Windows 8 LogoWith the upcoming release of Microsoft’s newest operating system in two days there will naturally be a buying frenzy from those who like the latest and greatest toys. Should you jump on the bandwagon? We can’t answer for you, but we thought we’d take few moments to share some considerations to keep in mind.

Our engineers were a small few of the thousands who tested the release candidate version of Windows 8 these last few months. Microsoft released its test-ready product to geeks across the world to have it beat-up, tested, beat-up some more, and to have those testers find the bugs so they could be worked out before the initial release to the public. They do this so “super-users” who are familiar with all the headaches experienced in previous version of Windows will have time to submit bug reports, feature improvement ideas, and report back in on what they thought of it. In two days it hits the shelves to consumers. You can expect to be bombarded through every medium imaginable this holiday season as Microsoft struggles to establish its roots firmly as a manufacturer of computers for the first time.

Having said that; Windows 8 is still a baby in the software market. It’s brand new and hasn't really been put through its paces. Testing with a couple thousand or even hundred-thousand computers users with above-average computer skills isn't the same as releasing it into the hands of hundreds of millions of consumers, most of which will not be ready for the whole new look and feel of Windows 8. After all, Android and Apple operating systems have been on the market for over three years now and it took the first two years of being in the public’s hands just to get the bugs worked out. It is our opinion that Windows 8 will be the same.

So, if you are considering Windows 8 as a product for business use, we encourage you to  join the hesitant users of the world and wait at least six months (maybe even a year) before even considering rolling your business over to it. Smart business people never adopt a product right out of the gate. They wait and see what impact it has on other businesses. After all, it’s not like the product is going to get more expensive the longer you wait. With software the opposite is almost always true. The longer you hold out, the more cost effective it will be. Windows 8 will be selling on a “it’s new – you've got to have it” price point in the beginning. They’re selling to compete with Apple users, who will traditionally pay ANY price just to have the newest toys.  A year ago, my brand new Android was $399, then $299, and now it’s $199. Holding out has its advantages.

Come on 8, give me an 8! It’s a Gamble

It's a gambleWindows 8 is a huge gamble for Microsoft on two different fronts and both of them are important for consumers  to understand. After all, you will be the one left holding the bag if the gamble fails. Does anyone remember Windows Millennium? Yeah, exactly.

The first gamble is on the user side. This is a brand new operating system they are releasing and they’re doing it because they think you want it. It’s not like previous upgrades where they can look back on historical models and make an informed opinion bases on their own sales history. It’s a completely re-written operating system, for brand new never-before-seen devices, all of which are going to have to have interoperability with hundreds of thousands of other products and it’s being made simply because of the sales figures of competitors such as Google and Apple.

Consumers are buying up Android and IOS tablets at a record-setting pace so that must mean that ALL users want big flashy icons with animations. They literally fly off the shelves faster than they can be produced. Surely, everyone must want to work with finger swipes and pinch-zoom gestures rather than keyboards and mice then. Everyone likes the android and IOS icons rather than a start menu, so they’re doing away with that. Everyone uses the cloud so they've done away with saving files on the computer, choosing instead to utilize cloud storage.

What if they’re wrong? What if, as in my case, they bought a tablet to sit and play on the web with Facebook, read the news, and occasionally watch a YouTube video, but prefer to actually work on my actual computer with a keyboard and mouse like always?  If more people are like me than they think; they’re going to lose this bet and be in trouble. (To tell the absolute truth, my tablet sits 12 feet from the toilet and only that far away because there's not an outlet closer. It’s used almost solely for reading the news these days from the crapper. Sure, I can control my television with it, my DVR, log in and monitor my surveillance systems, remote control computers across the country, play on Facebook, and browse the web. Experience doing those things, however, taught me it’s just so much easier on an actual computer. A tablet, no matter how cool, just doesn't do those things as well as a computer and putting bigger icons on it certainly won’t make that experience any easier for me.)

The second gamble is within their traditional market space.  Microsoft has always made operating systems, not computers. They make the money on licensing the software to Dell, HP, IBM, Asus, and every other manufacturer that builds the hardware that runs their operating system. The manufacturer gets to make their money on the hardware itself. It has always been a symbiotic relationship that benefited both parties.

Windows 8 and the Surface Tablet are a game changer. Microsoft is turning their nose up at all the manufacturers and building the product themselves. In essence, they are now directly competing with the manufacturers that build devices that run other Microsoft software. Yes, they're licensing the OS to other companies as well, but the release of the "Surface" computer, the game is different for everyone involved.

Currently the manufacturers are still standing around waiting for the other shoe to drop. No one is posturing yet one way or the other, but put yourself in their shoes for a moment and imagine this phone call.

“Hi. It’s Dave from Microsoft. Yeah, we’re not going to need you to build us any computers this year for Windows 8. We’re gonna do that ourselves. Yes, we know we’re competing with you, but you know, business is business. No, we’d really like if you keep building computers for our Windows 7 operating system. Yeah, you can make them for 8. Just don't expect us to talk about them because we've got our own to push down consumer's throats. What? Oh, yeah, we're calling it "Surface". Cool huh? Yes. Uh-huh. Correct. You got it. We’d like you to buy Windows 7 and Windows 8 from us, put it on your hardware and sell it, and then we want to compete with it directly. Uh huh. You got it. Thanks.” Click.

Somewhere in an office, every manufacturer got that call this year and probably sat back in their chair and thought to themselves “Huh, we’ll see how well that works out for you.”

So, what happens if manufacturers get hurt by Microsoft’s new hardware? Best case, they sell less equipment so they raise the price to meet the demands of declining profit margins, forcing business users who actually need computers, not toys, to pay more for their hardware. Worst case; they stop selling Microsoft and become big fans of Android, or even Apple. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

Productivity Suffers in Windows 8

Productivity SuffersPersonally, I have three computers and one tablet I don’t even use that much. I’m a technophile who married a technophobe. Sue me. My point is my need for productivity outweighs my need for fun. I’m a working professional.  Both of my desktop computers cost around $2000, and my new laptop costs $903. My tablet cost me $350. The investment represented by my business is over ten times higher in computers than it is in tablets. Why? Well, I need Microsoft Word. I like my dual screens. Can you see your office manager sitting around trying to touch-type on QuickBooks 2013? Of course not. (If I want to do that, I can access it from my Android at half the cost of the Windows Surface computer.)

For a working professional, the investment in Windows 8 just isn’t even a consideration. It does absolutely nothing better, and nothing faster, than a computer. Why would I want to switch? You might say because of portability. Well, that’s true, but it also comes with its own risks, such as theft. Theft of mobile devices has literally jumped off the charts this year. It has become so bad that some of the major cities are having a significant number of homicides directly related to theft of a smart-device. No thanks. The smaller it is, the less I can fully utilize it, and the more chance it’ll get stolen or lost. I’ll keep my laptop. Maybe I’m considering it for the 6 hour battery life. No, wait, I get that on my laptop too AND I have a keyboard and mouse integrated, which means I get more done in one of those hours than a mobile device user can in all six.

Upgrades and Cool Stuff?

At this point, this article starts to get personal. I can’t help it. I literally hate this desktop. I can no longer maintain any semblance of professionalism and attempt to give you an unbiased review simply because I can't see how I could possibly use this in my business life.

Upgrades? What upgrades? For a business professional, Windows 8 literally offers nothing. Yes, 9-year-old kids will love it. They can push buttons like those games we used to use as kids that taught us word and shape association. Blue square = mail. Red square = chat. Ooh. Pat me on the head!

Let’s go over some of the highly-touted feature upgrades of Windows 8. We’ll start with the new and improved desktop experience.

Windows 8 Desktop

The new Windows 8 desktop or home screen.

First, where in the hell is my start menu? Gone. That’s where. Yes you can get to it, but your average user will hate the process for getting back to something similar to the traditional desktop, only to be flashed back to this annoying screen every time they turn around. If you press the "Start" button on your keyboard (assuming you have one) you come back to this screen, not the actual working desktop. And if you DO press "Desktop" there is no menu on it, so you'll need to completely re-learn the entire Windows experience to be able to navigate this operating system comfortably.

So what do these tiles do?

Let’s go through a couple of the defaults tiles.

  • Mail: Nope. That’s Live mail, not my exchange server.  Almost twenty years of making operating systems and you still don't offer us a nice native way to access Exchange the way it was intended? (Outlook) Useless for me. Next.
  • Social: Woohoo. I can see people’s faces on Facebook. Don’t need that at work. Next!
  • Messaging: Am I here to play or work? Who wants Live messenger or any other chat program running on their business network by default. Fail. Next?
  • Calendar – Ok. Useful, but is it my exchange calendar? No. Crap. Useless. Next?
  • Internet Explorer – Ok, if you use this browser you deserve to have bought this machine. Who uses that still? It’s the most virus-targeted browser in history (fact, not metaphor).
  • Store – Did I come here to shop? No! Next?
  • Sky Drive – Ok. If you want 5gb of online free space, feel free to use it. It’s slow, clunky, and there are better free alternatives already that are cross-compatible with multiple devices.
  • Camera – Fine. Take a picture of your bologna sandwich, use the Social tile to post it to Facebook. Use the Messaging tile to chat about it with your mom who forgot to add the mustard when she packed it this moring, and THEN get back to work.
  • Xbox Live – Reely Kevin? Reely?
  • Weather – Open the window and save the investment.
  • Video – More useless junk.
  • Desktop – Wait! There it is! Yes! Finally, I can do something productive.
  • Overall: A complete failure to provide me anything productive as a business user.

Operating System Improvements:

Let’s talk about 15 of the best operating system improvements over Windows 7 and see what they really are.

  1. Sync: If you’re signed into the net all the time, you can sync your settings across multiple devices. (Just like android and apple devices). Ok. Fair enough. I’ll give you that one. That’s neat. I wonder how it’s going to handle my 140,000 song music library and my 38,000 item picture library? Wait. Why would I want to sync that 383 gb of data exactly?
  2. Sharing: You can share items easier with people using social media. Really? Define easier? How much easier can life really get? It’s already pretty easy to post to any social network from any device.
  3. Better Multiple Monitor Setup: You get an additional taskbar. Whoop-de-doo. Ninety percent of the world doesn't have dual-screens and if they do, they've had UltraMon for years now. Windows 7 already handles multiple monitors, TVs, projectors, or all of them simultaneously. The only new feature is that I get a task bar on each one? If this is a feature upgrade, you’re really reaching for things right out of the gate.
  4. New dialog box for file copying: How many of you care? Really? How many business professionals actually run multiple instances of file-copy processes and are bothered by a window for each one? You CAN pause a copy/move process now in 8. Ok, that’s decent, but would so rarely ever be used that I can’t even figure out why they added it.
  5. Refresh and Reset: Wait a minute. They’ve made it easy to recover from disasters and slow performance by making it easier to remove your personal data and reinstall easier? How about just making it so you don’t have to reinstall, ever! I’ve had windows 7 running on three computers for years. I’ve never reinstalled it once. It’s never black-screened once.  This is like a car dealership adding more bays to their service garage. “Well, the car isn’t any better, but we can fix it faster now when it does break.” Fail.
  6. Picture Passwords: So instead of typing, I can reach across my desk and swipe my finger across the screen in a secret way to unlock my screen. Works great until the first time someone sees me do it. Fail. Do this any any office environment and do you know what you'll have - a lot of greasy fingerprints across your screens in repetitive patterns.
  7. Storage Spaces: This combines all kinds of external drives into one “storage pool.” Was it really ever so hard before? If you need this, exactly how many external hard drives are you connecting and why? 2 TB drives are standard now and you can get them for a hundred bucks. You really need MORE than that? And what happens if I just unplug one of  them? Oops.. crash. Fail.
  8. Automatically change window color based on the color of your background: Seriously  You’re putting THAT down as a feature enhancement?  All you did was make it mostly-transparent. The very first thing sys-admins do: disable windows themes to speed up performance. Useless feature.
  9. Faster Boot Times: ‘ll be honest, I've yet to see this. I’m running 8 on a virtual machine so that’s not a fair test, but my Windows 7 computer boots in 21 seconds. Do I really need a lot faster start-up?
  10. New and Improved “chkdsk” utility: How many of you (who aren't geeks) have EVER run “chkdsk” from the command line?  Now, how many of those did it without a geek specifically telling them to? Exactly. None of you. For those of us that do use it, can it get any easier? Type “Chkdsk –f –r.” Press  ENTER.  Press ”Y.” Press  enter.
  11. File History: Backs up copies of everything and let’s you restore previous versions. Wait, didn't we used to call that “Previous Versions” in Windows 7? Same tool. By the way, it’s not enabled by default anyway in Windows 8.
  12. Change Settings: For those that thought the Control Panel was too difficult to get to , you can now press another series of buttons to get to some of those features, such as changing system time and date, re-installing Windows, and managing your Homegroup. Wait… you can now quickly and easily access three features you should probably NEVER have to access after the first day you install the computer? Because you know, I’m always changing my computer’s clock, right?
  13. New Search: It’s the same as the old search, but you can now search the Windows Store web site at the same time. Which means it’ll just take longer to deliver my search results. No thanks.
  14. New Start Screen: Already covered that. Hate it.
  15. Secure Boot: Means your system will be less likely to be infected by malware. Because Microsoft has been so good with THAT in the last 20 years.  In fact if they WERE that good at fixing this, I wouldn't have an industry to work in. My entire career depends on this feature failing. Relax. I’m guaranteed a job. They've never EVER made a secure bootloader. I doubt this one is any different.

And I’ll end with the funniest screen I've seen yet on Windows 8. I just updated my Windows 8 installation a few moments ago and was greeted with this screen:

 

Windows Update Restart Screen

If you don't do so manually, it will reboot in THREE DAYS? lol. That's funny!

 

Back to Solid Advice: Wait!

In conclusion, and in all honesty, disregarding my personal feelings on the usability of the interface, the overall advice at the beginning of this article remains the same. WAIT! Don't be one of the first of those in line to get Windows 8 on Friday. Give it a few months. See what others are saying about it. Within 48 hours of the release it will be all over the web. You will see hundreds if not thousands of reviews from users, experts, magazines, competitors, and more. Wait and take the time to find out for yourself if you want to make the switch.