Mud sticks: Microsoft, Windows 10 and reputational damage
Found on The Register on Friday, 25 March 2016
So, Windows 10 isn't the saviour of the PC industry after all – and is beginning to look more like a Windows Vista than a Windows XP.
Two things were unusual about this edition of Windows, and each alone could have posed issues for any big software company. One was a result of the new ethos of "Windows as a service," meaning that the software wasn't finished.
The other, and I believe more damaging, factor was that all this was performed in public. Through the Insider programme, Windows 10 development turned into a giant user feedback experiment, and this is when the reputational harm was done.
Not mentioned, but another big reason, is the forcefulness used by Microsoft to shove the new operating system down the throats of the users. Automatic upgrades sneak in with the normal security update cycles, a decision which made many users disable updates altogether, leading to more unpatched Windows machines out there which can join botnets.