Many people are interested in some early Windows 8 stats. I live in Silicon Valley, and here it’s as simple as: “show me the money”. So, this is the time when I show you the money. To me this nice hockey-stick chart looks like there’s a gold rush going on with Windows 8, don’t believe me? I only show you the stats in this posts, just pure facts.

4 days before and after Windows 8 and Surface launch
This is the stats from my Card Games Chest app for Windows 8 a few days before and after Windows 8 launch. It’s clearly a hockey-stick pattern, the one that makes investors scream and jump on an opportunity to invest. This app enjoyed a decent 300-400 downloads per day before launch, but after Windows 8 and Microsoft Surface were launched I’m getting about 2000-3000 downloads per day, approaching 100,000 very quickly (up 15K to 65K in just a few days). I’m hoping for a million downloads by the end of this year, and I think this is reasonable.

After I added in-app purchases and Microsoft ads, it pays very well for my lunch and my dinner and a little extra. I’m extremely happy about Windows 8, it’s a beautiful OS, very fast and fluid, well thought design and features you can’t find anywhere else.

Why consumers love Windows 8: from 13 to 55+ year olds!
I have very happy and very satisfied customers: in fact what impresses me the most, I actually have some early data to support that users from all age groups love it, based on the pattern of their purchases and downloads. I now have some very hard numbers that support the fact that users from all age groups love Windows 8! First, the download and purchase stats. As you can see, the app is downloaded by all age groups, including 13-21 and >55 years old. You see, only very satisfied customers buy the app, and they must love Windows 8 too, otherwise why would they buy it!



The interesting detail: more people older than 55 yo buy my app, which means not only are they comfortable with Windows 8 UI, but also, they are willing to spend money to buy my app! I read many posts recently from “I’m a Mac” prospective, arguing that Windows user interface is confusing. Clearly they were wrong all along: this chart below shows that people older than 55 are not only satisfied with Windows Store apps user experience, they are actually willing to pay money for premium features.

In-app purchases by age group



I know many iOS and Android developers, and I encourage them to join the Windows gold rush!

This is the perfect time for it.

Steven Sinofsky, the Microsoft executive in charge of Windows, has left the company. Julie Larson-Green is to assume control of Windows software and hardware engineering, and CFO Tami Reller will be in charge of the Windows business. The changes are effective immediately, and no reason was given for Sinofsky's departure. He had the following to say in a statement:

"It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company."
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, meanwhile, said "I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed
to the company." Sinofsky had a reputation as a brilliant yet controversial leader who could be difficult to work with, despite a strong record of shipping products on time. After working with Microsoft Office, he took control of Windows 7 following the troubled Vista launch and continued this role through last month's Windows 8 launch.

The Verge has seen Steve Ballmer's letter to Microsoft employees on the departure. On Sinofsky, the CEO had the following to say:

"As we enter this new era, and with the successful launch of Windows 8 and Surface behind us, Steven Sinofsky has decided to leave the company. Steven joined Microsoft in 1989 as a software development engineer and has contributed to the company in many ways from his work as a technical advisor to Bill Gates, to leading the evolution of the Microsoft Office business, to his direction and successful leadership of Windows and Windows Live as well as Surface."
Julie Larson-Green has been at Microsoft since 1993 and was responsible for program management, user interface design, and research on Windows 7 and 8. Her new role will encompass "all future Windows product development in addition to future hardware opportunities," and Ballmer described her as "the best possible person for this job."

Sources have said the move came amid growing tension between Sinofsky and other top executives. Sinofsky, though seen as highly talented, was viewed at the top levels as not the kind of team player that the company was looking for. The move is likened by some to the recent ouster at Apple of iOS head Scott Forstall.
Officially, Microsoft is saying that the move was a mutual decision by Sinofsky and the company.

The abrupt departure of Windows and Windows Live President Steven Sinofsky this evening has surprised many in the Microsoft community considering that he's hot off the launch of Windows 8 and Surface, two of Redmond's most important products in the last decade. There had been persistent rumblings that the man who oversaw the launch of Windows 8 was in line for a larger role in the company, perhaps even as the heir to CEO Steve Ballmer. However, multiple sources within Microsoft describe Sinofsky as abrasive and off-putting, aggressively maintaining his control over products and putting up roadblocks for products that would have any potential to diminish the Windows (and therefore his) power — an attitude rumored to be shared by Apple's recently-deposed iOS chief Scott Forstall.

Sinofsky's future path as an exeuctive at Microsoft was essentially at an end

Critically, Sinofsky was not ousted because of any issues with the launch of Windows 8 or the Surface, sources tell us; in fact, it's possible that his departure was already planned, but his ability to execute on Windows 8's retail release was seen as an asset worth keeping him around long enough to see it through. But his attitude (and skill set) as an aggressive, tightly-siloed Windows boss — not a holistic Microsoft boss — may have done him in. Given that the future of Microsoft's ecosystem would require tight collaboration between disparate divisions, Sinofsky's future path as an executive at Microsoft was essentially at an end.

Microsoft's Larry Lieberman recently referenced a famous comic of the company's organizational structure, depicting different departments as isolated fiefdoms holding guns at one another, admitting that there's "a little bit" of truth to it. Products like Windows Phone 8, Xbox Music, SmartGlass, Windows RT, and Surface clearly need to break out of that mentality, and people familiar with the matter say that Sinofsky simply wasn't that kind of team player — he was laser-focused on Windows and Surface with seemingly little regard for the remainder of Microsoft's kingdom.

That Sinofsky hasn't meshed well with other teams within Microsoft is no surprise — sources tell The Verge that as far back as the scuttled Courier tablet project, he was seen as a divisive force inside the company that creative forces like J Allard grew unwilling to work with.

Our sources have stopped short of calling Sinofsky's departure an outright firing, but it seems that there are few inside Microsoft's senior ranks that are sorry to see him go.

6:29PM EST November 13. 2012 - The firing of Microsoft executive Steven Sinofsky, just 15 days after the launch of Windows 8, raises questions about whether there will be a return of the traditional Windows Start Menu.

Microsoft's not saying. But there are a couple of developments suggesting that might not be a bad bet.

First, to catch you up: Sinofsky, a one time aide to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, was summarily let go by CEO Steve Ballmer on Monday night, two weeks after the much hyped Oct. 26 launch of Windows 8. Until then, Sinofsky was head of Microsoft's Windows division. WIndows 8 is his baby.

Arguably the boldest change Sinofsky insisted on was to cut off Windows users cold turkey from the familiar Start Menu interface. He outlined his philosophy and rationale via a blog post written in connection with the Build developers' conference held a few days after the Windows 8 launch.

Sinofsky persuaded Ballmer to replace the Start Menu with a hybrid touch screen, plus keyboard and mouse interface. He had his detractors. But Sinofsky successfully argued that it was crucial for the company to orient Windows PC users toward the look and feel of the all-new Windows 8 Surface touch tablet and the latest Windows Phone 8 smartphone models.

He might have won the internal debate. But convincing millions of home and workplace users of Windows that the switch was for their own good hasn't gone well.

Software company Stardock has sold tens of thousands of copies of Start8, a $5 application that restores a fully functioning Windows 7 Start Menu interface to new Windows 8 PCs. Stardock has distributed tens of thousands more free trial versions, says Kris Kwilas, Stardock's vice president of technology.

"We were having some success with word of mouth before the Windows 8 release, and since the release, the floodgates have been opened, and the demand is surprising even us," Kwilas says. "It tells me that early adopters of Windows 8 feel there's something missing -- a comfort factor for how they want to use their PCs, vs. how Microsoft has decided for them how they should use their computers."

The lukewarm reception for Windows 8 appears to be running deep with Microsoft's corporate customers, as well. Gartner analyst Stephen Kleynhans has issued a widely cited report saying large organizations won't even begin small pilot studies of Windows 8 usage until 2013 at the earliest.

"We expect during 2013 a lot of companies will begin experimenting with Windows 8 tablets, running some small pilots as a learning experience," Kleynhans says.

User training and acceptance in corporate settings is a "major hurdle," adds Karl Volkman, chief technology officer at hosting services provider SRV Network. "Many people resist change because breaking habits is difficult," he says.

Complicating matters further, Sinofsky championed issuing multiple versions of Windows 8, including one for the Surface tablet that runs on an ARM processing chip, instead of Intel chips. Application developers have had to design software for two distinctive processors. None of the existing Intel Windows apps can run on the ARM-based Surface tablets. Microsoft has had to create a special version of Office to run on Surface, observes Trip Chowdhry, managing director of Global Equities Research.

"Office on Surface is a dumbed-down version. Consumers are confused, and confused consumers don't buy things," says Chowdhry. "Nobody can explain what you can do in one version of Windows 8 compared to another."

Al Hilwa, IDC's applications development software analyst, surmises that the bottom line probably dictated the timing of Ballmer firing Sinofsky.

The Windows division reported declining sales in the company's fiscal 2013 first quarter, which ended Sept. 30. Six weeks into Microsoft's fiscal second quarter, and two weeks into a Windows 8 marketing blitz, Ballmer must not like what he sees in Windows sales trends, Hilwa says.

Hilwa says Ballmer has to at least be weighing a reversal of Sinofsky's call to dump the Start Menu whole hog.

"Clearly, if the product isn't doing well, they could come up with a service pack that restores the Start Menu," Hilwa says. "There's a whole bunch of smaller decisions that could make the product easier to use with a mouse. They may have to dial the needle down enough to bring enterprises on board."

Wes Miller, an industry analyst at independent research firm Directions on Microsoft, says Sinofsky's sudden exit probably has more to do with personalities than any specific product flaws.

Miller points out that Sinofsky's replacement, Julie Larson-Green, actually directed the revamping of the user interface for Windows 8.

"She spiritually led much of the start screen work for Windows 8," says Miller. "So much about this decision is personality and the direction of the company moving forward -- and not really any explicit product-related decisions."

Tami Reller, corporate vice president (and chief financial officer and chief marketing officer) for Windows and Windows Live, announced today that Microsoft has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses after its first month of retail availability.

Is that number good, bad, or merely mediocre? Probably good, but perhaps not great. Microsoft sold 60 million copies of Windows 7 in the first ten weeks of that operating system's availability, with the Wall Street Journal estimating that 40 million copies were sold in the first month.

With Windows 8 selling 40 million copies in five weeks, it seems to be selling at about the same pace as Windows 7. Considering the different market dynamics—Windows 7 was an iterative release that fulfilled substantial pent-up demand as businesses chose to ignore Windows Vista whereas Windows 8 is a more controversial update being brought to a market that is generally happy with Windows 7 anyway—this is a healthy performance. Windows 7 sold very well and matching it is no mean feat. The apparent failure to surpass Windows 7's launch could explain the mixed reports on early sales. Strong sales can still be disappointing if they were expected to be stronger still.

There are a few provisos, however. First, there's the usual hand-waving that comes when companies report sales figures; there's a difference between copies sold to retailers and OEMs, and copies sold to end-users. The former number is always higher than the latter, with the difference representing stock sitting in warehouses and on store shelves. The latter number, however, is the one that indicates the level of interest and acceptance by actual users, and it's also the one that indicates the size of the market for Windows 8-specific Windows Store applications. This complaint isn't unique to the Windows 8 numbers; the same is true of the Windows 7 reports too.

Second, Reller noted that the number of upgrades to Windows 8 was outpacing the volume of upgrades to Windows 7 in the equivalent timeframe. What she didn't note was that Windows 8 upgrades are substantially cheaper than Windows 7 upgrades were, as Microsoft is selling upgrades for $39.99 in a time-limited offer that runs to the end of January 2013. This offer is likely to be stimulating sales of the upgrade licenses but might not necessarily be translating into Windows 8 installations, with some users buying the license now but sticking with Windows 7 as a hedge against price rises in future.

Reller offered some other numbers to suggest that consumers were getting along with Windows 8 better than some expected: 90 percent of users manage to use the charms on their first day, 50 percent visit the Windows Store on the first day, and 85 percent launch the desktop on the first day. Several apps have already enjoyed 1 million downloads, and several more are close to that. One thing she didn't provide was a number of Surface sales. We still have no data on how well Microsoft's first foray into the PC hardware market is doing.

Even with these provisos, it's clear that Windows 8's launch is far from a failure and that the PC market isn't dead yet. Apple sold about 40 million iPads in the whole of 2011 and OS X has about 66 million users total. The PC market may not have exploded the way some OEMs and retailers might have hoped, but it certainly hasn't collapsed just yet.

Microsoft is busy preparing its next-generation Windows client, shortly after shipping Windows 8 in October. The Verge has learned from several sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans that the company is planning to standardize on an approach, codenamed Blue, across Windows and Windows Phone in an effort to provide more regular updates to consumers.

Originally unveiled by ZDNet, the update on the Windows side, due in mid-2013, will include UI changes and alterations to the entire platform and pricing. We’re told that Microsoft is aiming to make Windows Blue the next OS that everyone installs. The approach is simple, Microsoft will price its next Windows release at a low cost or even free to ensure users upgrade. Once Windows Blue is released, the Windows SDK will be updated to support the new release and Microsoft will stop accepting apps that are built specifically for Windows 8, pushing developers to create apps for Blue. Windows 8 apps will continue to run on Blue despite the planned SDK changes.

YEARLY UPGRADES WILL BE THE NORM FOR WINDOWS SOON

We understand that you will need a genuine copy of Windows to upgrade to Windows Blue. Built-in apps and the Windows Store will cease functioning if a copy is upgraded that is pirated. Sources tell us that Microsoft will likely keep the Windows 8 name for the foreseeable future, despite the Windows Blue update. A big part of Windows Blue is the push towards yearly updates for Microsoft’s OS. Microsoft will kick off an annual upgrade cycle for Windows that is designed to make it more competitive against rival platforms from Apple and Google.

We reached out to Microsoft for comment, however a company spokesperson refused to discuss Windows Blue.

Reller offered some other numbers to suggest that consumers were getting along with Windows 8 better than some expected: 90 percent of users manage to use the charms on their first day, 50 percent visit the Windows Store on the first day, and 85 percent launch the desktop on the first day.

With Windows 8, touchscreens are more relevant than ever before. However, some pundits have long believed that a touchscreen simply doesn't belong on a laptop. Sometimes, they quote Steve Jobs. "Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical." That's Jobs in 2010, telling the world why Apple notebooks wouldn't feature the technology.

"You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not gonna be pleasing to the user." That one's from Tim Cook earlier this year, explaining the company's stance on convertible tablet PCs.

These were the opinions of the leaders of the most profitable tech company in the world. I believed them myself. And yet somehow, neither of them have kept me from instinctively, repeatedly touching the screen of my MacBook Air this month.

I review laptops for The Verge, and recently I've been using a string of Windows 8 touchscreen computers. I was prepared for disappointment from day one — prepared to say that while certain Windows 8 gestures are easier with a touchscreen, the overall idea isn't very good. I was prepared to write that the Windows 8 interface was forcing unnecessary touchscreen controls on people who wouldn't appreciate them, particularly if they were simply grafted onto a traditional laptop.

But the more I've used Windows 8, despite its faults, the more I've become convinced that touchscreens are the future — even vertical ones.

When Steve Jobs decried touchscreen laptops in 2010, he was merely relaying the common wisdom of decades of user experience research into "gorilla arm syndrome." Simply put, it's the idea that if you hold out your arm in front of a touchscreen for an extended period of time, it's not going to be particularly comfortable. However, that assumes an awful lot — what if you're not holding your arms out in space waiting to touch things, but resting them comfortably on a keyboard?

THE TOUCHSCREEN IS A COMPLEMENT FOR MOUSE AND KEYBOARD

We've been looking at this all wrong. A touchscreen isn't a replacement for a keyboard or mouse, it's a complement. If I want to type things on my laptop and have enough room to comfortably open that clamshell and stretch out my arms, the keyboard's still my best bet. I'm not going to touch-type 70 words per minute on a touchscreen keyboard. But when I'm in the cramped quarters of a train, plane, or standing in a line — say, when the only thing standing between a critical email and its recipient is a few dozen words and a tap of the button marked "Send" — I can grab that Windows 8 laptop by its hinged section, one hand on either side of the screen, and tap out that message with my thumbs.



Perhaps that's an extreme example, though. Even in everyday use, I find myself touching the screens of computers (whether they have touchscreens or not) because I can do things faster and more intuitively.

If you want to launch a program on your desktop, which makes more sense? Reach down to a special glass surface and drag a finger across it just long enough to land a floating pointer arrow on top of the icon, and then tap? Or simply reach up to a visible icon and tap it? Why try to aim that pointer at a little X icon, or remember keyboard shortcuts like Alt-F4, when I can just swipe down from the top of the screen to close a Windows 8 program? Why painstakingly zoom a web browser in 10 percent increments using a disembodied keyboard or trackpad when you can smoothly manipulate it between your fingers with pinch-to-zoom? I now find myself doing, or at least wishing I could do, these things all the time.

Even in Windows 8's desktop mode, which is still difficult enough to manipulate with touch alone that you'll probably want a mouse and keyboard, I'm constantly reaching up to that vertical touchscreen surface to grab windows and snap them to either side.

Of course, these things particularly make sense for Windows systems because of how terrible Windows trackpads are on average. We've used a few good ones this year, but on the whole they're buggy and unresponsive, and the touchscreens on these Windows 8 laptops are a breath of fresh air by comparison. Their poor performance certainly contributed to my willingness to give the touchscreen a real try. But even if they weren't so bad, I think I'd still prefer the direct control I get with the screen. After all, my MacBook Air touchpad is just fine, and I still have to restrain myself from touching its launcher bar from time to time.

Unfortunately, a lot of what makes Windows 8 work well on a touchscreen depends on that screen's specifications, and not in a positive way. The larger the screen and the lower the resolution, the easier it is for you to use your fingers, because the icons are physically bigger. For instance, I found the 15.6-inch Envy Touchsmart Ultrabook 4 and 14-inch Acer Aspire M5, with 1366 x 768 resolution touchscreen displays, a lot easier to use than the pixel-dense 1080p screens on the 11.6-inch Sony Duo 11, 12.5-inch Dell XPS 12, and 13.3-inch Acer Aspire S7.

AT 1080P ON A SMALL SCREEN, WINDOWS 8 NEEDS PINCH-TO-ZOOM FOR THE ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM

The problem is that the same low-resolution of those 1366 x 768 screens on the Envy and Aspire M5 makes the images they display comparatively ugly. Windows 8 doesn't feel optimized for touch on a small 1080p screen, and even if you turn down the resolution or the DPI to give yourself larger touch targets, Windows 8 doesn't scale very well. In Internet Explorer, you can pinch-to-zoom to quickly make those targets larger, but Microsoft doesn't offer anything similar for the operating system at large.

Which brings us back to the Mac.



Apple already built a solution for this very problem, starting with the iPhone 4. The Retina Display uses four pixels for each one pixel on a normal screen, making the images crisper but keeping the touch targets the exact same size they were before. Pick up an iPad 2, and put a third- or fourth-generation iPad alongside, and the entire interface is the exact same size, but the newer models display much clearer, crisper images and text thanks to the pixel quadrupling. Apple's doing the same thing with its new 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display, even though neither model has a touchscreen.

At least not yet.

Apple didn't build the first MP3 player, the first touchscreen smartphone, the first graphical user interface, the first tablet, or the first solid state drive in a laptop PC. The company typically likes to wait till a technology has matured, but when the industry still hasn't quite figured out how to use it properly. With touchscreens on laptops, we may be there again. Microsoft might have validated the idea, but now Apple has another chance to swoop in, perfecting and popularizing the very interface that it strategically ridiculed just two years ago. It wouldn't be the first time. After all, how many iPad minis come with sandpaper for filing fingers down?

APPLE COULD SWOOP IN YET AGAIN

When departing Intel CEO Paul Otellini said that Windows 8 was unfinished, this is what I believe he might have meant: Microsoft clearly saw where user interfaces were headed, but stopped short of optimizing its UI for the next generation of touchscreens. If what we're hearing now is true, though, Microsoft will have a chance to rectify that sooner than you might think. With "Windows Blue," the company is planning yearly updates for the operating system. If Microsoft can fix UI scaling, figure out a Retina Display alternative, or find other intelligent ways to allow users to consistently touch what they intend to touch, Windows could maintain the touchscreen lead. There's still a chance for Microsoft to avoid getting leapfrogged by Apple in 2013.