Speaking to employees in Taiwan, Intel CEO Paul Otellini reportedly stated that Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system is being released before it's fully ready. An anonymous source told Bloomberg that Otellini told employees at a company meeting that improvements still need to be made to Windows 8. Oddly enough, Otellini also said that releasing Windows 8 before it's fully baked is the right move because Microsoft can make improvements after it ships.
Intel, the biggest semiconductor maker, is Microsoft’s closest partner, and Otellini’s remarks echo criticism from analysts such as Michael Cherry at Directions on Microsoft. While Windows is fundamentally sound, the operating system lacks a wide range of robust applications and PC makers haven’t had enough time to work out kinks with so-called drivers, which connect software to such hardware as printers, Cherry said.
“We are concerned at the level of bugs and fine tuning that appears necessary to get the beta systems we demoed ready for prime time,” Alex Gauna, an analyst at JMP Securities LLC in San Francisco, wrote in a Sept. 13 note in response to versions of Windows 8 shown at Intel’s recent developer forum.
