Marketing and PR can only do so much to improve the image of a company or product. That company or product actually has to have great core values or qualities.
Microsoft is forcing OEM's to pay licenses for using open sources operating systems, they're throwing mud against competitors in the media and in social media, and there's still this very real feeling that Microsoft hasn't shaken off the "evil" attitude and culture inside the company.
New pretty colors on its OS and hiring better PR people aren't going to help with that. The company need to change from the inside-out, not outside-in.
I really don't think Microsoft's main product offerings are that bad. The biggest issue with Metro and Windows Phone is a lack of developer support - and I think a significant part of that is caused by a lot of the best developers being either Apple or Google "fanboys". Office remains excellent, Windows 8 is excellent at what it intended for - office productivity, games, VS development etc.
But the media hates them, OEMs mostly don't seem to care very much about making good hardware for PCs, Windows tablets and windows phones. To me this is at least partly a symptom of their image problem.
EDIT: I say this as an open source advocate - I would love it if Linux based systems became more popular, but I recognize the quality of Microsoft's products in terms of what they are intended for.
Bullshit. Microsoft crapped on it's developers, IT and users when it released Windows 8. How are you supposed to develop for a system when the frameworks change every couple of years? Not to mention pissing off independents, dropping TechNet and raising license costs across the board. Price out a decent MS server solution and 60 to 80 percent of the cost is Microsoft licenses. Azure isn't a solution either since Redmond is Yet Another NSA Bitch.
I don't know if Microsoft crapped on it's developers as much as they lost touch with them.
The other day HN had an item where a MS guy was talking about "dark matter developers" -- devs who are plugging along writing WinForm/WebForm apps like it's 2003. That's Microsoft's constituency and they simply don't care about WPF/WinPhone/Metro/etc.
You are quite a drama queen :). Windows 8 applications can still be programmed in .NET languages. Given that probably 80% of the application is not 'front-end' code, it can be compiled without changes. On the front-end you can still use whatever was used before, since the desktop still exists. And if you want to go all-'Metro': there is a learning curve, but it is not that steep, since Windows 8 applications are also developed using XAML et al.
Disclaimer: as a OS X and Linux user, I don't know much about Windows.
Disclaimer: As a developer and admin primarily on Windows for the last 18 years, I know more than I want to know about Windows. BTDT, got the t-shirts...
I have not been a Windows developer for many years, so I admit I may be wrong about things from that perspective. As a Windows user, I still think that their products are pretty good at what they do and that a large proportion of the media and its customer base hate everything Microsoft does by default.
Microsoft is forcing OEM's to pay licenses for using open sources operating systems, they're throwing mud against competitors in the media and in social media, and there's still this very real feeling that Microsoft hasn't shaken off the "evil" attitude and culture inside the company.
New pretty colors on its OS and hiring better PR people aren't going to help with that. The company need to change from the inside-out, not outside-in.