Microsoft Windows 10 – turning the ship around towards the right direction

Windows 10 is a necessary move for Microsoft to fix a growing problem in its a poor windows 8 product that in the longer term if left unresolved could damage the current market dominance Microsoft enjoys in the PC market. Microsoft currently have a reported 92% of the desktop Operating system market but only 8% of this is Windows 8. It’s Windows mobile market share is almost the complete reverse with around 5% and the majority 80% running on Android mobile operating system and 15% Apple as reported by Kantor in august 2014 and IDC in May this year.

Windows 10 product features are clearly trying to get back to the core strategy of a single operating system that works well across all platforms. The trouble with Windows 8 was that apart from low adoption there were significant technical design mistakes made around usability design. Industry commentators describe it as a “jump too far for touch screen” but this is missing the issue of user design principles that were violated. Particularly around poor tile user interactivity that moved by touch but the user could not easily change the look and feel. In effect trying to be a desktop and a touch screen at the same time and failing at both. Windows 10 announcement’s in San Francisco this week interestingly move towards better tile resizing and a new “quadrant” layout to help improve usability of the applications and the windows content pages. Something that was clearly confused in the Windows 8 design style. The return of the much missed START button is recognition of the desktop form factor again, the touch screen does not need this but the desktop does and so it’s a step in the right direction again. Microsoft needs to be careful not to squander its market lead, as in other areas of social media and applications this leadership in the digital world can soon become eroded and it’s now the content and applications that work on top of the operating system that are the main method of monetization today and in the future. As Apple has shown, with just 15% share of the mobile market and around just 4% of the desktop operation system market with iOS X , Apples Market Capitalization at $600 Billion in almost a third more than Microsoft at $380 Billion. Strong products and powerful apps and services is where the market is, Microsoft must swing the ship around and make the cross-platform world work.

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