Correspondent (Tech)
Little changes can make a big difference, can’t they? The first major update to Windows 8 saw a user interface pretty much similar to the previous one with Metro still being the favourite landing page by default. The new version came loaded with a lot more functionalities making the transition of Windows 8 to 8.1 a dual opportunity for Microsoft. However, the question that arises is how many people would try and get back something after abandoning it? Do you feel that getting back an old stuff would prove useful to you now?
HP seems so, as it now plans to bring back Windows 7 on “popular demand” by offering customers up to $150 of savings for people buying a desktop PC loaded with Windows 7 rather than the modern Windows 8. Is HP trying to push the non-touch version or is it just another change in sales strategy? In any case, the numbers don’t really seem to suggest this. In this month itself, HP offered a total of five PCs running Windows 7 and another 68 running Windows 8 or 8.1. Last summer, HP offered eight Windows 7 PCs and 61 Windows 8 models. If you look at the overall picture, HP has neither discarded Windows 8.1 nor brought back Windows 7 to life. The fact that remains is that HP is one of the top five PC manufacturers to take a definite stand in favour of Windows 7 in the consumer market. But how long will it continue to take this stand? Probably time will tell.
Is Microsoft feeling embarrassed? Even though the company hasn’t had anything to say about this till now, but with all this hoopla, it might just begin to accelerate the timeline for the release of Windows 9. HP’s decision to promote Windows 7 at the expense of Windows 8 would have come as a jolt. Will the world’s second largest OEM continue to market Windows 7-powered PCs or does Microsoft has something up its sleeve? Do share your thoughts on this with us.
Image Courtesy: By Болдинов Дмитрий (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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1 Comment
It could almost be argued that Microsoft is still working under the shadow of Windows XP, an operating system that was a huge improvement on Windows 2000 and ME. It remained The Windows Operating System for many years and as Microsoft tries to innovate with they’re struggling to better it in the minds of consumers.
The greatest risk with innovation is the alienation of those who were working with what came before. This was a characteristic of the Industrial Revolution and the short prevalence of the anti-mechanical loom group, the Luddites. Consumers simply don’t like change, and it is a balancing act of improving something without changing it so much that it becomes foreign.
A company like HP will simply try and provide what the consumer wants, making sure not to alienate them because that won’t sell computers, which is what they’re trying to do.