Microsoft Windows 8 is Bombing

So one of the magazines I read regularly is Ad Age, and according to Ad Age, Microsoft Ads Are Everywhere, But They're Not Selling Windows. Having been in Advertising for 20 years I can give you a brief insight as to why. Microsoft having long been known for it's business machines has sort of the corner on the business market. Businesses love to have things that work. Windows Vista which I use, but the rest of the market hated, had its share of issues in terms of the requirements for running it on already existing machines. Furthermore when integrating it with some of the networks already in place there were huge security risks. IT departments did not embrace it and it bombed.

Microsoft quickly followed suit with Windows 7. I myself did not upgrade, but did purchase a new Laptop that came with the software loaded. Quite a few of my corporate clients currently run Windows 7. About 5 Windows Updates in, my machine started exhibiting the "Black Screen of Death" which was basically a failed Windows Update. It took about 25 minutes, but eventually my brand new quad core laptop would finally come on. After a reboot, be prepared to wait another 25 minutes. After a short investigation online I noticed that there was no fix available, but you could fix the issue by setting up a new user profile. So I took it upon myself to save my beloved laptop. In the end I went into the start up items in the registry for my profile and deleted the new Windows Update item that had already been installed which was crashing the machine on start up. This saved my machine and my bloated already well-used profile.

In looms Windows 8
I received a phone call a few months ago from a client that said "The website interface you created isn't working in Windows 8." Windows 8 hadn't been released yet, so he must have been running the Beta pre-release version of the software. A quick search and I had found a copy. Rather than hosing any of my working production machines I setup a new profile in Parallels and installed the software on one of my Mac workstations. I was shocked.

1. Just because you make something doesn't mean people will buy it.
On initial load the software was hideous. Some sort of mix between post modernism / minimalism and the 80s. Then I noticed something... once I was inside of Internet Explorer I couldn't get out unles I used the old shortcut Alt-F4 to quit the application. New users won't know that. I couldn't get back to where I was. I've been using Windows since there was a Windows and this is bad. I mean really bad. If I can't get out, then you're doomed.

2. If people have the chance to demo the Windows 8 at a store before using it, they will likely not like it... especially if there are other machines around.
Windows 8 is not intuitive. The very first rule about creating a user interface whether it be for a website, a program, or a mobile device, is that it HAS TO BE INTUITIVE. After spending about 30 minutes trying to find my way around and figure out where everything had gone I was able to finally turn on the desktop that I was used to. There was no "Start Menu" like what has existed in Windows since Windows '95. No normal top screen menus either.

3. If a customer can't use it at home, why would they try to replace their workstation with it?
In these increasing resource depleted work environments of the modern age, people do not experiment with new things. If you create an operating system that has a learning curve similar to most production programs for the masses (Word, Excel, etc) you will not have good results. People need to be productive and saying "I can't figure out this new version of Windows" is not an option.

4. If I had a problem with it, then who are you really targeting?
I have a high-end video editing design station that runs Windows Vista 64-bit. I did not upgrade for fear of the Black Screen of Death and because of some of the new processor licensing issues. (My machine has 12 cores and 64gb of RAM). I was looking forward to Windows 8. I have a Wacom tablet, so I can probably navigate the OS similar to a touch screen and the new touch mice make it so I could probably get one of those and use it as well. I don't want to have to upgrade everything just to run some new non-backward compliant OS. I have thousands of dollars of software licenses for all sorts of high-end production apps from 3D to Video Editing to the Adobe Creative Suite and if they don't play well with the new interface on Windows I am not upgrading.

Having Sherlock Holmes use it on the TV show Elementary was a bad idea. He's smarter than that. He's not going to be on the bleeding edge of any OS install, and if he's the hacker they're trying to make him out to be, then he's not going to be using Windows Anything as his primary machine. I'm sort of sick of the Windows product placement overall. It's a hideous interface, it reminds me of my bad experience, and it's too ubiquitous. It's like the ads during the election, I want them to end.

Another thing to consider is that because I'm one of the more technically saavy Windows supporters I'm usually the guy someone calls when they've messed something up. If I can't figure out the OS, then it's going to be a bomb for your branding. I'm going to tell people to buy a Mac. Not because I think that Apple is better, or because I think Apple has a better company. I hate Apple and their business model, but if I have to try and figure out Windows 8 on someone's machine just out of the kindness of my heart, I'm going to probably be the driving force in steering their next machine purchase immediately and I'm going to tell them if they buy a Windows machine they're on their own. I don't have the time to deal with it. I wonder what kind of machine they would buy? It's probably not going to have Windows on it... AND it will be more secure (for now).

That last statement is a little joke. Security is in the eye of the beholder. You can read more about security in my other blog at: Observation - the-analytical.blogspot.com

So in short, there's your answer. It's not the advertising, it's the branding. It's a crappy OS and word of mouth spreads faster than product placement. The more people you associate with it the worse it's going to be. Just change the interface to something people are used to and you're golden. Run a couple of press releases after the fact and they'll be much better spent than the Jonestown approach of "just drink the Kool-aid."