Windows 10: the turning point
Yesterday saw the global launch of Windows 10: an event that a few years ago was carried out with much more razzamatazz, with queues outside stores, music by the Rolling Stones, videos featuring Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry, and even the Empire State Building lit up with Microsoft’s logo, all costing more than $300 million a time.
Compared with such excesses, Wednesday’s event was a discreet affair, so much so that many people might well be unaware of the update. This may well have been to manage expectations and avoid the much-feared Vista-effect, but certainly a sign that the company has realized that times have changed.
But the truth is that this is a real milestone for the company: a story that is totally different to the usual and one that is about listening to users, and with features that are being acclaimed or defended by the majority of reviewers, with a new browser that will finally put the knackered Explorer out to pasture and that has compared fairly well to others, along with current and future features that make it clear there is still much to see. On the one hand this is a very inclusive version: it is more than possible that if you have a computer bought within the last five or six years, you will be able to install it, for free, even if you are running an earlier, unlicensed version.
Many of those who have tried the system out are saying that this is the best version of Windows in recent times, and the company knows it. This is the first update in the post-Ballmer era, and possibly the last of its kind, given that we cannot really know how the business model based on licensing will develop: in a world in which users are not willing to pay for operating systems anymore, Microsoft is moving toward a version that no longer comes shrink-wrapped, but instead has to be downloaded, that works like an update, and based on the idea of a freemium model, whereby the user pays for certain features or extras, as we could previously observe in the case of Office for iOS. The business model now is about creating an environment within which the user can carry out a range of activities, and then monetize it through other strategies such as apps, storage space, peripherals and other similar models.
The days of hooking up with the hardware industry to convert the launch into a platform for the sale of computers are gone, although some of Windows 10’s features would certainly benefit from a new and powerful machine.
The multiplatform aspect is, however, a challenge: the ups and downs of the Ballmer era left a big hole in the smartphone world. The ability to attract developers has been reduced, and dominating the computer environment, desktop or laptop, is no longer as important as it was. For the moment, developers can send their apps to the Window Store; Twitter has been the first to come up with a special version, but we are talking here about a battle between three distinctly unevenly matched contestants.
This is an update designed to mark a turning point, and is not going to make users miss their previous versions or even stick with them. From the look of it, it seems unlikely that people are going to hang on to their earlier versions or resist moving on to Windows 10, and that is no small achievement. It is too early to say whether users who moved over to Apple will now think about Windows as a reasonable option or even install it in their Macs, but from what has been said so far, it is clear that this version puts Microsoft back in the game, and that it should now be able to continue innovating and become once again the benchmark, or an alternative. We’ll have to see if it manages this, but Windows 10 is not a bad start.
(En español, aquí)
