Microsoft's bet on touch PCs fails to pay off
Buyers reject touchscreen notebooks, spooked by higher prices and concerns about value of Windows 8's touch UI — Microsoft's bet that touch would propel Windows 8 has run into a major snag, an industry analyst said Friday …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft had been betting heavily on touch since 2009, and Windows 8 arrived after disappointing early sales in a shaky PC market. Buyer resistance to higher-priced touch notebooks weakens the premise that touch hardware would make the new interface compelling enough to drive demand.
The near-final Windows 8.1 build is reported to address first-time-user complaints, making the poor reception to touch notebooks consequential beyond hardware: Microsoft is under pressure to improve the software experience without relying on a costlier screen to justify it.
First-order effects
- Microsoft's touch-led differentiation for Windows 8 loses force as buyers reject the price premium and question the value of its touch interface.
- PC buyers retain an incentive to choose lower-cost non-touch notebooks rather than pay extra for a feature they do not regard as useful.
Second-order effects
- PC manufacturers have reason to emphasize cheaper non-touch configurations, limiting the demand pull for touch displays in Windows notebooks.
- Microsoft's Windows 8.1 fixes become more important to the Windows proposition because hardware touch alone is not overcoming first-time-user objections.
Third-order effects
- If touch premiums continue to fail the value test, PC hardware makers will need to treat touch as an optional feature rather than the default route to renewing demand for a new Windows release.
The trend: The episode is part of a broader shift in which PC hardware features must justify their added bill of materials with clear buyer value rather than rely on an operating-system redesign to create demand.