Windows 8: You Make an Old Man Cry

　　It’s been a long time since Windows 95.
　　Those of you old enough to remember, will recall the hype that surrounded the release of Windows 95, back in the days when the boys from Redmond were the undisputed kings of the high-tech world. It was so big, it didn’t seem odd to use a popular Rolling Stones song (“Start Me Up”) or have Jay Leno on stage with Bill Gates at the unveiling. From our recollection of the times, the hype was fairly suffocating.
　　The response to Windows 8 was far different. Sure Microsoft put on the full-court press, but the response was tepid, at best. The Windows 8 release resembled the ill-fated Vista release much more than Windows 95. The complaints began immediately, and they haven’t let up.
　　Microsoft has responded quickly, however, announcing it’s planning updates to Windows 8 that address those complaints. George Stahl stopped by the MoneyBeat show to talk about what the admission means for Microsoft, and the whole PC industry. The updates — we don’t have much in the way of details yet — could yet turn Windows 8 into a winner. But Windows 8 was supposed to be Microsoft’s big bet – a way to get itself to the front of the line in the mobile world, and revitalize the PC world. It hasn’t worked out that way, so far at least.
　　Of course, it hasn’t been all bad, as Stahl noted. The stock has recently broken out of a multi-year funk, and first-quarter earnings were up 19%. “Microsoft may never be cool or dominant again,” Seattle Times columnist Jon Talton wrote this week, “but it stands a decent chance of finding the keys to being a newly powerful and profitable force in the emerging technology landscape.”
　　Given the company’s track record lately — name one bona fide hit the company’s had apart from XBox — the latest operating system seems like it will only deepen the general impression of Microsoft as a slow-moving, laborious, old company. Now that we think of it, given how badly outpaced Microsoft has been in the hipster department by the new millennium’s Young Turks, to say nothing of its historic nemesis, Apple, maybe it should have hired Leno and the Stones again.