14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft today announced the financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2014, revealing a decline of 3 percent of Windows OEM revenues.
While many would rush to criticize Microsoft’s modern platforms for this new drop, the company actually explains that Windows has lost some percentage points due to what it calls “continued softness in the consumer PC market.”
In other words, fewer buyers are actually getting new PCs running Windows operating systems, hence the decline that Microsoft has revealed.
Paradoxically, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 themselves were supposed to boost sales of new PCs, but the two have until now failed to do so, with many analysts and experts actually pointing out that these operating systems caused more harm than good to the PC industry.
“Consumers expected all sorts of cool PCs with tablet and touch capabilities. Instead, they mostly saw traditional PCs that feature a new OS (Windows 8) optimized for touch and tablet with applications and hardware that are not yet able to fully utilize these capabilities,” David Daoud, tracker research director, IDC, said last year.
Microsoft, on the other hand, knows that Windows sales are directly related to the overall performance of new computers, as only a few users are actually buying the operating system separately.
“Nobody ever buys Windows. They buy Windows PCs,” Microsoft’s outgoing CEO was quoted as saying recently.
And still, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Windows is going to lose the leading position in the desktop market, as according to figures provided by Net Applications, Microsoft’s OS is still powering nearly 90 percent of computers worldwide.
Redmond has adopted a new strategy lately and is focusing on rapid releases for the Windows product family, and even though Windows 8.1 was launched in October 2013, a new update is prepared to go live in April this year, followed by the launch of Windows 9 in early 2015.