Continuing the confusion:

Extreme Tech reports:

Microsoft cuts the price of Windows 8 and Office 2013 to overcome slow adoption
By Sebastian Anthony on March 6, 2013 at 12:11 pm

"According to the Wall Street Journal's anonymous sources, Microsoft has been offering a dual pack of Windows 8 and Office to OEMs for $30 since late February, for touchscreen devices under 10.8 inches. The previous price was $120. This massive discount is obviously intended to increase the number of affordable touchscreen laptops and tablets running Windows 8, which is currently experiencing very slow adoption."

"...the CEO of Asus recently said the following at the company's investor conference: "Microsoft has been making many efforts lately that I cannot talk about in specific, but that will help give momentum to the notebook and netbook and Eee PC area." "

{Oviously I'll need to take another look, since I've alwasy wanted an OS with "lots of momentum." They shatter better when they hit the wall. ???}

Note that the price reduction is only to OEMs and only on the little pinball (or maybe those are pachinko) machines.

"We still don't know exactly how many touch-enabled Windows 8 devices are actually being used by consumers, but the mere fact that Microsoft hasn't shared any figures — either in general, or specifically for its Surface tablets — is a strong indicator that things aren't going to plan."

"... Samsung is pulling the Windows RT Ativ Tab out of Germany and "additional European countries" (Samsung hasn't yet specified which ones). This follows on from Samsung's decision to not release the Ativ Tab in the US, citing a lack of consumer interest and confusion over what Windows RT actually is."

{It's not obvious that Microsoft is real sure?}

{Must insert a quote from the robot in the (US) TV series Lost in Space before continuing with the article ...}

WARNING! - WARNING! - DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!!

"Moving forward, we should also remember that Microsoft is working on Windows Blue, which will reportedly be very cheap — or possibly free. It isn't yet clear whether Blue will be a standalone version of Windows that you can buy off the shelf, or the code name for Microsoft's internal shift towards annual releases, instead of every two or three years. It is possible that Microsoft's slashing of Windows 8 and Office license costs is simply a precursor to Windows Blue."

{On most TV shows, "Code Blue" means somebody/something is about to DIE, which may suggest where Microsoft got the idea for the name? Nobody knows what it means here.}

The above article gives a link to another recent blip, giving the Extreme Tech view of Windows 8 on the day it was released:

Windows 8: The disastrous result of Microsoft's gutless equivocation

You can see if you can find anything that needs to be changed aince then ...

Yet another link goes to about as much as is known regarding actual "installations in use" for DESKTOPS as of February but there are no reliable similar figures available for the pinball/pachinko installations.

Four months in: Windows 8 adoption is almost at a standstill shows that as of February 2013, Windows 7 was on 44.7% of desktops, Windows XP on 38.99%, Vista (which took the crown for "worst OS ever" from Windows ME?) at 5.17%. Three OS X versions account for 6.51%.

Also linked "for the few people actually using Windows 8" :

tips and tricks for making Windows 8 less useless consists of a brief description of helpful comments posted at/by Extreme Tech with a link to each of them. Since you have to follow each link I haven't looked at what tips are helful, but Joe and gnu might want to see if they find something amusing.

That concludes this morning's news. Stay tuned for the weather report and the usual two hours of sports blather.

John