Windows 8 will be ‘largely irrelevant’ to traditional PC users: IDC
Summary: IDC's top 10 system software predictions for 2012 are out. One of them casts doubt on Microsoft's potential market for Windows 8 among traditional PC users. — It's that time of year: The time when prognosticators …
Context & Ripple Effects
IDC's top-10 system software predictions for 2012 put Windows 8 in an awkward frame before Microsoft has even shipped a public beta: the firm argues the OS will be 'largely irrelevant' to traditional PC users, implying its real audience is tablets and touch devices. That reading lands amid unresolved questions about the product itself — including the confirmed September controversy over whether desktop apps will run on Windows 8 ARM tablets, with a rumored removal of non-Metro-style apps still unconfirmed.
The prediction also fits a familiar pattern in this corpus: analyst skepticism greeting each major Windows transition, much as InformationWeek's doubts about Vista's prospects did ahead of its 2008 launch. With sources telling TNW the beta may arrive in late February 2012, IDC is effectively setting the terms of debate before Microsoft can make its own case.
First-order effects
- Microsoft enters 2012 with a leading research firm framing its next OS as a tablet play rather than a PC upgrade driver, pressuring the company to prove relevance to its installed base before the rumored late-February beta.
Second-order effects
- PC makers planning 2012 lineups face conflicting signals — if IDC is right, they cannot count on Windows 8 to lift traditional PC demand and must hedge with tablet and touch offerings instead.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across successive Windows releases, analyst and buyer expectations shift from 'every new Windows drives a PC refresh cycle' toward a split market where Microsoft's growth depends on devices beyond the traditional PC.
The trend: Major Windows launches are being re-judged by analysts as tablet-era bets rather than automatic PC upgrade catalysts, continuing the skepticism that met Vista.