Wednesday 15 October 2014

What Microsoft Needs to Accomplish With Its 'Windows 9' Event

What Microsoft Needs to Accomplish With Its 'Windows 9' Event
The world might get its first official taste of Windows 9 on Tuesday, at least if the rumors are true. Microsoft has scheduled an event in San Francisco to talk about "what's next for Windows and the Enterprise." The timing lines up with rumors about when Microsoft will supposedly be ready to start talking about the next major upgrade to Windows.
There's lots of speculation about the name of the release. "Windows 9" has just been a convenient and obvious placeholder. It's known that "Threshold" is the codename, and this is backed up by an early website leak the Verge spotted over the weekend.
But there's a chance the name could just be "Windows" — which might be somewhat confusing, but would be in keeping with CEO Satya Nadella's vision of "One Windows" going forward. After all, Windows Phone recently dropped the "Phone" part of its name, and Windows RT (the version that runs on the Surface and some other tablets) has been on the chopping block for a while.
It's fun to wonder about names — and make fun of them when they're stupid — but in this case it's the last thing Microsoft should be worrying about. Whether Microsoft calls it "Windows 9" or "Ralph," the next version of Windows needs to be a hit with its enterprise customers, which is what this event will really be all about.
Microsoft needs business
We'll probably get a very early look at Windows 9 on Tuesday, but the focus of the discussion will be about what large enterprise deployments can get out it. Those cool virtual desktops and the revamped Start Menu — the International Business Times has a leaked preview — might make an appearance, but mainly in the context of what businesses can do with them.
As Microsoft no doubt intends, that's some dry pickings, especially compared to the pomp and circumstance that accompanied the Windows 8 launch.
With Windows 8, Microsoft veered heavily toward the consumer market, and soon seemed hell-bent on out-Appleing Apple. The original unveiling of the Surface tablet had all the trappings of an Apple event: secrecy, spectacle and sexiness.
That unveiling, though, also caught Microsoft's manufacturing partners flat-footed, with all of them wary that the company would now be competing directly with them. On top of that, there was virtually no communication about Windows RT, the version of Windows running on the Surface, leaving PC makers and enterprise customers unsure of what to do with it.
For Windows 8/8.1 proper, though, enterprise knew just what to do: Ignore it. Even putting aside the typical skittishness enterprise customers have about new releases, Windows 8 was all about putting tablets and the consumer market first, and it took a long time for Microsoft to make it usable for a traditional workstation.
In fairness, subsequent Windows upgrades have addressed many key enterprise concerns. Since the Windows 8.1 update, mouse-and-keyboard Windows machines have become a lot more usable. With Internet Explorer 11, in particular, Microsoft addressed a big enterprise pain point for customers who previously needed to keep old machines around to run custom web software. IE11 can now run many of those custom apps within the new browser.
More show, less tell
But that clearly wasn't enough for enterprise customers, and now Microsoft is extending a large olive branch toward them. Whatever is actually shown on Tuesday (given the small-scale nature of the event, it likely won't be the formal "here it is, world!" Windows 9 unveiling), the message will be clear: The next Windows will be designed to win back the enterprise.
And frankly, it needs to — now more than ever. Although the enterprise has hardly abandoned Windows, Microsoft has good reason to worry. Apple and IBM announced a significant partnership to provide mobile technology to enterprise customers, and the ever-growing threat from Google has been getting some help from the likes of Samsung. Even BlackBerry is still throwing respectable punches in the mobile enterprise market.
With its touch-friendly interface, Windows 8 was supposed to help Microsoft capture more of the mobile market, but it hasn't gotten the job done — Windows is only running on 2.5% of the world's smartphones, according to IDC.
With the mobile enterprise world still to be won, Microsoft knows it can't count on indefinite enterprise support. Surely, Microsoft's enterprise footprint includes much more than Windows, but it's the centerpiece as well as the public-facing brand. It's the software most enterprise workers use day-to-day, and those workers have been stuck in 2009 with Windows 7 (or worse, 2001 with Windows XP), while encountering the cloud-first world Nadella keeps talking about on their iPhones.
The next Windows needs to involve enterprise from the start, and that's exactly what this event is all about. So it doesn't really matter if the name is Windows 9, Windows Threshold, UberWindows or even just Windows. Whatever Microsoft chooses, for its enterprise customers, just call it a do-over.
Posted by : Gizmeon

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