wall Street Journal article today (“Computer Sales in Free Fall”), that PCs remain in the doldrums—and that lots of people blame Windows 8. I held forth on that subject roughly six months ago (link) and have touched upon the essentially irrelevant war between hand-helds and desk-helds as well. It gives me no pleasure to note what are, deep down, knee-jerk and irrational reactions to markets by various once much admired leaders—like Microsoft, which brought us Windows 8 and Hewlett Packard which is still trying to dump its PC business. Hand-held devices and desktop computers are totally different products and markets. The difference might be described as that between a basket of hand tools on the one and a machine tool on the other hand. The PC market is now mature; the economy is still largely stagnant; hence, what with corporations holding off on purchases, PC sales are declining. But this decline is rooted in the economy’s performance, not in the operating system on the screen of the PCs. Replacing a quite excellent user-interface with a touchy-feely interface people in offices don’t routinely, habitually, use is simply not going to change broad market movements that have zero connection to flim-flam (link).

Here a quote from the WSJ article:

Ricoh Americas Corp., which replaces about a third of its 17,000 PCs every three years and upgrades to the most current operating system available, said this year it is sticking with Windows 7…. Tracey Rothenberger, the company’s chief operating officer, said the benefits of switching to the new software aren’t worth the effort of training employees to use it.

If our business media were innovative—rather than reacting simply to news releases—somebody would stage a trial. Pick a handful of heavy PC users in several companies—you know, the whole ball of wax: spreadsheets, databases, serious text processing like typesetting, and, in the graphics category, artists using Apples with extra-large screens for creating commercial graphics. Select tasks these people do on a certain day and note everything that they do. The next day deploy the same number of heavy iPad users to carry out the identical tasks during the same period of time. I’d love to read the story that would result from this comparison.

Is the PC really going away? I seriously doubt it. Will even the cyber industry mature, and probably quite soon? Most likely. Will the next great market be another of those where you can sell a pound of plastic, silicon, and bits of copper to hysterically-enthused consumers for $395 ever six month? Probably not. The big new markets may turn out to be quite different—and may have nothing to do with electronics.

Windows 8. Is it New Coke?

Remember 1985 when The Coca-Cola Company rolled out what became known as New Coke? You might if you are, say, 40 and older. It caused a furor, a revolt. To be sure the sheepish masses started to buy and drink it, but a very vocal minority eventually prevailed. Coca-Cola withdrew the new brand and “reintroduced” the old—but now dubbed Coke Classic.

I drank a lot of Coke those days and hated the simpery taste of New Coke. I was also a hard-ass. I wouldn’t touch Pepsi because I was at war with Pepsi-Cola’s policies in the environmental arena. Therefore I began to purchase RC Cola in massive quantities—and found it a quite suitable product. I was not alone. Now in America we do not believe that we can influence Commercial Giants like Coca-Cola. Therefore, as the revolt became public, I didn’t dream that I would actually see New Coke fail. But it did—that year yet. To be sure, New Coke remained on the market until 1992 as Coke II, a subsidiary brand. The Giant actually caved.

Now for what it’s worth (read absolutely nothing), I have the same visceral reaction to Windows 8—and I haven’t even tasted it. It goes on the market tomorrow, but Staples was trying to seduce me into buying a computer this morning using Windows 8 as the come-on. That came by e-mail. Well, one doesn’t answer ads—but this ad I did answer, informing Staples that some of us are not in love.

We bristle at nothing with quite the same fury as attempts to change our ingrained habits—and I will not have my screen invaded by touchable panels. Long live Windows Classic.

If I am part of a potent minority, we may see Microsoft retreat yet. But what they’ll probably do is introduce a more expensive Windows 8 Professional version—in which the front face of the operating system will be the traditional face and the touchable panels will be an option—rather than the other way around.

Die Windows 8, die!

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I have my image from Evandye.Angelfire.com (link).