An Interest In:
Web News this Week
- April 26, 2024
- April 25, 2024
- April 24, 2024
- April 23, 2024
- April 22, 2024
- April 21, 2024
- April 20, 2024
Some of Our Sources
- BoingBoing
- Technology Review
- TutsPlus - Code
- Team Treehouse
- The Logo Smith
- Abduzeedo
- You The Designer
- Line 25
- Wal You
- Android Dissected
Help Webnuz
Referal links:
July 22, 2013 04:00 am GMT
Microsoft had a pretty bad week. The software giant announced disastrous earnings, which led its stock to tank over 11 percent the next day. One reason for the bad quarter was the $900 million charge it took against “Surface RT” inventory adjustments, but even without this writedown, its quarter still would’ve been pretty bad. If the earnings show one thing, it’s that outside of its business and enterprise offerings (which delivered relatively good results), Microsoft just doesn’t have any products right now that consumers want to buy. What happened to the company that not too long ago launched Windows 7, a product that many thought was Microsoft’s best operating system yet? At some point in the last few years, Microsoft decided that its consumer products had to be “touch first.” The first time Microsoft really stressed this was when it showed the first preview of Windows 8 two years ago at the D9 conference. “A Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse,” Julie Larson-Green, then Microsoft’s corporate VP for Windows Experience, wrote at the time. Since the, Microsoft has been hoping for consumers to buy laptops with touchscreen – maybe even hybrid laptop/tablet computers like the Lenovo Yoga instead of a tablet. Problem is, people are really interested in these machines. Machines like the Yoga don’t, as Lenovo would like you to believe, combine “the intuitive touch experience of a tablet” to give you “the ultimate in versatility.” Instead, they are laptops (and often pretty good ones) which are held back by Microsoft’s Windows 8 touch interface that most users simply don’t care for. At some point in the past, Microsoft must have looked at the success of the iPhone, Android phones and to keep up with the times, somebody in the company made the prediction that going forward, all of our devices would soon be touch and Microsoft went all in with this idea. The company had previously toyed with touch, but now, it was going to bet its future – and that of its OEM partners – on it. The Surface RT is an ill-conceived device that confuses users, but Microsoft’s problem is that it believed users would soon be clamoring to touch their screens. If you’ve ever used a touchscreen-enabled laptop or maybe a Chromebook Pixel,
Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/mD06NC9SV-c/
Touch: Where Microsoft Went Wrong
Microsoft had a pretty bad week. The software giant announced disastrous earnings, which led its stock to tank over 11 percent the next day. One reason for the bad quarter was the $900 million charge it took against “Surface RT” inventory adjustments, but even without this writedown, its quarter still would’ve been pretty bad. If the earnings show one thing, it’s that outside of its business and enterprise offerings (which delivered relatively good results), Microsoft just doesn’t have any products right now that consumers want to buy. What happened to the company that not too long ago launched Windows 7, a product that many thought was Microsoft’s best operating system yet? At some point in the last few years, Microsoft decided that its consumer products had to be “touch first.” The first time Microsoft really stressed this was when it showed the first preview of Windows 8 two years ago at the D9 conference. “A Windows 8-based PC is really a new kind of device, one that scales from touch-only small screens through to large screens, with or without a keyboard and mouse,” Julie Larson-Green, then Microsoft’s corporate VP for Windows Experience, wrote at the time. Since the, Microsoft has been hoping for consumers to buy laptops with touchscreen – maybe even hybrid laptop/tablet computers like the Lenovo Yoga instead of a tablet. Problem is, people are really interested in these machines. Machines like the Yoga don’t, as Lenovo would like you to believe, combine “the intuitive touch experience of a tablet” to give you “the ultimate in versatility.” Instead, they are laptops (and often pretty good ones) which are held back by Microsoft’s Windows 8 touch interface that most users simply don’t care for. At some point in the past, Microsoft must have looked at the success of the iPhone, Android phones and to keep up with the times, somebody in the company made the prediction that going forward, all of our devices would soon be touch and Microsoft went all in with this idea. The company had previously toyed with touch, but now, it was going to bet its future – and that of its OEM partners – on it. The Surface RT is an ill-conceived device that confuses users, but Microsoft’s problem is that it believed users would soon be clamoring to touch their screens. If you’ve ever used a touchscreen-enabled laptop or maybe a Chromebook Pixel,Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/mD06NC9SV-c/
Share this article:
Tweet
View Full Article
Techcrunch
TechCrunch is a leading technology blog, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news.More About this Source Visit Techcrunch