Over the weekend, I read this post “6 ways Microsoft is Killing the Traditional Desktop in Windows 8”. Like many headline hungry opinion writers, there’s a large share of hyperbole in this article. The headline also implies an incorrect motive. I won’t speculate on whether or not Microsoft wants to kill the traditional desktop. However, I think I’m on safe ground when I say Microsoft wants the Windows 8 Metro desktop to succeed. If you market and sell applications on Windows, you should rephrase each of his 6 ways as motivation for getting your applications on the Metro platform:
Your Users Start in Metro
Do you want your application front and center in your users’ cognitive space? Do you want them starting and running your application everyday? Once Windows 8 comes out, that means running as a Metro App. If you want your application visible on a daily basis, using live tiles to update status, and enticing customers to launch your app, your application must be in the Metro start menu.
Modern Apps win
You have a choice of environments in Windows 8: “Modern” (meaning Metro) and “Desktop”, meaning, well, not modern. If you’re competitors are more modern than you are, they will win.
Touch First wins
The Modern interface is a touch first experience. Chris Hoffman is not the first author to mention the phenomena of wanting to use touch on his windows 7 machine after using Metro. It really is compelling. Once your users have a touch-first experience, they will gravitate toward those applications that work for them in the touch environment. If your application is the competitor with a solid touch experience, you can successfully take marketshare from competitors that have not made a touch investment.
Desktop applications are not first-class apps
The Desktop is a Metro app. That means desktop apps do not show up as individual apps in the task bar, or in task switching. They have limited features for sharing, standard metro menus, and more.
Metro apps will be more fully integrated into the Windows 8 experience than any legacy desktop applications.
Metro Apps have greater market reach
Windows 8 runs on Intel x86 and i64 processors. It also runs on ARM processors, used on tablet devices where battery life is a key driver. Traditional desktop applications will not install on ARM devices running Windows 8 (exceptions may be made for Office, Windows Explorer, and a few other Microsoft applications. If you want to reach the greatest market, you must create Metro apps.
The Windows App Store sells Metro Apps
The Windows App store makes it easy to install apps, try them, rate them, and purchase enhanced versions or add ons. It makes it easier for customers to try new applications safely, and purchase those apps they like the best. The App Store keeps track of the apps a user has purchased, and automatically installs any updates and bug fixes. That lowers your support costs: users will be automatically upgraded to the latest released version.
OF course, those business features are only available for Metro apps. If you’re trying to sell legacy desktop mode apps, you must still manage this entire process yourself. Once again, Metro apps incur lower costs, and gain new benefits from the ecosystem.
Some closing remarks
Windows 8 is a big change from Windows 7. When it is released, existing Windows 7 apps will look as dated as Windows 3.1 applications looked when Windows 95 released. That change drastically modified the marketplace at the time. Those companies that were ready to ride the wave of Windows 95 started a very impressive growth curve. Their competitors that bet against change slowly faded from relevance. Regardless of the platform, the software industry has proven time and again that betting against the latest upcoming release is a bad idea. Stay close enough to the leading edge to stay relevant.
A fun exercise with this article is to replace every instance of “Metro” and “Windows 8″ with “Apple”. When this happens, interestingly, all the arguments become stronger.
Let me rephrase for emphasis: every argument you use to convert devs to write Metro apps can be used more effectively to convert devs to the Apple platform.
So the big question you haven’t answered in your article is: why should anyone bother with Metro at all when they can switch instead to the dominant Apple platform?
I don’t have the answer to whether Metro will succeed as a platform or not–it could go the way of either the Zune or the XBox–but you’ve baked in the assumption that Metro will be successful. Don’t ignore the fact that this isn’t the first Windows tablet PC we’ve seen.
I sincerely believe that this Metro thing on Windows 8 will have about the same popularity as Active Desktop has had, as well as Sideshow and Desktop Gadgets. People still use PC’s, and they still use their PC’s to do be productive. A PC is not a mobile device, and it will not be treated as one.
It’s nice that Microsoft is trying to merge all the different forms of computing, but this isn’t it.
It works, you don’t know how fast I navigate trough the metro desktop, with my mouse I’m super efficient, clicks almost never go wrong(unless it’s hanging or buggy sometimes in the consumer preview), and I don’t have to be targeting to exactly. keyboard works also wonderfully. Your eyes don’t get hurt. You don’t go trough your taskbar to find the program your looking for because it’s hidden behind other windows, instead, you just hit upper right corner and be at your last app, or slide down and have a preview of all the apps.
Seriously, I never want to go back, I already hate to use Win 7 as I hated to use XP.
@Peter: I agree that iOS / iPad development is a wise investment. It is a market of 50 million devices (as of March 2012). I would not tell any developer (or any ISV) to ignore a 50 million device market. However, the Windows 8 market potential is equally large, and potentially much larger. There are over 500 Million Windows 7 devices in use now. That means the Windows 8 market is as large as the iPad market if 1 in 10 Windows 7 users upgrade, and not a single new Windows 8 device is sold. That seems like a like a safe bet. Any way look at it, the Windows 8 Metro market will be too big to ignore. Smart ISVs will create Windows 8 apps, and iOS apps. Both markets are big enough to warrant the attention.
Great take on my post! It’s all very true.
I’d note that you basically agree with my point — it’s all about Metro now, and the desktop is playing second fiddle. That Windows 7 desktop apps will be as dated as Windows 3.1 apps is exactly the point I was trying to make. Where are Windows 3.1 apps now? Gone. Just like desktop apps will be, eventually — if Microsoft keeps moving in this direction, of course.