Can the Windows 8 operating system be saved? In all seriousness, Microsoft should be asking itself this question.
The numbers don’t lie. Windows 8’s market acceptance is continuing to fall behind Microsoft’s last desktop operating system failure, Vista. Asus, which had been a big Windows 8 booster, is now reporting poor sales and Samsung has decided not to bother with launching a Windows 8 tablet in the lucrative German market.
Simply chopping prices drastically for Windows 8 and Office 2013 for mini-tablets isn’t going to cut it. Neither Windows 8 nor its close relatives, Windows RT and Windows Phone 8, even appear on NetApplication’s mobile and tablet usage reports for February 2013. Nor, do I think discount prices on Windows 8 for PCs would help much. There are also lots of cheap Windows 8 PCs and they’re not selling well.
So what can Microsoft do to give Windows 8 a shot? Here are my proposals.