Microsoft partners, developers and customers may get a clearer picture this week of how the company plans to keep Windows relevant now that its rock-solid position in the market has been shaken by competitors, shifts in technology and the lukewarm reception of recent releases.
“The future of Windows is overall in a bit of jeopardy,” said Gartner analyst Michael Silver.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s newly minted CEO, recently said that he and other top executives would discuss future “innovations” for Windows at the Build conference. They will have their work cut out for them.
“One of the questions right up front I wanted to address is, ‘What about Windows, where does Windows fit in with all of this?’” Nadella said at the press conference he held to introduce Office for iPad. There, he reiterated that Microsoft is focused on serving customers both at home and at work in what it views as a “mobile-first, cloud-first” world.
“Windows is a massive agenda for us. We will innovate and you will see us talk [at Build] about the great innovations in the operating system and great innovations in devices,” he said.
Windows was for decades the king of operating systems for personal computing equipment, ruling over desktop and laptop PCs, but the monarch OS is having trouble defending its throne in the age of smart phones and tablets, where iOS and Android rule.
Windows 8, which was supposed to extend the operating system’s dominance to tablets, got mixed reviews, in particular because its new tile interface, optimised for tablets, was considered inconvenient for desktop PC users even though it also came with an alternate “traditional” Windows 7-like interface.
In the end, Windows 8 did not come close to achieving the success Microsoft envisioned for it, and an 8.1 update was released almost a year later. Windows 8.1 smoothed out some of the rough edges, but it had its own bugs, and many felt it did not go far enough in addressing the needs of keyboard-and-mouse users.
Microsoft is expected to detail further refinements to Windows 8.1 at Build.
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