So MS says it's PC makers' fault? Somebody go and tell MS astroturfers that infest forums all around the world blaming the users!!!

LOL

Windows 8 makes Vista look like a masterpiece, I sincerely hope it fails utterly and that they make a replacement that's not so disgustingly user-unfriendly.

They need to stop trying to be Apple. They need to appeal to everyone without ripping them off at every turn. They fucked WIndows 8 by trying to turn it into a bloody Ipod.

Exactly. They act like nobody uses a desktop/laptop anymore, which Windows 8 is HORRIBLY unsuited for. Apple certainly isn't something to aspire to quality wise.

As an artist Apple computers appeal to me more for my work and have taken me away from PC for the artistic and multimedia business purposes. Thats my Laptop, but my PC is general use and word processing and gaming. They have their positives and negatives, but Microsoft lost me completely with Windows 8. I am so glad I didnt make the switch. 

Essentially, Microsoft is saying, "Windows isn't selling as well as we'd hope because PC makers are not running their businesses the way we want them to."

How anyone cannot fault them for that... :::shakes head:::

Fair enough. Being a writer and a gamer Windows 7 works great for me and Macs don't suit me.

Yeah, Windows has a better version of Microsoft Word. More fonts and stuff. Apple isn't licesnsed to have most of Microsoft Words fonts. You're kinda forced to have a PC, but the good thing about Macs is you can have a dual OS with Windows on it. Doesn't look right though, lol. 

We should also consider that MS and Intel are giants compared to most traditional PC makers, they have far more cash available and MS also hugely greater profit margin, so in the past they could grab them by the throat, also helped by the slow US antitrust, that still stuck to the past, when IBM was the market leader, paralysed the only company powerful enough in the '90s and the 2000s to compete with the new SW-HW duopoly, that instead was repeatedly allowed to break every rule about fair play against smaller competitors being at most fined by laughably low sums. But now, trying to merge PC with smartphones and tablets, MS made a terrible mistake, as it finds itself facing new HW partners that enjoy far larger revenues and profit margins than old PC makers, and that have been used to install different OS on their current best-selling devices for years, so they didn't allow MS to build its legacy power on their market, and that don't need to concede Intel the exclusivity to receive some marketing help, nor they have to give it to MS on OS to obtain a better price on it.
Long story short: in the very moment the line between PC and other devices will be completely erased, MS and Intel will lose their power on the market, MS will lose also most of the power of its SW legacy, and they will be forced to compete exclusively on price and quality. Still with the big help of the brute force granted them by their size and cash, so they won't disappear and they'll remain two of the biggest players in the market, but they won't be anymore two giants amogst dwarfs.