A decade later, one of Microsoft’s former officials looks back on the complicated fate of Windows 8.
And if, finally, the fracture operated with Windows 8 10 years ago had not just occurred a little too quickly?
Windows 8: when innovation does not rhyme with success
In the long and exciting history of Microsoft’s operating systems, the Windows 8 chapter will probably remain among the darkest. Officially launched on October 26, 2012, it presented itself as an OS with multiple ambitions: to offer a desktop experience that marks a break with the codes hitherto established by Windows while corresponding to nomadic uses. Precisely, the tablets were booming at that time.
It is therefore armed with good intentions that the Redmond firm found itself faced with what is probably to date the biggest failure in its history in terms of operating system. Launched in a context where PC sales were down sharply, Windows 8 caused public discontent due, in particular, to the disappearance of the famous “Start” menu in favor of a modernized interface in the form of tiles.
But, as the years go by, a question can now arise: wasn’t Windows 8 too far ahead of its time?
An operating system born prematurely?
The website Ars Technica was able to talk at length with the former president of the Windows division, Steven Sinofsky, who left Microsoft shortly after the deployment of Windows 8. According to him, Windows 7 marked the end of an era and preceded the beginning of a new, more important, namely that of the emergence of smartphones and tablets. It is therefore with a view to reconciling the nomadic market with that of office automation that Windows 8 was imagined, according to the words of Sinofsky collected by our colleagues fromArs Technica :
The goal was to modernize computing on a PC to be in step with the modern computing experience on smartphones. It could easily be seen as ‘catching up’, but really the whole design was about taking the essence of a PC and pushing it beyond smartphones: sharing between apps, improving touchscreen input , life files, file management, device support, etc., which did not exist on smartphones.
At the time, Microsoft was already keen to establish an ecosystem logic and to make the PC more than what it had initially been designed for, namely office automation. Nevertheless, again according to Sinofsky’s words, the market was not yet ready to welcome so many changes so suddenly.
What assessment for Windows 8, 10 years later?
Time often shows that the innovations of the past, once perceived as too complex and unsuited to the needs of consumers, were in fact based on a desire to anticipate the problems of the future. While the execution has proven to be clumsy in many respects within Windows 8, it must be recognized that Microsoft’s initial vision already considered, 10 years ago, many aspects that have become the norm today, particularly when it comes to multitasking.
In this regard, here is what Steven Sinofsky said: […] I think we tried to take Windows to the next natural stage of computing. Our vision to do this was simply too strong too soon, and as a result Windows ended up not moving forward and today retains its secure position, albeit in a shrinking desktop world, an equally challenged world by Mac, much more in 2022 than was the case in 2012. »
Observing the side of the gaming industry, the case of Windows 8 can also echo that of the Xbox One, in 2013. The latter, which precisely shared many points in common with the operating system in terms of interface, had hastily integrated the multimedia dimension into the console ecosystem. With Windows 8, Microsoft has therefore tried a little too early to converge the world of computers with that of mobiles and tablets…
Source : Ars Technica
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