Windows8 is still searching for its USP

OMG the PC business is tanking. The likes of HP and Dell are suffering. Really too bad, how come actually and should we be worried? These interesting questions are in my opinion easier to answer than most think. How about: the days of the PC are over, we won't need powerful desktop machines any longer, unless you are in the video or sound recording business. Come on guys accept it, the desktop PC is a dead horse and we should be happy.

The last time I bought a desktop PC was in 2004. It was a huge machine, can't remember the processor speed, the hard disk size nor the RAM memory but it had one thing that impressed everyone; 3 SVGA screens. 

So yes, it looked the part in my small recording studio. It had a DVD-R drive, way ahead of most other PC's. I never ever recorded anything on it though. But then I moved on professionally and privately and my mobile lifestyle started with a Dell laptop that was surprisingly powerful.

Since then I never ever considered going back to having a desktop PC. The stuff I do, word processing, surfing on the web, Powerpoint presentations and so on and so forth do not require a powerful machine. On top of that I switched professionally from a lamentable experience consisting of a laptop PC with Windows Vista to a MacBook Pro and I swear, I will never go back again, unless Apple turns into the next Microsoft.

So back to the desktop PC topic. This type of machine was meant to help you executing tasks. Specifically for video and audio recording and editing local processor power is very important. But how many of us actually do this? Without knowing the actual numbers I'd say that at least 80% of the all the computer users never ever need the full processing power available today.

Even better, most of what we need to achieve is possible on pretty much any laptop or ultrabook if you must. If you then look at the convenience of the laptop form factor one really wonders why you would ever buy a clumsy desktop PC. Even if you need an additional large screen all laptops today have a graphics card that allows you to connect a massively big external screen that will satisfy most users. Ok, I don't know about three screens but hey, isn't that what Thunderbolt would allow?

So back to Windows8, what is its USP actually? Touch screen support? Interesting enough few people know that this is a standard feature of Windows7. It has a few drawbacks when you use it on a touch screen since some interactions are optimized for classic mouse-clicking. But other than that it generally just works.

The Windows8 tiles are nice at first but the value add of having an overview on one screen of your activities is exaggerated. Most of the programs running on Windows8 do not really match this User Interface paradigm, at least not yet and after using it a while, I found myself actually switching back to the classic interface. The reason for this might be that I'm so much used to this that I feel I'm getting quicker to what I need. Maybe a younger generation will prefer the Tiles, no idea.

That I'm not the only one switching back to the 'classic' Windows interface, is confirmed by IDC Analyst Bob O'Donell in this article. Also recently Jun Dong-soo, Samsung's head of memory business, stated that the poor attach rate for ultrabooks is linked to Microsoft's "less competitive Windows platform". He predicted this and took the decision to focus on memory for mobile a while ago. We can simply say today that this decision has more than paid off for Samsung.

On a tablet Windows8 may have its charms compared to iOS but in trying to be different it comes with drawbacks, specifically when it comes to speed and smoothness of the experience.

But what is really disappointing is the Search function in Windows8. Although its a leap forward compared to Windows7 and all previous iterations, it still can't match the sheer powerful elegance of Spotlight MacOS. The most important key-combination for me every day (cmd + spacebar), gets me Google-like quick to everything on my laptop.

For Microsoft I guess times are changing, to stay ahead of the change from desktop PC's to mobile, a super nice UI doesn't make the cut it. What does? Search, voice command even eye-tracking comes to mind. Although Microsoft has exciting things like Kinect among its offerings and it has a SDK available, suggesting that it will be part of Windows in the future, I am still not convinced that the integration will be as elegant as we're used to have from Apple, specifically from the times where Steve Jobs was still at the helm.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Matt