(Over the last few years, there has been a lot of discussion about the design of Windows 8 & then 8.1, and how Microsoft got it wrong. Below are some simpler and different reasons why I think Windows 8 & 8.1 failed and why Windows 10 will be a success)
Since 2 weeks, I have been using a touchscreen laptop that has 16GB RAM. This is my first touchscreen laptop, and my experience with it, in this short period, has solved the biggest mysteries in recent times, at least for me - why did Microsoft get it so wrong with Windows 8 & 8.1 ?
Touch-Screen:
I hardly expected to find the touchscreen to be actually useful, but that is exactly what happened. With a combination of touchscreen and keyboard shortcuts, I now seem to be doing everything faster than before. Incredibly, I find web-browsing much more enjoyable with a touch-screen. Even websites that have not been designed for touch, I find that it not so difficult to use them.
I am amazed at how wrong I was about the usefulness of a touchscreen on a laptop. I have been using an iPad Mini for several months now, so I am not new to touchscreens. Even then, my prediction was way off.
Windows 8 & 8.1:
And I think most laptop users are like me, or how I used to be. Regarding Windows 8, most of them did not and still do not see the value of a laptop with a touchscreen. Since most people already own a perfectly-usable-laptop, I think they do not feel the need to go and buy a new laptop. I feel this is the main reason why adoption of Windows 8 & 8.1 was so less.
To state the reason in another way - the users did not feel the need to go for the hardware improvement - touchscreen, and this massively contributed to the failure in adoption of the software - Windows 8 & 8.1. This is important to note because, the failure occurred, for the most part, due to no fault of the software.
The above reason centers around new laptops with Windows 8 on them. But what about existing laptops/PCs? The most common criticism of Windows 8 is that - if Windows 8 was really good or even any good, users would have upgraded their existing laptops from Windows 7 to Windows 8.
However I feel that such an upgrade did not happen for a far simpler reason - most people had not done this before; i.e. the not so trivial step of wiping out their machine and installing a new operating system. The secondary issue was that, the upgrade was not free. The upgrade fee was very less only for a little while, if I remember correctly. Even if the upgrade was made free at that time, it is asking a lot for any user to wipe out their perfectly familiar OS and install something new. Most users would keep on postponing that kind of a thing indefinitely.
Windows 10:
Now, the next obvious question is - given that very little has changed w.r.t user behavior towards laptops with touchscreens, will Windows 10 achieve greater adoption amongst users?
Surprisingly, my answer to that is a big Yes.
It is a Yes not because Windows 10 reviews have been overwhelmingly positive.
And it is a Yes not because Windows 10 is going to be a free upgrade from Windows 7/8/8.1.
It is a Yes because, this time touchscreens are not the only 'hardware improvement' that users will be getting if they get new laptops. There is another hardware improvement - that of RAM size, this time around. Unlike the past 6-8 years, when RAM sizes in affordable laptops have stagnated at 4GB, it is very likely that, someone buying a new laptop will get 8GB or even 16GB RAM size, because 8GB/16GB RAM have started showing up in affordable laptops.
Why users have traditionally purchased new laptops/PCs - prior to 2007-2008?
In my opinion, size of RAM & CPU speed were the only 2 things that have ever truly driven users to buy new PCs/laptops in the last 20 years. This used to happen every 2-3 years previously.
All of us try to be intelligent & informed buyers. And in my opinion, previously, we had gotten trained to looking at RAM sizes & CPU speeds as the 2 main hardware specs when we looked to evaluate a laptop/PC.
That, the timeframe coincided with Microsoft releasing a brand new OS, made the upgrade to a new machine, all the more sweet, usually.
Post 2007-2008 to 2015:
Prior to 2007-2008, if I got a new laptop/PC, it usually had a new OS, had double the RAM size, and more CPU speed when compared to my old laptop/PC. I had already heard about Moore's Law by then, and it seemed that Moore's Law was in effect till then.
But Windows Vista and Windows 7 were the last of the OS upgrades for which, we 'felt', we got significant CPU and RAM upgrades.
By the time Windows 8 was released, my 2009 home laptop was ~2GHz and had 2GB RAM. As years passed by to 2015, the only difference that stood out, between my 2009 laptop and best-affordable-laptop-of-the-time seemed to be that of 2GB RAM vs 4GB RAM. The processor speeds had stagnated, with cores starting to increase in number - dual core, quad core etc. For some reason, the cores did not make a real impression, when comparing my old laptop with the current ones. I suspect, this is the case for other laptop users as well.
Performance wise, even now, in 2015, my 2009 laptop is able to run Windows 8.1 smoothly, and so performance is not a factor.
In effect, laptops with 4GB RAM have been the 'best configuration' possible for almost 7-8 years.
It is no surprise that this is exactly when laptop/PC sales have started to slow down/drop off etc.
Smartphones & Tables eroding demand for laptops/PCs:
I don't have much info or opinion on this aspect. However I feel that the smartphone market is a completely different market. Most users will definitely own a smartphone and then either own a laptop or a tablet, more likely a laptop than a tablet. Previously a laptop could not be thought of as a real replacement for a tablet. With a touchscreen, the laptop certainly becomes a real replacement for a tablet.
Conclusion:
So, in my opinion, improvements in traditional hardware specs like RAM will be the real drivers of laptop sales, and thus Windows 10 adoption as well. (Perhaps this observation will apply to the smartphone market as well.) Non-traditional hardware improvements like touchscreen are yet to catch on in the Windows world.
In the coming few months, following are the specs users will be seeing for new laptops: 8GB/16GB RAM, touchscreen, Windows 10. Now that is a solid case for buying a new laptop.
Summary & Next Question:
1) With a touchscreen, my laptop does not feel antiquated anymore when compared to my 5 inch Lumia 535 phone.
2) At the time of Windows 8, the hardware improvement was not in the traditional areas of RAM & CPU speeds (at which all the buyers were looking at), but it was in the area of touchscreens - and users did not really feel the need for touchscreens on laptops at that point (and even now, I am sure that a lot of users do not view it as a necessity, and hence the demand is not as much as it should be).
3) After several years, > 4GB RAM sizes are showing up in affordable laptops. I suspect that this very reason will make everyone go and get new laptops. Since these new laptops will have the latest OS - Windows 10, this will contribute to the success of Windows 10.
4) A secondary contributor to Windows 10 adoption will obviously be the free upgrade option that Microsoft is giving for Windows 7/8/8.1 users.
5) When a user buys the latest (affordable) laptop, there is a good chance that that laptop will have a touchscreen. Once users start using the touchscreen, they will get hooked, and from then onwards, they can see the value in an operating system like Windows 10.
That leads us to the next question - how will user behavior/requirements change once they get used to Windows 10? Will Apps catch on? Or will web applications continue to dominate?
