Defending Windows 8 against reports that sales have been sluggish, one of Microsoft's top executives said it will take time for customers to digest the new operating system and for device makers to ramp up production of the hardware users want: Touch-enabled PCs and tablets.
"We all had a strong sense that unique touch devices, particularly touch laptops and tablets, convertibles would be in high demand," said Tami Reller, CFO and chief marketing officer of the Windows division, in a question-and-answer Tuesday at the JP Morgan Tech Forum, which was held in Las Vegas, where CES kicked off Monday. "[But] the level of demand I think surprised a lot of people."
[ Also on InfoWorld: New Windows 8 tablets fail to impress. | Also: Woody Leonhard says Windows 8 is down but not out. | Windows 8 is here, and InfoWorld covers Microsoft's new direction, the touch interface for tablet and desktop apps, the transition from Windows 7, and more in the Windows 8 Deep Dive PDF special report. | Stay atop key Microsoft technologies in our Technology: Microsoft newsletter. ]
Apparently even Microsoft's computer-making partners underestimated the attraction of touch, which seems odd on its face because Microsoft has touted touch as key to Windows 8 since the OS was introduced more than a year ago. In September 2011, when then-Windows chief Steven Sinofsky debuted Windows 8, he used the phrase "touch first" to describe the new operating system.
"There's touch first with a keyboard and mouse that works just as well as a first-class citizen, your choice of interaction," Sinofsky said, according to a transcript of his presentation. "It's so important to the fundamentals of Windows 8 that you have this no-compromise experience."
In the months that followed, "touch" became a touchstone for Microsoft.
When asked Tuesday about reports that Windows 8 was off to a slow start at retail -- a trend that persisted through the holidays, according to one research firm -- Reller argued that touch-enabled systems have been hard to come by, implying that was one of the reasons for the OS's inability to boost PC sales.
"Frankly, the supply was too short. I mean, there was more demand than there was supply in the types of devices that our customers had the most demand for," Reller said. "And there was some misalignment between where products were distributed and where there was demand."
