Microsoft must assume some of the blame for the poor retailing, Baker implied. But rather than directly criticize Microsoft, he simply noted, "They did not do anything different" at Windows 8's launch to prepare retailers or assist them. "But hindsight is really easy six months later."
The bold direction of Windows 8, with its emphasis on touch as a selling point, presented retailers with problems they'd never encountered -- detachable displays for example -- a core feature of the so-called "convertible" devices that morph from a notebook into a tablet by swiveling the screen to a new position or removing it entirely. "That isn't the norm of what we've had in the market before," Baker said, referring to retailers' confusion over how to secure those detachable screens or show the mutating nature of the device in the absence of a salesperson.
Moorhead cited Apple's retail stores as the right way to promote and sell today's computers -- and other computing devices, like tablets. "Interestingly, I never see the [retail problems with Windows 8 notebooks] at an Apple store. Never, ever," Moorhead said. "I can sit at the Apple store there for hours and literally do a test drive like I would a car."
Retailers didn't do Windows 8 any favors - Computerworld
