Are new microsoft products toxic to consumers?

[emosun]

Not physically toxic , but in terms of desirability.

I was thinking about this today and after a bit a research I can't help but notice , it seems like although they are financially doing well their products don't seem to be landing very well. Windows phone and microsoft edge are two obvious examples. But the one I find most interesting is the worldwide windows adaption rate charts.

 

With windows 8.1 not making much of an impact it seems people didn't really want it as a replacement for 7 which is understandable for the time. 10 has a very similar adaption rate to 7 which you might think is good , however , windows 10 was essentially free for a year and still free to anyone running windows 7 or 8 until recently. While windows 7 was pretty much never massively free. 

It leads me to believe the only products people desire from microsoft as much as they previously did are ones that are free. And even then they aren't desired as much (windows 7 taking 2 years to eclipse xp , windows 10 taking over two years to eclipse 7)

I'm starting to think that microsoft may run into problems in the future with how many people actually WANT to buy their products vs being forced to pay for them or getting them for free.

[SansVarnic]

I wouldn't say toxic but we now have more choice these days now we are past the Microsoft and IBM dominated market, it is more diverse market so that trend is of no surprise.

[Levisallanon]

you forget the corporate market often doesn't upgrade that fast, and while a free upgrade sounds nice for them it would mean more cost to have this "free upgrade". They just stick to their time frames and when windows 7 leaves support only then will they switch to the new platform which by then is matured and has a reliable version and extensive documentation.

[79wjd]

11 minutes ago, SansVarnic said:

I wouldn't say toxic but we now have more choice these days now we are past the Microsoft and IBM dominated market, it is more diverse market so that trend is of no surprise.

Not only that, it's also worth keeping in mind that computer performance has been relatively stagnant since W7 launched compared to when XP launched. 

 

Windows XP launched in 2001 when single core CPUs were commonplace. Windows 7 launched around the first gen Core series (which is only 50%~ slower than KL -- not a big difference for the average user). So, the average person who bought an XP machine was more likely to need more CPU power, storage, or RAM to do basic tasks whereas the average Windows 7 machine is still powerful enough even today for many people. On top of all of that, computers were also far more common during W7 days than W XP days (so all of those people who didn't have a W XP computer at all needed to buy a new computer too).

 

On top of all of that, reliability has also improved over the years making upgrades less likely as well. 

[emosun]

2 hours ago, SansVarnic said:

I wouldn't say toxic but we now have more choice these days now we are past the Microsoft and IBM dominated market, it is more diverse market so that trend is of no surprise.

Even so , to go from a paid OS becoming dominant within 2 years , to a free os not being dominant in OVER 2 years , within less than a decade span I feel still shows a sort of bad trend that could be occurring for them.

I think windows 8 sort of left a bad impression of change with the metro interface , and then windows 10 compounded this with it's bad introduction/forced installations/free candy esc feel.

I would almost be interested to see a windows server adoption rate chart to see if it at all is affected ad it tend to be a very non bloated stripped down simplified (more business tool like) os.

[79wjd]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

Even so , to go from a paid OS becoming dominant within 2 years , to a free os not being dominant in OVER 2 years , within less than a decade span I feel still shows a sort of bad trend that could be occurring for them.

I think windows 8 sort of left a bad impression of change with the metro interface , and then windows 10 compounded this with it's bad introduction/forced installations/free candy esc feel.

I would almost be interested to see a windows server adoption rate chart to see if it at all is affected ad it tend to be a very non bloated stripped down simplified (more business tool like) os.

As I mentioned earlier, there is likely a lot more going on here than people just choosing not to upgrade to W10. You have to keep in mind that MOST people upgrade when they get a new computer. Most people aren't tech savvy. 

[LordMMX]

yes they are. it began with windows 98 and did not ended until now. and with windows 10 it got even worse. windows ME was pretty good and Windows 2000 too. but otherwise it was just collecting data from customers.

[79wjd]

1 hour ago, LordMMX said:

windows ME was pretty good....

I think you need to switch to weaker drugs. 

[LordMMX]

10 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

I think you need to switch to weaker drugs. 

I've used it for few years. It was more stable than Win98. It just needed powerful machine to run flawlessly.

[emosun]

16 minutes ago, LordMMX said:

I've used it for few years. It was more stable than Win98. It just needed powerful machine to run flawlessly.

I actually ran a compaq deskpro that ran windows ME native , I also had no issues with it.

the problem ME had was with mixing driver types. If your entire machine had ME drivers and wasn't using 9x drivers anywhere it actually ran perfectly fine. it was basically a lot like 98 but had some extra bells and whistles so it ended up being pretty good.

[LordMMX]

Just now, emosun said:

I actually ran a compaq deskpro that ran windows ME native , I also had no issues with it.

the problem ME had was with mixing driver types. If your entire machine had ME drivers and wasn't using 9x drivers anywhere it actually ran perfectly fine. it was basically a lot like 98 but had some extra bells and whistles so it ended up being pretty good.

it was Win 9x with Win 2K guts so yeah, I agree with drivers.

[JoostinOnline]

1 minute ago, LordMMX said:

it was Win 9x with Win 2K guts so yeah, I agree with drivers.

That's one of the biggest problems Vista had at the start.  None of the XP drivers worked with Vista.  You either had crappy generic ones, or ones that had been hacked together without enough time.  Vista drivers worked fine on Windows 7.

 

Windows Vista gets crapped on a lot, but it was actually a great OS.  Windows 7, which almost everyone loves, is nearly a carbon copy of Vista post-SP1.  Vista brought a ton of amazing features, and most of them rolled over to Windows 7.

[handymanshandle]

Smartphones have to do with it too I think.