Windows 8 Sales 'Well Below' Projections For Microsoft
Newly released operating system is "confusing".
Paul Thurrott, a technology blogger and Microsoft insider, has said that Windows 8 PC sales have fallen 'well below' Microsoft's expectations.
"Sales of Windows 8 PCs are well below Microsoft's internal projections and have been described inside the company as disappointing," he claimed. The reason he suggested is "Lackluster PC maker designs and availability."
He also refers to Windows 8 being "confusing" due to its mix of touch and a Windows 7 desktop. The simultaneous release of Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT also caused issues, apparently. While Windows 8 Pro can run older Windows software, Windows RT is unable to do so, which "doesn't make a lick of sense."
Roger Kay, principal analyst at EndPoint Technologies, agreed with Thurrott. "The split between the Windows 8 Pro and RT versions makes the positioning of Windows 8 difficult. The new touch interface is really fantastic for the high-mobility market, like tablets. But turn the whole world upside down for a few tablets?" he told CNET.
Another palpable reason pertaining to lackluster Windows 8 sales is that consumers simply aren't interested in Microsoft's latest operating system, with PC component suppliers suggesting that it'll pick up steam during 2013. Elsewhere, according to a survey, more than half of consumers haven't heard of Windows 8.
Despite the apparent lack of buzz surrounding the OS, as well as a $1.5 billion investment in advertising and marketing, four million units were sold in its first three days of availability.

No, maybe it's not selling well because you have basically abandoned the entire PC market with this new design, and we are voting with our wallets!
You can't expect ARM CPU's to be able to run old x86 CPU software. Though .NET and web based stuff will work on both, as soon as you load a program that accesses architecture specific commands, you can't expect it to work on both. I might expect this ignorance from the average home user, but not from a tech guy.
No, maybe it's not selling well because you have basically abandoned the entire PC market with this new design, and we are voting with our wallets!
Maybe Micro$oft will find a way to pull its head out of from where the sun doesn't shine.
But this also brings up another issue. Win 8 just seems like a slight revision of Win 7. They should not have made this a whole new OS, but rather a SP for Win 7 and waited until they had much more signifacnt upgrades for a whole new OS release.
First, the product is confusing to the customer. All the commercials show touch screen devices, but 99% of home computers and laptops do not have a touch screen. So many people aren't even sure if it is a regular windows for regular computers.
Second, people like their start menu and the metro UI is odd to navigate by mouse. I imagine you'd get used to it, but why?
Third, branding both regular intel-based and mobile versions of the product with the same OS name confuses customers. So which apps run on which? How does the customer tell? Just calling it Windows implies you could load your favorite Windows apps on it, and you cannot due to the hardware.
Fourth, launching it all at once shotgun style was a wast of advertising dollars and impact.
Fifth, Windows 7 is nice and stable and we all know the new versions are still beta until SP1.
Just because there is Steam, doesnt mean all the games will be available on linux. Look at steam for mac: not as many games are available there. Pretty much the only games on linux will be ones using openGL
Unfortunately, that won't entirely fix the crap OS.