Windows 10: Is Now the Time to Invest?

It was a few months ago now but we were lucky enough to be working with the Mircrosoft team on the launch of Windows 10.

Being part of this helped us see first hand all its new and engaging features which have excited the tech industry. With a refined language and feel, it has brought to us all new apps, new browsers and farfetched connectivity qualities.

The key functions are all accessible from the taskbar, and the design feels rather polished. This is quite similar to Windows 7, which will make you feel right at home. Its ability to allow the same apps to work on your phone, tablet and your PC has made Windows 10 not only useful, but also very powerful! Imagine not having to update everything one at a time and making your life that much easier.

After Cortana’s successful debut on Windows phones, she has now arrived with unparalleled efficiency to keep your PC under control. She will be your digital assistant that will be able to control your third party apps, create calendar events, launch programs and will only get better as Windows 10 improves.

Introducing Edge, a browser built from the ground up for speed and slickness. To name a few of what Edge offers, it’s got a Reading View, where you can store articles in your Reading List for later reads, Cortana pops up with supplementary information, Bing Maps for directions and it contains Yelp reviews. Even Uber now integrates with Cortana!

With all this exciting development in the market, the age old questions crops up, should your business invest in adding Windows 10 to your mobility ecosystem?

Having had sometime to play and think about the possibilities, one of the biggest areas where business would really benefit from adding Windows 10 into the mobile ecosystem would be when we talk about business mobility.

For me it’s really the first port of call when exploring adding Windows to your mobile ecosystem as the benefits stack up from both a financial and operational lens. On the other hand in the consumer space it’s still a nice to have, as in Australia we only have 5% penetration of Windows when looking at mobile as a category.

With companies moving towards open plan, ABW and work from home strategies giving employees the ability to seamlessly switch between their Surface Tablets, to Windows Phones seamlessly is a great showcase of connected interactivity. From a business point of view knowing you don’t need to spend a lot of additional effort making this a reality is a big win, financially and operationally.

Another big win from business mobility point of view is staff adoption. If you’re already using Windows as your primary Operating System software, you straight away capture everyone on their daily device and based on interaction persuade them to adopt this tool on their mobile too.

If you do follow through on this thinking one thing it challenges you to do is good UX planning. Cross device behaviour is not just a nice to have but a necessity. A really good recent example of this is Uber adding Windows 10 into their mobile ecosystem. As part of doing this they really had to consider how a user would request and book a Uber ride from their desktop/surface, leave their desk with this device or transfer to carrying out the next interaction on another device (i.e. their phone). It adds complexity and without good UX planning would be a very flawed design.

In closing what I would like to say what Windows 10 brings to our tech industry is great, it’s a real evolution in how we connect with technology seamlessly. Certainly if Microsoft can keep up with this vision and gusto it’s a big contender.

I know from our perspective we are certainly investing in building on our Windows mobility skills base and look forward to how we can be part of this evolution.

Iain Chalmers

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