Maximum PC: Steve Ballmer's final year at Microsoft is one that's been wrought with challenges and a few missteps, such as the $900 million charge the Redmond outfit took on unsold Surface inventory. In addition, Windows 8 sales haven't been as high as Microsoft hoped, which is largely the result of a slumping PC market in the wake of consumers turning their attention to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
Microsoft is laying off more employees, a new round after they cut thousands last year. It seems like many big tech companies are doing the same.
Amidst the AI frenzy of 2023, major players like Google, Microsoft, and Meta are in the spotlight, launching their own generative AI systems.
Microsoft has made it easy for iPhone users to check their mobile updates on Windows-enabled computers.
They didn't learn from past mistakes like Vista, with Windows 8 they just forced their view of how a modern UI should look and operate.
Windows 8 should have shipped with Metro marketed as a 'cool new' UI that was an option to boot into with classic desktop and a fully functional Start menu. As apps became more available and only available in the Metro UI over time there would be a list of those 'must have' apps and adoption of Metro would increase so that by Windows 9 it would not be such a wrench to boot straight into Metro.
Unification of a UI is not a bad thing but not when they UI has to stretch across such a diverse set of hardware from phone to tablet is not so bad but the majority of PC's out there don't have touchscreen's and Metro is touch orientated with mouse support feeling like it was an afterthought.