Is Windows 10 the key to solving the UK's productivity crisis?
Gold partner says UK output 'way behind other countries', with software a factor
With Windows 10 adoption gathering a good head of steam and Microsoft's plan to "place productivity" at the centre of its offering, the enterprise now needs to embrace better deployment and adoption of the right software to capitalise, according to Martin Neale, CEO of cloud computing company ICS Solutions - a Microsoft gold partner in the UK.
"The Microsoft application suite has been enormously successful and its deployment is ubiquitous among the majority of UK organisations," said Neale. "However, within this success is a deeper challenge to ensure the widespread use of applications by employees. There is a lot of functionality that people could use more effectively, but a lack of awareness or experience is getting in the way of achieving improved productivity.
"The big challenge is to make [Windows] applications more intuitive to use."
While Neale's vested interest is obvious - attempting to sell his company's products - he raises a fair point. Computing has made repeated attempts to talk to early adopters of Windows 10 via Microsoft's PR channels, but nobody wants to talk.
The Windows 10 push, it seems, is currently on making people adopt, but it's unclear, as yet, exactly what the new ecosystem, with its single platform and shared APIs, can offer the enterprise specifically.
"Microsoft recently announced its new business and technology strategy. This includes reinventing productivity and business processes, building intelligent cloud platforms and creating more personal computing that provides a single use through any device," continued Neale.
"A key driver to focus on productivity is a growing sense that users are overwhelmed by the amount of information that they receive and that applications need to become more intelligent in helping users prioritise their work," he said.
At the same time, Windows 10's app store remains as underpopulated as Windows 8's. There seems to have been no push by Microsoft into the enterprise to make Windows 10 speak out as an app platform, despite a reported 73 per cent keen to take up the operating system shortly before launch.
Instead, conversations around legacy compatibility with older software have been at the forefront.
Martin suggested that a failure to fully embrace Windows 10 could even damage the UK economy. "The problem that the UK faces is that for the amount of effort and resource as a nation we put in, we are way behind other countries in the outputs that we achieve," he said.
"The focus of turning this around lies within the way businesses operate, so technology is a major way that individual companies can turn around problems with productivity."
Workforce adoption of Microsoft suites "often stalls because applications are not designed around how people think", Neale argued. "Employees start with a desire to do something so it's important that their tools start from the same place."
With Windows 10's reputation starting to quietly erode as more is learned about its privacy policies, surely it's about time that Microsoft pulls out the big guns with an enterprise adoption drive?
Are you using Windows 10 in your business? Are you even using Windows 8? Do you see any particular advantages to either of these operating systems, and is the app model helping you? Please comment below.