Business coach: Windows 8 great for small business
Announcement posted by Shape Your Business 31 Oct 2012
The statistics show that many businesses are yet to discover Windows 7. But one of Australia's more progressive business coaching firms, Shape Your Business, has already started replacing their Windows 7 laptops and is already satisfied that Windows 8 is bringing about useful productivity gains.
Shape Your Business coach Mike Reddy, a Chartered Accountant, says he had researched the pros and cons of upgrading the operating system and had reversed an earlier decision to replace ageing laptops with variations of the Windows 7 platform.
He admits that the previous decision was based on a strong emotional desire to stay in familiar territory as Windows 7 had performed well. However as a business coach he said it was important to embrace change when it made sense, and the Windows 8 technology was already improving workflow in the office.
Mr Reddy said it was necessary for Shape Your Business to remove a number of the much talked about Windows 8 tiles. Gone are Bing and Internet Explorer for example.
"As a business coach I frequently use a number of different products to support my clients", he said. "Having them all just a finger tap away improves productivity. But it meant removing some of the Microsoft bloat".
Shape Your Business created a "Windows 8 Tiles" policy to ensure consistency across the organisation. Internet Explorer and Bing were replaced with their preferred option of Google Chrome. They then labelled and grouped their applications. The "Work Tools" group includes Microsoft Office programs, video editing and financial evaluation software. The "Communication" group consists of Skype, Gotomeeting, screen capture and dictation software and Livechat, which Shape Your Business uses to engage visitors to their website.
Mr Reddy said that the touchscreen finger tapping/swiping/scrolling choices available in Windows 8 had lifted productivity to another level compared to the older machines that were reliant on keyboard and mouse.
"There are already signs of frustration when Windows 8 users try to open, close and manipulate programs by finger-tapping the older screens", he said.