Win+8+more+problems

Win 8 more problems According to Gartner, the IT industry analyst firm, Microsoft is taking a "big gamble" with its Windows 8 operating system. The software company, Gartner says, needs to work hard to ensure its main Windows and Office products "stay relevant" where more and more corporate IT users are moving to tablets and other consumer devices. Windows 8, Gartner argues, is critical for Microsoft. It might not be a make or break launch for the company, but research vice president Steve Kleynhans argues that it is at least on par with the 1993 launch of Windows NT, the technology that provided the foundations for Microsoft's technology since. Windows 8, and the RT architecture, will be the next "era" of Microsoft's technology. The challenge for Microsoft – and by extension for IT departments and even for end users – is that progress does mean a break with the past. And that is not that easy to do. Moving to Windows 8, for example, means moving to the Metro or "modern UI" as Microsoft now prefers to call it, and moving away from the desktop and the Start menu. If nothing else, this might mean some retraining for employees planning to use Windows 8 devices. Then there is the question of hardware legacy. IT departments will need to look at the specification of their PCs, to see if they will run Windows 8, and whether applications need to be rewritten for the new system. Microsoft has already caused some concern by saying that Windows Phone 7 devices – such as Nokia's first batch of Lumias – cannot be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. PCs are usually more upgradable, of course, but the same cannot be said of legacy applications. It is these applications that largely held back the take-up of Windows Vista: Gartner calculates that at its peak, Vista was on just eight per cent of PCs. Other data suggests that large numbers of PCs are still running Windows XP, either directly, or in a virtual machine or virtual desktop.