Change for Change's Sake?

The company thinks it has some good reasons to push Windows 8 to market as quickly as possible. Nevertheless there are evenly good reasons for small businesses to keep their distance.

Regardless of those commercials that say "Windows 7 was my idea," Microsoft has another idea in mind -- and it's to bring out Windows 8 as quickly as possible. That could mean we'll see the new OS by early then and there year.

What is surprising is that Microsoft is already referring to Windows 8 as the biggest update in 16 years - which dates back to the arrival of Windows 95, clearly.

During that decade and a half, we've seen Windows hit lofty highs and sink to extreme lows - the high points being Windows XP and now Windows 7, and the lows being Windows ME and clearly Windows Vista. Nevertheless what makes this notable is the trend that Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows Division at Microsoft, played up in a recent blog post:

"However so much has changed since Windows 95-the last time Windows was significantly overhauled-when the "desktop" metaphor was established. Today more than two out of three PCs are mobile. Near every PC is capable of wireless connectivity. Screen sizes range from in accordance with 10" to wall-sized screens and multiple HD screens. Storage has jumped from megabytes to terabytes and has moved up to the cloud. The appearance of touch-screen mobile phones with the rich capabilities they bring, have at the same time changed the way we all view computing. Most of all, computing is much more focused on applications and on people than on the operating system itself or the data."

Single sentence

I will give Sinofsky some leeway for trying to include too many talking points into a single sentence, however I do take issue with his casual claim that two out three PCs today are "mobile." Unless we count smartphones in the mix it seems highly unlikely that two out of three PCs are, to tell the truth, mobile. Even with laptops, netbooks, etc. it this number as a matter of fact accurate?

In addition, Windows XP - an operating system not available on tablets - is after all dominant, even if it just fell to in accordance with 50 percent of the PC market.

Of course, it is as well Sinofsky's job to promote and hype Windows 8, which will feature a new tablet-friendly interface. That's not surprising, nor is the fact that Microsoft is going to roll out a touch-screen enabled OS. This is as a matter of fact good news for business, as at times it might be easy to touch the monitor and move things around instead of having to rely on the mouse and keyboard.

However, this insistence on change for change's sake is what got Microsoft into trouble with ME and Vista, two operating systems that forced basic changes on users. As a long-time user I've ranted about these issues previously. Nevertheless imagine if a small business was so quick to just accept that these changes without considering where they are going.

In fact, this explains why Windows XP retains near 50 percent market share - because it works then enough to do those things I just mentioned.

Innovation does bring us forward, and anyway you look at it Microsoft sees that tablets and touchscreens are part of the future. This is why Apple has become so successful; they react to changes such as much as Microsoft, however they do so after a fashion that focuses on real research. Apple as well has done a great job of making products in existing categories better - better computers with the Mac, better digital music players with the iPod, better smartphones with the iPhone and better tablets with the iPad.

So, maybe, now Microsoft is looking to do the same. But, small businesses can't afford to rush forward as eagerly as Sinofsky. During Microsoft had a debacle with Windows Vista and recovered very then with Windows 7, most small and medium sized businesses won't get the same chance to recover from misguided commitments to new innovation.

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