Windows 8 as New Coke? That’s an insult to New Coke

If you’re launching a new product, the last thing you want to have happen is for it to become shorthand for “spectacular failure.” That’s what happened to The Coca-Cola Company when it attempted to foist New Coke unto the world in 1985.

The second-worst thing? Being called the new New Coke. That’s what’s happening to Microsoft now, with the utter failure of Windows 8 to raise anyone’s pulse above a flutter, despite the alleged sale of 100 million copies.

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It’s not me calling Windows 8 the new New Coke. That comes from the staid and conservative Financial Times, with some piling on by The Economist — neither of them typical sources for Redmond bashing.

The chorus of new New Coke themes then flowed like a carbonated beverage across the WebberNets, forcing Microsoft’s PR jefe Frank X. Shaw to respond thusly:

In this world where everyone is a publisher, there is a trend to the extreme — where those who want to stand out opt for sensationalism and hyperbole over nuanced analysis. In this world where page views are currency, heat is often more valued than light. Stark black-and-white caricatures are sometimes more valued than shades-of-gray reality…

So let’s pause for a moment and consider the center. In the center, selling 100 million copies of a product is a good thing. In the center, listening to feedback and improving a product is a good thing. Heck, there was even a time when acknowledging that you were listening to feedback and acting on it was considered a good thing.

Windows 8 is a good product, and it’s getting better every day. Unlike a can of soda, a computer operating system offers different experiences to different customers to meet different needs, while still moving the entire industry toward an exciting future of touch, mobility, and seamless, cross-device experiences.

This is the same Frank X. Shaw who took to Twitter to pick a very public spat with Google PR exec Jill Hazelbaker last December over Microsoft’s ill-conceived Scroogled campaign. It’s the same guy who sarcastically accused Facebook of stealing Microsoft’s ideas for its new Home app last month and got into a multitweet fight with several big-time Twitterati over Bing’s “borrowing” of Google search results in February 2011.

Shaw’s newfound conversion to moderation is, let’s just say, well timed. (Also, I’ve been Robert X. in print and online for far longer than he’s been Frank X. I want my middle initial back, please.)

Shaw is right about one thing, though: Windows 8 is not a can of soda pop. There are a couple of key differences between what Coke faced with its new caffeinated sugar-water concoction and what Microsoft is facing now.

Where Coke and Microsoft differ

After 79 days of getting beaten like a pinata, Coca-Cola relented and restored the old formula. (Some suspect this was the intent all along — if nothing else, the debate got people declaring their undying allegiance to a product that had been around for nearly 100 years.)

Microsoft, on the other hand, released its latest operating system 199 days ago as I write this. The complaints about the “missing” Start button and other interface changes started flowing in about 15 seconds later, and they haven’t stopped. The top-selling apps in the Windows Marketplace are those that replace those very features.

Yet, Microsoft is still just talking about maybe possibly restoring the Start button or booting directly into Desktop mode at some point in the future. A public preview of Windows 8.1, which may or may not have those new old features, will be released six weeks from now. Hello? Anybody home?

SOOS (save our OS)!

Microsoft really can’t just go back to Old Windows. But it could have easily read the writing on the Facebook wall and offered users free updates to the OS months ago. The only reasons for not doing that and putting the whole argument to bed are stubbornness and/or stupidity.

The problem with Windows 8 is not the missing Start button or the interface changes. The problem is that, in a world infatuated with sexy Apple products and come-hither Android devices, Windows 8 is the dour old spinster wearing pantyhose and sensible shoes. There’s nothing especially new or appealing about it. In fact there are really only two reasons to upgrade to Windows 8:

1. You run a big Windows enterprise shop and want to wean your users away from their infatuation with iOS and Android so that you have only one OS to support across desktop and mobile devices. (Good luck with that.)
2. It was time to buy a new PC, Macs are still too expensive, and Windows 8 was your only choice.

And that’s it. There’s also a third potential reason that doesn’t apply here: You’ve decided that as painful as it is to be married to Windows, divorce would be worse, but the last version of Windows was so unbearable you’d gnaw your own leg off to get unshackled from it. That was the case with Vista, but not so much with Windows 7.

If Microsoft wants to play in this game it has to do more than offer a touch-friendly interface with live tiles. It has to do something truly innovative and cool, something we haven’t seen before, something that makes people stop obsessing over stupid OS names like “Honeycomb” and “Ice Cream Sandwich.”

The other thing Microsoft needs to do: Spend some of its billions in profits on building innovative apps. As I’ve noted a few times in this space, I have a Windows 8 phone. For a while, I used to check to see if my favorite iOS or Android apps had arrived on Windows yet. I’ve stopped doing that. I’ve given up on ever seeing a Pandora, Sonos, or Roku app on my phone.

Why isn’t Microsoft churning out apps that blow Apple’s and Android’s away? It certainly has the R&D budget for that. Why isn’t Microsoft trying to do something that’s worth paying attention to?

I have a guess. I’m betting any truly innovative ideas that bubble up at Microsoft are immediately quashed by Redmond middle managers who’ve been drinking the Ballmer Kool-Aid for too long. The funniest part? It tastes just like New Coke.

Can Windows be saved? And more important, should it? Post your thoughts below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “Windows 8 as New Coke? That’s an insult to New Coke,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.