Mark Pickavance finds ten elephants that the Microsoft won’t address with its new version of Windows
There’s an expression in poker that sums up well where Microsoft finds itself with Windows 10: ‘all in’. Another failure on the scale of Windows 8 could seriously undermine investor confidence in the company and those senior people it relies on to keep the company relevant in a rapidly changing technological world.
With its future riding on it, Microsoft is keen to point out how Windows 10 addresses many of the problems that its customers experienced with the previous release.
But, there are many very obvious problems with and around Windows that this new version won’t address, some through circumstance but mostly through choice.
1. Windows RT
We’ve all become tuned to how politicians will very carefully choose their words, avoiding saying anything that they might be forced to back up at any point with action or policy.
Therefore, when at the recent Windows 10 presentation, a question was asked about Surface hardware and specifically Windows RT devices, the answer immediately caused reaction among those journalists and pundits who pick up nuances.
The answer Microsoft gave was that Windows RT (and by association Surface and Surface 2 systems) would be getting an ‘update’. A few people at that presentation assumed, wrongly it turns out, that Windows 10 would be coming to those devices. It won’t be.
Subsequent questioning has revealed what Microsoft didn’t want to directly mention at the time, specifically that some bits of Windows 10 will be rolled up into a service pack for Windows RT 8.1, but that it won’t be coming to the full Windows 10 party.
That’s very telling indeed, because since CEO Satya Nadella pulled the rug from under the Surface Mini, any talk of subsequent ARM-based Microsoft hardware has all but vaporised.
However, Windows 10 will be supporting ARM-based hardware in respect of IoT, specifically a much promoted release for the Raspberry Pi 2, curiously.
When Microsoft launched the Surface and Surface 2, many pundits questioned why it had gone with ARM instead of using a low-power Intel Atom derivative. That would have given it x86 compatibility, at least. The argument put forward then was the purpose of those devices was to run universal Metro apps and not anything desktop based. Therefore the decision to give this platform a desktop that you can’t install apps on seems even more confusing in hindsight.
Windows 10 won’t be seen on Surface or Surface 2. Those with them might get be able to trade them in around release time for either a cost reduction on an Intel Surface or Windows 10 licence, but that’s just a highly optimistic guess.
2. Limited Metro App Selection
Microsoft’s strategy with Windows 8 to move us all to its new touchbased paradigm hasn’t lit many fires across the technological world. There are many critical apps missing from the Microsoft Store, very little quality control, and the usage levels have encouraged many developers to vote with their feet.
What didn’t help was that while being very similar, the store for Windows 8, Windows Phone and the Xbox One are entirely independent, and developing an app for one doesn’t automatically spawn those for the other platforms.
What Microsoft is holding out hope for is that a switch to a universal app model that covers Windows 10, Windows 10 desktop, Windows Phone 10 and Xbox One might swing the balance of power in its direction.
It’s put some tool creation effort into allowing developers to craft apps in a more homogenous way, although the idea of designing an app and then having it become multi-platform is still a pipe-dream. These problems are almost all related to Microsoft allowing each of the platforms to have its own API, with only modest amounts of overlap.
Convincing developers back is one concern, but there’s also the problem that the public hasn’t embraced these apps either. On the desktop, they like desktop apps that make good use of screen space and work well with a keyboard and mouse.
But as Windows 10 is again embracing the desktop, there isn’t any great momentum to move to Metro-style apps, unless you’re one of a small number of people who own Surface or similar hardware.
However, there is a problem with this notion, especially in respect of the mobile app selection. The apps that Windows Phone and the Windows 8 Store are missing (which includes Snapchat, SoundCloud, Clash of Clans, Pinterest and all the Google apps) aren’t available as PC desktop apps either. If they are available on the PC, it’s as a web version that doesn’t require an installation or an app store.
Therefore what’s wrong with the app store and selection generally won’t be fixed by Windows 10 or any supporting software development tools.
Unless Windows 10 can be a success on tablets and phone, in a way that Windows 8.x has so far failed to be, then it won’t attract app developers or the high-quality apps that it so badly needs.
3. Microsoft Exclusive Access
Going back as far as Office 4.3, many people have accused Microsoft of creating features and functionality that only its apps division is aware of and can exploit. It was one of the reasons put forward for breaking the company up when it got done for anti-trust, but it managed to wriggle out of that.
If you think that sort of activity ended then, you’d be wrong, because in Windows 8, Microsoft allocated exclusive powers specifically in respect of Metro (Modern, whatever…) applications.
Specifically it made up a bunch of rules about browsers and specifically those that operate on the Metro side of the UI fence. Metro browsers aren’t allowed to have plug-ins, though IE has one for Flash, and if you do use an alternative browser, it must be the ‘default’ – something the system seems less than keen to change from IE.
On Windows RT, running on Surface and Surface 2 machines, the restrictions are even greater, because no Metro browser other than IE is allowed on those machines at all.
If this seem strange, it’s worth realising that originally Microsoft wanted only IE to exist on Windows 8 to the exclusion of all others, but a fine by the EU on browser availability convinced it otherwise.
The software development team behind Firefox did develop a Metro version of its browse and continued work on it until May 2014, when it pulled the plug on the project. The two reasons it had for doing this were the silly rules that Microsoft had created about browsers under Windows 8, but also that almost nobody was using the beta version. According to Mozilla, the numbers of people using the desktop Firefox on this platform outnumbered the Metro users by a factor in excess of a thousand to one.
Microsoft still hasn’t given up the browser bone on Windows 10, promising to offer an additional browser codenamed ‘Spartan’ alongside IE. Perhaps the idea is to give the appearance of choice, without actually offering any that aren’t home grown.
Microsoft still uses its insider knowledge and arbitrary restrictions from the OS division to advantage its own apps, and Windows 10 is unlikely to change that policy.
4. Windows Segmentation
I’ve talked about this before several times; possibly more than 25 years ago was the first time.
When I talk about segmentation what I’m actually referring to is Microsoft’s bold idea to have the OS (Windows), the apps and the user data all reside on the same disk structure. This might have seemed like the simple thing to do when it organised Windows 3.x, but from a user perspective, security and securing data, it’s a veritable nightmare.
The classic example of the mess it’s made is that Windows apps are allowed to add their own DLLs (dynamic link libraries) to the System32 folder and potentially overwrite early versions, on which other apps relied.
If this had been considered at all, you should have been able to make a user data backup and an apps backup, and then apply them to a fresh OS and get yourself back to where your system had previously been.
Instead everything is junked together, like Windows is an international aircrew living out of a briefcase.
Interestingly the way that OneDrive was being developed under Windows 8.x looked like a potential start in hiving off the personal data constructs and settings as a transportable item, but recent changes seemed to have dashed those hopes.
In a similar vein, the way that Metro apps could be installed on a new PC as per another computer you own hinted that might also be finally segmented. But it doesn’t work on desktop apps, and it doesn’t work that well with Metro ones either.
Some of the changes it made with Windows 8 did suggest that some of the software team in Microsoft is well aware of the structural disaster it made with Windows long ago and is slowly trying to turn things around.
But as things stand, it doesn’t look like Windows 10 is the critical point where it finally stops being a complete slob and gets properly organised.
5. Crapware
Have you bought a branded PC recently? For those that have there’s now a ritual exercise to go through where you remove all the utter rubbish that PC makers fill their computers with before shipping them to us.
This started a long time ago, and the classic excuse that used to be rolled out was that it was included to subsidise the cost of including Windows. Well, Windows 8.1 with Bing costs the PC makers almost nothing, and they still put all this junk on.
What’s really annoying is that sometimes getting various preinstalled applications and tools off is quite difficult, and if you use the recovery partition to reinstall your system, often it makes a miraculous comeback.
The reason that you have a recovery partition is that it makes you buy a bigger drive, because so little of it is left for your use, and because Microsoft and the PC seller doesn’t want you blitzing their systems with a fresh install and getting rid of all those apps.
What’s useful to know is that there are some simple software tools on the internet that can extract your Microsoft licence codes (if you’ve lost your label) and save them handy for a reinstall. And there are also the .iso files for all the recent Windows releases (7 and 8.x) that you can write to either a DVD or USB key using a Microsoft-built tool.
Microsoft is well aware of the problem, to the extent that it actually sells versions of popular computers on its own store under the label of ‘Signature PC’. It proudly declares that these computers are “without junk and test software”, and that they come with “an anti-virus software that never expires”.
A quick trip there today revealed that it will sell you a Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 PC for £629.99, whereas Lenovo will sell you identical hardware pre-filled with garbage for just £499. That the Signature PC range even exist is a massive insult, but that they cost substantially more than those impaired intentionally is outrageous.
There’s a simple solution: make all computers ‘Signature’ by only allowing OEMs to install a pure version of Windows and forcing them to include whatever junk they’d like on a disk or USB key for the user to ignore at their leisure.
The chance of this happening with Windows 10 is probably marginally less than nil, because after upsetting them with Surface and the news that Windows 10 would be a free upgrade for many users, Microsoft probably wouldn’t want to upset PC makers any more than they’ve already been enraged.
Crapware could be formally banished by Microsoft, but it’s simply not motivated to do it.
6. A Proper Backup
How do you back up your Windows installation? That’s a very good question for most Windows 8.1 users, since Microsoft removed ‘Windows 7 File Recovery’ when it moved from Windows 8 to 8.1.
There is still a means to do a ‘system image’ in Windows 8.1, but it is now very well hidden under ‘File History’. It is also very limited in that any destination you pick to place the backup, like a USB drive, can only ever contain one backup. The creation of subsequent images overwrites any previous ones automatically, providing an easy means to obliterate a solid restoration opportunity with a corrupted one.
The suspicion is that Windows 10 will rely on a working recovery partition and the limited OneDrive functionality, or you need to have the technical knowledge to have an installation .iso handy and all the licence keys you need to use it. Or buy a copy of Acronis, like most experienced IT people do.
That Windows 8.1 doesn’t have a well-designed and easily accessible tool to back up the system is stunning, and at this point Windows 10 won’t have one either.
7. Windows Phone
A whole part of the Windows 10 presentation centred on Windows Phone and how that is a critical part of the strategy in creating a whole new personal ecosystem.
However, as important as the phone is, given that Microsoft spent billions to own Nokia to entirely guarantee it, the appearance of Windows 10 on these devices won’t actually secure its future.
The track record of this platform isn’t one that Microsoft likes to explore, as it’s so far not managed to make even a modest dent in the huge segment of the market controlled by Apple and Android phone makers.
At the last count, its actual share was declining, even after launching a whole slew of entry-level designs and bringing the platform to a new Windows Phone 8.1 level.
There’s a noticeable lack of any flagship phone replacements, and the most popular phones on this platform are all inexpensive devices selling mostly on the Nokia name in parts of the world where feature phones are still popular.
As a reviewer of these devices, I’ve noticed that when Microsoft was keen to get them on the PAYG and contract options of the various network providers, it agreed to all manner of restrictions on how updates would be managed.
In short, the updates are created by the networks using builds that Microsoft provides, with no implicit necessity on the part of the network to pass them on.
It’s true that this is basically the same as Android phones, where unless they’re Google editions, the updates are generally controlled either by the phone makers or the networks.
Where Android wins this battle is that with it being the most popular OS, even not that popular designs sell in the hundreds of thousands, which is plenty of people complaining if they don’t pass the updates on.
Apple entirely controls its own updates irrespective of the network and promises to pick up the pieces if its updates, as they have done, break things.
Where does this all leave Microsoft? It probably doesn’t bode well for any Windows phone bought before Windows 10 launches, as the networks will resist updating them to the new OS, because part of their business is selling new phones.
Whatever the strategy was for Windows Phone, it seems in tatters, because Microsoft hasn’t convinced app writers to support its platform or anyone else that it rivals either Apple or Google’s solutions.
8. Businesses Dislike Of Change
Ever since Microsoft created its software empire, there has been a schism at the heart of its business that it’s been unable or unwilling to resolve.
Most of the money the company makes is from other companies, which standardise their products and buy numerous licences for their computers and staff. We’re talking billions in revenue, but mostly for companies to install old operating systems and older applications, because what corporate giants and small business ventures agree on is that they don’t like change, and they don’t like updates, and they don’t like variation.
That’s because each PC has a hidden cost in training people to use them and their software tools, and that dwarfs the price of licences by some considerable amount.
That’s why businesses still use Windows XP and Windows 7, and many like Office 2003 or 2007, and not the latest releases.
That’s one of the reasons they rejected Windows 8 wholesale, and it won’t be much easier convincing them to move to Windows 10. Another aspect to the problem is that, according to Microsoft, this will be the last major release of Windows in the way we’ve become accustomed.
From this point onwards, Windows 10 will simply morph into the next through an evolutionary progression. That might sound good for those who will get it free, but it’s an absolute nightmare for business IT people.
When they get a support call, they need to be prepared for what version they’ll be supporting, and not whatever crazy change Microsoft has decided to flush in their direction.
It has generally been presumed that Microsoft will have some sort of mechanism for corporate IT to hold back changes for a while, so they can adapt to them before passing them to their users. If this sounds like a terrible idea, then I explained it well.
Businesses don’t like change, and even if Microsoft puts the Start menu back, they’re probably not going to be clamouring to switch their businesses to it.
As an aside to this subject, Microsoft’s much welcomed news about Windows 10 being free doesn’t translate to the Enterprise edition, unsurprisingly.
9. A Sizeable Hole In Microsoft Accounts
It’s a good gauge of how wrong things went with Windows 8 that the headline announcement about Windows 10 was that it would be free for Windows 7 and 8.x users.
The view of most financial experts is that this could stabilise the Windows part of Microsoft, but it doesn’t actually return the company to growth mode. Windows generally contributes close to $20bn a year to Microsoft’s revenue, of which almost 50% is profit. And 65% of that money comes from OEM installations, mostly by PC builders.
Microsoft has already made Windows 8 for tablets free for less than 9” screen devices, and Windows 8 with Bing is also free to those PCs that cost less than $250.
It has also been reported that for straight OEM cost on any PC, Microsoft has dropped the price to $10 and offers a “configuration discount” for Windows 8.1 with Bing, thus making it almost free.
Based on that information, the Windows division will probably have a very poor revenue year in 2015, and the majority of Windows 10 installations will be free in 2016, scrapping that year also.
Unless this encourages a huge take-up of Office 365, then the profitability of Microsoft will be impacted, and the future prospects for anyone in Wall Street will probably cause the stock value to be reduced.
Expect CEO Satya Nadella to sell the ‘jam tomorrow’ line hard at Microsoft’s next SEC filing and probably for some considerable time afterwards.
What analysts will want to hear is not how Windows 10 has addressed the slide, but how it is going to bring Microsoft back to past glories.
10. Microsoft As A Secondary OS
It has been a meteoric rise, and it could end with a dramatic fall, but when Apple launched the iPad in 2010, it really put the skates under both Microsoft and, by association, Intel.
In the five proceeding years, Microsoft had gone from dominating the OS space to not having the most popular operating system on computing devices. And ARM is now the most popular CPU, rather than anything that runs x86 code by AMD or Intel.
What could be argued is that those global numbers are massively skewed by the number of phones and tablets, where Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android are entirely dominant. But the fall in desktop and laptop sales demonstrate that people are buying phones and tablets instead of Intelbased computers, so the change from one model to an alternate one is real.
In 2014, according to figures published by statistics company Gartner, the PC market shrunk by 3.2% from roughly 318 million sold to 308 million, while the mobile market grew from 4.2% from 2,334 million to 2,433 million devices shipped.
If you break down those numbers, PCs actually grew in the ultramobile segment, but traditional desktop and notebook devices declined. Even more worrying for Microsoft, sales of Chromebooks in the USA exploded in 2014, especially in the educational sector.
US market-watcher NPD reported that from January to November 2014 the share of the computing platform market allocated to Chromebooks went from just 0.2% in the previous year to a whopping 9.6%. Isolating laptops, Chromebooks now represent 21% of them sold, whereas Apple has just 4% and Windows 75%.
With this trend likely to continue, even if Windows 10 is a success, Microsoft should probably expect that it will be the third OS in the mobile space and only just the leader in the laptop sector.
While it still dominates the desktop space, having people use its Windows OS to run the Chrome desktop browser and access Google’s services is a pretty hollow victory.
Windows 10 probably won’t address the declining sales of PCs or the movement to OS agnosticism we’ve seen in recent years.