"Threshold" to be Called Windows 9, Ship in April 2015

[SpywareDr]

Microsoft tries to put Windows 8 in the rear-view mirror
Paul Thurrott - Jan. 11, 2014

In some ways, the most interesting thing about Threshold is how it recasts Windows 8 as the next Vista. It's an acknowledgment that what came before didn't work, and didn't resonate with customers. And though Microsoft will always be able to claim that Windows 9 wouldn't have been possible without the important foundational work they had done first with Windows 8—just as was the case with Windows 7 and Windows Vista—there's no way to sugarcoat this. Windows 8 has set back Microsoft, and Windows, by years, and possibly for good.

[Ferrit]

Unfortunately too many people dont like a lot of change so any change is bad.
I have used win 8 and win 8.1 and they just take a small bit of learning. Once you
spend a small amount of time with them it becomes quite easy

[SpywareDr]

... Threshold is more important than any specific updates. Windows 8 is tanking harder than Microsoft is comfortable discussing in public, and the latest release, Windows 8.1, which is a substantial and free upgrade with major improvements over the original release, is in use on less than 25 million PCs at the moment. That's a disaster, and Threshold needs to strike a better balance between meeting the needs of over a billion traditional PC users while enticing users to adopt this new Windows on new types of personal computing devices. In short, it needs to be everything that Windows 8 is not.

[CeeBee]

That graph is very misleading.
The reality is that the last 4-5 years haven't brought any drastic improvements in computer performance, at least nothing to be worth upgrading if you're not a gamer, and newer software doesn't require that much more resources so it still runs just fine... I am still using a quad core2 on my main machine and i see no reason to upgrade. I have upgraded another quad core2 to an 8-core (just because I needed to re-purpose the old one) and the real-life improvements aren't jaw-dropping... video plays as smooth as before, pages load as fast as before...

[Ferrit]

Well I can agree that most hardware hasn't really shown much of an improvement because i think we have been at a point where everything is so fast that going faster isnt showing itself. The one and only really big improvement in the last 2 years has been the mainstream use of SSD hard drives.
So ya even taking an older quad or even a dual core with 8 gigs of ram and dropping in a SSD and it will seem as fast as any new one or even more so.

[SpywareDr]

Most consumers don't buy a device because it's running a particular operating system, they simply want something that will help them do whatever it is they want to do. They used to buy Windows PCs because, up until now, it was pretty much the only option.

[Tekboy]

There is still an ENORMOUS segment of the market using Windows XP Professional, and that is a whole lot of hospitals and medical facilities. Businesses are tired of having to pay way too much money in software upgrades to run the programs that actually drive their business. By this, I mean if you have a medical database that runs fine in XP, but needs upgrades to work on the latest OS, something broke the camel's back for too many large businesses. Time will tell, but when Microsoft made it more difficult for Grandma and Grandpa to spam pics of the grandchildren, they shot themselves in the foot.

I think they lost sight of who the end users really are, and it is not the techs and programmers like us who know how to actually do stuff.

[MobilePCPhysician]

I just did the math on all my clients. 70% of my business clients still have xp in their offices, in different levels. Over 85% of my residential clients that I have serviced in the past year are still using XP. My next day or two will be creating marketing materials to send to these clients explaining why they need to give me money to fix the evils that Microsoft is reigning down on them...

[Zonie]

I advised all my business clients, (mostly medical), last June to start budgeting for upgrade to new PC's with windows 7. They are now starting to order new ones since they found windows 8 was going to cause a lot of compatability issues and lost time retraining, for the EHR programs. At least there is still compatability mode in in windows 7.

[Zonie]

On a side note, that graph looks like where Obama started doing his thing for the economy.

[SpywareDr]

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Running XP? Tick-Tock, You’re On the Clock

...
Consider these numbers from "Mitigating Risk: Why Sticking with Windows XP Is a Bad Idea". Published more than a year ago by the International Data Corporation (IDC), the report states that:

"IDC’s analysis shows that supporting older Windows XP installations, compared with a modern Windows 7-based solution, saddles organizations with a dramatically higher cost. Annual cost per PC per year for Windows XP is $870, while a comparable Windows 7 installation costs $168 per PC per year. That is an incremental $701 per PC per year for IT and end-user labor costs."

In terms of IT productivity, the IDC reported that migrating from XP to Windows 7 annually saved nine hours of time spent per PC (11.3 versus 2.3) - a change of 79%. Users, meanwhile, regained nearly eight hours of lost time (9.0 versus 1.2) - a change of 87%.

All told, the IDC found that over a three-year period, migrating from XP to Windows 7 generated a 137% return on investment.

Those numbers address the key reasons that migrating to Windows 7, at minimum, is worthwhile: cost, employee productivity and system performance. Conversely, why cut ties with XP?

Security

As noted earlier, 30% of small to mid-sized businesses still use XP. Once Microsoft ends support, zero-day vulnerabilities that have been created - and banked for April 8 and beyond - are expected to be released. Keep in mind: As viruses and other forms of malware continue to grow more sophisticated, an unpatched system doesn’t stand a chance.

"There could be some (third-party anti-virus) vendors that try to patch, but it wouldn’t be the preferred way (to move forward)," GFI’s Bugeja said. "If the platform is dying, the number of investments going into it would surely be reduced."

Compliance

Security is most commonly associated with XP’s end of life. However, meeting compliance in heavily regulated industries is equally critical. Failing to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, as well as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI-DSS, can be costly.

Compatibility

Expect the effects of XP’s death to also impact hardware. Manufacturers won’t continue making office equipment - think printers and scanners, for instance - compatible with XP. Remember, they also want to make money. Why spend to make products compatible with a system that’s no longer supported?

Which modern OS is best for your business? It’s time to do your research, learn what distinguishes Windows 7 from Windows 8.1, and map out a migration plan.
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