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Microsoft is trying to fix what it got wrong with its radical makeover of Windows. It’s making the operating system easier to navigate and enabling users to set up the software so it starts in a more familiar format designed for personal computers. The revisions to Windows 8 will be released later this year. The free update, called Windows 8.1, represents Microsoft’s concessions to long-time customers taken aback by the dramatic changes to an operating system that had become a staple in households and offices around the world during the past 20 years. Research group IDC has blamed Windows 8...

Research firm Forrester says IT isn't interested in Windows 8, and that the platform's success relies on consumers and BYOD. Given that consumers aren't exactly embracing the new OS, Win8's prospects are easy to dismiss -- so much so that Frank X. Shaw, Redmond's VP of corporate communications, recently felt compelled to reprimand the media for its emphatically bleak appraisal of his company's plight. But here's the thing: Shaw could be right. Windows 8's consumer appeal is about to get a major upgrade. An important note: this prediction presupposes that the OS's usability issues are addressed in Windows 8.1, a...

Microsoft is preparing to reverse course over key elements of its Windows 8 operating system, marking one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola’s New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago.

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has sold 100 million Windows 8 licenses in the six months since launch, roughly in line with the previous version, but wants to combat sputtering interest in its flagship software with a substantial update to make it easier to use, and compatible with smaller tablets. Windows 8 is the first Microsoft operating system primarily designed for touch commands, but it has failed to capture consumers' imaginations or make a dent in a tablet market dominated by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics. "Is it perfect? No. Are there things we need to change? Absolutely. We are being...

Microsoft is preparing to reverse course over key elements of its Windows 8 operating system, marking one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola's New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago. "Key aspects" of how the software is used will be changed.

Although Microsoft is staying mum about Windows 8 tablet sales, research firm Strategy Analytics has some slightly encouraging news. In the first quarter of 2013, Windows 8 and RT devices accounted for 7.5 percent of the tablet market, with 3 million units shipped. That’s up from 0 percent a year earlier, before Windows-based tablets were feasible. Granted, 7.5 percent of the market isn’t a huge number. In a statement to CNet, Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Shah referred to the Windows tablet market as a “niche,” set back by “limited distribution, a shortage of top tier apps, and confusion in the...

On April 18, Microsoft didn't share the one number many company watchers had been awaiting: An updated count of number of Windows 8 licenses sold.There was no guarantee the Softies would provide an updated count today, the day it released its Q3 FY2013 earnings. But many of us had been expecting it.Microsoft officials said they sold more than 40 million copies of Windows 8 the first month it was commercially available.On January 8, Microsoft officials said the company had sold 60 million licenses of Windows 8 to date. This total included sales of licenses to OEMs, as well as Windows 8...

Don't blame Windows 8 for plummeting PC sales, a retail analyst said today. "It wasn't about Windows 8, it was much more about the price challenges facing OEMs," said Stephen Baker of the NPD Group, citing U.S. retail sales data the firm collected in the first quarter. "People want cheap touch devices, and that's where Windows 8 devices can't compete right now." While IDC and Gartner last week said U.S. PC shipments dropped 13% and 10% in the first quarter compared to the same three-month span in 2012, Baker said retail sales were essentially flat. And rather than blame Windows...

Microsoft may recant its Windows 8 design theology, bloggers reported Tuesday, by offering Windows 8 users an option to bypass the "Modern" UI and by restoring the Start button and menu to the beleaguered operating system. A pair of longtime Microsoft hands, Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet and Tom Warren of The Verge, citing unnamed sources and messages on Windows discussion forums, said Microsoft was considering those tweaks for an upcoming update, called "Windows Blue" by some and "Windows 8.1" by others. The upgrade, the first of a planned faster development and release tempo, is allegedly slated for an October...

Most people in our recent debate over the future of Windows 8 thought that the operating system could be saved. I'm sure many people in 1491 thought that the Earth was flat, too. The very day the debate came to an end, this headline appeared: IDC: Global PC shipments plunge in worst drop in a generation. Sure, a lot of that was due to the growth of tablets and smartphones and the rise of the cloud, but Windows 8 gets to take a lot of the blame too. After all, the debate wasn't whether or not Windows 8 was any...

Calling the latest operating system a “failure” and Microsoft’s leaders “idiots,” a top tech website has proclaimed the PC era over. Windows is coming to a dead end, they say. PC shipments collapsed in the last quarter by almost 14 percent, analysts with IDC said last week, marking the biggest drop in sales since the firm started tracking them 19 years ago. The problem, said ZDNet’s well respected Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols, isn’t the designs from the likes of HP and Dell or the size of consumer’s wallets. It’s Microsoft. “Look at the numbers: Metro-interface operating systems have already failed,” Vaughn-Nichols...

On May 5, 1907, The New York Times published a column written that same morning by Mark Twain on the news of his death the day before. “You can assure my Virginia friends,” said Twain, “that I will make an exhaustive investigation of this report that I have been lost at sea. If there is any foundation for the report, I will at once apprise the anxious public.” The event led to the oft-misquoted phrase: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Everyone it seems, loves a good untimely death So much so, the Wikipedia maintains a list of...

North Korea Missile Test Delayed By Windows 8, Kim Jong-Un To Declare War On Microsoft? /snip The New Yorker is claiming the North Korea missile test was delayed by Windows 8 since previously their computers were running on Windows 95. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) says they are “working with Windows 8 support to resolve the issue” and the North Korea missile test has “been delayed indefinitely.” It’s said “Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un is furious about the Windows 8 problems” and may declare war on Microsoft. /snip

In another sign of the worldwide shift in preferred personal devices, PC shipments posted the steepest decline ever in a single quarter, according to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker (IDC). Worldwide PC shipments totaled 76.3 million units in the first quarter of 2013, down -13.9 percent compared to the same quarter in 2012 and worse than the forecast decline of -7.7 percent, according to the IDC. Despite some mild improvements in the economic environment, PC shipments were down significantly across all regions compared to a year ago, marking the worst quarter reported since IDC began tracking the...

PC sales certainly haven’t been good over the past year or so, but this past quarter was record-setting bad. Shipments of PCs fell 14% worldwide last quarter, according to IDC. It was the worst yearly decline since IDC began tracking the data in 1994. … Bob O’Donnell, a vice president at IDC, said in the company’s report that “the Windows 8 launch not only failed to provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market.” …

Microsoft's Windows 8 software appears to be driving buyers away from PCs and toward smartphones and tablets, research firm IDC said Wednesday. That's leading to the fastest drop in PC sales the firm has ever seen. Global shipments of PCs fell 14 percent in the first three months this year, IDC said. That's the sharpest plunge since the firm started tracking the industry in 1994. ...

We already know a fair bit about Windows Blue. Last month's leaked build gave us a good glimpse of the operating system, and word out on the web is that the first (and only) public preview will show up in late June. Well, ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley has now added another tidbit to the growing pile: the OS's official name. "Microsoft officials supposedly have decided on the final name for Windows Blue," she writes. "The final decision, one of my sources told me, is that it will be Windows 8.1."Foley says we can expect a branding strategy similar to what Microsoft...

I need some computer advice. I have 4 computers at home. Two laptops and two desktops. One laptop has Windows 7 and is used by my wife for genealogy research and net surfing. The others are mine and they have XP (desktop currently needs new MB) Windows 7 (desktop) and Vista (laptop used in my traveling and some of my work. I absolutely hate the Vista machine. It is slow and even slower when running multiple pages. I have run every correction and restoration program available on it and I still hate using it. When I use it at work,...

Survey - Redmond so busy pushing Win 8, some IT directors didn't get the memo***************************************** A large number of Microsoft customers are in for a rude awakening on 8 April 2014. With less than 400 days to go, 15 per cent of those running Windows XP are still unaware that that’s the date Microsoft finally turns off all support for its legacy PC operating system, according to a recent survey. After 8 April next year, Microsoft will no longer make bug fixes or security updates for Windows XP, meaning customers will be naked and vulnerable to hackers and viruses and...

Windows fans will whine, but Net Applications' desktop operating systems numbers don't lie. Windows 8's pathetic user adoption numbers can't even keep up with Vista's lousy numbers. Windows 8 usage can't even keep up with Vista/s poor numbers. (Data from Net Applications) The numbers speak for themselves. Vista, universally acknowledged as a failure, actually had significantly better adoption numbers than Windows 8. At similar points in their roll-outs, Vista had a desktop market share of 4.52% compared to Windows 8's share of 2.67%. Underlining just how poorly Windows 8's adoption has gone, Vista didn't even have the advantage of holiday...