Don’t blame Microsoft if its OEM can’t sell
Microsoft’s distribution channels are leaking their frustration about lacklustre Windows 8 and Surface sales. Microsoft insiders appear to be blaming their OEM customer’s poor imagination on the dearth of interest. Is this lack of elegance the first real sign of cracks in their strategy? Enterprise sales of Windows 8 is going to take at least another year – maybe 2 – to ramp as IT staff get to grips with the radically different user interface. That means sales are going to be limited to consumers buying new machines and the trend there is towards lower cost tablets such as Apple’s iPad in these tough economic times. Remember that the blow-out success of Windows 7 was largely due to the mass exodus from the disaster that was Windows Vista and the view today is that Windows 7 ain’t broke, so there is no need to fix it.
Update #1: Some hard sales facts conducted during a survey by Piper Jaffray last Black Friday seem to support the impression that Microsoft’s Surface is struggling for mindshare in the face of the iPad.
Update #2: Microsoft, eager to dispel the idea that Windows 8 is not selling, released sales figures yesterday of 40 million licenses in the first month – more than Windows 7 in the same period. The problem? This appears to be mostly to the installed base as overall PC sales are 21% down for the same period. The bigger problem is that Windows 8 is only preloaded on 58% of new machines against 83% for Windows 7. Surface sales according to the same source, have been non-existent.
The Fourth Column 
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