I thought ribbon was really bad for productivity, as it's just a less-effective mega menu, or a mega-menu which hides some options without providing any mechanism to see everything. My understanding was that an application had to go to full mega-menu, with all the options visible, or traditional dropdowns w/ alphabetized groupings and lots of iconongraphy.
You can move the most-common features to the ribbon, which would improve productivity for most people. Of course you'll never hit every use case, but you can make the average case a lot better.
Honestly, in the long run, I feel the ribbon is more or less a productivity wash. Not a huge difference either way. But as with most large rearrangements of UI, familiarity was dealt a blow. Office has had the ribbon for nine years, and with that familiarity back intact, I find no serious issues with it.
You can drop something that doesn't exist but was announced. Thechnically Skylake support for Win7 wasn't announced, but the effect is the same since there was an implicit expectation that the feature would come.
>Thechnically Skylake support for Win7 wasn't announced, but the effect is the same since there was an implicit expectation that the feature would come.
From where did this implicit expectation come from?
Windows 7 mainstream support ended in Jan 2015 and that was known since forever.
Extended support implies:
>Microsoft no longer supplies non-security hotfixes unless you have an extended support agreement
>All warranty claims end
>Microsoft no long accepts requests for new features and design changes
But I presume dropping support just means not being able to use the latest features.
Even a very old system image of windows 7 will run on the very latest skylake. It doesn't need the very latest updates. I doubt they will create a kill switch in a windows update that refuses to boot if the system detects a too modern CPU.
But more than 5 out of 10 PCs are still running Windows 7, and more than 2 out of 10 are still running other older versions of Windows.
Windows 10 has reportedly now passed 10% market share and just overtaken Windows 8.1 and Windows XP (individually, not combined).
For an operating system that Microsoft are so aggressively promoting to current users of 7/8, not to mention literally giving it away to them, that looks like an awful reaction from the market six months in already.
There were 275 million PC units sold in 2015, and approximately the same number is expected for 2016. Sales were growing until 2011, when they peaked at around 360 million units. So certainly sales have shrunk, but I wouldn't describe them as "shrinking quickly", according to forecasts.
Shipments were down in 2015 even if you include Apple computers, which outperformed the rest. https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS40909316 Things look even worse when you take them out. Which forecasts are you using?
IDC PC numbers are depressed partly because it doesn't count tablets/2-in-1s as PCs, it counts them as tablets.
The story to which you link notes that "The impact for 2016 will be larger as detachable tablet volume grows, boosting earlier forecasts of PC growth in 2016 from -3.1% to growth of 1 to 2%."
The quote is saying that if you add those "tablets" back, it's predicting that the PC market will grow this year.
Another important point is that the vast majority of Windows 7/8/8.1 PCs will run Windows 10, and the upgrade is free. There's very little need for most users to buy a new PC.
If users only buy a new PC every six years, then Windows PC sales should halve, compared with a three-year upgrade cycle. It doesn't mean that PC usage is declining (though it might be), it just means that PCs are lasting twice as long.
Smartphone sales were, of course, hugely inflated by the fact that they only lasted for 18 months or so. When people keep their smartphones for three years, smartphone sales with halve as well.
Windows runs on everything from USB thumbdrivess to supercomputers. Windows 10 also runs on phones and games consoles. The IoT version runs on the Raspberry Pi etc. I'm not sure how many of those I'd want to count, but Windows 10 on a Asus T100 looks like a legitimate PC to me, whatever IDC says ;-)
Total "PC" units are shrinking, and Windows PC sales are shrinking compared to Mac computer sales, and phones are exploding compared to PCs. What comparison could you make where Windows PC sales are "up"?
source? Total units sold are shrinking (or steady, depending on your definition of PC and who's numbers you are using), but total units in operation is much closer to describing Microsofts market and hard to measure.
>Windows PC sales are shrinking compared to Mac computer sales
Macs are personal computers in every sense except marketing speak. The competitor selling better isn't a sign of the market shrinking.
>and phones are exploding compared to PCs
And in the summer desk fans sell better than hair driers. Phones are not in the same market as PCs.
Yeah? Care to back this up with some data? Because I'm looking at a very expensive market research report which disagrees. Sales of new PCs are down, because people don't need a new computer every 2 years. This doesn't mean total PCs in usage are down.
