It’s hard to deny that Windows 8 hasn’t been a great product for Microsoft. In the 2 years that it’s been on the market it’s managed to secure some 12% of total market share which sounds great on the surface however its predecessor managed to nab some 40% in a similar time frame. The reasons behind this are wide and varied however there’s no mistaking that a large part of it was the Metro interface which just didn’t sit well with primarily desktop users. Microsoft, to their credit, has responded to this criticism by giving consumer what they want but like Vista the product that Windows 8 today is overshadowed by it’s rocky start. It seems clear now that Microsoft is done with Windows 8 as a platform and is now looking towards its successor, codenamed Windows Threshold.
Not a whole lot is known about what Threshold will entail but what is known points to a future where Microsoft is distancing itself from Windows 8 in the hopes of getting a fresh start. It’s still not known whether or not Threshold will become known as Windows 9 (or whatever name they might give to it) however the current release date is slated for sometime next year, on time with Microsoft’s new dynamic release schedule. This would also put it at 3 years after the initial release of Windows 8 which also ties into the larger Microsoft product cycle. Indeed most speculators are pegging Threshold to be much like the Blue release of last year with all Microsoft products receiving an update upon release. What interests me about this release isn’t so much of what it contains, more what it’s going to take away from Windows 8.
Whilst Microsoft has made inroads to making Windows 8 feel more like its predecessors the experience is still deeply tied to the Metro interface. Pressing the windows key doesn’t bring up the start menu and Metro apps are still have that rather obnoxious behaviour of taking over your entire screen. Threshold however is rumoured to do away with this, bringing back the start menu with a Metro twist that will allow you to access those kinds of applications without having to open up the full interface. Indeed for desktop systems, those that are bound to a mouse and keyboard, Metro will be completely disabled by default. Tablets and other hybrid devices will still retain the UI with the latter switching between modes depending on what actions occur (switch to desktop when docked, Metro when in tablet form).
From memory such features were actually going to make up parts of the next Windows 8 update, not the next version of Windows itself. Microsoft did add some similar features to Windows 8 in the last update (desktop users now default to desktop on login, not Metro) but the return of the start menu and the other improvements are seemingly not for Windows 8 anymore. Considering just how poor the adoption rates of Windows 8 has been this isn’t entirely surprising and Microsoft might be looking for a clean break away from Windows 8 in order to drive better adoption of Threshold.
It’s a strategy that has worked well for them in the past so it shouldn’t be surprising to see Microsoft doing this. For those of us who actually used Vista (after it was patched to remedy all the issues) we knew that Windows 7 was Vista under the hood, it was just visually different enough to break past people’s preconceptions about it. Windows Threshold will likely be the same, different enough from its direct ancestor that people won’t recognise it but sharing the same core that powered it. Hopefully this will be enough to ensure that Windows 7 doesn’t end up being the next XP as I don’t feel that’s a mistake Microsoft can afford to keep repeating.
