After ditching its Windows RT tablets from the US market, Samsung has now also confirmed to Heise.de it’s going to stop selling them in Germany and several other European countries. The company cites lack of interest from consumers and confusion over what Windows RT is. Combined with the massive discounts Microsoft is now giving to OEMs, the writing is on the wall here: Windows 8 – specifically on tablets but also in general – is turning into a failure.
Unfortunately the differences between RT and Pro are not simple enough to get through to an average consumer.
Imagine the poor sales people trying to explain to consumers that yes it is a windows tablet, but no, you can’t run all your Windows programs on it.
And without the catalogue of existing software from x86, all you have is what’s available in Windows Store…and trust me, that ain’t much!
Lets hope consumers get used to the introduction of ARM to the mix as it will enable some much more flexible products than if MS are purely tied to x86.
Why should my mom care that WindowsRT cannot run her Windows software?
It is all MS fault PERIOD
This whole “We push Metro/Modern/Win8/RT down peoples throats so that in the long run we can hopefully compete” is so f***ing stupid that MS deserves every bit of failure they are getting.
Your mom [sic] should research what a product is capable of before making that purchase as should every other consumer.
I regularly buy products that I am not familiar with, however, I take the time to understand and research different options before I make a purchase. Many other people do the same. It’s about time that the minority that expect society to attach padding to their lives grew up and acted like adults.
Edited 2013-03-06 12:33 UTC
You don’t research every product you buy. That’s nonsense, and you know it. Nobody does.
It’s just as much nonsense as people claiming not to be influenced by advertisements. I always get a good laugh out of that that one whenever people say that, after which they subconsciously pick the toothpaste that’s seen heavy ad rotation on TV this past week.
Actually I do, I can’t think of anything I purchase that I don’t know well or at least read up on before purchasing, I’ve even researched the meat content percentage of different meat pie brands at my local supermarket.
So basically you research products that you care about. Average person does not care so much about computers.
I think they should care about anything that costs a fair amount.
Why spend hundreds of dollars/euro’s on something you don’t even know for sure what it is, what is can and can not do?
I assume people buy a tablet for a reason, so they better make sure that the tablet can provide it.
You don’t need to research for hours or learn every tiny detail, but if you want a tablet that runs “real” Windows applications it isn’t too difficult to find out.
For you it isn’t difficult but then you read OSAlert.com on a regular base… That’s telling
I’ll be honest, I don’t know which Windows Surface/RT/8 does what. I requested a quote from Dell yesterday and just told the guy what I wanted it to be able to do.
I don’t know what he quoted though, because I forwarded it to the co-worker that needed one.
I’m playing around with Windows 8 on a desktop and it’s not so bad as I expected it to be. Maybe I’ll even start to like it.
Congratulations, you are the atypical consumer. Your psychological make-up makes you methodical and prepared. It also makes you part of a minority. Most people don’t want to know what magic goblins make the thingamajig go. As long as it goes.
If it says Windows on the tin, it better do what Windows does. No, what kind of incompatible goblins (ARM) are underneath is irrelevant. If Auntie Maggie’s Birthdaycard Maker Deluxe doesn’t work on Windows RT, then Windows RT is broken. Especially because Windows RT carries a desktop mode, so it definitely smells like regular Windows.
You want to know the thought processes involved? Pick an area that absolutely doesn’t interest you, doesn’t interest you at all. Now go research that and see how much detail you allow yourself to eek out of it.
Exactly. Also Microsoft did a great deal to spread the story “its Windows!” in there billion dollar marketing splash. Hey, they even went that far to make Windows desktop and RT and Phone look the same, name it the same. Its all Windows, its the same. Reality is it isn’t. It looks so and marketing says so but it just is not. Those products are so highly incompatible to each other that it isn’t fun anymore. Even Linux with Wine is more compatible to Windows desktop then RT is.
Edited 2013-03-06 17:10 UTC
You’re one of the minority. The majority relies on impulse buying where marketing guides them to which products they should choose. And not everybody has the time to research the technical aspect of every product so this is Microsoft’s fault.
….like toilet paper? Bottled Water? gas for your car? trail mix? If so, wow I wish I had that much time on my hands!
I find advertisements irritating and tend to boycott companies for getting through my ad blocking but, even before I stopped watching TV, I’d always pick the cheapest toothpaste which matches the active ingredients and other properties of brands I’m already familiar with, regardless of branding.
These days, whenever I do see advertising, I consider it a disincentive because there must be some generic competitor capable of offering the same product at the same price… minus the cost of running the ads.
However, I will admit that, once in a blue moon, a new type of product will enter my list of things it’d be nifty to have because someone advertised a product that is an instance of it.
(99% of the time, things enter that list because, for example, a friend introduced me to Arduino or LWN mentioned the ColorHug open-source colorimeter, or I was searching for something else on DX.com and stumbled across a $5 magnifier/light monocle intended for watch repair)
Of course, unless it’s something truly unique like the Oculus Rift, all that means is that I’ll find a generic clone on eBay/DX.com/etc. or wander over to somewhere like Instructables to look for instructions on hacking one up myself.
Edited 2013-03-06 14:11 UTC
IOW, ads affect your buying decisions.
phoenix,
“IOW, ads affect your buying decisions.”
There’s a difference though, ssokolow was consciously deciding how to factor ads into his buying decisions.
I guess you could say there is a 2d matrix:
Conciousness -> low – high
Influence -> negative – positive
Thom’s assertion was that people who were not conscious of the ad still had positive influence from it. ssokolow claimed high consciousness of the ad gives him negative influence towards it. For myself, I have high consciousness of ads I’ve seen and have neutral influence from them.
I have trouble with advertising for my self because I have trouble fitting into the shoes of people who are receptive towards advertising. I’ll see something that has no affect on me and I have no idea if it could work on other people.
Thom Holwerda,
“You don’t research every product you buy. That’s nonsense, and you know it. Nobody does.”
Maybe not “every product”, but you’d be surprised Thom. Some of us are in the habit of researching the products we buy when we haven’t bought them before, *especially* for high ticket technology items.
“It’s just as much nonsense as people claiming not to be influenced by advertisements. I always get a good laugh out of that that one whenever people say that, after which they subconsciously pick the toothpaste that’s seen heavy ad rotation on TV this past week.”
Your assuming ads work universally, but in fact it depends on the person. Some of us don’t watch or listen to ads at all and cannot be influenced that way. Many of us are price shoppers and so brand name’s almost always loose out to generics regardless of their ads. Ads are not effective on everyone.
Some (not all?) of us OSAlert.com regulars and tech junkys. q.e.d.
Edited 2013-03-06 17:13 UTC
cdude,
“Some (not all?) of us OSAlert.com regulars and tech junkys. q.e.d.”
And? Some people do more research than others. There are a lot of things I’d research even if they weren’t in my field: bicycles, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, cars, etc. That’s just me. If I’m going to spend a lot of money on something I want to make sure it works and lasts.
I’ve actually changed somewhat over the past few years. I used to be price sensitive above all else, but I’m so tired of being burned by things breaking or not working like they’re supposed to that I consider paying more than I used to for higher quality. This is no small feat in part because everyone (even brand names) are migrating to the cheapest possible Chinese components they can find.
Edited 2013-03-06 17:43 UTC
Absolutely but I would suggest it doesn’t even take a high ticket price or be restricted to technology. As an example, I know somebody right now who is shopping for a coffee maker in the $100-$200 price range. She’s educated herself using owner reviews, warranty details, return policies, etc. She’s just an average person who happens to want the best deal & product for her money, and there are tons of people just like her.
It’s completely idiotic to insist that everyone is a victim of advertising for exactly the reasons you’ve pointed out and then some. Some people are indeed very impressionable, but others are highly non-impressionable. You may find plenty of items in Thom’s house that he was subconsciously instructed to purchase but you’d be hard-pressed doing that in my house.
Again, everybody is subject to suggestion through advertising. However, not everybody is affected to the same degree. For many of us it takes no effort to resist the vast majority, possibly nearly all the advertising we get spammed with.
How do you know that? The whole idea of being subconsciously persuaded to do something is that YOU’RE NOT AWARE that you’re being manipulated.
Like many people, I decide what I like, prefer, and want to purchase based on my own criteria & justifications. Unlike the type of person you’re describing who tends to be thoughtless and easily persuaded.
Advertising is certainly manipulative, but it is not magical. To think that everybody who is exposed to advertising is hypnotized either consciously or subconsciously is silly at best. There’s no getting around the fact people are individuals and that alone means advertising can not be 100% effective.
Edited 2013-03-06 19:32 UTC
Eh, that shit is sneaky
I’ve found myself at times craving a certain food, and then remember I heard an ad about it a little earlier in the day. Who knows what kind of subtle effects advertising has that we’re not even aware of. Advertisers wouldn’t be paying millions if most people were immune to it. Personally? I’d rather just avoid it altogether.
Me too. ANYTHING over $100 gets researched, and I’m not talking about just watching ads either.
You, however, did buy a Windows PC. Thus your brain is bound to extrapolate that to Windows RT.
JAlexoid,
“You, however, did buy a Windows PC. Thus your brain is bound to extrapolate that to Windows RT.”
My response to Thom was really just to counter one point out of context of this whole Windows RT thing. I agree that the “Windows RT” name is misleading, and the ads don’t acknowledge it. It is likely there are some customers buying these devices without knowledge of the software limitations of windows rt because no one told them this windows isn’t the same windows.
Well… Even I was confused when I first encountered a Windows RT laptop(convertible, I think it was Sony). It took me 5 minutes of swiping and clicking around before I noticed. I bet the average consumer would be furious with the limitations and fooled easier than I am.
You’d be surprised. Ok I won’t research products that I use only once or dispose of fast, like food (unless I keep on buying the exact same thing recurrently) and even then there’s exceptions.
I’m pretty sure there’s people at there that are worse.
I’m sorry. But they put a Windows badge on it. It’s as confusing as the whole Vista sticker thing was. A person comes into a shop and sees a Windows machine. It looks very similar to other Windows machines. Even has a sticker saying Windows. There is an expectation that a brand will mean something. Having 3 levels of branding is counter-productive.
If they called it something else than Widnows then it would be painfully obvious, that it’s not going to run your apps. They could have called it Metro(or something other, since that name is registered)
Your mom should have researched other men before having sex with your dad and making you.
Selling Windows without Windows compatibility was a colossal f–k-up of techtarded history. We pointed this out to Sinofsky last year but I guess you and him needed time to understand how incredibly retarded this plan is. Thousands of Microsoft partners like myself screaming THIS IS A f–kING BAD IDEA wasn’t enough. It had to go to market and waste a bunch of money on dance commercials.
Edited 2013-03-07 07:01 UTC
My Grandmother use to use FamilyTree or another genealogy program. It ran on Windows, and we moved it to new computers when her computer was upgraded. It was a simple program, but it was important for her.
Now, imagine telling her and others that they can’t use those specialty programs on the new-fangled Windows computer that is Windows but not Windows.
My grandfather would have understood – he did some programming – but she wasn’t that literate, and wouldn’t have understood what ARM or x86 meant.
Outside the tech industry – e.g. programmers, engineers, tech pundits, and a portion of their managers – that’s basically the case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxAKFlpdcfc
By calling WinRT (and to a lesser extent Win8) Windows it puts in peoples mind a fixed idea of what the OS is and what it can and can’t do (well).
The OS core + Metro UI would have been better off with a new name. The same goes for the phones.
I am not sure Windows Games Console or Windows GC has quite the same clarity that Xbox has. Having said that MS of the time would have called it Windows for Games Consoles 2003 Edition.
Yeah, even sequential numbers have become passe; we’ve now moved on to colours. I’m guessing that by the time the XBOX 1440 comes out, it’ll be running “Windows Dill Pickle”.
They would have called an Android/Linux based OS “Windows X” everybody would have assumed that since there is a “Windows” in it, it could runs “Windows” program.
Nailed it ! Windows RT is 100% unable to run legacy Windows program ? Windows 95 was able, Windows NT was able, Windows XP was able, and now Windows RT cannot ? Where it is EXPLICITLY mentioned for the average Joe ?
Kochise
Lack of apps, and the software quality that only microsoft can make… not even a surprise…
u mad microsoft ?
This past weekend my wife decided to replace her aging laptop. While she had already planned to put Windows 7 on it instead (don’t get me started on the SecureBoot/UEFI/GPT adventure that’s been so far), she thought she’d at least give Windows 8 a look. It took us less than 5 minutes to come to the conclusion that it was a horrendous blunder of a UI and needed to go immediately. Makes me very glad I decided to upgrade my laptop right before Windows 8 hit and avoid this whole mess.
I realize the article is more about WinRT, but my point is – like Tom’s summation – is that across the board Windows 8 is a disaster. And in the age of such anti-consumer practices like Secure Boot and botched UEFI implementations (*cough* Samsung! *cough*), it’s making it very difficult for anyone to get modern hardware without crippled software.
Windows 8 is great… for tablets. They should’ve made Windows 8 a successor to Windows 7 in spirit. A normal start menu, normal applications, perhaps Metro-styled (rather than wholesale metro).
Windows RT is great for tablets, but it is confusing reasons: the name lets people believe it is regular Windows, nobody knows what an ‘RT’ is, and adding the Surface Pro to the mix only adds to the confusion. It would’ve been better if they had only one tablet operating system, one architecture and leave it at that (Windows Tablet 8?)
I realize that they are aiming to make a hybrid tablet/desktop operating system. But that has never been tried with much success. Metro is annoying to use on vertical services (which Microsoft seems to realize, since its touch covers have a trackpad).
Edited 2013-03-06 15:38 UTC
It’s your chance, Android, Ubuntu and other outsiders
Android, the consumer OS number 1, an outsider? Isn’t it more like Microsoft Windows is the outsider caught in there legacy world and failing since years to get a feed into other markets?
Some of you are missing the point. I am sure a fair number of people did what they thought was proper research before they bought this tablet. Watch any of the Microsoft ads. Do they ever say ANYWHERE that it is not compatible with the regular windows apps? Nope. Microsoft is using the misconception that Windows RT is Windows. Its not. But people don’t realize that until its too late.
Why should the consumer buy a Samsung WinRT tablet when they can get a Samsung Android tablet on sale for half-price?
These things have absurd pricing.
No, Windows RT is a failure. Windows 8 is chugging along fine.
There are more people and more computer users now than when Vista released, yet if you compare the two, Vista was more successful than Win8 at launch in terms of raw numbers sold, and even more so in market share. Right now Windows 8 is about as common as Linux among Steam users.
Windows 8 on Steam has a 9% uptake. Compared to 2%ish for Linux.
I think you read their charts wrong.
That’s true, but Linux achieved its 2 percent in two weeks, while Win 8 has had 4 months. Not bad at all. T’will be interesting to see the trends next month.
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/03/01/windows-8-overtakes-window…
I hope Linux does well. I’m not really cheering against them.
Linux’s growth is impressive if it all came at once (Did Linux show up in stats prior to it going Stable, how significant was it?)
I can see them peaking at something like 5-7% usage on Steam, which isn’t bad by any stretch of imagination. In fact, that’d be huge.
Not sure what the usage was during the beta – I never saw stats. I didn’t install until the big release, then bought a slate of games at 80% off that I’m still sorting through. I agree – 5-7% this year would be a huge win for Ubuntu, and add credibility to their drive to be the “third mobile ecosystem” behind Google and Apple and a viable pre-installed desktop choice behind Microsoft and Apple. We’ll see.
Windows 8 is chugging along on Microsoft’s lock on sub $1000 laptops.
It’s a failure in that they would have been better off never creating it. Windows 7 would be chugging along as well and without the need to spend billions of dollars on making it clear that Ballmer is a dumbass and Sinofsky was clueless. We Microsoft “partners” pointed this out last year at a cost of $0.
Edited 2013-03-07 07:17 UTC
Meh, not so much.
Win 8 is “chugging along fine” only on the desktop, where their fading monopoly still affects buying decisions – though the last chart I saw showed Win 8 flatlining in growth, dropping below the adoption rate of even the ill-fated Vista – http://www.infoworld.com/d/microsoft-windows/windows-8s-usage-uptak….
In the overall personal computing market, Windows share is falling rather quickly due to their inability to gain any traction in mobile (http://bgr.com/2013/03/06/windows-phone-shrinking-market-share-anal…).
As an example, we bought our oldest grandson a laptop for Christmas, and it came with Windows 8 (of course). He was very excited, and went to play his favorite flash game on the web.
It wouldn’t work.
He brought it back to me, and after some googling we discovered (working from memory here) that Win 8 has *two* IEs, and only one runs flash. I suspect one is the “touch” version and one the “desktop” version? In any event, he was running the “wrong” IE, and we had to find the desktop and launch it from there.
I’m still amazed at the sheer stupidity of that.
Did I mention my other two grandchildren asked for and received an Android tablet and an iPod Touch for Christmas?
Based on the market reports, I just don’t think they are atypical…
IE in Metro only runs Flash if its on a constantly updated whitelist. This is to ensure that the Flash applications meet interaction and battery life criteria for touch devices.
I think it should be on a toggle though, I hope Microsoft changes this.
Ah, didn’t know that. Of course, my grandson’s laptop wasn’t touch – but I suppose it would be too difficult to manage a whitelist for touch and non-touch battery devices, and apply them accurately. Oh, well.
You know sometimes the reason something has failed is not because people are stupid and can’t understand anything.
Sometimes they understand and they don’t like it.
Windows 8 is a kludge, but in the case of Win 8 Pro – it’s a kludge that is moving the platform forward, and we all have our reasons that we sometimes use Windows.
In the case of RT, why bother. If you are going to do a clean start, giving up backwards compatibility, then don’t do this ugly kludge with two different metaphors for navigation and all this baggage the causes slow downs and hiccups.
Yeah – the market rejected it. Samsung said because of confusion, Samsung can say what they want – but they shouldn’t get to set the parameters of the conversation, since when did Samsung gain our respect?
LOL- they have sold a few phones, I’ll give them that, other than that, no way, no thanks, not happening, no respect.
The writing is on the wall here: Windows 8 – specifically on tablets but also in general – is turning into a failure.
Hardly. All you had to do was see the reactions to both GNOME3 and Unity in order to predict what the response to Windows 8 was going to be.
All Modern-day so-called GUI designers need to put up against a wall and shot dead…….