(By Rich Bieglmeier) Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) sent out a pair on invitations on Thursday for two major rollouts: Windows 8 on October 25 and Windows Phone 8 on October 29.
iStock likes to use Google Trends to get a sense of "degree of interest" relative to previous releases within the same product line - for example, iPhone 4S versus iPhone 5. The internet is a virtual showroom and searches are equivalent to foot traffic.
Unfortunately, Google's tech team decided to change things up on October 1, and iStock couldn't find the search volume index. So, like the US Marines, we had to adapt and overcome.
With the "new" Google trends, we can only compare different keywords versus the peak for the most searched of the keywords. Hopefully, after we explain the results, it will make sense. Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista are the key words we measured. iStock would have added Windows XP and Windows 2000, but the data doesn't go back that far.
Windows 7 is the benchmark using the new Google tool. When you compare Vista's peak to 7's, interest in Vista peaked at about 40% of Windows 7's top reading. As for Windows 8, so far, interest has topped out a 15% of Window 7's highest reading and 38% of Vista's high water, search volume mark.
It's still early, and iStock expects the number of queries to rise for Windows 8 following the October 25 announcement; however, it doesn't look good at this point. We'll stay on the story, and hopefully Google put search volume index scores back by our next update.
In addition to Windows 8 versus its earlier versions, we wanted to see how Windows Phone 8 stacks up against iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S III. It's not even close. iPhone 5 is the standard bearer. Meanwhile, S III has nearly 14% of iPhone's search volume, and Windows 8 Phones lags behind both, badly, with 50% the search queries of S III and only 6.7% of iPhone 5.
Clearly, Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) has some work to do beyond sending out product rollout invitations. Windows 8 lags behind its ancestors and Window Phone 8 barely registers versus the competition.