Before the passions due to last year’s appearance on the Windows 8 market had calmed down, we were soon to be shown her “elder sister” at number 8.1. Good or bad - it's up to you to judge. Well, we’ll try to understand how the release of Windows 8 affected the general state of the computer industry.
So, as you probably remember, the release of the new version of Windows by many retailers was positioned as a new surge in sales of PCs and laptops. As a result, nothing of the kind happened, and therefore, in the eyes of many Windows 8 it looks like another “Microsoft failure." Of course, in the eyes of some home users, the reason for the unpopularity of the new system lies in a completely different way, but we are talking about the industry. So did the long-awaited Windows 8 (release date in Russia change so often) become the “beginning of the end” of the computer market?
It seems to us that everything was completely wrong. To begin with, dear retailers once again gave a blunder. Well, you can not compare Windows 8 & Vista, if only because they are different systems that came out at different times. Judge for yourself: in many ways, Vista’s output was recognized as “unsuccessful” because it “worked poorly” on computers of that time. How else? Then the ball rules XP, quite comfortably costing 256 MB of RAM. And the new system required a minimum of 1GB! There was something to come in shock.
But let’s think again: did all those 256 MB suffice? In those years, games already appeared, for the normal operation of which at least 2 GB of RAM was required (we send greetings to ClearSky and the late STALKER project).
Ultimately, the release of Windows 8 did not have a strong impact on computer sales for this reason. On a computer on which Vista worked comfortably, the Seven worked no less comfortable, and ... yes, Windows 8 also works fine on "old machines". So why should users update their computers?
Yes, the eighth version supports touch screens, 3D printers and much more, but do you often use all this in everyday life? We think not. But what can not be taken away from the new version is the real novelty, speed of operation and integration with many useful servers on the Internet. From this point of view, the release of Windows 8 was the very step that Microsoft had been waiting for for many years. In addition, the OS for smartphones with the same serial number has given some popularity to the upcoming “tiled doctrine”. Yes, Windows Phone 8, the release date of which was set for the same October, spurred the interest of many potential buyers to her "older sister".
And there was a reason! Indeed, for the first time, Windows is not just an operating system, but a full-fledged ecosystem in which you can combine not only your PC or laptop, but your smartphone with a tablet! Full synchronization and unification are not only convenient and practical, but also really convenient in everyday life and work. In a word, you should not consider the release of Windows 8 as a mistake by the Microsoft team. Rather, this is a way out of the impasse, into which the very same Windows 7 would eventually end up repeating the fate of the long-lived XP. Recall that the “popularly beloved” system has lingered on the market for so long that it no longer supports most modern hardware.