Microsoft is to change ‘key aspects’ of its Windows 8 operating system, after a raft of complaints from users.
The updated version of Microsoft 8 released later this year will be significantly different, according to the software giant.
Microsoft’s head of marketing and finance, Tammy Reller, confirmed the plan in an interview with the Financial Times, admitting that many users had struggled to master the new operating system. “The learning curve is definitely real,” she said.
Windows 8 was viewed as an attempt to update the personal computer for the tablet era when it was launched last October. It includes a touchscreen interface but does away with the “desktop” launch screen familiar to millions of home and work computer users.
Reller did not reveal details of what changes would be made.
Microsoft sold 100 million Windows 8 licences in the first six months since the new operating system launched in October last year.
However, consumer interest has flagged. The revamp is viewed by some analysts as a significant admission of failure by Microsoft’s chief executive Steve Ballmer, who called the launch of Windows 8 a “bet-the-company” moment.
Comments on the ‘U-turn’ Robert Rutherford, managing director of specialist IT consultancy, QuoStar Solutions, said: “Windows 8 was a failure of timing, not of design. Microsoft has set itself up in 2013 as a source of creativity and innovation, the problem is that the new vibe doesn’t yet gel with what users know and expect from the brand. On this occasion Microsoft pushed the envelope too much, but the time for these innovations will come. It’s important that Microsoft keeps doing what it’s doing to provide a challenge to Apple’s creative dominance.
“On the commercial side, many businesses rely on Microsoft for their IT solutions whilst Apple focuses its energies in the consumer market. IT teams will be looking ahead to the raft of technologies that Microsoft has lined up for the remainder of 2013 with an interest undiminished by the failure of the Windows 8 interface.”
