That's pretty much my reaction: Microsoft is being fairly radical, but not radical enough.
What Android, iOS, and OS X have demonstrated is that a lot of people can meet their computing needs without Windows. Microsoft's approach seems doomed to hold on to a huge but ever-shrinking slice of that pie.
Offering something dramatically different might (from my flawed understanding) demand removing some of the older elements of Windows that allow backward compatibility, but prevent deeper changes to how Windows works.
I'd love to see them put out a new-from-the-ground-up OS as a free beta, and get enough things right to generate a lot of buzz around it. They could release it with some limited emulation for Windows, just to ease the transition, the way Apple did with OS X. Of course, they don't have to do this, and anyone considering their new OS would be just as free to consider any OS at that point, but that seems to be happening anyway with mobile devices.
To sum up my rambling, they're an interesting company with a lot of smart people who seem to be shackled to old technology. If they don't move on, much of the world will move on without them, and that would be a shame.
It takes a lot of time to build and release a new OS and then jump-start a community of developers around it. The power of the PC and the reason why we'll still be using PCs for a long time is also due to its legacy ... basically whatever tasks you need to do on a PC, there's already an app for it and most people probably know about it too.
Getting rid of this legacy would be Microsoft's poison pill. Unfortunately for them Windows is being disrupted by OS X and Linux for power-users on one hand and Android / iOS for normal users on the other hand. They are in the classic innovators dilemma.
The dilemma can also be disrupted, by pulling a Henderson of some kind. Change what it means to be a PC/desktop. Put all those legacy apps in a 3D world, tool up for holographic displays, something.
Or just slowly die, filing lawsuits to retard the industry and drag out your lifeblood a few more years.
I actually agree with you. Microsoft, instead of working on mediocre hybrids, should work harder to innovate the desktop, while slowly pursuing the path of hybrids with WinPhone. The truth is the world is not ready for hybrids yet. And when the world will be ready, then I predict both iOS and Android will be there.
Instead they've chosen to handicap the most successful product they've ever had. I couldn't say I'm sorry as I haven't been a Windows user for years.
This is an excellent point. MS needs to make a lot of changes, but one of the biggest mistakes it could make is trying to copy Apple exactly, and losing out on what it already has while doing so.
I think the problem is that they just don't understand the market well enough. In many ways the Surface Pro is an equivalent misstep as the Kin. They're trying to target the wrong niche in the wrong way with the wrong product and a bad business model.
They need to either outdo Apple, beat them to the punch, or play on a different field. For example, Microsoft is perfectly positioned to make the tablet as a business device a reality. IT departments would salivate over the ability to control apps and deployments and so forth the way a carrier can. Imagine if MS build a set of tools that allowed companies to make internal intranet "app stores", for example. Imagine if they made all of their office tools work well on a tablet. Imagine if they made a tablet that could easily snap into a base station and suddenly work as a monitor attached to a kb/mouse/wired internet and then be easily removed for taking to a meeting or home. And it also could have built-in 3G connectivity and smart VPN support so it would always stay effectively connected to the company network. Is that the kind of device that a lot of people would buy? Is that the sort of thing that could build an entire business that Apple would have trouble reaching for some time?
I could come up with dozens more examples. But instead of making a strong move they took a running start then stopped to tie their shoelaces and forgot what they were doing. Good specs and fancy googaws are only of limited value in the moment, and they only sell devices if you've already got mindshare. Apple could announce that it's next iPhone was dephlogistonated and it would sell devices, but that's because of all the hard, uphill brand grinding work that Apple has done in years past, MS isn't in that same space.
There are some truly cool things about the Surface Pro (such as the multi-touch + stylus input), but this is not a time for experimentation.
Apple is making in profit about 3/4 of Microsoft's revenue. Microsoft certainly still has a lot of resources still at its disposal, and it will still continue to earn billions in revenue for years (maybe decades), but the time is fast approaching of their last remaining chance to stay relevant and stay in the game before it passes them by.
What Android, iOS, and OS X have demonstrated is that a lot of people can meet their computing needs without Windows. Microsoft's approach seems doomed to hold on to a huge but ever-shrinking slice of that pie.
Offering something dramatically different might (from my flawed understanding) demand removing some of the older elements of Windows that allow backward compatibility, but prevent deeper changes to how Windows works.
I'd love to see them put out a new-from-the-ground-up OS as a free beta, and get enough things right to generate a lot of buzz around it. They could release it with some limited emulation for Windows, just to ease the transition, the way Apple did with OS X. Of course, they don't have to do this, and anyone considering their new OS would be just as free to consider any OS at that point, but that seems to be happening anyway with mobile devices.
To sum up my rambling, they're an interesting company with a lot of smart people who seem to be shackled to old technology. If they don't move on, much of the world will move on without them, and that would be a shame.