Microsoft Windows 8 is suppose to be the operating system that transitions Microsoft towards a new way to look at the traditional high-powered OS. Instead, the company’s attempt at a desktop-, notebook-, and tablet-friendly OS has been met with confusion and in many cases anger from those confused users.
Opinions regarding Windows 8 have been so severe in some cases that PC security firm Avast decided to conducted a massive survey of 350,000 users of its PC antivirus software. The goal of the survey was to determine users opinions of Windows 8 while trying to figure out if users would upgrade or stick with an older versions of Windows.
According to the survey:
“135,329 respondents were Windows users based in the United States. Among these U.S.-based consumers, 65% were Windows 7 users, 22% had Windows XP and 8% used Windows Vista.”
The study found that 60 percent of respondents knew about the Microsoft Windows 8 platform before it arrived. Those users likely learned about the platform through Microsoft’s massive marketing campaigns that led up to the October release of Windows 8.
Now for the bad news, only 9 percent of customers surveyed said they wanted to buy a Windows 8 PC. Seventy percent of users said they had no plans whatsoever to upgrade from their current Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 platform.
With medium and large scale businesses estimating that the switch to Windows 8 would cost them millions of dollars and with confusion surrounding the product overall, it’s safe to assume that Windows is continuing its pattern of releasing a widely panned OS after receiving critical praise for the Windows 7 operating system that came before it.
Case in point, Windows ME (not good), Windows XP (good), Windows Vista (not good), Windows 7 (awesome), Windows 8 (not good). Here’s to hoping Microsoft completes that pattern once more and releases a Windows 9 platform that users will love.
Microsoft on Wednesday lost its long-time Windows platform President following the release of Windows 8, perhaps with that departure users will receive something completely different the next time around. With Google’s Chrome OS gaining popularity and Apple selling more PCs then ever before now would be a good time for Microsoft to get its act together and offer the ease of use it had promised for Microsoft Windows 8.
If I were Microsoft, I would sit down a bunch of grandparents in a room and let them thoroughly test my next OS; if they don’t understand how it works, that would be a good time to try again.
Have you or will you be upgrading to Windows 8?