Windows 8 is a ‘disappointing' operating system and Microsoft has six months to convince doubters otherwise, or risk being frozen out of the enterprise IT environment.
That is the view of Jean-Christophe Lalanne, CIO of Air France and Group CIO of Air France- KLM, who made the comments in an interview with Computing at the 2013 Air Transport IT Summit in Brussels.
"Two days ago, I told Microsoft what we think: there is a sort of disappointment," Lalanne responded when asked his thoughts on Windows 8, labelled it as unintuitive and, when used on tablets, inferior to Apple's iPad OS.
"Windows 8, as it is today, doesn't fit with obvious behaviours. It's not intuitive enough. Intuition is not sufficient. Microsoft will propose new releases and it'll get better but the first reaction is it's absolutely not comparable with iOS – there is a huge gap," he said.
The Air France-KLM group has a policy of issuing Apple devices – iPhones, iPads and iPad Minis – to staff who require them.
According to Lalanne, Microsoft is aware it needs to make Windows 8 simpler for users to adapt to – and do it soon – as it has done by reintroducing a traditional Start menu and Taskbar. However, he questioned these features were removed in the first place.
"They have decided to restore the Start menu, but it's unbelievable why they didn't decide to implement it at first. Why do they need to wait for the second release to do so? I think that they have not yet reached the user experience expertise that you can find within Apple."
However, Lalanne doesn't dismiss the idea of adopting Windows 8 at Air France-KLM or Air France, but feels he'd need a lot of convincing to think otherwise, giving Microsoft six months to turn things around.
"That's my first reaction," he said. "It doesn't mean that we will not use it – we are just observing – but I think that Microsoft has six months – no more – to succeed. If at the end of the year they have not really changed our mind, it will be difficult to implement their products."
